Polly Vernon
I WASN’T SURPRISED TO LEARN that the US government has no intention of doing anything about GUN CONTROL
in the wake of the Las Vegas shootings. There’s a chasm of understanding between America and us when it comes to guns. We don’t know how they begin to justify having them, why they’d even want to, given the increasing frequency of mass killings… And they don’t think it’s any of our business. But I was surprised that Trump’s White House used the atrocity as justification for passing a bill reducing the time limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 20. ‘As we mourn the lives lost in Las Vegas this week…’ ran a Republican Party blog, posted on 3 October, less than 48 hours after the shootings, and heralding the introduction of this bill, ‘we are reminded just how precious life is. This message weighed heavily on the hearts of House Republicans as we spoke of the potential of life – especially lives cut short through abortion.’
Wait… What? What about ‘lives cut short because some guy managed to get his hands on a ton of guns, which he fired at will into a crowd of music fans’? Does that not weigh more heavily on hearts? Apparently not. If I had any doubt that the anti-choice movement has absolutely no interest in life (which I didn’t, never mind how hard it tries to style itself ‘pro-life’) but if I had – it would evaporate at this point. The anti-choice brigade doesn’t give two figs about life. Forcing more women to have babies they wouldn’t otherwise have, while neglecting to do anything about gun control? That sounds more like an initiative to replenish human stocks, in anticipation of more people being cut down in a shower of bullets issued by legally owned semiautomatics. Keep ’em coming, ladies! You make ’em, we’ll shoot ’em!
This would be depressing in a far-off kind of way, if it weren’t for the fact that the US anti-choice movement influences anti-choice groups in the UK, inspiring increases in direct action outside clinics, the use of graphic imagery on protest placards, and tactics like filming women as they enter those clinics. US antiabortionist Gregg Cunningham has been clear about his desire to reduce abortion access in Britain, writing, ‘ The UK is a high priority for us, because it is arguably the most influential country in Europe.’ If the US gun paradox doesn’t impact us directly, American tactics on limiting women’s reproductive rights – unconvincingly dressed up as somehow championing life – already are.