member of the human race

on Saturday i attended a respect woman's conference in London, my train was at 6am, how do people do that on a day to day basis, waking up so early that you wake up even before the birds do?

i managed to get myself to the train station for 5:30am, i hadn't even prayed fajer yet (ended up praying on the train), i grabbed a coffee and a muffin and got my sleepy self on to the train, there where 5 of us altogether, the time to London went pretty fast, chatting away kind of makes time go alot faster, i can safely say it was not idle chat but rather constructive, interesting chat.

the conference place was just a walk away from Euston station which was great although we did manage to get lost slightly but it's all good, a refreshing walk in London.

the conference was due to start at 10:30 which it did, good timing :)the agenda looked good, and there where workshops being held, 3 at the same time and you had to choose the one you wanted to attend, i chose 'the right to choose' now i wasn't sure whether it was going to be about abortion or the veil lol, either way i was interested.

the workshop was about the right to choose an abortion, now i have to say i am not a supporter of abortion, as one scholar once said 'While Islam permits preventing pregnancy for valid reasons, it does not allow doing violence to it once it occurs.'
but also i respect the other sides opinion and i also acknowledge the fact that even within Islam, if a woman's life is in danger then she can abort, so there are exceptions which i accept.

Under normal health conditions, and particularly when the foetus is developed enough (that specialists consider it a live body), abortion amounts to deliberate killing and therefore, not allowed in Islam.

but saying all that its her choice, now listening to the speakers arguments was really interesting, apparently here in Britain its still a problem getting an abortion and her argument was that the richer folk can have easy access to abortions where as the working class have to wait on a waiting list and there are certain policies and regulations.

she also mentioned that the government want to reduce the abortion limit to 20 weeks instead of the existing 24 weeks, and she was against this, she mentioned that the government keep throwing examples of babies living at 22 weeks like the baby in Holland, but her argument was that its extremely rare for survival and that more than likely the baby will die by 18months of age as well as having sever mental disability. she said that if the government reduces the number of weeks then what's to say they will reduce it further in the future.

also she mentioned that the government should invest in offering better contraception to prevent the risk of falling pregnant and having to have an abortion, as all contraception's are not fool proof.

after her speech, it was time for comments and questions from the floor, i would say that 98% of the ladies in the room where for abortion and each had something to say, one of the ladies did say that she's a doctor and worked in the gynaecological department, and she had seen cases of woman who use abortion as a form of contraception, coming into the hospital and having an abortion each time they fall pregnant.

people didn't react very well to this comment, some went as far as to say that it was a lie, and that the government keeps coming out indicting the abuse of the nhs with such stories blaming it all on working class single girls who are promiscuous and careless.

the last lady to comment was a killer for me, she basically said:

'i am not usually one for conspiracy theories, but i do believe in the conspiracy theory regarding abortion, as we all know the rate of births in this country is considerably low compared to the third world, where those people are breeding like rabbits (!!!! i know i couldn't believe it when she said that, and not only that she looked at me when she said that particular sentence lol), so obviously they will over run us, and so the government wants to reduce the rate of abortion to prevent such things'.

i swear every one was shocked, and all i could do was laugh out loud, i couldn't believe she said that sentence about breeding like rabbits.

the speaker made a point on either answering or commenting on peoples questions and comments apart from the last ladies lol.