There are few or no votes in prison reform and little interest in the rights and responsibilities of those behind bars. In 2005 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the UK was in breach of article 3 of Protocol No 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to prisoner voting rights. The issue remained unresolved for over a decade. In December 2017 the UK Government came up with proposals that the Council of Europe said were sufficient to signify compliance with 2005 ruling. Currently under UK law prisoners serving a custodial sentence after conviction cannot vote in any election. The current provisions are set out in Section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. This ban does not apply to prisoners on remand. As the ECHR said, barring prisoners from voting may actually harm rehabilitation work, since participating in election is likely to encourage them to become responsible, law-abiding citizens.
Unicef states that 250,000 women die every year because of legal and illegal abortions: 75,000 of them die of self-inflicted abortions; 75,000 die of convulsions; and the other 100,000 die of blood poisoning caused by an infection of the uterus. Therefore, if abortion is legalized there will be not only more fetal murders but also more mothers will die.
None of the methods women use to abort are completely safe. One of the most common methods used is Suction Aspiration. The doctor uses a special tool to suck the baby into a collection bottle. Great care must be taken to prevent the uterus from being damaged, which would cause haemorrhage. A woman with haemorrhage will need a blood transfusion that could cause her AIDS. Also infection may easily occur if fetal tissue is left behind in the uterus. Another method used for babies as old as twenty four weeks, is the Dilation and Evacuation. Sharp jaws are used to grasp different parts of the unborn baby which are then torn away. The skull of the baby must be crushed to facilitate the procedure.
Another technique used by a lot of pregnant women is the RU486. The RU486 are pills used to abort the undesired child. These pills have very dangerous side effects. They could cause severe bleeding, nausea, vomiting, pain, and even death. In France a woman died because of this drug while others suffered life threatening heart attacks. Also RU486 can cause severe malformations in later pregnancies. Therefore the baby is not the only one that is endangered.
The baby’s mother not only has to deal with physical consequences, but also psychological problems that could last for a lifetime. Women that abort usually suffer severe traumas. Once, a woman was rapped by five men. She didn’t want to have the child, but her pain and embarrassment were so great that she couldn’t abort until the last month. She is still in psychological treatment.
Psychologist Wanda Franz states, “Women feel worthless because they failed at the most natural of human activities, the role of being a mother.” Women report horrible nightmares of children c
