Gordon Brown planning royal reforms

[Revy]

Brown planning royal reforms

November 26, 2009 - 8:29PM
AAP
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will try to convince his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd and other Commonwealth leaders to back plans to allow Roman Catholics to marry into the royal family.
Brown is expected to discuss the idea with Rudd and other leaders attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which begins in Trinidad and Tobago on Friday.
Brown believes the ban on Catholics marrying British royals, which has existed since the 18th century, is outdated and should be dumped.
He also wants to change the rule of primogeniture, which ensures male members of the royal family take their place ahead of females in line to the throne.
But Brown needs the backing of Commonwealth countries who retain the Queen as their head of state because they too would have to amend legislation before the ban could be lifted.
"I think most people recognise the need for change," Brown told Britain's parliament on Wedenesday before leaving for CHOGM.
"Change can only be brought about by not just the United Kingdom but all realms where her majesty is Queen making a decision to change.
"That is why it is important to discuss this with all members of the Commonwealth, including countries such as Australia and Canada, and that is the process which will be undertaken in due course."
Brown is expected to raise the issue with Commonwealth leaders during bilateral meetings on the fringes of CHOGM, where the main focus will be on climate change.
If Commonwealth leaders back the proposed reforms put forward by Brown, it is believed the changes could have wide-ranging ramifications for Prince William's future children.
If his first born child is a girl, she would automatically stand ahead of any younger brothers in line to the throne.
However, there are no plans to change laws stating that the monarch must be a Protestant.


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ok, so the Prime Minister and leader of Labour is concerning himself with this irrelevant pointless and feudal institution.


A better reform would be to abolish the House of Lords and to separate the church and the state. Oh hell, abolish the monarchy completely.



How about free and unrestricted access to abortion? Oh, but somehow the rights of princesses to be on par with princes is more important.

Current law out of step with public opinion
Control over whether, when and how many children to have is crucial to control over every other aspect of a woman’s life. An overwhelming three quarters of people in Britain support a woman’s right to make her own abortion decision.
Current law gives doctors a veto over women’s decisions
In Britain, abortion is not legally available at the request of the woman. After a woman has decided that she wants to end her pregnancy, she has to persuade two doctors to agree to her decision on the basis of restrictive legal criteria.
This requirement is not only paternalistic, but more damagingly, it allows the approximately one in ten doctors who are opposed to all abortion the opportunity to delay, obstruct or even veto women’s decisions.
There is no legal requirement for doctors to declare their conscientious objection to abortion but professional guidelines require that they do refer a woman on to another doctor immediately. Abortion Rights hears from women who’s anti-choice doctors, instead of declaring their objection and referring them on, have wrongly told them that they are too late, that they have lost their pregnancy test results, that they are not entitled to an NHS abortion, that abortion is murder or who have refused to refer them to another GP. This is unacceptable. It is time for a modern law – where women not doctors made the abortion decision, like every other medical procedure.
Rights for the women of Northern Ireland
The British abortion law was never extended to Northern Ireland and women there still don’t have access to safe legal abortion.
With the developments in the peace process in Northern Ireland and the re-establishment of the institutions, it is time women there had their own rights to abortion.
Unacceptable delays in service provision
There is no law requiring the NHS to provide abortion services. Levels of funding for NHS service provision have increased over the past 10 years, but waiting lists still vary across Britain resulting in a ‘postcode lottery’ of delays.
The Department of Health has set a target for delays of no longer than three weeks. No government figures are published on waiting times but research conducted by the All Party Pro-choice and Sexual Health group showed that 27 per cent of Primary Care Trusts delayed women beyond three weeks.
In Abortion Rights’ March 2007 opinion poll, 72 per cent said it was not acceptable for a woman who had been referred for an abortion to have to wait beyond three weeks for the procedure. Its time these delays ended.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

No one really gives a shit.

[RedAnarchist]

It's easier for those in power to talk about meaningless changes, than it is for them to act on meaningful ones.