Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Selling babies should be regarded as a scandal
The womb rental involved in surrogacy can never be ‘regulated’ into acceptability. Abolition is the only humane approach for women and babies, argues MARA RICOY OLARIAGA
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
ON NOVEMBER 13 I travelled to The Hague to join fellow feminist activists who, called by the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood, wanted to oppose the new approach from The Hague conference on private international law.
This conference is working on creating a kind of skeleton for a future international surrogacy law to make cross-border surrogacy agreements effective — but the team in charge of updating these laws seems to be keen to regulate instead of abolish and distinguishes between “surrogacy” and “trafficking surrogacy with the purpose of reproductive exploitation,” which is absurd — all surrogacy is exploitative.
I’m glad I went. I was representing FiLiA, the charity where I’m the lead for reproductive and sexual rights of women. I feel very passionate about the urgent need to abolish surrogacy everywhere.
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