We want to hear about your Champions of Choice, whether it’s an organisation, a campaigner, or a wonderful medical professional who has supported your reproductive choices, please get in touch and nominate your Champion of Choice to be included on the site. You can tweet them at us at @bpas1968 using #championsofchoice, share on our Facebook page or email policy@bpas.org with their name, organisation and your reasons for picking them. Here are some of your champions:
Caroline Criado-Perez
@CCriadoPerez nominated by @ob_katherine
For pro-choice campaigners like myself, having a feminist firebrand like Caroline Criado-Perez fighting for abortion rights is incredibly important. Caroline reaches thousands with her passionate pieces advocating for women’s reproductive rights and calling out the archaic sexism which still pervades our society’s treatment of women’s bodies and their sexuality. Caroline recently wrote that we need to rock the boat on our abortion law, and with her on our side I feel like we really can do it.
Ann Furedi
Ann Furedi nominated by Shaheen Hashmat
Ann Furedi has been a champion of women’s reproductive choice for a great many years, and her career to date demonstrates a lifelong passion for women’s rights. As CEO of bpas, not only is she responsible for overseeing the provision and protection of a service which is continually under threat by the pro-life lobby, she is also unafraid to take on the difficult questions about abortion. What’s right for one woman is rarely (if ever) right for all women – and Ann’s staunch defence of the right to choose is admirable.
Diane Abbott MP and Caroline Lucas MP
@HackneyAbbott and @CarolineLucas nominated by @extreme_crochet
For my Champions of Choice, I nominate Diane Abbott MP and Caroline Lucas MP. Both of these women have tabled Early Day Motions for the creation of abortion clinic buffer zones. They have brought the issue straight to parliament, giving our cause a greater chance of success.
Dr Manjeet Shehmar
Dr Manjeet Shehmar nominated by @quizicist
I would like to nominate Dr Manjeet Shehmar, obstetrician at Birmingham Women’s Hospital, as a Champion of Choice. She is the instigator of the ground breaking and nationally leading Hyperemesis Gravidarum day unit. This is an absolute lifeline to women suffering from the incessant and life sapping symptoms of Hyperemesis. Without good quality treatment, many women are forced to terminate their very much wanted pregnancies. This clinic offers women the respite within which they can make a true choice about whether to continue the pregnancy or not.
Dr Helen Pickup
Dr Helen Pickup nominated by Fiona Kiernan-Tatem
I would like to nominate Dr Helen Pickup for a champion in Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG). She is now based at the Orchard Partnership in Salisbury, formerly of Harcourt Medical Centre (where she treated me for HG ). She suffered Hg with both her pregnancies so immediately was on the case to get me help. I had real issues with the midwife and Dr Pickup was so quick to raise awareness and give them feedback on care/approach etc.
Nick Clegg
@nick_clegg nominated by @pollenamusic
I nominate Nick Clegg as a Champion of Choice because of the passionate attack he made on LBC last year against those who oppose making access to the morning-after pill easier for young women. He brilliantly highlighted that the assumption easier access to EC would lead to promiscuous behavior was an ‘ an absolute insult to women’ and described this type of attitude as an ‘medieval approach to women’. Nick’s got our back.
Heather Low
Heather Low nominated by @FPACharity
FPA nominate Heather Low for her incredibly hard work and her commitment to supporting women in Northern Ireland. She has worked at sexual health charity FPA for 13 years, initially as a sessional counsellor and as counselling services co-ordinator for the last eight years. She is based in Belfast. Within her role at FPA’s unplanned pregnancy counselling service, Heather offers women in Northern Ireland a safe place to explore their feelings as well as support to make a decision about their pregnancy, and post-abortion counselling if needed. As the prejudicial political situation in Northern Ireland, unique from the rest of the UK, denies a woman’s right to choose, it is vitally important that they have this space.