Laurie Penny

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Britain’s Crime of Complicity

There is something almost reassuring about the enduring ability of the British establishment to place itself beyond parody. This month, as the government announced an inquiry into historical allegations of child sex abuse by leading political figures, Parliament pushed through a broad surveillance bill with the justification that tapping everybody’s cellphones would, among other things, help the state catch pedophiles.

The Westminster inquiry will investigate not just the rape and assault of children at group homes going back decades but also accusations that child abuse by politicians and other public figures was deliberately covered up or even facilitated by members of the elite.…  Seguir leyendo »

A great deal of evil is done in the name of protecting people from themselves. In Europe and America, religious conservatives fighting to stop women having abortions have realised they can't rely on the language of sin and shame any more. Instead, anti-choice arguments are being couched in terms of care. Abortion, the rhetoric runs, hurts women – and women aren't capable of making adult decisions about their own bodies. That's best left to the church, or the state.

Last week, battles for the future of abortion provision gripped the news media on both sides of the Atlantic. Texas and North Carolina have become the latest US states to push for laws effectively banning abortion, and in the Republic of Ireland, a 20-year fight to grant women the right to terminate a pregnancy if they are literally dying on the table has been won to muted celebration.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russia and the US are squabbling over whose human rights abuses are bigger. After the US signed the Magnitsky Act, which blacklists any Russian deemed to be a human rights violator, Russia has retaliated by barring American couples from adopting Russian children, 60,000 of whom have found new families in the US since 1992. Perhaps this how the cold war really ends: not with a bang, but a series of petty policy disputes that savage individual lives and leave both countries looking sordid.

The uncomfortable truth is that underneath the posturing, Vladimir Putin has a point. The international adoption trade is a shady business – the perfect micro-example of how America's concept of itself as a benevolent superpower is so often at odds with reality.…  Seguir leyendo »