.ltAbortion protestThe Times,July 16 1977Police were called to eject forty women pro-abortion demonstrators who took over the pulpit of Westminster Cathedral, London, as a Mass was ending yesterday. The Roman Catholic women, protesting against the Abortion (Amendment) Bill introduced by Mr William Benyon to tighten abortion regulations, made speeches from the pulpit for more than half an hour while demonstrators chanted: "Abortion on demand". Worshippers prayed and a priest occupied a confessional. The women arrived just as one Mass was finishing and left before the next service. "They were quite orderly", a church spokesman said. They were escorted out singing. From the pulpit, Miss Eileen Fairweather, aged 23, an actress, said: "We are occupying this cathedral as feminists against Benyon." She continued: "We have been forced to occupy because the Church, Government and medical profession are run by men and we have no voice within them. Yet they run our lives for us." She told a press conference later: "The Church is trying to return us to the injury, death and despair which was the main experience of women before abortion was made legal." The Bill completed its committee stage in the Commons on Wednesday. . .lcThese women occupied Westminster Cathedral in protest at the opposition of the Catholic Church to abortion. The particular parliamentary Bill they objected to failed for lack of time. In 1975 feminists had formed the National Abortion Campaign to defend the 1967 Abortion Act from numerous attempts in parliament to make it more restrictive. .llThe Law: Abortion Law.ll
