So. We’ve come to the end of our 40 days of pro-choice actions. Thanks so much for sending us your photos, adding our Twibbon and the many retweets and messages. It’s been great to see so many people engaging with positive action to defend abortion rights, particularly at a time when we are witnessing so many attacks on our reproductive freedoms.

With that in mind, we’ve one last action. Writing to your MP to address concerns about anti-choice activity. There’s a template letter here and if you aren’t sure how to contact your MP go to www.theyworkforyou.com and enter your postcode.

Thanks again for your support, and stay involved by following fab pro-choice organisations on Twitter (we’ll be tweeting some ideas!)

First of all, thanks to all those who came out and supported the counter-protest last night. There’s a Guardian write up here, and keep following @bloomsburypca for updates.

Today’s action is a nice relaxed one for a Saturday afternoon - have a look at this fabulous pro-choice comic based on Education For Choice’s investigation into crisis pregnancy centres in the UK. Share the link with your pro-choice friends!

Time to get on Just Giving and show a bit of financial pro-choice love! EFC has 20 years experience of educating young people about abortion – giving them evidence-based, impartial information about pregnancy options. You may have seen their exposé of SPUC’s inaccurate school presentations in last weekend’s Guardian, or their excellent investigation into crisis pregnancy centres in 2011. Donations to EFC, whether big or small will help the project continue producing excellent pro-choice resources, training professionals and advocating for young people’s right to factual information about abortion.

To read more about EFC’s work over the last 20 years read this blog.

Inspired by the BPCA’s call for more chaps to get involved with their Sunday counter protests we thought we’d make today’s action one for ‘teh menz’. If you’re female-identified speak to your male friends and colleagues and ask them to add our Twibbon, send us a lovely photo and follow us on Twitter. If you’re male-identified, do these things and shout your support for reproductive rights from the rooftops! See you ALL at the demo on Friday!

Today’s action is simple. Think happy, soothing pro-choice thoughts!

Today has seen another attempt by the anti-choice lobby to chip away at our reproductive rights, see Sarah Ditum’s take on it here. We’re clearly going to have to gear up and make sure the pro-choice majority voice is heard as these attacks continue. But for now, be calm, be kind, and have a lovely weekend.

Many people are shocked to discover that anti-abortion groups are regularly invited into UK schools to talk about abortion, very often giving medical misinformation and sometimes using graphic images.

If you’re a parent why not write to your child’s school to find out how the subject of abortion is being taught, if it all? You can request this information under the Freedom of Information Act or simply by getting in touch with the school’s head of PSHE or RE.

Have a look at EFC’s website for information on abortion education in schools and let them know what you discover – efc@brook.org.uk

Ok, this is going to be fun: today we’re talking about anti-choice group SPUC – the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children – and their latest campaign against…gay marriage.

Let’s work with them here and see what the reasoning might be, by looking at this handy position paper which they’ve put out to explain “why SPUC, as a pro-life campaigning organisation, campaigns against same-sex unions”. I’ll quote the main points:

Marriage - the permanent, exclusive union of one man and one woman - is the basis of the family, the fundamental group unit of society. Upholding marriage is therefore in everyone’s interests

Marriage as an institution protects children, both born and unborn. Statistics show that unborn children are much safer within marriage than outside marriage.

Same-sex marriage lacks basic elements of true marriage e.g. the complementary sexual difference between spouses necessary for the procreation and healthy upbringing of children.

Same-sex marriage represents an attempt to redefine marriage, thus undermining marriage. This undermining lessens the protection for unborn children which true marriage provides.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m sensing a logic fail here.

The paper goes on to say:

Abortion figures reveal the importance of marriage as an institution oriented towards the care and protection of children: in the UK babies conceived outside of marriage are about 4-5 times more likely to be aborted than those conceived inside marriage.

Now, to me that reads like an argument for making marriage more, not less, prevalent, but I think what they’re driving at here is that if men are allowed to go round marrying each other, there’ll be fewer of them available for women to marry, so when women get pregnant there’ll be no one to marry them and therefore they’ll more likely to have an abortion. OBVIOUSLY.

We’re highlighting SPUC’s campaign as a reminder that, despite the moderate, ‘pro-woman’ language anti-choice groups have adopted in recent years, they are among the most socially conservative on a range of issues – gay rights, sex education, contraception, IVF, even the role of women outside the home.

The Conservative leadership is now keen to be seen as supportive of gay marriage, for fear of seeming backward. We must remind them that the mainstream majority in this country is pro-choice too.

Coming up next week: What the SPUC Part 2. Stay tuned!