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Weekend Woman's Hour: The law on abortion, Aparna Sen, Being lesbian in the military

One woman shares her story of being discharged from her dream job in the Royal Navy in the 1990s - all because she was outed as a lesbian.

The overturning by the US Supreme Court of the landmark Roe v Wade ruling has prompted many of you to get in touch to share your reactions and experiences. But what does the law in the UK say about a woman鈥檚 right to an abortion? We hear from Professor Fiona De Londras, the Chair of Global Legal Studies at Birmingham Law School.

Aparna Sen is one of India's best loved and most successful film directors. Her career has spanned 40 years and she's explored issues around mental health, sexual abuse and infidelity. Aparna is in England for the London Indian Film Festival.

Have you ever noticed the queue for the women鈥檚 toilets is much longer than the queue for the men鈥檚? Two Bristol university graduates have tried to resolve this issue, by inventing female urinals. They joined Emma to explain how it works.

How do you heal and get through a break up? Annie Lord is Vogue鈥檚 dating columnist. She joins Emma Barnett to talk about her debut book, Notes on Heartbreak. A candid exploration of the best and worst of love, she talks about nursing a broken heart and her own attempts to move on in the current dating climate; from disastrous rebound sex to sending ill-advised nudes, stalking your ex鈥檚 new girlfriend and the sharp indignity of being ghosted.

Welsh singer and dancer Marged Si么n is with us. She's in the band, Self Esteem and appears in a new Welsh-language short film called Hunan Hyder which means self-confidence). She talks to us about trauma, healing and appearing on stage with Adele!

Dame Kelly Holmes came out as a lesbian last week. The Olympic champion served in the army in the late 1980s, when you could face prison for being gay as a member of the military. Dame Kelly spoke of her worry that she would still face consequences if she were to let her sexuality be known. It wasn鈥檛 until 2000 that a ban on being gay and serving in the Army, Navy or RAF was lifted. Emma Riley was discharged from the Royal Navy in 1993 for being a lesbian.

An American pregnant woman who was on holiday in Malta this month couldn't get an induced medical miscarriage when she needed it because of the country's strict abortion laws. Andrea Prudente ended up going to Mallorca to get treatment, where she鈥檚 recovering in a hotel.

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57 minutes

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  • Sat 2 Jul 2022 16:00

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