Because a government is for a handful of years. And they can then be unseated.
But the ramifications of allowing a party to legally dissolve the rights of 33 million women and girls will last an entire generation. And yes, because of such a law, women will die, be raped, be excluded, be homebound, be traumatised, be scarred for life, lose the little power and representation they have, lose the entirety of their female rights.
The ramifications of this are catastrophic, and more shattering than any single parliamentary term.
I feel like a kid with my finger in the hole in the dam.
We've had the GRA for 15 years, and it's such a travesty that in all likelihood I'll spend a lifetime arguing for its repeal. Undoing unjust law is a lifetime's work. Undoing a compound injustice of law that has been enthusiastically and zealously promoted across parties will be almost impossible.
If we let a party in power that legally makes the true distinction between men and women unenforceable, it will not be something we can undo. There will be nowhere women can go without men there too, no privacy, ever, no fairness, no statistics on us, no healthcare that can promise us female carers, no recompense or restitution for our discrimination, no representation. And the truth is that if it comes to pass, it is inevitable that one or more of us here on this forum will end up imprisoned, for speaking a truth that has become illegal to speak.
So if I had to pay 5 years of misery to secure the female rights of the next generation, I would do it. I will not sell my daughter's future for a party that promises her the next few years will be nicer, so long as she gives up her right to be recognised as different from men forever.