Woman's Hour - 07/04/2009

With Sheila McClennon. Pianist Imogen Cooper joins Sheila to talk about why classical music is important and relevant to all of us. She was sent to study at the Paris Conservatoire when she was only 12 and is now one of the world's leading classical pianists, and is particulary famed for her perfomances of Schubert. She performs live in the studio. American author Jayne Anne Phillips talks to Sheila about what inspired her new book Lark and Termite, a lyrical and strangely discordant story of two children growing up in West Virginia in the 1950s. Lark is a beautiful teenager, fiercely devoted to her young brother Termite, who is unable to walk or talk, but interprets the world in his own peaceful and poetic way. Termite is Lark's only link to their mother Lola, a glamorous nightclub singer who abandoned both her children to be raised by their aunt. Termite's father is a corporal caught up in No Gun Ri massacre of the Korean War. While abortion in Spain became legal in 1985, it has only been allowed under very limited circumstances. It is extremely difficult to get a termination in a public hospital and many women have to claim some form of insanity to qualify for an abortion in a private clinic. Now there are plans to relax the law. Opponents of the change - many backed by the Catholic Church - have staged a series of demonstrations throughout the country. They are expected to intensify in the run up to Easter. Sheila discusses the issues with Ignacio Arsuaga, spokesperson for the Right to Life movement in Spain and Dr Monica Threlfall, author of Gendering Democracy in Spain and reader in European Politics at London Metropitan University. Including drama: Restless.