Diane Munday

Campaigner

Diane Munday joined the Ethical Union (now Humanists UK) in the 1950s, and was elected to the Executive Committee in 1967. Speaking on her journey to humanism on the What I Believe podcast, she said:

‘There was a period in my life in my teens when I just desperately wanted to believe. I thought I was an oddity – that there was something badly wrong with me. I went visiting all the flavours of churches but it wasn't until quite by accident (at, I suppose, 18 or 19 in the late 1940s) I came across a book by Thomas Huxley in the library, that a great feeling of relief came over me. I wasn't an oddball, I wasn’t alone. There were people who not only thought like me, but wrote books about it.’

‘The Ethical Union advertised widely in the 1950s and I joined. When the Ethical Union became Humanists UK I joined the Executive Committee. Those were exciting years, with restrictive laws on homosexuality, family planning, capital punishment, divorce, all coming under successful attack. I am still proud to have been an active part of the movement that so effectively tackled and defeated religious prejudice and power. When my eldest son was called a pagan at our local Church of England village school it was time to turn my attention to campaigning for a state school: it is still here today. As a result of that I was asked to write a regular column “from a humanist view” in the local Thomson evening paper and given free rein to pursue my humanist hobby horses. This provided the sort of notoriety that, when I stood as a candidate for the County Council, opponents were out on the pavements with banners declaring, 'She is pro abortion and anti Christ'.’

Following her own experience of seeking a safe abortion in the early 1960s, Diane Munday became an active and vocal member of the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA). Her involvement proved pivotal to the campaign that led to David Steel's Private Member’s Bill, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill becoming law in 1967. Munday served as ALRA's Vice-Chairman and later its General Secretary, and together with other humanists, was a co-founder of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

A gifted public speaker, she travelled the country, making the case for reform to women's organisations. As a humanist, she fought to end the dangerous practices of back-street abortions and to ensure that a safe, legal option was available to all women, regardless of wealth. Speaking on what motivated her to campaign and the experiences, values, and principles that informed her involvement, Diane said on the What I Believe podcast:

‘It was the same lack of logic and consistency that I objected to in people’s religious practices. By outlawing abortion, you quite clearly didn’t stop it. You sent it underground, where it became even more dangerous. And it was the fact that because I had a chequebook to wave in Harley Street I could buy a safe abortion, but other women were suffering.’

Diane has remained a staunch supporter of women's right to choose abortion and has continued to apply her humanist and rationalist principles throughout her life. She served as a Justice of the Peace on the St Albans Bench for 33 years, was a Director and Trustee of the Rationalist Press Association, and has been heavily involved in the NHS and medical research.

In later years, Diane has become a strong advocate for the legalisation of assisted dying, based on personal experience:

‘I write as someone who has had the devastating experiences of caring over many long years for a mother, a father (who attempted suicide with an overdose of Warfarin, was admitted to hospital in a coma and was tube-fed against the wishes of the family and the knowledge he had attempted to kill himself) and a husband who, following a series of strokes spread over 12 years during which I cared for him at home, was not only physically handicapped but had lost speech and comprehension of words. All of these begged (when they were capable of doing so) and pleaded for help to die. I now myself have a diagnosis of Lewy Body dementia with Parkinsonism and have no wish nor intention to suffer as they did.‘

Speaking about how early lessons in being thick-skinned has driven a lifetime of campaigning on the What I Believe podcast, Diane said:

‘It made me brazen. I became accustomed to being attacked, knowing that the attacks were unjustified, and just getting on with it… I had death threats, I had red paint poured over my car, I was called names, there were awful letters put through the letterbox. It just made me determined to ignore them and carry on. My upbringing has given me strength. That fortified me when I saw what I believed to be injustice.’