I’ve tried to avoid as much of the Tory party leadership nonsense as I can.
I don’t care if one of them took coke in the 90s. I don’t really care if one of them smoked a magic pipe of pixie dust in a forest, with a wizard.
However I do care that men like Jeremy Hunt are taking this opportunity to make edicts about how they see the future of women’s rights.
Speaking on Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Jeremy Hunt said: ‘My view hasn’t changed on that [reducing the abortion limit from 24 weeks to 12]. What I can guarantee is this will be a matter for the House of Commons, not a matter for government policy.’
This afternoon he then provided a statement to say his belief in the reduction of the abortion limit was a ‘personal view only’, saying: ‘No government I lead will ever seek to change the law on abortion.’
Which should be reassuring, but we live in a world where abortion is still illegal in Northern Ireland and has been effectively banned in Alabama, so the time to rest easy has really gone.
So forgive me if I don’t rest easy as a result of a 13 word statement from a wannabe prime minister.
Hunt might have said he won’t seek to change the law, but do we really want someone leading the country who thinks the legal limit for abortion should be cut in half?
It’s hardly an endorsement of his attitude towards reproductive freedom.
Reducing the abortion limit from 24 to 12 weeks would be a disaster for vulnerable women.
Jeremy said in a 2012 interview he had reached his view after reviewing the evidence on abortion.
So, seeing as the evidence on second trimester abortion apparently made JH’s mind up on the topic, let’s review it.
- 90 per cent of UK abortions take place before 13 weeks.
- Four in five UK abortions takes place before 10 weeks of gestation.
- In 2015, 2,877 out of 185,824 abortions were performed at 20 weeks or above.
- Of these, 23 (0.8 per cent) were performed to save the life of the pregnant woman, 1,801 (63 per cent) were performed for mental or physical health reasons, and 1046 (36 per cent) were performed because of foetal abnormalities.
12 weeks might sound like a long time to work out that you need an abortion, but it’s not.
A woman is considered to be two weeks pregnant at the moment of conception, as pregnancy is dated from the first day of your last period. So you’ve only got ten weeks.
Factor in the reality that women don’t always have regular periods and you can easily end up in a situation where a woman only has a couple of weeks to make an enormous decision.
Then there’s the problem of fetal development.
When a woman is 12 weeks pregnant she is offered a scan, where the fetus is first checked for abnormalities. It’s during this scan that it is possible to tell whether the pregnancy is developing in a safe and healthy way.
Before 12 weeks it is difficult, if not impossible, to tell whether a fetus has a variety of illnesses, disabilities or life limiting conditions.
At 20 weeks a woman is offered an abnormality scan, which is where the pregnancy is checked for major medical issues.
In Jeremy Hunt’s ideal world, the limit for abortions would be 12 weeks. So, by the time a woman finds out that her pregnancy is non viable, it would be too late for her to have a termination.
In this world, women would be forced to continue with pregnancies knowing their child would be born in pain and unable to survive.
Does’t that sound just peachy?
I sat next to a man at a dinner party a few months ago, and while talking about US politics I mentioned my fears for reproductive freedoms. He told me I was being foolish to worry, that abortion would never be taken away in the US.
I’ve rarely wanted to be wrong about anything more.
A few years ago it seemed unlikely, perhaps unthinkable, that Roe vs Wade could be overturned and that women in one of the richest countries in the world could be returned back street abortions.
These days it seems more likely.
We must not become complacent about reproductive rights. There are people who do not understand why we need access to abortion, and right now one of those people is trying to become prime minister.
No one likes late stage abortions. No one thinks that they’re fun, or that they’re cool. We don’t aim for them.
In an ideal world no woman would never need an abortion, and any woman who does want one would get instant access to early healthcare and the pregnancy would be swiftly terminated.
That’s not what happens in the real world. Abortions post 12 weeks have always been a reality and will always be a reality.
If you don’t like the idea of late stage abortions then here are some practical steps you can take to prevent them:
- Campaign for better sex education in schools
- Donate to charities who provide free contraceptives
- Donate to Marie Stopes so that they can help women in need of terminations earlier in their pregnancies
That said, no matter what you do, you will never change the fact nature can be incredibly cruel and some pregnancies will not go safely to term. Could Jeremy Hunt, who sits on national television decreeing his views, really tell a woman that she has to continue her pregnancy to term and then give birth to a baby who will die in terrible pain?
Could he really tell a 14 year old girl who is 13 weeks pregnant because she didn’t know how to recognise the signs that she has to become a parent because it’s just too late?
I doubt it.
It’s easy to talk about abortion when you’re never going to need one. Which is exactly why people like Jeremy Hunt, who’ll never know what that feels like, should keep their mouths shut on the subject.
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