Lifestyle

If you don’t like abortions, don’t have one


I feel fortunate to live in a country where accessing an abortion is relatively easy, because reaching the decision to have one was anything but (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

I found out I was pregnant sitting on my bathroom floor, eight hours before leaving for the airport.

To say that I was shocked would be an understatement; I was single at the time, with no regular sexual partner. In fact, I’d only had sex once in the past few months, and it had been so terrible I had vowed never to see the man in question ever again. 

‘Terrible’ probably isn’t the right word to use here, but it’s easier than telling the truth: that my partner had removed the condom during intercourse without my knowledge or consent – a form of sexual assault known as ‘stealthing’.

I found out when I noticed a discarded condom on the side afterwards and asked him what had happened. ‘Don’t worry! We’d have cute babies!’ he responded. Livid and full of panic, I took a morning-after pill, which I later found out didn’t work. 

I feel fortunate to live in a country where accessing an abortion is relatively easy, because reaching the decision to have one was anything but. 

I don’t feel the need to justify it but I will say that in my experience, choosing to end a pregnancy is not something most people take lightly or with only themselves in mind. 

For me, at least, it was not only something I did for my own benefit but for the sake of a child that might have been.

I have never doubted it – not when I see politicians using abortion as a pawn to win votes, or when I read headlines about people protesting outside abortion clinics – and certainly not when pro-lifers drop into my DMs to tell me how awful I am. 

Because here’s the thing: body autonomy is a human right, and therefore how I choose to govern mine has absolutely nothing to do with anyone but me. It really is quite simple: if you don’t like abortion, don’t have one. 

Unfortunately, though, this is not an opinion that is shared by everyone – many of whom have never had an abortion or could even begin to imagine the complex emotions involved in having one.

Today, on International Safe Abortion Day, which aims to shine a light on the uneven rights of women worldwide to access safe abortions, it’s hard not to reflect on the damage that ignorance has on the lives of women, both at home and abroad.

At its most extreme, ignorance contributes to political systems that force women to carry children against their own will and, at times, at risk to their own life. Worse still, it leaves many women with no other option but to terminate a pregnancy in unsafe circumstances.

It’s very easy to think that this is an issue that we have evolved past. That abortion is something we can tick off our collective to-do list, and move onto other things, and to sit in our echo chambers and assume that everyone believes the same things as us. 

But to think so would be not only ignorant, but dangerous. Because in reality, we are far, far away from such a place when it comes to this issue. 

I know this because not a week goes past without someone who has read one of my articles getting in touch with me, seeking advice and reassurance about their decision to terminate a pregnancy.

People like the married mum who’d suffered so much with postnatal depression she was too scared to become pregnant again, and didn’t feel able to tell her partner. Or the school girl who was raped by a classmate. Or the twenty-something woman who simply did not want to become a mother. 

It speaks to both the extreme emotional toll that this decision has on the lives of the women involved, not to mention the immense stigma still attached to it, that these women would sooner speak to me about their situation than their friends, family members or even partners.

And are we really surprised when the reality is that abortion is far – very far – from being an issue that is enshrined within our constitution as a human right.

Are we really surprised when we still struggle to talk about abortion openly for fear of judgement, even though it is so common?

If you need evidence to support this, just look at the fact that it is still considered a criminal offence to have an abortion in England and Wales. Despite abortion being legalised in these countries in 1967, the law fell short of decriminalising the act of performing or receiving an abortion.

It was also seriously caveated by a series of conditions that both parties must comply with to avoid prosecution. The abortion system in England and Wales is therefore built around the principles of compliance with these rules and regulations, meaning prosecution is extremely unlikely.

But ‘unlikely’ isn’t the same as ‘impossible’ and since that time, attempts to fully decriminalise abortion have failed to gain sufficient traction in Parliament, demonstrating how little attitudes towards this issue have really changed in the past 50 years.

It is still an issue used by politicians to win votes in elections in places like the US, where we are seeing rights being systematically rolled back in places where they once felt assured. You only have to look at the anti-abortion stance of Amy Coney-Barrett, Donald Trump’s nominee to replace the inimitable Ruth Bader Ginsberg in the Supreme Court, for an example of how pro-life has entered even the uppermost echelons of US policymaking. 

Are we really surprised when we still struggle to talk about abortion openly for fear of judgement, even though it is so common?

And beyond that, can we really say that it’s safe to have an abortion in the UK, when the mental load brought on people who have them is so heavy? When people still believe that they are entitled to have an opinion on what happens to any body other than their own?

Regardless of what many pro-lifers would have you believe, someone else’s decision to do so has absolutely nothing to do with you. Not today, not ever.

My body is my business. Not yours, nor a politician’s, a lawyer’s or a doctor’s.

And until every single woman everywhere in the world has the right to choose what happens to their body, no abortion will ever be safe. We simply cannot be complacent.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing rosy.edwards@metro.co.uk 

Share your views in the comments below

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MORE: Dear ‘pro-lifers’, please stop using my abortion story to promote your ignorance





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