It’d be monstrous to decriminalise abortion. I speak from experience

Along time ago I had an abortion, the memory of which still makes me feel almost physically sick. I am ashamed of it, which is why – despite holding very strong views on abortion law – I’ve never spoken of it.

The only reason for sharing this horrible personal information is to demonstrate that what I feel compelled to say about the growing campaign to decriminalise terminations does not come from any position of moral superiority on my part. Quite the reverse: I fully understand that women can, and do, find themselves with unwanted pregnancies for all manner of reasons, and that for the vast majority, deciding to end the pregnancy presents far more than just a medical challenge.

What horrifies me is that any parliamentarian should want to decriminalise the fatal poisoning or dismemberment of unborn babies that are so well developed that they could survive outside the womb. No amount of sugar coating this can remove the repellent reality of what – if the law is changed in the way certain MPS want – could end up happening.

If you can’t imagine what it looks like, just ask Nadine Dorries, the former MP who used to work on an abortion ward. She has never forgotten her ghastly experience, as a nurse, of having to dispose of an aborted foetus in a bedpan. It was still gasping for life.

If MPS decline to support a backbench amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to end what Labour MP Stella Creasy calls the “Victorian criminalisation” of abortion, it won’t be because they want to “deny women agency over their bodies”, as she puts it, but because of the horror of allowing anyone to carry out such acts, free of safeguards.

The whys and wherefores of the agonising decision I myself took in my 20s are irrelevant to the debate over whether pregnant women should be protected from any criminal consequences if they set out to end the life of a potentially viable unborn child.

Neither religion nor politics play any part in my perspective. It is entirely shaped by my experience as a woman and mother, which has left me in no doubt about the preciousness of tiny life; and sadly all too familiar with the suffering associated with pregnancy loss, whether spontaneous (miscarriages) or induced.

The point is that when it comes to this most sensitive of issues, I know something of what I speak. Not only have I had an abortion (it was awful), but I have also repeatedly seen (via ultrasound scans) the joyous flickering and dreadful fading of new life. For almost a decade after my termination, I lost unborn child, after unborn child, after unborn child, after unborn child. There were four in total, and the utter trauma of these successive miscarriages changed my view on the law surrounding abortion forever.

While I certainly would not seek to remove a woman’s right to early terminations, my own view is that if there is to be any change to the law at all, it should be to reduce the 24 week legal cut-off point at which abortion is routinely allowed. After 22 weeks gestation, a premature baby can survive.

The absolute wonder of three pregnancies that resulted in what the medical profession call “live births” – my three children – only served to reinforce my view that a foetus is never, ever “just a bunch of cells.” From the moment of conception, it is nothing less magical and mystical than new life.

At just six weeks, it has an actual heart, that pulsates with life. As any mother knows, midway through the second trimester, the unborn child is very much alive and literally kicking, with fully formed limbs, fingers and toes. At just 18 weeks, it begins to hear; at 21 weeks, it can suck its thumb; at 25 weeks it can respond to the mother’s voice.

No wonder the rest of Europe baulks at allowing terminations beyond 12 to 16 weeks. These procedures sometimes require surgery, not to mention the agony of labour for a deliberately induced stillbirth. How awful for the midwives and other healthcare professionals who have to assist such deliveries, before casting tiny heads, arms and legs into an incinerator.

Those campaigning for decriminalisation frame abortion as “basic healthcare”, the words used by Creasy. The truth is that even first trimester abortion is an invasive procedure that, if poorly managed, can be dangerous and very occasionally, even fatal.

There is certainly nothing “basic” about the butchery required for third trimester terminations, after 27 weeks. Nor is there anything kind or compassionate about leading any heavily pregnant woman down this path. Long after the flesh wounds heal and pregnancy hormones have stopped playing havoc with emotions, it is a recipe for lifelong regret and trauma.

Show me a woman who has had a late abortion and is not profoundly affected by the experience, and I’ll show you a dodo in my garden. The existing law not only protects the unborn child, but mothers-to-be, from such madness.

To Creasy, the abortion debate is purely about “women’s rights” and anything less than further liberalisation is about “controlling women”. In reality, what needs to be controlled is the messianic zeal of pro-choicers like her. Some are so intolerant of the alternative point of view that they believe it is those who stand outside abortion clinics in silent prayer – a symbolic act that harms nobody – who should feel the full force of the law.

As for the suggestion that decriminalisation of abortion is somehow modern and progressive, how can any civilised society remove all legal protections for a potentially viable unborn child?

In addition to dramatically improving the viability of premature babies, modern medicine has greatly enhanced the detection of severe disability or terminal illness in utero. The ability to terminate pregnancies up until birth in these circumstances is a vital feature of existing abortion law. The mercifully small number of mothers-to-be who find themselves facing an appalling choice between having a child with very limited life expectancy and a late termination deserve every possible support.

They are in a unique category, and should never be judged for a heartbreaking decision to prevent even more suffering. No legal change is required to protect this group. Some activists seem more concerned with the principle that any woman should be allowed to change her mind about going ahead with a healthy pregnancy, at any time. This is monstrous.

For what it’s worth, while I wish it had never happened, I don’t exactly regret my own abortion. At the time, it was the least worst option, which is probably what most women who have been in a similar position say.

What I would truly regret – as MPS stand on the brink of making a momentous mistake – is not being brave enough to tell it as it is.