MPs have no right to take away my rights

Politicians should stay far away from women’s bodily autonomy

How dare evangelical Christian Conservative MP Danny Kruger say that women don’t have the “absolute right to bodily autonomy” – in support of the US Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion this week.

I am utterly incensed by his misogyny.

Horrifyingly, Irish journalist Melanie McDonagh jumped to his defence, writing: “You may think that the foetus doesn’t really count as a human person, though I can’t see any argument for suggesting it’s not a human being.”

Well, Melanie, let me tell you that in the UK the legal definition is: The foetus cannot […] have any rights of its own at least until it is born and has separate existence from the mother.

It is only upon birth that the foetus has any legal rights. Before that, it is part of a woman’s body, so the woman should have the final choice about what she

does with her body. I haven’t had an abortion myself, but I know friends who have.

I know in all cases it wasn’t a decision taken lightly, but I supported their choice because it was the right thing to do in their situations.

There is clear evidence that restricting access to abortion opens the way to untrained providers working in unsanitary conditions, potentially having a major impact on the woman’s health. It can even lead to death.

I don’t want women to die because they have had to resort to a “backstreet” abortion. I want safe medical care for women all over the world.

We must care about the living woman and her human rights first and foremost in any debate about abortion.

Surely in a civilised country such as the

US that should go without saying? Mr Kruger will never understand what it takes to decide on an abortion. He will never go through a pregnancy that isn’t wanted.

I ask him, what happens to children born to mothers who don’t want them or who don’t have the means to look after them? And it’s always the poorest women who are affected the most.

The US ruling means that women who want an abortion may have to travel to another state. If you’re struggling to make ends meet, how can you afford to travel?

It scares the living daylights out of me that while the world is advancing in so many ways, some women’s rights are going backwards.

As a woman and a mother, I will always support my own daughter in the choices she makes about her body.

If she wants to have an abortion, for whatever reason, that is her right.

And I will be by her side to make sure that she has access to all the medical help

she needs.