I flinch at abortion but Roe v Wade
Ruling must not be overturned
When it comes to discussions about abortion I tend to keep my own counsel because I’m keenly aware I’m out of synch with modern mores, and it’s stressful having to explain my apparently “wishy washy” centrist stance in such factionalised debate.
The polar division of people – women – into pro-life or pro-choice makes it hard to convey nuance without sparking confrontation.
The prospect of the landmark ruling of Roe v Wade being overturned by the US Supreme Court moreover leaves me with little choice but to pin my colours to the proverbial mast; I think abortion is a tragic thing. But that doesn’t mean it should be outlawed.
Leaked documents suggest the end could be nigh for the 1973 ruling that protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion “without excessive government restriction”.
This saw the legalisation of abortion nationwide; if overturned, termination would be left to individual states to decide.
There are already 13 Republican states such as Utah, Texas and Wyoming with so-called trigger laws in place, which would lead to an immediate ban on abortion if the Supreme Court rules to overturn Roe v Wade.
A further dozen will probably move swiftly to ban or tightly limit access to terminations. The result, say prochoice campaigners, would leave 36 million women of reproductive age living in states without a right to an abortion.
Hand on heart, even thinking about abortion in the abstract makes me flinch in visceral horror.
I have known acquaintances – friends – to react with anger and defensiveness when I say as much and openly challenge me to condemn them for having had an abortion. Or two. Even three. That’s not my place; lives are complex and I have neither the inclination nor the desire to confront anyone about their reproductive choices.
It’s none of my business, just as my private opinions are none of theirs.
Yes, I’m a Catholic but much more saliently, I endured so many gruelling rounds of IVF that whenever someone refers to “only a bunch of cells” I want to yell “the moment I laid eyes on my beautiful daughter through a microscope she was only four cells big”.
My circumstances have shaped my personal attitude; but not every baby is wanted. Not every baby is conceived in a loving partnership.
Rape is a weapon of war and a crime in peace. Poverty blights lives.
Moreover, the myth of the careless teen has been exposed as just that; in the UK the number of underage abortions is vanishingly small.
Abortion rates for those aged under 18 have declined over the past 10 years, from 16.5 per 1,000 women in 2010 to 6.9 per 1,000 in 2020. Among under16s the rates have fallen from 3.9 per 1,000 women in 2010 to 1.2 per 1,000 women in 2020.
According to Department of Health figures, among the women over 35 getting abortions, 87 per cent were already mothers. Women who understood the implications of those heartbreaking decisions.
I have no idea about the abortion demographics in the US. But anything that reduces reproductive choices will have a hugely negative impact on women and girls and cause them to take risks in a bid to end pregnancies.
Summarily removing their right to make medical decisions about their own bodies undermines their agency and disempowers them.
Across the globe, nations less jaundiced than ours continue to regard the US as the leader of the free world. Any curtailment of women’s rights sends out a message that will lead to despair, misery and maternal death.