There’s a dangerous notion we carry in the UK that once won, our human rights can never be taken from us. And yet, today (3 September 2022), anti-abortion campaigners have taken to the streets of London to spread rhetoric about abortion – such as “life” beginning at conception – that only serves to limit women's reproductive choices.
This aligns with waves of anti-abortion rhetoric rocking numerous countries in the world. So recently, we've watched our sisters in the United States sift through the wreckage of their reproductive sovereignty after the overturning of Roe v. Wade – a judgement made almost 50 years ago – by the Supreme Court.
In 26 states, free and safe abortions have been severely restricted or entirely outlawed, forcing any woman or trans person with a womb to make a desperate trip across state lines to exercise what they thought was their right to choose what happens to their own bodies. With the escalating cost of living crisis, the soaring price of petrol, and new offences being hastily written to prevent women crossing borders, the only option available may soon be to risk criminal prosecution by self-aborting, or by going to a clandestine abortionist for an illegal procedure.
In some circumstances, an abortion might be the only way to save the life of a mother or ensure the well-being of a 10-year-old child, for example, who suffers pregnancy after rape. We shouldn’t have to detail extreme cases like this in order to emphasise why the human right to abortion – or, as I like to call it, basic healthcare – is important. But given the latent misogyny that women encounter for choosing not to have children – she’s selfish, she’s unfeminine, she lacks nurturing qualities – relying on wider society to put ingrained sexism aside to consider the ramifications of reproductive fascism just isn’t something I’m willing to bet my ovaries on.
"My whole world came crashing down when those two little lines showed up almost instantly."
Naturally, seeing this dissolution of democracy from across the Atlantic, many of us are feeling a little nervous. After all, we’ve been watching the slow erosion of human rights for refugees, asylum seekers, protesters, survivors of male violence, and many more, for years under successive Conservative governments. But abortion? Surely not. It would be “hysterical,” we are told, to consider forced motherhood on these green and pleasant pastures. We’re far too polite for all that authoritarian nonsense. Aren’t we?
Do not be so sure.
There are a number of national responses – including the ripples of anti-choice protests in the UK – to the overturning of Roe v. Wade that should be cause for alarm.
Among them is the emboldening of – usually male, usually Conservative – politicians who argue that a clump of cells attached to the wall of a woman’s womb has more rights than the fully grown, very conscious woman carrying said clump. Take Danny Kruger MP, for example – a man who shares a surname with an '80s horror movie serial killer, and who doesn’t see the irony in his anti-abortion stance quite literally advocating for the massacre of rights for millions of women.
One woman from Northern Ireland shares her story.
If anyone doubts the scale of misogyny in UK society, know that it was not Kruger, but his mother, the chef Prue Leith, who trended on Twitter for birthing the man, rather than the man himself being responsible for his own stupidity.
And he wasn’t the only one. Earlier in the year, 61 MPs voted against plans to extend abortion access in Northern Ireland. A further 190 abstained from voting. These are significant numbers. Among them was the women’s health minister, Maria Caulfield, who previously used an interview to call for the Government to reduce the upper time limit on abortions.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and MP Nadine Dorries also waded into the conversation in an interview with Times Radio that is due to air tomorrow. While she stated that she supported the removal of the requirement for two doctors to approve someone's abortion, Dorries also – somewhat confusingly – suggested that the abortion time limit for pregnant people should be reduced from 24 to 20 weeks.
The minister called the current 24-week rule “too high” while still referring to herself as “absolutely, utterly, unequivocally pro-choice.” Members of our own government seem to think they can make their own goalposts when it comes to their support for a pregnant person's right to choose.
Another serious concern is the UK media’s reaction to the news from America. Rather than reporting it with the balance required when covering creeping fascism – thcheck out this article about Mussolini and women’s reproductive rights in 20th century Italy – they’ve been gunning for furious arguments, setting British women who know better against right-wing anti-abortionist who don’t. “This is a big call,” tweeted Kay Burley, staging one such “debate” for Sky News last week.
The fact is, framing abortion as a debate harms us all. It opens up the possibility of a counter-argument where there is none – and should be none. It platforms and normalises extremist ideology. And it is totally irresponsible.
‘Framing’ is an important term here. Because words really do matter, especially when it comes to accurately describing a movement to an audience whose culture and politics is so heavily influenced by the press. Using the term “pro-life” to describe the anti-abortion lobby is one such inaccuracy the wider British media should be hell-bent on irradicating. Quite rightly, presenter Amol Rajan was criticised for twice using the partisan term during BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to describe anti-abortion guests.
“I was required to have multiple ultrasounds to ‘prove' that I indeed miscarried and wasn't lying.”
In social theory, framing describes a collection of stereotypes and anecdotes that people rely on to understand and respond to events.
The choices they go on to make are influenced by their creation of the frame. In journalism, certain words and images are used to “frame” issues that can change a reader’s perception without having to alter the facts. Framing the anti-abortion lobby as “pro-life” when accurately, they are only pro-criminalising a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body is manipulative and dangerous.
Editors of news outlets should take this very seriously and remove use of the term “pro-life” from their pages, screens, and airways altogether. As well as inflammatory opinion pieces like this Sunday Times one, in which some bloke argues that childless women should be taxed for failing to contribute to the next generation. That’s right – charging women for not being mothers.
The other thing we should be wary about? Abortion is still a criminal offence in the UK unless two doctors agree that continuing a pregnancy would be risky for the physical or mental health of the woman. The Abortion Act in 1967 transformed women’s healthcare in the UK by legalising terminations in England, Wales, and Scotland up to 28 weeks. That limit has since been reduced to 24 weeks. However, the original law outlawing abortions, made in 1861, was never repealed, so anyone who has an abortion outside of these conditions is acting unlawfully and can be prosecuted.
A Guardian article recently described women in England and Wales under investigation by the police because of unexplained miscarriages and stillbirths. Some have even been forced to hand over their phones and laptops for invasive “digital strip searches.”
“In one case in 2021, a 15-year-old girl who had an unexplained early stillbirth was subjected to a year-long criminal investigation that saw her text messages and search history examined,” it reads. “Police dropped the case after a coroner concluded the pregnancy ended because of natural causes.”
Another article detailed Home Office data obtained through the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, that revealed at least 17 (and potentially up to 29) women were the subject of police investigations under the 1861 Act between March 2014 and December 2021.
This all makes for terrifying reading – and it should terrify us. What it shouldn’t do is stop us from fighting back. The anti-choice movement seeks to capitalise on our fear to enact regressive policies that will only harm women; we must show up and defend our human right to reproductive autonomy with every fibre of our beings.
Instead of being frozen by fear, we need to channel the rage and injustice we feel into action. Write to your MPs – and do so in numbers. Draft a letter pledging to withdraw your vote for any party that fails to back the full decriminalisation of abortion and send it to everyone you know.
Join Abortion Rights and the Women’s Equality Party (for which this writer is a campaigner) and We Trust Women and BPAS and NowForNI. Write to editors, and call out publications that platform anti-abortionists, and use the term “pro-life” to frame debates that are anything but.
We won't revert back to the dark ages.
