FORTY YEARS OF ABORTION RIGHTS: TOO FAR OR NOT FAR ENOUGH?

Laura Woodhouse outlines women’s abortion rights as they stand in the UK today and addresses the key pro-choice and anti-abortion arguments.

THIS week marks the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act which gave women in England, Scotland and Wales access to safe and legal abortion.  The law constituted a huge step for the women’s rights movement and undoubtedly saved – and continues to save – the lives and health of thousands of women who may previously have resorted to dangerous illegal abortions when faced with an unwanted pregnancy.  This includes many students: women between 20 and 24 are most likely to access abortion. What many people do not realise, however, is that the Act does not give women the right to an abortion.  In fact, the UK’s abortion law is one of the most stringent in Europe. 

As the University Women’s Committee has been highlighting all this week, women must gain the consent of two doctors before they are able to access abortion.  With around 10 per cent of GPs opposed to abortion, this can result in later terminations or forced births as doctors put up barriers to women accessing abortion.  As recently as 2005, a rape victim had to take her case to the courts after doctors repeatedly blocked her attempts to get the abortion she so desperately needed.    

As the above example suggests, the law in its current state denies women the autonomy to make decisions about their own bodies.  It is this autonomy that pro-choice activists and supporters seek to have recognised.  The term ‘pro-choice’ is not a euphemism for ‘pro-abortion’, nor would all those who identify as pro-choice personally choose to have an abortion.  Rather, pro-choicers like Women’s Committee member Fiona Edwards simply believe that:  “Women should be free to choose whether or not they want an abortion, and be provided with the information, advice and support they need to make the right choice for them.”

However, despite the fact that 76 per cent of the UK population define themselves as pro-choice, it is the minority anti-choice, or ‘pro-life’ voices that have been most vocal in recent media coverage of the abortion debate.  The basic pro-life argument is a simple one: the foetus is an individual that has the same right to life as any other human and abortion is therefore both unethical and equivalent to murder.  Yet in recent years, anti-abortion activists, recognising that this position was not enough to convince many of the apparent evils of abortion, have begun to focus on the supposed negative effects of abortion upon the women who choose to have one.  Anti-abortion group Life recently funded a no doubt entirely unbiased study claiming to establish a link between abortion and breast cancer.  It finds an increase in both abortion and breast cancer in some countries, but provides no data to suggest that both relate to the same women. In fact, a 2004 analysis of data from 53 studies concluded that abortion in no way increases women’s risk of developing breast cancer.  Despite this, anti-abortionists continue to trot out the breast cancer myth, so impeding women’s ability to make an informed choice on abortion. 

Another key weapon in the anti-abortionists’ armoury is the scarily named Post Abortion Syndrome, or PAS.  Life claim that this is ‘a recognised health condition’ that consists of psychological trauma similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder directly caused by the abortion procedure.  However, there is once again a whole wealth of evidence which asserts that PAS simply does not exist, and it is not recognised by either US or UK psychology and psychiatry professionals.   Where severe psychological problems are recorded post-abortion, these stem not from the abortion itself but from the particular circumstances surrounding that woman’s abortion.  The negative reactions of family and friends, strong religious convictions, social stigma – particularly in the USA where women entering abortion clinics often have to push their way through crowds of anti-abortionists accusing them of murder – all work to create an environment in which having an abortion can be a traumatic, sometimes guilt ridden experience for a small minority of women.   

However, most women who have an abortion report a sense of relief.  Lynne Miles, a former Economics and Politics student at the University of Warwick, chose to have an abortion at the age of twenty-four after she fell pregnant by her ex boyfriend.  Knowing that their relationship had no future, she chose not to carry on with the pregnancy:  

‘He was very supportive, it was fine. I was extremely emotional whilst coming to the decision and on the day. I was sad for a while afterwards. But it’s hard to disentangle the sadness about the final, quite painful realisation that the relationship with him was over as about the abortion.I’ve never regretted it or thought it was a mistake. I’m fine about it now, moved on and in a really happy relationship which makes me realise even more, with hindsight, how wrong the last one was.’ 

Without the right to choose, Lynne would have faced either enforced pregnancy and motherhood, or a life threatening illegal abortion.   

Sadly, many women across the world find themselves in this exact situation.  68,000 women die every year as a result of unsafe abortions in countries with restrictive abortion laws. In the US, a fourteen year old died recently after resorting to an illegal abortion: the law stated she could not access one legally without first informing her parents. It is by gradually pushing through restrictions such as this one that anti-abortionists seek to achieve their goal: the removal of safe, legal access to abortion.  The current debate in the UK over the potential reduction of the time limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks is a prime example of this.  Abortions that take place in this period account for under two per cent of all those carried out, while almost 90 per cent occur before 12 weeks.  We are talking, then, not about a huge majority of selfish, careless women who cruelly abort at the last possible moment, but a small minority of vulnerable women – often teenage girls or those in abusive relationships – who find themselves in a position where they desperately need a late abortion.   

Should we really deny them that choice because there is a one per cent chance (at 22 weeks) or 11 per cent chance (at 23 weeks with a 67 per cent chance of severe disability) that the foetus would survive if born at that stage? 

Because if we do, we are on a slippery slope towards fatal backstreet abortions, rape victims further violated by laws which deny them bodily autonomy and the loss of women’s ability to determine their own destinies.   If you don’t fancy that, now’s the time to join with the NUS Women’s Committee and demand MPs protect and extend women’s abortion rights in the UK.