I know since the whole Jacob Rees-Mogg fiasco there must've been a billion posts on this already. Hopefully outlining that women have the right to there own autonomy in every way.
But what I want to highlight is that for many people in everyday life abortion isn't acknowledged as the generally speaking multifaceted all consuming event that it is. It's assumed that a mother either does or doesn't want their child, and that is often simply not the case.
I'd really like to share with you my experience of abortion (late term) because until I'd lived this and lived it with other women who were in varying degrees going through the same process as me, I had no idea about abortion and how hard it could be. This isn't about me changing my mind after a procedure, or having an epiphany and becoming pro life, it's about the alien nature of abortion, something that isn't flagged up in media unless it's negative, and it's about how no woman needs to be told that their moral compass is questionable when making such a huge choice about her body.
My termination has been the most heartbreaking event in my life to date, and that life includes being raped, witnessing a stabbing and spending several years in a DV relationship.
Do I regret it? Sometimes. Am I grateful I was afforded access to such treatment? Every minute of every day.
My pregnancy was all I ever wanted, I was having a baby with the love of my life, a good job in the bag and incredible friends all starting their journeys into parenthood alongside me. It was perhaps a tad earlier than I would've liked but I could've managed.
My pregnancy was amazing, I had no sickness, I went off coffee but never felt ill, my hair and nails were flawless and I felt like a woman.
My washboard stomach became a teeny round bump and my tiny Joey would dance around whenever I took a bath or lay still. I was in love. Crazy undeniable unbreakable love, a love that I had never felt before.
But my euphoria was slowly being cracked and broken, chipped away with what I thought were natural doubts but that began to consume me. What started off as simple doubts about my capacity to parent, began to transform into fleeting thoughts on termination but from these thoughts came the belief, that the only way was to kill myself, then the fleeting thoughts lingered and they lingered more, and they stopped being fleeting thoughts and developed into full blown paranoia, Everyone and everything in my mind was telling me to abort my baby, I thought dustbins and pay and display meters were chasing me down the street telling me to do it. I thought my doctor and my friends and my mother in law were willing me to do it. I was terrified. I had no escape.
These thoughts manifested and I fought them off again and again, buying my baby clothes (even finding a vest with a navy and red Appliqué "j" on the front) and going for scans, singing to my Joey and choosing my pram.
I was doing everything right and still these thoughts got worse, more people were chasing me and the walls were closing in. My chest was pounding and I couldn't breathe. By the time I was 14 weeks I was suffering from suicidal ideation six to eight times a day, I tried to fight it, but booked a consultation with BPAS (the most phenomenal people in the world) I was breaking by this point but I couldn't show it. I was clever, I thought I was playing the game and winning, I thought they could help me but they couldn't read minds. My mental health problems by this point had such a control on me I was between a rock and a hard place.
By the time I'd had the necessary Medicals I was 19w5. I thought that if I had a termination the things that had been chasing me wouldn't be able to hurt my baby I wanted Joe to be safe. I wanted to stay with him and look after him. So even when I stood waiting for my train to the clinic I contemplated jumping on Paddington underground.
I didn't ever think I'd have a termination, because I was very much in love with my baby. But it was for that exact reason I did.
If it wasn't for the facilities offering terminations to women like me in their hour of need then there is no question I would be dead.
Abortion isn't black and white - and until you've lived this you cannot tell me you know and you certainly can't question my morals when all I could've hoped for was to make life better for my baby.