Guest post: "Abortion must be decriminalised"

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In December, Natalie Towers, a young mother from Durham, was sentenced for ending her pregnancy at 32 weeks using pills she'd bought online.

When a woman feels she has no choice but to cause her own abortion in this way, you would hope that she would be viewed with compassion, and not treated as a criminal. Unfortunately, this is not the case: she was jailed for two-and-a-half years.

This tragic rare case highlights a broader issue that affects us all: from Belfast to Brighton, pregnant women's decisions about what to do with their own bodies are policed by the criminal law. In every nation of the UK a woman can go to prison for ending her own pregnancy without the legal authorisation of doctors – from the moment a fertilised egg implants.

The 1861 Offences Against the Person Act threatens life imprisonment to any woman who ends her own pregnancy. This is the harshest punishment for self-induced abortion of any country in Europe, bar the Republic of Ireland.

The 1967 Abortion Act is often seen as a victory of the women's rights movement, but it didn't actually overwrite the 1861 Act – rather, it opened up loopholes. Now, a woman is exempt from prosecution when two doctors certify that she meets certain criteria; most commonly that her mental or physical health would suffer if she were forced to continue her pregnancy. In other words, it is perfectly lawful for a woman to be forced to continue a pregnancy if doctors judge her able to cope with the child.

Women's agency is painted entirely out of the picture. Responsibility is turned over to doctors in a way that doesn't happen with any other routine medical procedure. While the work of committed medical professionals means that most women can get the abortion they need, this is beside the point. The criminalisation of abortion makes a mockery of the equal status that women fight for in every other area of life, represents discrimination against women, and stigmatises the one in three women who will have an abortion. Women should not have to battle outdated Victorian legislation for control over their reproductive rights.

Abortion is a medical procedure that has emancipated women, enabling them to have children at the time they think is right with the person of their choosing. It is accepted as a back-up when contraception fails, or when we fail to use it as well as we might; it is an established part of family planning, and is commissioned and funded by the NHS. It therefore makes no sense that it sits within a criminal framework. It runs entirely counter to all principles of bodily autonomy and patient-centred care to deny a woman the right to make her own decisions about whether to accept the physical imposition and risks posed by pregnancy and childbirth.

Our neighbours in France, Sweden and the Netherlands do not send women to prison for inducing their own miscarriages. Even Poland, where abortion is all but outlawed, does not prosecute women who cause their own abortions. The use of the criminal law to punish women in the UK serves no purpose. It is not a deterrent, as any woman who feels desperate enough to try to end her own pregnancy will find a way to do so, and it cannot be seen as an appropriate punishment for a heinous crime, given that legal abortions are approved every day.

Taking abortion out of the criminal law and regulating it like other healthcare services won't lead to unsafe care. Outside of the criminal law, abortion services are already tightly regulated, with regular inspections by the Care Quality Commission. Doctors, nurses and midwives work to strict guidelines and are bound by their professional bodies. Women do not currently turn to unqualified providers for any other form of NHS healthcare, and there is no reason why they would do so for termination services.

Taking abortion out of the criminal law would not lead to more women such as the young mother from Durham ending their pregnancies at home at 32 weeks, in the same way as keeping it there won't stop another woman in equally desperate straits from doing the same. But removing threats of prosecution and prison might make her more likely to seek help – and perhaps her story would have a different ending.

But above all, taking abortion out of the criminal law would be a statement of where we see women today – capable of making their own decisions in pregnancy as the ones who must carry the consequences of that pregnancy, whether it continues or ends. Changing this ancient law will be a symbol of just how far we have come since 1861.

Trust women to make the choice that is right for them. Please join the We Trust Women campaign today.

Also, I believe miscarriage after 24 weeks is legally a stillbirth, requiring both a birth and death certificate.

Thinking about it if I'm right about birth and death certificates, how would that work if the limit was ever extended? An abortion would then have to be registered as a birth?

Hello lass, you are of course entitled to your view about the time limit that you believe in.

I was genuinely shocked when I read your post last night that, upon reading, indicated a lack of knowledge of the fact that every day matters when dating a pregnancy in these circumstances (abortion providers have to scan pregnancies to date them by law), that no abortion provider would ever break the law by performing the procedure at 24+1, that being 14 yrs old and terrified wouldn't quality as a reason for late abortion and actually this is a fairly typical profile of girls/women seeking late abortion.

For me, those facts are central to this debate.

In regard to how abortion would be monitored if removed from the criminal justice system, it would remain closely regulated and monitored by health care providers. Women seeking late abortion would be provided with counselling, information, and signposting to other services (including the options of continuing with the pregnancy and adoption).

Figures from each clinic would continue to be submitted to the Dof H and the current regulatory bodies continue with their current roles.

Thus location abortion care wholly in the health care system and not the criminal justice system.

Exactly, Christina.

I would like to see abortion allowed purely on request. In practice, there might not be much difference from the current system. But instead of two doctors approving the procedure, it would be two doctors, or two professionals, agreeing that the woman understood the procedure and was of sound mind to make the decision (i.e. not being pressurised by someone).

'Given that you're telling us "what women think", your gender IS relevant. If you don't have a source which proves a difference in male v female responses, you have no right to make such sweeping claims. And as YouSaff points out, being male means you could never be pregnant, so your opinion is based purely on theory. You want to control women's bodies despite not even being a woman yourself.'

Well, you have never held a new born baby, never been to a scan, never watched an obstetrician working desperately to save a baby as it experienced decelerations. I suspect your sole experience of pregnancy and foetuses/babies is as an unwanted complication of sex for pleasure.

I may be missing some experiences, but you are certainly missing others

And, as I have stated many times already, I am not telling you 'what women think', I am demonstrating what women think by use of robust data, which I have linked to.

And I hope you do not have an opinion on male circumcision....

Emma since you ask, I have found several of your posts quite aggressive - for example your one challenging me why I hadn't responded or the one below- where I'm being challenged for being passive/aggressive.

There were others but I'm not going to trawl through the thread picking them all out.

I admire your persistence christina. But it's all been said already. I think that claiming not to understand an argument even when it's been explained clearly several times is just a passive-aggressive way of undermining / rejecting it. So it gets to the point when you have to just stop engaging. We're not getting anywhere, are we?

On the question of non-criminalisation at 24 weeks or less there is a case to be made for it, but, the downside of removing it entirely is then what is the point of having any safeguards?

If the rule is abortion on demand (openly stating what happens in practice anyway) is acceptable as long as it is discussed with and carried out by, properly qualified practitioners, where do you go if that is ignored?

Larry are you a man?

A vasectomy is something that only a man can have - in the same way that a pregnancy is something only a woman can experience

If a law was introduced which said that it would be a criminal offence for a married man to have a vasectomy unless his wife signed an agreement that she too agrees that they want no more children

This is a ridiculous argument. Unless you think "every sperm is sacred" there is no comparison between a man choosing to not produce sperm and the termination of a viable foetus.

A vasectomy is comparable to a sterilisation. It is not comparable to an abortion.

I am leaving this discussion now. I agree that it would be sensible to be honest that in the UK abortion on demand is available up to 24 weeks. I suspect the 2 doctor rule / more harm rule is there because Sir David Steel and the other legislators knew they would never actually get an absolute right. They are relying on the fact that all pregnancies carry more risk than terminations.It is a pragmatic fudge.

Larry and christina you both made good points, well argued. christina If there are future attacks to restrict abortion from what we have I will be right behind you. I also support any call for Northern Ireland to be brought into line with the rest of the UK.

The argument that Saff and Emma are making is about bodily autonomy not that 'every sperm is sacred'.

Although on that last point, it's interesting that the more extreme anti- abortion groups don't harrassen attending vascectomy aprs in the way they harrass womem attending family planning health care.

Why is it that men's bodily autonomy is taken as a given, whilst women have had to fight for every bit of it (and are still doing).

Larry I don'r know what youean by the second paragraph of your last post, but please don't go round 'suspecting' the experiences of womem posting on this thread.

Male circumcision? Up to the individual.

Sorry, on phone without glasses, so loads of typos... Harrass men attending vascectomy appointments that should say.

OP Furedi:

"....Trust women to make the choice that is right for them. Please join the We Trust Women campaign today"

..... ? So half the human race are automatically good and responsible people just by virtue of our Gender?

The great lie is that "It is our body and our right to choose".

Men and women throughout history and especially in the mid 1900's justified what they did to other people by re-defining them as less than the human beings that they are.

For the first year or so after being born a baby is as dependent on other people as much as when it is 32 weeks in the womb.

Why does OP accord rights (I presume she does????) to new-borns that she does not accord to 32 week babies before birth?

i.e. the right to life.

Lanchester this thread has been running for a few days now and the questions that you pose have been debated and discussed at length above.

The OP is talking about the right to make decisions about your own health care.

Have a read through the thread ( including the '32 reasons not to lower.....' Link that someone posted).

Your questions are answered above.

christinarossetti Sat 20-Feb-16 12:43:17

I have looked through the whole thread now.

You seem to want to allow abortion at any point up until full term 39 weeks.

(Presumably you would say that would apply also to an unborn child who was slightly OVER term at 40 weeks ? )

It seems that you base your opinions on the fact that - according to you - the law does not give a child legal designation as a human being until time of actual parturition.

However, you are seeking to change the law in a way that means that you yourself regard the law as a flexible tool of public policy.

How then do you feel justified in basing your ethical position on what the law currently states?

It seems that you are careering down a slippery slope to killing anyone at will by changing the law to designate them in some way
"lesser" or "unworthy" or [perhaps more honestly by you] "inconvenient".

I am not suggesting you agree with infanticide (I hope not anyway), but about a year or so ago there was a panel contributor in a discussion about abortion legal time limits on the BBC 'Moral Maze' Radio 4 program who was a feminist and an respected academic.
She was quite unabashed in admitting that in her opinion under certain circumstances infanticide should be made legal up to an age that she seemed to feel was maybe one or two years of age. On that day she was in a minority of one, and everyone else was appalled by her opinion. But it shows that there is such a thing as a moral slippery slope.

Some people seem to have made a career out of promoting the slogan
"It is our body [and therefore] it is our right to choose."
Because the first part of that slogan is pejorative[and wrong], the second part is not a logical conclusion at all.

It is an empty slogan.

More than half the unborn children aborted are females. Nearly half are males.

ALL unborn children are innocent of any wrongdoing.

They have a reasonable right to expect that those caring for them will take measures to ensure their welfare.

and deserve the maximum protection from society.

Unborn children have no voice of their own.
They are totally reliant on the protection of others.

Their very vulnerability imposes a SPECIAL OBLIGATION on their carers to do everything to protect them and to nourish their development.

We ALL have a duty to pass laws that protect the most vulnerable in society

The law should protect unborn children.

Many women are pressured by people around them or by their life circumstances to feel they have no option than to choose an abortion - IT IS THAT PRESSURE that we should be seeking to change.

Lanchester, I presume from the points that you have made that you are anti-abortion, as in you would make all abortion illegal at any stage of pregnancy?

You clearly feel strongly about abortion Lancaster, indeed seem to be very much against it.

The great news is that you don't have to have one. Ever. At any point in any pregnancy you may experience (assuming that you're a woman).

I'm not really up for engaging with someone who asserts that my views on the need to decromonaliae abortion mean that I'm careering down a slippery slope towards killing anyone at will tbh.

HTH.

Lanchester.
It is not a slippery slope.
As soon as something no longer resides inside of you it is no longer part of your bodily autonomy. It is an independent human being. When something lives off of and inside your body it's your choice when are how it is removed.
Your example of someone you saw on tv is ridiculous. Nobody is or would argue that.

Lanchester, I also believe that abortion should be legal up to full term. Either you have autonomy over yourself or the state owns your body. It is a slippery slope if the state owns your body, if you can be forced to have a child that you don't want, what else can you be forced to do?

\trust women to make their own choices. Very late term abortions need to happen, we don't call them abortions though, induced births when the baby is born alive at 30 weeks for instance, when the woman is diagnosed with cancer and needs to start treatment, so the baby is delivered early. This sort of thing already happens. Just give women total control over what happens to them. It's basic human rights.

Also, human overpopulation is the biggest single factor in the destruction of the planet, yet humans still prefer to control women through forced fertility rather than let them decide whether to have a child at all. The 'carbon legacy' of just one child can produce 20 times more greenhouse gas than a person will save by driving a high-mileage car, recycling, using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs, etc. Each child born in the West will add about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent.

So we should be making it a priority to enable women to chose not to have children; abortion/contraception should be free and freely available for every woman anywhere in the world. It would be insanity not to start with this as a measure to reduce carbon emission.

Framey an early induction due to the mother's health is not an abortion.

It's an early induction of labour.

An abortion is the terminating of a pregnancy and a live birth is not the intended result.

yes i know, I did say it's not called abortion. But the pregnancy ends.
I was trying to talk more generally about the right to ending a pregnancy, sorry if I wasn't clear.

Framey....I don't think anyone has raised any objection to induced birth and the example you give is classic. The mothers life is in danger and an attempt is made to save both lives. The objection to post 24 week abortion is when it IS abortion and the baby is killed deliberately during the process. I would say that once the baby is viable it should be given a fighting chance even if the woman makes a decision that she no longer wants to incubate or raise the baby as hers.
The argument that she should not be forced to labour does not hold under current law as she would have to anyway.
The ridiculous argument always thrown out at this point about why there is not a queue of pro lifers wanting to adopt these babies is mad as there is actually a queue of childless couples desperate to adopt babies and there are families prepared to adopt babies with disabilities.
If you want to argue for basic human rights then that goes both ways. If the unborn baby can live without the mother , she should not be allowed to insist it is killed.

Yes I totally agree with you, I was just trying to make the point that women should have the right to end a pregnancy at any time. Agree with what you said totally, just not clear in my post.

I see what you're getting at.

'Women should have the right to end a pregnancy' - yes totally with you on that.

In the UK, most women do have that right. Taking the view that abortion should be decriminalised is essentially wanting to extend that right to all women/girls who are pregnant.

Yes, sorry not clear.

I might be wrong but I think the definition of the word abortion is the purposeful termination of a pregnancy. So idealy, decriminalising abortion would give the right to terminate pregnancy but not the right to decide on life or death of the baby.

Have any of you pro 'abortion to term' people thought about the practicalities?

As I said post 24 weeks a baby needs a birth and death certificate, what would you propose be put on the death certificate? Also, these records (I believe) are then publicly searchable. Changing the law to say that they shouldn't be given a birth/death certificate might be a very hard pill to swallow for mothers loosing a much wanted child.

Plus the abortion itself, as I understand it, the baby is given an injection to stop the heart, I would imagine as time went along and the baby became bigger and stronger they would be harder to kill. Might the poison to stop the heart also not present a danger to the mother? I have also heard that giving birth to a stillborn baby is also more dangerous for the mother (heard this year's ago, may well be wrong).