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Celebrating women’s lives

Published 26 October 2007

Anne Quesney, Director of Abortion Rights, calls for progressive reform of the abortion law, while celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of a vote, which transformed women’s lives. The 1967 Abortion Act effectively put an end to decades of dangerous back-street abortions in Britain. It saved the lives and health of thousands of women and to this day remains fundamental to women’s autonomy and equality.

Four decades on, a staggering 83 per cent of UK citizens agree that a woman should have the right to have an abortion. But unlike many of their European sisters, British women do not have the right to choose, per se. Under the 1967 Act they require the permission of two doctors before they can access the procedure - a process that can lead to delays for women at a vulnerable time. Women in Northern Ireland are excluded altogether.

Kat Stark’s experience illustrates the unnecessary barriers women continue to face when needing to access an abortion - “The first doctor I went to refused to refer me for an abortion. He kept asking me how I had gotten pregnant and eventually told me to leave the surgery and think about it for a while - even though I was totally sure about what I wanted to do. It was a week before I realised that I was entitled to go and seek another opinion.”

Forty years on it surely is time for a law that trusts women with this very personal and sometimes difficult decision. Abortion Rights, the national pro-choice campaign, wanted to know whether this situation is supported by people in Britain and commissioned an NOP opinion poll to examine this. It found that a clear majority (52 per cent) believe that a woman seeking an abortion should need the approval of either one or of no doctor at all, indicating that there is a growing appetite for reforming the law.

The results echo the views from the medical profession - the British Medical Association, The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Nursing - who unanimously support the removal of two doctors’ signatures in the first trimester.

So all is well you would think. Not so. As we prepare to celebrate women’s hard fought for rights and advocate for reform and better service provision, a vociferous anti-choice minority is plugging away to turn the clock back. But its disingenuous and relentless focus on later abortion and fetal viability is likely to be exposed in the Commons Science and Technology Committee report to be published next week.

Later abortions are rare – less than two per cent of the total – and are desperately needed by women facing difficult circumstances: women who weren’t showing any pregnancy signs, women who were using contraception, young women in denial, women who discover at the 20 week scan that the foetus was severely impaired, women who suffer domestic violence, women who are delayed by the system and the list goes on. This tactic of focusing on later abortion, the least common of abortion procedures, is part of a step by step approach to making all abortion illegal.

But criminalising abortion does not make it go away, it makes it unsafe and it kills women - 68,000 die every year worldwide. A recent Guttemacher Institute & World Health Organisation study published in the Lancet showed very clearly that abortion occurs at approximately the same rate where it is broadly legal as where it is highly restricted by law.

In countries, such as Belgium and Holland, where more liberal abortion laws go hand is hand with comprehensive sex and relationships education and easy access to contraception and emergency contraception, the incidence of abortion is lower. Anyone with a serious interest in reducing the number of unintended pregnancies should follow that lead.

In the next few months abortion rights will be debated in Parliament as part of the government’s Human Tissue and Embryos Bill. Now is the time for the quieter majority to be heard and for our elected representatives to ensure that women’s rights to self-determination are recognised and better protected through progressive reform of the abortion law.

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4 comments from readers

Simon Icke
30 October 2007 at 00:00

'Perhaps you could to set up the country's first Muslim Women's Equal Rights Group? Or maybe create a safe house for women attacked by their own families, for choosing the wrong guy, or wanting a little freedom from her oppressive religious culture? Or is this not the kind of women's equality you want to get involved in? A little too much of a hot potato perhaps? Best turn a blind eye to such inequalities, it's not politically correct to get involved in such matters. With the multicultural society you helped create in the UK, it's ok to have a society within a society. Until recent press coverage of horrific honour killings it seems it was quite acceptable for mistreatment of women in these cultural ghettos to continue unabated. (The authorities didn't want to know about the abuse and violence towards women in these communities).

Best keep to the tried and tested white middle class feminist clap trap, you know demonising all western white men as selfish chauvinist. The right to choose for all women, maybe abortion on demand up to normal gestation (40 weeks) for whatever reason (perhaps because the unborn baby is male, you could advocate getting even on the males; as so many unborn healthy females are aborted at the moment, just because they are the wrong sex.......So I suggest like all rich middle class white feminist you should keep to being very selective with your women's equal rights. After all The Guardian must pay well for churning out your predictable, boring, men hating safe sound bites.'

Simon Icke
30 October 2007 at 00:03

Next time you meet a poor child from a poor neighbourhood, or a physically or mentally disabled person, or a person who has a cleft lip or club foot, or perhaps someone from an ethnic minority where males are more valued than females but were unfortunate to be born female instead of a wanted male….ask them as simple question, are you glad to be alive or do you wish your mother had excercised her right to choose; to abort you?

Joe
11 January 2009 at 18:52

The Act has killed over three MILLION women in the unborn stage, women whom the writer does not recognize as human beings. Why do abortionist advocates always fearfully avoid talking about the millions of human lives they have destroyed?

As for rights, there is no "right" to destroy human beings. Abortion is a "crime" not a "right" and should be recognized as such. We human beings have a fundamental and inalienable right to live a human lifespan, despite the "arguments" of the abortionist movement that ALL human beings can be destroyed.

Joe
11 January 2009 at 19:02

Abortion violence since 1967 has destroyed the lives of over three MILLION women in the unborn stage. Why does not Quesney mention anything about this? Is she afraid to deal with the horror which she so strongly supports?

Abortion violence is not a "right", it is a crime and it should be treated as such.

What is so distressing about anti-life activists such as Quesney is that they always show the same cold blooded and ruthless disregard for the humanity of unborn human beings that has characterized opponents of unborn human rights for more than forty years.