Abortion

I'm sure that I've blogged about abortion before, but with the crucial MP vote tomorrow I feel compelled to do so again.

Tomorrow MP's will vote about reducing the limit from 24 weeks. It sounds reasonable - just knock a couple of weeks off, after all some babies survive at 22 weeks. Well it's much more sinister than that I'm afraid. In the debate about abortion we hear about viable foetuses and premature babies but the plight of women is totally obscured. In the discussion about human rights and humanity, women are sadly excluded. They are not pro life - they are pro controlling women's bodies and few spare a thought for the woman who would be forced to carry an unwanted foetus to term.

We can't make laws based on the fact that a few babies survive - it's a tiny percentage and most have serious disabilities. Those with religious arguments should also be excluded - law and religion should be totally separate. Plus only 1.5% of abortions take place at 24 weeks anyway and these are women - or girls - who are frequently among the most vulnerable members of society. Girls who didn't know they were pregnant, or ignored it for fear of what might happen. Women who have disabilities, women in domestic violence situations or who have suffered personal traumas like the death of a husband or partner. Do we really want to live in a society that says to these damaged women "tough luck, you MUST carry the foetus to term". Of course what happens to the baby afterwards, the pro-lifers don't care about. Maybe it will end up in care or worse - but where are the so-called caring anti-abortionists then? What about the reckless women who have frequent abortions and aren't vulnerable, some people ask? My answer to them would be to ask whether they think they would make good mothers, just because they are forced to have that baby?

At the end of it all, women should have a choice over what happens to their bodies. Any further restrictions in abortion legislation won't stop it or reduce it. It will just lead to more vulnerable women being in increasingly worse predicaments and more backstreet abortions and unwanted babies. That is not desirable. Of course it's not desirable either that we should have the highest abortion rate in Europe - but that should be about preventing pregnancy in the first place rather than restricting abortion.

So while I might not have an abortion myself, I passionately defend a woman's right to choose. Her life should always come before that of the unborn foetus.

Pro lifers? don't make me laugh!