As a happily childfree woman who intends to stay that way for life, I'm a member of several groups on Facebook where the childfree can get together and discuss the various issues we encounter in a society that still seems to view women who don't wish to reproduce with, at best, suspicion and at worst, outright hostility. One of the discussion topics that seems to come up with regularity is abortion, which is not entirely surprising as pretty much everyone on the group seems to be pro-choice. I don't really see how you could intend to stay childfree for life and not believe in the right to abortion on demand, but anyway. While the majority of commenters tend to be agreed on the need for abortion access, any discussion about it inevitably includes some kind of comment about 'people using abortion as birth control' or 'people who wait 20 weeks then get a late-term abortion'. Firstly, I always wonder why, when it's obviously impossible to legislate to account for all the possible reasons someone might want an abortion, anyone even bothers making a comment such as 'I think it's fine to get abortion if X, Y and Z [the implication being that if you were just let down by your contraception, or raped, or the foetus had serious abnormalities, you somehow are more DESERVING of the abortion] but if you just weren't careful then I don't think you should get one'? Does anyone actually think doctors are going to start asking women for proof that they've 'been careful' or were raped, or aren't just 'using abortion as birth control', and does any pro-choice person actually think that's a desirable state of affairs?

Similarly, the discussion about late-term abortion always seems to involve a similar abandoning of the sense and logic that I would usually expect from pro-choice people. Even though 91% of abortions in the UK are carried out at 13 weeks or less, and abortions are being performed earlier and earlier thanks to better detection rates, there is often a disproportionate focus on later abortions, presumably because the more 'it looks like a baby', the more emotive people tend to get about the issue of terminating a pregnancy. What people tend to forget that, however distasteful they might find the idea of a 6 month old foetus being terminated, UK doctors technically have the right to terminate the foetus right up to the point of birth if the mother's life is actually in danger, so there's no point pretending that, under our law, the foetus' 'right to life' ever trumps the mother's right to live, however developed it is - because as long as it's inside the mother's body, there are always circumstances under which it could still be terminated.

What got me thinking about all this was reading an article from The Times, published in July this year, which described the work of Dr Susan Robinson, who performs abortions at a clinic in New Mexico, where there are no time limits on the gestational age at which abortions can be performed. I was interested to hear someone on the front line respond to those who believe that abortion should be granted to women if they have 'earned' the right through an unfortunate mishap, but not if they had simply been careless, or 'left it too long'. I hear these arguments far too often, even from those who are supposedly pro-choice, and I wonder if they genuinely believe that any woman gets pregnant, sits around for 20 or 24 weeks and then says 'Hey ho, better go see about an abortion'. As someone for whom children are simply not an option, I know that the first inkling of pregnancy would send me straight to the pharmacy to find out the truth, and then straight to the doctor to, as Ellen Page's character puts it in Juno, 'nip it in the bud'. I also know however, that I am a healthy, well-off middle-class woman living in a 1st world country where abortion is available locally, quickly and for free. So it interested me to read some statistics on abortions carried out at 25 weeks and beyond. In a study of 268 cases in the US, Glenna Halvorson-Boyd found that 29 percent of these women had experienced no symptoms of pregnancy - either they still had periods, or had had erratic periods to begin with (I fall into the latter category - the progesterone-only pill Micronor means I don't menstruate, so I do not have any periods to 'miss' in the first place). Another 19 percent were 'overwhelmed by extraordinary circumstances, such as homelessness or drug addiction'. I think even those who wish to 'punish' women for being so 'irresponsible' as to wait 25 weeks to end a pregnancy might think twice about the wisdom of forcing a homeless or heroin-addicted woman to become a mother.

A further 18 percent were told that the foetus was very ill late in pregnancy - another unfortunate aspect of biology that a lot of people forget. Many foetal abnormalities don't show up until the 20 week scan, which means women in 8 American states may have to carry seriously ill foetuses to term, as the law in their states prohibit abortions after 20 weeks. 2 percent of post 25-week abortions were carried out on 'teen athletes who did not menstruate', and 3 percent on women pregnant from rape. Another 3 percent 'had planned to have their baby until their circumstances dramatically shifted (most were abandoned by the man, but one was diagnosed with cancer'. Ever noticed that those who are most disapproving of abortion are also those who tend to have a massive downer on single mothers, deeming them to be the root of most social ills? So I wonder what solution they would advise, if a woman is pregnant and then her partner walks out on her, cheats on her or starts to beat her? Which reminds me - two women out of these 268 'had only been able to reach an abortion provider after escaping from abusive captors'. And in one case 'a pro-life doctor may have intentionally misled the woman', telling her she was not pregnant.

So, not so much a case of pregnant woman sitting on the sofa scoffing Doritos until 6 months have passed, and more a case of factors such as unreliable biology, money, health, life shitting in your lap and male coercion/violence combining together to create a world where late-term abortions are still very much necessary.

However, even if the woman exists who does 'use abortion as birth control' and doesn't take responsibility for her fertility in a way we might like, it's still not for any of us to judge. Either abortion is available to us all for whatever reason, or 'trusting women' means nothing. If we have to be treated like Oliver Twist begging for what is rightfully ours, we cannot call ourselves full or free citizens. Men's reasons for wanting to have a safe, legal medical procedure (a procedure which, in this case, has a risk of death 14 times LOWER than that associated with childbirth) are not questioned or attacked, and neither should women's. As Susan Robinson says, she trusts all the women who come to her "have good reasons... They may not be the reasons that you would need or I would need... But who am I to tell somebody that their story is not good enough?".

Saturday Morning at the Clinic

It was a hot and sunny Los Angeles morning and we were standing on the dirty paving stones as the traffic blasted past. The sidewalk was narrow, with a constant flow of people trying to get past, to the 7-11, to the dry-cleaners - it was not a comfortable place to be. So why we were there? Because they were there.

They were a mixed group - from a young, olive-skinned man who looked to be in his 20s, to a white man probably in his 60s. A Hispanic lady in her 30s had brought two beautiful young boys with her, wide-eyed long-lashed angels no older than five. A tall, grey-haired man in a light green polo shirt with mirrored aviator shades walked up and down the pavement handing out small business-size cards. And a lady with a too-perfect dyed red bob cut and a face that betrayed the effects of more than one cosmetic procedure slithered up and down the pavements at such an eerily slow pace she appeared to be in a trance. There were a few others, but they were the ones I noticed.

What did this diverse group have in common? Well, they were all clutching rosary beads. They were all murmuring in prayer, and at one point recited the entire rosary in one voice. But the thing that united them was something no one actually mentioned - that they were all anti-abortion, and they were there to try to persuade, intimidate or emotionally blackmail the women who passed them into eschewing the services of the women's clinic around the corner.

They couldn't go any closer to the clinic than this sidewalk, which gave those entering the clinic a buffer zone and, if they came in via car, a chance to enter unmolested. But anyone on foot would have to walk the gauntlet of people praying, swaying, murmuring, and be handed a card depicting pictures of miscarried foetuses.

We were a smaller group, but still diverse. Male and female, white and Hispanic, mothers and childfree. Orange-vested, we stood and chatted and smiled, breaking away every now and then to tell a passer-by 'These are protesters. You don't have to listen to them, you don't have to take anything from them' or to offer to dispose of the disturbing card they'd just been handed. A young woman who was clearly disgusted by the image she'd just been presented with gratefully handed the card over saying, 'Yes, please, throw it away'. A young man looked at the card and boomed 'I don't need to see that shit, I got one on the way'.

A Hispanic lady left the clinic and leaned against the outside wall, clearly waiting to be picked up. Green Polo Shirt swooped in like a vulture, handing her a card. I followed quickly and asked if she wanted me to throw it away. She said it was OK, then asked me what we were doing. I explained that we were volunteers there to help women get into the clinic without harassment, and that the other group were anti-abortion protesters. The woman told me she had just had a tubal ligation and was feeling dizzy. I found it hard to quash my anger that in the middle of a sweltering day, having just had an anaesthetic and an invasive procedure, this woman was being bothered by proselytisers handing her an image likely to make most of us feel queasy even if we hadn't just undergone an operation. The woman pointed out that the clinic provides many other services other than abortions, and delicately said of the protestors 'I think these people are a little confused'.

A college-age white woman stood looking at the protestors for a while. I stepped forward and told her she could ignore them. 'Oh no,' she said, breaking into a smile. 'I think they're great!'. She gave the group a thumbs up as she walked past them. I cringed inside to see a young person so supportive of those wishing to take her bodily autonomy away, but I suppose her 'Catholic University' hoodie should have given me a clue that I wasn't going to win this one.

A fellow escort told me that she had formed a 'good relationship with some of the protestors', and that she even swapped stories of motherhood with one of the anti-choice women. The shouting, confrontation and violence my partner and I had been expecting were nowhere to be found, although we were told that this was not necessarily a typical example, with other clinics being much more beseiged. Instead, the protestors murmured their prayers, and the two little boys played on the sidewalk, at one point even wrapping their mother's rosary beads around themselves and pretending it was a seatbelt. I had to laugh at that one.

It was the later shift so most women were already inside the clinic and we didn't have to do any real 'escorting' - it was more just like a quiet turf war to see who could influence pedestrians the most. So many people accepted the dead-foetus-picture cards without a blink, and only a few threw them away. I suppose it's just a reflex to put out your hand when someone comes towards you offering something. Some groups walked through the protestors totally oblivious - the most likely group, I was heartened to see, being teenage girls, preoccupied with their cellphones and conversations. The protestors didn't even register to these groups, and for once I was grateful for the self-obsession of adolescents.

Gradually the protestors peeled off, and as the mother walked her two boys away they grinned and shouted a cheery 'Goodbye!' to us. Their mother pulled them away angrily. We waited until the last protestor had left, then called it a day. 

I hoped we had done something good, but I couldn't be sure how effective we'd been. Despite our orange shirts stating 'PRO CHOICE ESCORT' in huge letters, many people seemed unaware of what we were doing. A man even congratulated us, under the impression that we were protestors. 

What I wondered most was how the protestors would have been able to justify their actions without religion to hide behind.

Possibly the most depressing news of the year so far...

...is the article on P13 of today’s Independent, titled ‘US-style anti-abortion protestors target clinics in Britain’. The picture of a frankly ridiculous looking ‘pro-life’ protester in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-type mask holding up the obligatory doll does undermine the notion that these woman-hating loonies actually pose any serious threat to our rights, but the article still makes for uneasy reading.

Apparently a Texas-Based group calling itself 40 Days For Life has begun targeting abortion clinics in the UK, clearly no longer satisfied with just harassing and browbeating women born on American soil. They call their actions ‘peaceful, prayerful and [a] legal vigil’, a claim not exactly borne out by the fact they have been filming women and staff walking into clinic (presumably to ‘name and shame’ those goddamn whores who dare to kill cute ickle babbas) and pressing misleading literature on women seeking abortion. Oh, that old literature, with its claims about all those terrible ‘risks’ of terminating a pregnancy. I love the way they never get around to pointing out that giving birth is actually 11 times more likely to prove fatal than having an abortion. And that there’s no such thing as ‘post-abortion syndrome’. And that the only thing that’s likely to cause a woman mental trauma or depression is being prevented from GETTING THE FUCKING ABORTION WHEN SHE NEEDS IT. But I guess the only people to acknowledge such facts are ones who see women as autonomous, full human beings deserving of respect – instead of as wombs on legs.

I don’t know who in the article is more deserving of my contempt, the male British head of 40 Days for Life who claims “I am pro choice. But I am not pro-choice about rape, burglary, kidnapping or killing children”(because a 12-week old zygote is the same as a child. Riiiiight), or the British paediatrician joining in harassing women and staff outside the London Marie Stopes clinic, who claims “We’ve seen seven clinics close because of our vigils and at least 3100 women, who were going to have an abortion, but didn’t”. Sure they didn’t just go to another clinic where your unevolved, woman-hating asses weren’t outside giving them shit, sista? Jesus fucking christ.

Darinka Aleksic, campaign co-ordinator at Abortion Rights, gets right to the crux of what these crusaders are actually up to. “We are strongly in favour of women receiving as much support, counselling and information about abortion as possible. But we’re worried about the tenor of a lot of the advice being given out by these picketers. There’s a lot of emphasis on guilt and misleading scientific information.” Yesss, you can just never quite get away from guilt when it comes to religious, right-wing propaganda, can you? Ms Aleksic is being pretty fucking restrained in her comments in a way I’m not sure I could manage – my own phrasing would probably go a little along the lines of “they can’t stand the idea of all women not being barefoot, pregnant and chained to the kitchen sink, so they’re making sure they shame women a) for daring to have sex in the first place and b) for wanting bodily control, by haranguing them at a time when they’re already vulnerable, with sinister propaganda that prioritises the rights of a ball of cells over a living human. What a bunch of retarded, Bible-bashing, misogynistic losers”.

What’s more disheartening than the fact that the American lunatic fringe has invaded our peaceful shores with its slut-shaming, “weren’t things great back in 1830 before these bitches got too uppity?” attitude, is the short post-script to the article reflecting on the erosion of British abortion rights. When the motion to reduce the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks was voted on two years ago in Parliament, the three men who are now respectively the current PM, Foreign Secretary and Health Secretary, voted in favour of it. Therese Coffey, a newly elected Tory MP, has put forward a motion requiring women “seeking an abortion on mental health grounds to receive counselling and be warned of possible risks to their mental health”.

It may all sound fairly minor in comparison to the insane assaults on abortion rights in the States (having to have an ultrasound before you abort, anyone? Having to sign a death warrant for that cute li’l baby you murdered, bitch?), but you’ve only got to look across the Atlantic to see where this insidious, piece-by-piece, peeling away of abortion rights is getting its ideas from. The motion by Coffey particularly disturbed me, and not just because of the total lack of evidence that abortion causes any other mental sensation for women than one of RELIEF. As someone who has mental health problems in my past and hence on my medical records, I’m concerned that should I ever require an abortion, the validity of my request for one would be called into question by that very fact. The idea of having to be ‘counselled’ – which in any pro-life/anti-choice arena means, having your decision aggressively questioned and undermined, and fed anti-abortion propaganda – before you’re ‘trusted’ to undertake a procedure which should be available on demand and without apology, makes me shudder.

I just hope that, if this bizarre, condescending motion actually gets taken seriously in parliament, and it sparks ‘a renewed debate on abortion laws’, that the debate results in these audacious erosions of women’s rights being brought to full light, and both MPs and the wider world reflecting on just how woman-hating, freakish and sinister they are. And realising our laws need to stay the way they are for very good reasons.

Women, men, politicians and doctors who are pro-choice trust women. Anyone who is 'pro-life', or, let's call it what it really is - anti-choice, mistrust, and therefore wish to oppress women. It’s as simple as that.