My mother remembers that, when she was a child, a friendly woman, probably in her thirties, lived next door. One day, that woman was gone. Another neighbour had helped her carry out a “backstreet abortion” – in the days when terminating a pregnancy was illegal but coathangers were not – and she’d bled to death in her own home.
I don’t even know her name. But I thought of that poor woman this week when MPs voted overwhelmingly to stop women in England and Wales being prosecuted for ending a pregnancy outside the law – for instance, after 24 weeks. Thank goodness, I thought, we live in a nation where women no longer have to risk death or imprisonment in desperate situations.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from a decade of writing about abortion – speaking to women, joining pro-choice marches and questioning anti-abortion protesters holding rosary beads and praying outside clinics – it’s this. Whichever side you’re on (and it’s not always black or white), it’s easier to make your case if you’ve engaged with those who don’t agree with you. In this deeply emotive debate, talking it out is not only helpful but essential.
So, on this heatwave weekend, if you’re going to a family gathering or having barbecue with friends, and the topic comes up? Don’t shy away from it.
It’s why I listened this week as LBC presenter Shelagh Fogarty told listeners of her lunchtime radio show: “I am horrified by what happened in the Commons yesterday… I feel sad and deeply worried.”
I expect many of us will have a woman in our lives who feels this way about Tuesday’s vote, which saw MPs give abortion law its biggest overhaul in 50 years. No longer will women in England and Wales be prosecuted using an 1861 law designed for Victorian backstreet abortionists.
Women will no longer be pulled from their hospital beds following a miscarriage and investigated on suspicion of causing their own late abortion (yes, this happened, and recently). But I also know that not everyone feels the same way, even my fellow women.
You might know one of them – your mum, grandmother or aunt; a friend, sister or colleague. We need to be able to have these conversations with each other and not avoid it out of shame or fear (or how ever do we hope to have them with men?)
So here’s your basic toolkit for talking to a woman in your life who feels worried about what decriminalisation means. First, don’t approach them with a “you’re so ignorant” stance – tempting though it might be – especially an older woman. They fought many of these battles first, or have had decades to think about them. Softly, softly.
It’s also best to shelve any arguments over when a clump of cells becomes a foetus or becomes a baby – if you disagree on that straight away, it’s probably game over.
Fogarty mentioned “Sarah”, who called her show to share how she’d experienced mental health issues at 35 weeks pregnant and felt the only way out was an abortion. It had helped Fogarty understand, she said, how “demanding, exacting and desperate a pregnancy can be for some women”.
That’s what you’re going for: compassion and an appreciation that no woman who procures her own abortion, late into a pregnancy, is doing so just because they can. It’s not “abortion on demand”. These women – and there are very few, around 0.1 per cent of all abortions each year – are vulnerable, backed into a corner, sometimes being coerced. They need help, not prison.
So talk about Nicola Packer, who took abortion medication thinking she was less than 10 weeks pregnant and, when she went to hospital and discovered she was actually 26 weeks, was thrown in the back of a police van. She was finally cleared last month after a criminal trial. Or Carla Foster, who was jailed in 2023 after taking abortion pills between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant and at a time of serious distress. She was sentenced to 28 months and denied access to her other children, one of whom has special needs. She was freed after a public outcry, but not cleared.
It’s hard to see how locking these women up does anything useful. Deter others? The tiny number who are so very desperate enough to do this won’t be deterred, though they may be put off from seeking medical care. And it’s heartbreaking to think of women suffering the tragedy of miscarriage or stillbirth being treated with suspicion, not sympathy. “Even if you’re opposed to abortion, you can understand why the law shouldn’t be used in that way,” says Katherine O’Brien from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.
Next: demystify. I’ve seen one too many social media posts saying “abortion is now decriminalised in the UK up to the day of birth”. Except, it isn’t. The Abortion Act 1967 requires a termination to be approved by two doctors and it can be performed until 24 weeks (10 weeks for pills by post), unless there are exceptional circumstances such as the woman’s life being at risk. That still stands. A doctor who performs an abortion after 24 weeks, without there being exceptional circumstances, can be prosecuted. Now, a woman who ends her own pregnancy after 24 weeks, or without two-doctor approval, cannot.
Stay calm. But if they can’t? If language like “murderers” or “evil” comes up? Take a moment or agree to continue the conversation another time. You can’t pretend the other side doesn’t exist, but you can be safe in the knowledge that you’re on the right side of history.
