For women in the USA, the dystopia started in 2022 when Roe versus Wade was overturned, and since then a women’s right to choose has decreased in America and in some states completely. For the UK, questions arise on whether this could happen to us here and what it would look like. Three women, with individual experiences and contrasting opinions suggest what it could mean if America’s abortion culture became our reality
“Pro-life is not the right phrase. America is anti-abortion.These people who say they are pro- life are not against capital punishment, so you have to make sure that you don’t fall into the trap of using their language.” Says Wendy Savage.
Aged 89 and now retired, Wendy was the first female consultant to be appointed in obstetrics and gynaecology at The London Hospital and a campaigner of women’s rights in childbirth and fertility. She has worked in various countries, including New Zealand where she set up an abortion service before it became legal .She now continues to advocate at Doctors for Choice UK, a group of healthcare professionals who campaign for a women’s right to choose.
She said “Although we speak the same language we are different in many ways and there has always been much more polarization. We do not have the same evangelical christian movement in the UK as there is in the United States and so whilst I think we have to be vigilant I don’t think that because America has gone in that direction that this country will go.”
“There has never been the same ability for women to get contraception easily in the United States as it has been in this country. When I went to America in 1962, you could not buy condoms for contraception,it was not legal, access to contraception has always been much less secure than it has been in the United Kingdom.”
She argues that the UK’s culture around abortion differs to the US in many ways, one of which includes protests outside of abortion clinics, a popular aspect of America’s anti- abortion movement which has recently been banned here in the UK.
“It is a private decision and that is the way it should be and it’s intimidating to be going outside of abortion clinics and harassing women, showing them little fetuses.”
However, the new ban doesn’t come without controversy from the anti-abortion movement in the UK.
Eden McCourt, anti- abortion activist of 10 years and co-founder of Abortion Resistance, a youth-led and focused organization against abortion says “I am completely against buffer
zones. I think it is extremely dangerous to dictate where people can stand and what people can do. I think this is a really dystopian, Orwellian law that has no place in civilized society.”
Eden featured in BBC’s documentary “Young, British and Anti-abortion” where she discussed why she is so passionately against abortion.
“I am 100% anti-abortion for all elective circumstances. I think it’s an act of barbarism against the most innocent and vulnerable of all human beings and I think it is a disservice to women, men, families and society.”
Eden says that the anti-abortion movement is rising in the UK, particularly among young people. She added “The young people today are our future. I think it is important to try and cultivate respect for life from its earliest stages, that being fertilization.”
For young people like Sophie Williams, forced to make the distressing decision on whether to keep a baby they cannot provide for, she wishes the new law came into force sooner.
She said “Anyone who stands outside an abortion clinic to shout abuse at those women, to try and push their beliefs and opinions on those, to scare them into keeping that child is disgusting.”
Sophie was only seventeen when she chose to have an abortion. Struggling with ADHD and a poor relationship with the baby’s father, a drug user, she decided to terminate the pregnancy.
“I did the whole process on my own and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I think every female should have the right to an abortion, there are so many things behind the scenes that people don’t see or don’t know about that person. For a lot of people, it will forever be the hardest decision of their life but it’s the right one for them.”
The USA may differ in protesting rules, but the UK has recently been involved in discussion over tightening restrictions around the abortion pills-by-post scheme after a man used it to poison a woman and cause a miscarriage.
For Eden, who wants tighter restrictions she said “I think pills by post should be abolished. This isn’t about women in these industries, this is about money, this is about profit, they always do this, they put profit over people and profit over women.”
Wendy remembers when the pill was first introduced. She said “The controls over the abortion pills are more regulated than most dangerous drugs like morphine so when they became available, the controls over them became extremely stringent and you think, would this have been the case if it was a drug that was available for men, and the answer is no it wouldn’t have been.”
For Sophie, who understands the need for these medications she said “If I had control of abortion laws, I would make sure that every woman, no matter their circumstances, has the right to an abortion. Banning abortion pills will be the most dangerous thing the UK could do. People will end up going elsewhere or buying them illegally. Instead, they should be ensuring that abortion pills are better regulated and monitored to who they are given out to.”
Eden was asked what it would look like if she had control over abortion laws here, and whether it would look similar to America’s regulations.
“I would focus on trying to better society for families and parents before doing anything on abortion laws, but this is my utopia and with all those things put in place I would eventually ban abortion completely, no one would be able to get an abortion.” She said,
Wendy qualified in gynaecology and obstetrics seven years before abortion was legalised in the UK. She knows too well the horrors criminalising abortions can have on women.
“If you don’t provide safe, legal abortion then women will take it into their own hands and in that case they will die.”
“One of the reasons that the 1967 act did actually pass was because abortions had become the leading cause of maternal death and despite the fact that abortion was defined as a criminal act, every time a person was taken to court for curing an abortion, crowds of women demonstrated outside the court and it was quite clear that the mood of women was quite different.”
When questioned on this Eden responded “Abortion is never safe, there is an unborn human who will always die. I do think it should be unsafe for women to be able to kill their children, that’s just how the world should work, so killing people should be an unsafe end of. Point blank. Period. If it is unsafe for you to try and kill your baby, then maybe don’t kill your baby.”
Wendy was asked her stance on Eden’s viewpoint. She said “That’s their opinion. Women ought to die if they have an abortion. Abortion is part of healthcare, there is no other part of healthcare where you accept that women might die if they access it.”
“The people who take the law into their own hands are usually young with their whole lives,
ahead of them. It is very sad if young people are killing themselves when they don’t need to, when there is a safe, medically approved way of ending a pregnancy which does not mean that the woman dies. We have always had abortion in this country. The question is whether it is legal or not legal.” She added.
For young women like Sophie, finding out they were pregnant would have looked very different to what it does now. She emphasizes the importance of it staying that way in the UK.
“Pro-Life campaigners don’t always see the behind of it all. They take things for face value. Yes that child deserves a life, But it deserves a good life. That is more important than anything. I wish everyone who has never had an abortion knew that it isn’t a decision most of us take lightly. It is the hardest decision we will ever make, especially at a young age like I was. We live with it for the rest of our lives. For those who don’t agree with it, please take from this that having an abortion is hard, that child will always live alongside us, always in our thoughts, we just couldn’t give them the life they would’ve deserved.”
