One morning some years ago I was at a clinic in Brighton, having an appointment about an upcoming abortion. An odd winter, my second away from home, I was brittle and irritated with adult life. And I was confused when, suddenly, the woman turned the ultrasound screen round and told me to look at the heartbeat. The clinic’s window looked towards the sea, near a nightclub where I worked on the door, and I remember looking at her, then out of the window, then at the screen, where her finger hung by the black image for what felt like many minutes. I felt puzzled at the time, later shocked, today horrified.
I was reminded of that day twice recently: first when I heard about an anti-abortion charity in Scotland that gives ultrasound scans to women considering terminations, and then again when I read about a recent case in America. A teenager asking a judge for an abortion was told to have an ultrasound because (said the judge), “If the proposed mother is shown the ultrasound, they will change their mind.” By humanising the embryo they try to psychologically coerce the woman into going through with a pregnancy she knows she shouldn’t have.
I’ve had plenty of ultrasounds since that one, including weekly scans when there were concerns about the small baby I was carrying, and years later to confirm a miscarriage, and some in the weeks leading up to a lockdown birth. Each time, I’ve been aware of the same strange tension and vulnerability, as a stranger looks into your body at something you don’t know how to see.
There is a particular mystery to the ultrasound experience. In early pregnancy there’s little to no evidence that anything has changed – life continues, you tell nobody, you watch for blood. So the fact that now it is possible to witness, with your eyes, some proof of a future, is seductive for those who want a baby. Which is why it’s no surprise that private scanning businesses are multiplying. In a survey of 2,000 pregnant women in 2017, one-third paid for private scans during pregnancy, with 36% citing anxiety as a reason. The BMJ reports that more than 250 have appeared on UK high streets in recent years, replacing the Topshops, the Burtons.
The NHS typically offers two scans, at 12 and 20 weeks, but “souvenir scanning” meets demand from women who want extra reassurance, charging up to £250 for things like “Doppler scanning”, which audibly simulates the foetal heartbeat. Some offer teddy bears implanted with your baby’s heartbeat, which to me feels distinctly cursed. But unlike the NHS, staff are not required to be qualified in obstetric ultrasonography.
Loopholes mean they are largely unregulated, and inaccurate interpretations can give women false reassurance or increased anxiety. The Ferret reported on a woman who was advised she had lost her pregnancy, only to be told later by an NHS clinic that it was progressing normally. Two weeks ago a couple in Cheshire became the first in the UK to be convicted of running a “black market” baby scan clinic, Precious Glimpse, which put patients at “horrendous risk” during the pandemic.
There is a lot of money to be made from maternal anxiety, because there is so little for a soon-to-be-parent to hold on to, and so much that can go wrong. At one end of the market you have the gadgets, like “kick trackers” or obnoxious little headphones to stick to your belly so the foetus hears classical music and gets clever. At the other, you have these scans, used often by women who have miscarried in the past and are willing to pay for reassurance. It’s amazing that this technology is available – it’s an always astounding, powerful experience. But with that power comes responsibility.
While most private scans will no doubt finish with a jolly keyring or haunted teddy, there are others that end in question marks. Without proper training, the person doing the ultrasound has the potential to do real damage. And if that technology is manipulated by someone who’s brought their narcissistic politics to the room, to the room where a vulnerable woman has gone to ask for help terminating a pregnancy, they have the power to shame or scare them into changing their mind.
When I was in that Brighton clinic, I felt awkward for the woman showing me the screen. Mortified for her, in fact. I thought she’d be embarrassed when I reminded her why I was there, but no. She was not. And while the experience didn’t make me think twice about having an abortion – it was a simple decision, I needed not to be pregnant – it did return to me years later when I was having a baby. It unsettled me, the way she had forced a psychic thread between that procedure and the wanted pregnancies I went on to have in adulthood. Those ghostly images landed differently. But it didn’t bring shame; in fact the opposite. It’s made me even more aware of the importance of ensuring women’s decisions around pregnancy are protected, and not exploited for profit or politics in these increasingly insidious ways.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @EvaWiseman
