Up until Monday afternoon, I thought I was pro-choice. I believed every woman has the right to choose what happens to her own body.
I accepted that people far more informed than me had decided that, after 10 weeks, abortions should take place in clinics, that they would usually be carried out up until 24 weeks, but that they could, in exceptional circumstances, happen at any point, right up to 40 weeks. As early as possible, as late as necessary.
And then something happened that made me question all my assumptions. A 44-year-old mother of three was put in prison for taking abortion pills at somewhere between 32 and 34 weeks, so beyond the legal time limit in this country.
She’d been sent them in the post as part of a lockdown scheme, after saying she was only seven weeks pregnant. She eventually gave birth to the baby, who wasn’t breathing and couldn’t be resuscitated by paramedics.
Prison seems wrong. But no consequences at all doesn’t feel right here either.
I wouldn’t be suggesting she went unpunished if she’d ended her baby’s life herself when it was outside her body, even if that was only a difference of a day, an hour, a minute. So does that mean I’m not pro-choice after all then?
I know I have huge empathy for this presumably desperate human being, who the judge acknowledged felt “very deep and genuine remorse” for her actions.
“You are racked by guilt and have suffered depression,” he added. “I also accept that you had a very deep emotional attachment to your unborn child and that you are plagued by nightmares and flashbacks to seeing your dead child’s face.”
Never mind 28 months in jail, this poor woman has a life sentence of pain stretching out before her. What could be worse? Although being separated from her kids, one of whom has special needs, must be torture too.
It’s impossible to imagine the circumstances that led up to her decision. And it’s hard to believe she was in her right mind when making it. Maybe living with what she’s done for the rest of her days is more than enough retribution.
So is my issue here not with what she did, but how she did it – and when?
If she’d gone through the proper channels, she would have been given support, help, advice, counselling. And all much earlier.
But am I allowed to be pro-choice with caveats? You can choose what happens to your body, as long as you choose it within the right timeframe, and with regulations, after going through a series of steps to make sure no one ends up regretting their decision either way?
Am I still pro-choice if I wonder if terminating a pregnancy once the baby might have survived if it was born should be done only in the most extreme circumstances?
Can you only be pro-choice if you’re exactly that? The woman’s right to choose –whenever, wherever, whyever. Simple as that?
This case is as complicated and confusing as it is tragic and sad. There are no easy answers. I still think I’m pro-choice – I know I want to be. The important word in that sentence is “think”, and that’s something we obviously need to keep doing here.
