Documentary-maker Poppy Jay’s new film has a title guaranteed to make my hackles rise, and perhaps the hackles of many others in a country that polls nearly 90% support for a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy: Young, British and Anti-Abortion. It’s an investigation into gen Z’s increasing presence among those who would seek to circumscribe or cancel that right. It looks at how they are looking to reposition the debate as a human rights issue rather than a religious one, and how they are emboldened by the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US two years ago. Jay meets a variety of young activists who hope that once again when the US sneezes, we will catch cold.
Eden McCourt does most of her work for Abortion Resistance through TikTok. She says that though she is religious (a Google search reveals that she is a writer for the Catholic Herald), her views are secular and were formed largely through the experience of her parents refusing to terminate a pregnancy because the foetus had a severe, life-limiting genetic disorder. Instead her mother gave birth to her sister, Josephine, who died when she was four, but was “the happiest child I ever met”.
