An advertising agency has been forced to apologise after hosting an anti-abortion advert targeting MP Stella Creasy in her constituency of Walthamstow. The billboard featured a misleading image of a foetus alongside a link to a website called Stop Stella.
As well as the billboard, posters were seen in Walthamstow on Saturday, featuring a picture of Creasy next to images of a supposed ‘24-week-old aborted baby girl’ with the line, ‘your MP is working hard … to make this a human right.’ Protesters also gathered in Walthamstow.
Creasy’s stance on abortion rights is well-known and earlier this year, her amendment to extend abortion rights to Northern Ireland was approved by MPs by 332 to 99.
The overwhelming win is reflective of the UK’s general stance on abortion – 93% of the British pubic support of a woman’s right to choose. However,campaigns like this continue to intimidate women who have had or are thinking of having an abortion.
The campaign, set up by the UK branch of an anti-abortion organisation in America called the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, claims Creasy is ‘hypocritical’ because she herself is pregnant.
‘Stella Creasy deliberately conceals in all her public statements and dialogue on abortion - the humanity of the unborn child and what an abortion procedure actually entails,’ their website reads. ‘Yet when she is speaking about her own baby in her womb, and her previous miscarriages, she speaks openly on their humanity.’
Creasy has spoken out against the organisation and the advertising agency that profited from the campaign, Clear Channel – which has since promised to remove the billboard – stating that she is being targeted explicitly because she is pregnant. She has also expressed dismay at the refusal of the police to act.
Abortion Rights UK has similarly condemned the police, stating that they should have used a Pubic Space Protection Order to move harassers on as being pro-choice is the neutral position on abortion.
‘By refusing to act to stop this blatant and targeted harassment, the Met Police are not only putting Stella, who is currently heavily pregnant, at risk, they are sending the message that it is fair game to harass women seeking abortions,’ Kerry Abel, Chair of Abortion Rights, said in a statement.
Women in Walthamstow have also come out in support of their MP and her commitment to improving women’s lives.
‘I’m really angry that a woman who is standing up for women’s rights is being targeted by propaganda,’ Karen Ingala Smith, a Walthamstow resident, told Grazia. ‘I think it’s relevant that Stella Creasy has been open about the difficulties that she’s had with pregnancy and miscarriage before. To target a woman who is pregnant and who has had difficulties with pregnancy, to attack and put extra stress on her by people who say they care about the wellbeing of unborn foetuses – it is really hypocritical.’
Scarlet Harris, another Walthamstow resident, was forced to change her weekend plans after hearing about the billboard. ‘I was horrified when I saw the posters in my local community Facebook group,’ she said. ‘I had been planning to take my daughter to the library on Saturday afternoon but decided against it when I realised that we would have to walk past the protesters with an image of a foetus.
‘I know lots of people, men and women, have been really upset by the images but of course it's all the more distressing for a woman who has had an abortion, a miscarriage or a stillbirth,’ she continued. ‘I've talked to my daughter about abortion and she understands it but I still wouldn't want to walk past one of those posters with her. These campaigns are intended to cause distress.’
The Met Police’s response has caused frustration among residents, too. ‘I think it is important that the law is applied with equanimity,’ says Ingala Smith. ‘Stella Creasy was targeted because she is a high-profile woman, an MP, who is working to address inequality in the UK regarding women’s right to bodily autonomy.’
It seems that once again, women are screaming out to have their rights protected by those in place to serve them. And once again, they’re being ignored.
Read More: Nine potential realities of America's reverse abortion laws.
9 Potential Realities Of America's Reverse Abortion Laws
1 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
2 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
Governor Kay Ivey signed into a law, a controversial abortion bill that could punish doctors who perform abortions with life in prison. Under the bill, doctors could face 10 years in prison for even attempting to terminate a pregnancy.
3 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
Doctors in the same state who go ahead and complete the termination of a pregnancy, could be facing a life sentence. The act is legislated as a "Class A Felony" – others in the same category include first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree rape. For context, second degree rape – having sex with a minor or with someone who is incapable of consent due to mental disability or incapacity is a much lesser sentence of no more than 20 years in prison. Sexual abuse and incest is punishable by up to ten years in prison.
4 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
This is often a point at which a woman will not yet realise she is pregnant – especially if she has an irregular cycle or has taken the contraceptive or morning after pill and attributes a missed period to that. The number of weeks a woman is pregnant is calculated from the first day of her last period – though, conception usually takes place around two weeks after that when an egg is released. So for the first two weeks of pregnancy we're not really pregnant at all. Week five is the time that a woman will likely realise her period is late and, consequently, that she is pregnant. This leaves one week, if she is lucky, to procure an abortion.
5 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
The law in Georgia goes one step further than some of the other states that have imposed a six-week time limit on abortions, and considers fetus to be a "natural person", requiring full legal recognition, from the point of conception. Although the intention of the law as it is written, may not to be to punish women who are pregnant, as a worst-case scenario, women could find themselves criminally liable for carrying out their own abortion. Many have pointed out that further difficulties may arise when ascertaining whether a person has miscarried or aborted a pregnancy – sometimes the same drugs used to perform a termination are used during miscarriage to help the process. Laws similar to this have, in the past, led to gravely unjust and horrifying consequences for women. For instance in El Salvador, a country that still bans abortion outright, where women have been wrongly jailed after suffering miscarriages. Three women accused of having abortions and convicted of aggravated homicide were freed just this year, in March, after having served up to 11 years in prison.
6 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
Again, this may not be the primary intention of the law, but legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern writes for Slate that, 'A woman who miscarries because of her own conduct – say using drugs while pregnant – would be liable for second degree murder, punishable by 10-30 years imprisonment.'
7 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
Again, this is because lawmakers have voted to give foetuses 'full legal recognition' under Georgia law – making the abortion illegal even if it takes place out of state.
8 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
This could even be true of someone who simply drives another person to a clinic to procure a termination.
9 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
There are also currently three abortion clinics in Alabama. In the 1990s there were more than 20.
10 of 10Multiple states in America are signing bills to render abortion illegal at six weeks
Louisiana looks set to follow suit with a similar bill.