The Current Conversation About Abortion In England Is Completely Missing The Point

This is your weekly instalment of WTF is going on because, these days, a lot can happen in a week…

These days, very little shocks me. I am, sadly, unsurprised by latent racism or xenophobia and always prepared for a male acquaintance/relative/stranger to explain my work at me without being invited to offer his opinion. I am no longer outraged when I learn that everyone I know who earns a home of their own does so because of hefty family handouts or that I somehow still owe more than I borrowed when I took out my student loan.

All of the above are, at best, met with shrugging ennui, an eye roll and a snap assessment of whether I have the energy to be angry. Often, the answer is 'not today'.

Recently, though, I have been shocked. When Ealing Council announced that they were implementing buffer zones around their abortion clinics to prevent anti-abortion protestors from hassling women seeking their services pretty much every expert worth listening to agreed this was a) a landmark moment and b) long overdue.

So why, then, did the BBC also present what they called 'the other side' of the debate? By 'the other side' I am, of course, referring to the so-called 'pro-life' movement. They were given a platform in print, on the radio and on the BBC website. The same happened during the coverage of the Abortion Act's 50 year anniversary last year. My question is why?

WATCH NOW: Meet The Women Fighting For Abortion Rights In Northern Ireland

Abortion in England is legal. It has been for 50 years. Surely the anti-abortion movement lost its credibility when abortion became legal. What exactly is it that's up for debate? Why are we still giving anti-women groups who like to dress themselves up as intellectuals well-versed in ethics a platform?

Aside from the fact that harassing women outside clinics is a dick move it's also a very shit campaigning strategy: intimidating women who access abortion has got to be on a level with having a go at your Uber driver and calling them a scab because of their zero hours contract instead of targeting the company itself or, you know, not taking Ubers if you don't agree with them in principal.

More than this, anti-abortion arguments (such as calling women murderers) just don't seem very well thought through. Earlier this year I met some anti-abortion protestors outside the Supreme Court in Westminster. I stopped to ask them why they were standing there in the freezing cold holding placards that denounced abortion as 'evil' on a Tuesday morning. Their answer? 'I'd prefer not to talk about it'. I had the same experience outside the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast. When I asked the protestors outside why they were there they mutely turned their backs on me.

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Perhaps they stayed quite because they know that the main arguments trotted out by anti-abortion protestors as fact are really nothing but myth, lacking any medical or scientific basis. Abortion leads to depression and suicide? Nope. Abortion causes cancer? Nope. Abortion reduces fertility? Not if it's a safe and legal abortion. The foetus can feel pain? Definitely not before 26 weeks, nope. Allowing abortion means that women go and get abortions willy nilly, restricting it reduces the numbers? That's right, you guessed it: nope. In fact, studies show that countries where abortion is illegal actually have higher abortion rates than those where it is allowed61786-8/abstract){href='http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61786-8/abstract' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'}.

Because there is no valid medical or clinical argument against abortion, no experts will condemn it. And yet, the BBC gives space to the views of people who have nothing better to do than stand around outside abortion clinics flapping around misleading laminated placards showing bloody foetuses without properly interrogating them.

This shouldn't come as a shock, I'm used to structural sexism at this point. And yet, it has been stuck buzzing around in my brain for the last week. In part it's because it seems so grossly out of step with what Scotland and Wales's governments are doing and saying. Only this week did Wales legalise home abortion, forcing a conversation in England about the future of women's abortion rights.

As Ireland's abortion referendum approaches even prominent Irish politicians are openly pro-choice, the Irish Health Minister Simon Harris is campaigning alongside Amnesty International encouraging men to talk about the importance of abortion in the hope that they too will vote in favour of legalising it.

If there is a debate to be had in our corner of Europe about abortion it is not whether or not women should be allowed to do what they want with their bodies but how we can improve the abortion services we currently have. While we're at it, let's talk about why the government in Westminster isn't doing more to force a conversation about abortion in Northern Irelandlike the one currently going on in Ireland. And, if we're going there, maybe we could unpick why some people are so worried about giving women increased freedoms and choices?

Anti-abortion arguments which hide behind free speech in order to espouse religious views about the 'sanctity of life' at this point seem so anachronistic that it's hard to understand why they aren't suspended in fossilised amber. Do those people who are prepared to campaign and protest against a woman's right to choose whether or not to have a baby also protest against other ways in which the 'sanctity of life' is all but disregarded: child poverty, homelessness, the wrongful threat of deportation to members of the Windrush generation, detainment without charge of people inside immigration removal centres or air strikes in Syria?

It's clear that anti-abortion arguments have nothing to do with the preservation of life and everything to do with misogyny. They're centred on the idea that women cannot be trusted and do not know what is best for themselves or any potential children they might have.

It's time for the media to stop giving validation to anti-abortion viewpoints and start raising up the voices of expert women - like Lesley Regan of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists or Clare Murphy of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service - who, if you ask them, will tell you that the question is not whether or not women should have abortions but why, 50 years after the Abortion Act, they are still so difficult to access (lack of at home abortion, waiting times, the need for two doctor sign off).

If we had that debate then maybe, just maybe, women in Britain would finally feel like their rights, freedoms and bodies were taken as seriously as men's.

If, like me, you're riled you can donate to Ireland and Northern Ireland's joint Abortion Rights Campaign here, Ireland's Together for Yes campaign here and find out more about Sister Supporter who fought hard for the buffer zone in Ealing here

Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.