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I send full support to the pro-choicers in the USA, and will return to them later. What concerns me, as a UK resident, is the international fallout that will inevitably follow this retrograde step. It has been roundly condemned by politicians worldwide, including President Biden, ex-president Barack Obama, the United Nations, the head of the World Health Organisation, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson. It is thought that it could affect abortion provision in Third World countries. As Devex says:
"This will be seen as a “first step” to “further erode access to abortion, using some of the same tactics,” Alexandra Johns, the executive director of the Asia Pacific Alliance for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, told Devex".
And - of course - millions of people who support women's rights and the right to abortion were deeply dismayed. I can cope, but the same cannot be said, to give just one example, for a poverty-stricken woman with an unwanted pregnancy in Mexico City who could now be denied a legal abortion thanks to a resurgent anti-abortion movement. Illegal abortions may well rise in number in the USA and other places.
But not everyone abroad condemned the ruling. Here in the UK, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) expressed a view shared publicly by the Vatican and many other "Pro-Life" bodies:
"SPUC’s Michael Robinson, Executive Director (Public Affairs and Legal Services), said: “This is a momentous day for justice, the rule of law and, most of all, for the US unborn and their mothers. In the face of violence, intimidation and disgraceful European Parliament interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation, the US Supreme Court has rightly ruled in favour of the US Constitution. Justice has prevailed".
Elsewhere, SPUC go on to say:
"SPUC’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Deighan said: “This is a monumental day for justice, the rule of law and, most of all, for the US unborn and their mothers...Given the extreme violence displayed by pro-abortion advocates in the weeks since the draft decision was leaked, and the increasing vilification of pro-lifers in the UK, the public can see how the violence of abortion can go hand in hand with political violence."
I'd forgotten about SPUC - such is their impact upon wider society. The last time I heard of them was back in the 70s, when marchers on a pro-Choice demo I attended wore "SPUC Off!" t-shirts. Their gloating is obvious, but their facts are questionable. Mr Robinson's claim that the Supreme Court's decision was a day for justice is highly dubious. The fact that ex-President Trump placed anti-abortion judges on the panel is manipulation, not justice. Had Trump appointed pro-Choice judges, we would have heard a different story from Mr Robinson and SPUC.
Deighan's claim that pro-lifers had been subjected to violence is laughable when it is recalled that pro-Life groups have committed murders (note the irony) of eleven abortion clinic staff members, including doctors, and carried out many criminal assaults. Just about every abortion clinic in the USA is picketed daily by aggressive anti-abortion groups; some of these groups have carried out arson attacks against those clinics. As the US channel, ABC News, said in June;
"Melissa Fowler, chief program officer at National Abortion Federation, said that NAF found that abortion clinics are not facing peaceful protests, but rather a “coordinated campaign” that threatens abortion providers".
Abortion is a topic that I have studiously avoided in the years since we started this blog. This is not just because it is a sensitive subject anyway, but because I have friends and family that hold different views to me on the subject. I do not want to upset them by what I have to say, but, given the present situation, my conscience demands that I speak out. The fact is that abortion is a subject over which there can be no satisfactory compromise. As a pro-Choice advocate, I believe that abortion is a natural human right for all women, guaranteed in legislation and by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As Amnesty International says:
" It is a basic healthcare need for millions of women, girls and others who can become pregnant. Worldwide, an estimated 1 in 4 pregnancies end in an abortion every year."
AI go on to say that women have abortions all the time, no matter what the law says. That is certain; outlawing abortion only drives it underground. Criminalising abortion, say Amnesty, only makes abortions less safe. This is true. Before abortion was legalised in the UK in the 1960s, women resorted to back-street abortionists whose methods were highly unsafe - sometimes lethally so.
That's my view, but I have to accept and pay due respect to the fact that for most anti-abortionists, this is not a matter of human rights, but a matter of religion.
Yes, the people in the picture above are on their knees. They are part of a Christian picket outside a UK abortion clinic, and they are praying for that clinic, and all other abortion clinics, to be closed down. I do not doubt the sincerity of those people, or others like them, but I know from experience that their arguments against abortion rights are often badly thought out and over-emotional. I'd like to give three examples of Christian pro-Lifers airing their views, two Roman Catholics and one Anglican, all taken from several decades and all memorable for what was said.
CASE ONE: Way back in the 1960s, just after abortion was legalised in the UK, a very nice and devout RC lady decided to tackle me on the subject of abortion. The conversation went something like this:
Lady: I don't know why you agree with abortion, Geoffrey, it's murder!
Me: Why?
Lady: My church says so.
Me: But not everyone is a member of your church.
Lady: It's still murder!
Me: But on what grounds do you describe it as murder?
Lady: Because my church says so.
CASE TWO: This happened in the noughties in a school where I was teaching. One teacher, a very nice man and, as in Case One, a devout Catholic, was discussing the then poor performance of the England cricket team. He insisted that it was all the fault of legalised abortion, as the number of babies lost to us since abortion was legalised meant that England had fewer cricketers to choose from.
CASE THREE: In a recent Facebook exchange, an Anglican friend declared his opposition to abortion by saying:
"I know tremendous people of my age who may well have been aborted if their mothers had been subjected to the social pressures that young or unmarried potential mums face today. I want them (i.e. unborn children) to be protected from summary execution!"
I don't want to comment on any of these three cases, as I think they speak for themselves of their lack of logic and over-emotionalism. Sadly, I think it shows that the differences between the opposing views on this topic are fundamentally irreconcilable. My last personal comment is to say that no-one is compelled to have an abortion against their will. It is, as said, a matter of choice.
Lastly, however, we must return to the USA, where the fight for abortion rights is heating up, and could well become nasty, if not downright violent. I send support to all in the US who believe that a woman's body is her own, but extend a warning: the real force behind the Supreme Court ruling - Donald Trump - is planning a return to the White House for a second term as president. He and his supporters will regard the overturning of Wade v Roe as a victory. Should Trump become president again, further reactionary measures will follow. We have been warned.
