Just because it’s difficult, doesn’t make it right

A few of days ago an article popped up on my timeline. It was entitled How working in an abortion clinic changed my mind about terminations, and was written by a student midwife, Lucy Kelly. A bit ‘clickbaity,’ but I was baited and I clicked.

It is a beautifully written, convincing, strongly worded essay. The direction in which the author changed her mind (spoiler alert) was towards terminations. She wasn’t put off by what she bravely and compassionately witnessed, she was inspired by the fortitude of the women she met in that clinic. And some of what she wrote, yes, I do agree with. It is a terrible decision to have to make and I do not believe many parents take it lightly, whatever they decide.

But some of it, profoundly, no.

‘Women who are having late term abortions are only doing so if their baby will not have any quality of life outside the womb.’

Termination of pregnancy after 24 weeks may legally be considered, in the UK at least, on the grounds of foetal abnormality if there is a substantial risk that the child would suffer physical or mental abnormalities that would result in serious handicap. There is no definition, in the law, as to what constitutes a ‘substantial risk’ or a ‘serious handicap.’ Quality of life is not required to be evaluated.

Sadly, on this basis, women are undergoing mid and late term abortions of babies with Down syndrome, with spina bifida, with hydrocephalus, with cleft palate. Conditions which do not, necessarily, affect ‘quality of life,’ whatever that means. Let alone affect it so much as for it to be preferable to have no life at all. Who are we to decide, as mothers or as a society, that those lives are not worth living, or would be better not lived?

I was advised to abort my son at 38 weeks because his brain was not properly formed. Because he would likely never walk, talk or feed himself. Ours wasn’t one of those miracle stories you read in the Mail where the doctors are proved wrong. My son is indeed profoundly disabled – he will never walk, talk, feed himself. He will likely never roll, sit, or support his own head. However, I would dispute anyone who says he has no quality of life.

And, while the child’s quality of life may be one of the reasons (rightly or wrongly) for women to have a late term abortion, I know that it is not the only one. In fact, the child’s quality of life may be less important in the decision-making than the effect on the mother and any other members of the family. I know because I could have been one of those women. The arguments (and yes, there were arguments: painful, heated, lengthy and almost irreparable ones) surrounding our decision whether to abort, centred partly on our son’s likely quality of life, but partly on the impact on the rest of the family – myself, my husband, our at the time one-year-old daughter, the grandparents. Had we decided to abort – and don’t get me wrong, we very nearly did – it would have been in no small part for the latter reason: to ensure a better life for our existing daughter, to protect her from the isolation, stigma, and lack of opportunity that may come with being sibling to a disabled child. Protection that I believe could and should be achieved by changes in society: by inclusion, accessibility, support, kindness and a lack of judgment. Not by terminating the life of an innocent individual.

I do not doubt that the mothers, fathers, families, who choose abortion on the grounds of disability do so with much heart-searching. As, in fact, do those who choose abortion for other reasons. They may do it on the basis of misinformation. They may do it under strong pressure. They may do it because they truly believe they have no other option. But that does not make it right.

‘I cannot fathom how any politician can believe that they understand more about a woman’s health, and survival, than the doctor caring for her… This is not your life. This is not your pregnancy. This is not your experience. You do not get an opinion’

No, I cannot fathom that, but this is not just – or often even at all, except in incredibly rare and tragic circumstances – about the mother’s life. This is about – as Ms Kelly agrees from 24 weeks at least – a child’s life. The child whose life is at stake doesn’t get an opinion unless doctors, parents and policymakers give them one. That is our duty as a civilised and compassionate society – to give a voice to those who are voiceless.

‘Until you have lived this hell, made this decision, held the tension of two terrible fates and had the courage to make a choice that will break you to pieces, you do not get to judge a woman or decide what is best for her.’

I have lived this hell. I have made this decision. It still breaks me every single day. I am not judging these women; I am judging the circumstances they are placed in, the information they are given, the pressure that is brought to bear, and the expectations forced upon them by the misguided and mis-prioritised society that we live in.

I wonder if Ms Kelly is confusing respect for these mothers – which I share unreservedly – with agreement with their decision. Just because the decision was difficult, just because it was made thoughtfully, carefully, heartbreakingly, soul-searchingly… doesn’t make it right. The solution to this terrible, terrible dilemma is not to make it more acceptable, easier, less traumatic to abort a baby; the solution is to work change in our society so that it is easier to bear that baby, to birth that baby and to bring that baby up, whatever its nature and its circumstances.

**As a courtesy, I offered this piece to Spinoff, the site on which Ms Kelly’s article was published. They declined to publish, saying they weren’t ‘that kind of website’. I think it’s sad that they aren’t the kind of website that would like to show two perspectives on this issue; that they are willing to publish an opinion piece about a certain group of women, but not willing to publish the thoughts of one of those women; that they are not keen to be involved in working the kind of change in society that I describe above. I hope other readers will be**