I had an abortion and I will keep fighting for this right for all

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/27/jess-phillips-i-had-an-abortion-and-will-fight-for-rights-for-everyone

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One thing might be pulled out of what I am writing, the most pedestrian thing, the most common. But it will still be the thing that is talked about even if I am simply one in every four women. My abortion was nothing special. I cannot remember the date it happened. I never wonder. It was my third pregnancy and I have gone on to have another since then.

Still, I wrote a book about speaking the truth and didn’t include this fact. I like to think it’s because it’s not a big deal, but the truth is I still worried about the reaction, especially from my constituents. But the women in Ireland telling their stories inspired me and the result gives me faith in how far we’ve come.

I have two memories of it. The first was bumping into the doctor who had done my consultation in the wine aisle at Sainsbury’s. I felt awkward, but of course he didn’t recognise me – I am one in four, remember. The second thing was the waiting room. I remember the luggage of the women I sat among, each bag with Ryanair flight tags on. These women were not a mile from their home. They would never run in to the clinic staff in their local Sainsbury’s. These women had been trafficked by a state incapable of taking responsibility for their health.

I wept every day last week, not for what might have been but, instead, with hope for what was coming in Ireland. I shall allow myself this week to read every uplifting story told on #hometovote. I can now fold up my slogan T-shirt and put away my “Repeal” necklace and fight again, because we must not convince ourselves that the battle has been won.

Vigilance is vital. When I went with my husband to that clinic, there were no protesters outside, no one filmed me, shouted at me, made me feel as if I was a murderer. The same cannot be said for today. Today, there are protesters and we are fighting the backlash of wars we thought we had won.

In Wales and Scotland, braver policymakers than those who sit in Westminster have ensured that women seeking early abortion pills from the NHS can undergo the process (akin to having an early miscarriage) in the comfort and security of their homes.

Currently, women are forced to sit in a clinic to take the medication and in the worst cases then have their “miscarriage” on the bus home. I have had a miscarriage and I can tell you I would rather not have done so on the bus from Waterloo.

No legislation is needed to make this happen; it is simply a decision in the gift of the chief medical officer in each nation, in agreement with their health minister. So come on, Jeremy Hunt, why are you so silent?

Theresa May claims to be a unionist. However, she seems to ignore that she is in fact the prime minister of Northern Ireland as well, where women are still unable to access abortion at home. In spite of the glorious decision in the Republic of Ireland, there will still be Ryanair bags at Birmingham abortion clinics but from Belfast instead of Dublin and Cork.

Challenge the government on this and they will spout stuff about devolution, which doesn’t really stack up when thinking of women miscarrying on buses in Bury St Edmunds. So it shouldn’t make any difference to women in Belfast either. Political will is what it takes. There is no way, for example, that May would allow Northern Ireland to stop all cancer care.

Every time Labour women get together to try to press forward on the issue of women’s reproductive rights, we sit in fear that we cannot push for any shift in our own laws (unchanged since 1967) because we worry that our efforts could backfire and result in us going backwards. Maria Caulfield MP, the Conservative vice-chair for women, says she wants to start the debate of reducing the time limit on abortion to 12 weeks.

The only time I have ever been made to feel like a stupid girl who killed her baby was listening to Caulfield speaking in parliament on the issue. I was in fact the married mother of one at the time of my abortion. The government gave some of the proceeds of the tampon tax money to a pro-life (that is, anti-choice) charity to spread their bile. Our worries are real. Theresa May and her “I am a feminist” T-shirt do not bring me comfort.

We must not take our eye off the ball – we can cheer for our Irish sisters this week but this week we must press on, because while Ireland steps forward much of the world steps back. Perhaps my stepping forward – revealing my abortion –will be newsworthy in a way Jeremy Hunt’s prostate exam wouldn’t be. The battle to make women’s health a mundane reality is far from won.