We were disappointed to read the evidence free and emotive piece published on this site last week by Marko Atilla Hoare.
By Emma Burnell and Christine Quigley
We were disappointed to read the evidence free and emotive piece published on this site last week by Marko Atilla Hoare.
If those who wish to present a case against abortion wish to do so on a site that prides itself on producing evidence based analysis, they will have to do better than simply asserting abortion is “tragic”, “monstrous” or invoking Ammonite Gods requiring child sacrifice.
Emotive words are easy when a subject is emotive. They have their place in campaigning, in the pulpit and in pulp fiction.
But when it comes to public policy we would prefer to stick to the facts. We could write a pro-choice piece about the tragic choices women are forced to make. About backstreet alleys and coat-hangers; about thirteen-year-old rape victims and fatal foetal abnormalities; about women on the boat from Ireland escaping a repressive and theocratic regime.
But we’re not going to do that, because this blog isn’t the place to. Instead, we’re going to present you with some facts.
Marko tells us that “it really is a baby” and that those of us who don’t see a twelve-week old foetus as a fully-fledged human being are “in denial”.
This isn’t the opinion of the medical community, the law of the land and the general public.
He tries to make the point that abortion is a class issue. It is, but but not in the way he thinks. Working-class women across the world find it harder to access safe legal abortions. For example, in Northern Ireland, where abortion remains illegal, women are being forced into buying unsafe “abortion pills” over the internet because they can’t afford to travel to the mainland for an abortion.
So this illegality is not stopping women from wanting to terminate unwanted pregnancies, but is forcing those on low incomes to resort to more dangerous methods in an attempt to do so.
We believe that all women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy should have the right to terminate that pregnancy. However, Marko’s characterisation of two adults conceiving a child through consensual sex being a norm deserves challenging.
As Left Foot Forward so graphically demonstrated, 78,000 estimated annual rapes result in an average of just 1,153 convictions. That leaves 76,847 women who can’t legally prove they have been raped if asked to do so when seeking an abortion. In Northern Ireland, where as we have said, abortion remains illegal, just one if five people think abortion shouldn’t be available to rape victims.
Marko is absolutely right when he says that no woman should feel she has to have an abortion. He’s also right to say that our society must do more to support pregnant women. But this sort of emotive rhetoric stigmatises and patronises women and obscures the real questions we have to answer as a society.
We have a continuing national conversation about abortion, and both sides need to evidence their case if the debate is to avoid hysteria. We hope that is what we have done in refuting Marko’s piece. If anyone would like to provide an evidence-based – rather than emotive, judgemental and patronising – case against women having a right to choose, we welcome that contribution to the debate.
Emma and Christine are women ready to defend their right to choose with evidence-based analysis.
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25 Responses to “Abortion: How about some evidence-based blogging?”
Bethany
Hmmm, not sure about that. When a baby is born and a mother refuses to care for it so that it dies, that’s murder/manslaughter, and rightly so. If we accept that a 6 month fetus is a human (*if*), then why is the mother’s moral duty to ensure its survival any different to when a child is a new born?
alastair
“but it doesn’t address the most thorny issue in the abortion debate – at what point does a fetus become a human?”
You’ve shown yourself to not understand the abortion debate. At what point a fetus becomes a human being is a medical debate but the only issue that matters in the abortion debate is whether a woman should be forced against her consent to use her body to maintain someone else’s life.
“that is not intellectually consistent with accepting that the fetus is a child”
Yes it is. Even if you uncritically accept the idea that a fetus is a child and entitled to the same rights as everyone else then it still gets you nowhere near the idea that a fetus has the additional right to use someone else’s body without their consent.
If when I was a child it turned out that I had some medical condition that meant I needed a kidney transplant or I’d die and my mother was the only possible donor but didn’t consent. Would you support or oppose the state forcing her to donate use of her body or would you oppose it?
Bethany
I should add that I’m not religious, and I’m absolutely pro-choice up to a point. I just don’t know where that point should be.
Bethany
This is interesting. You assert that a fetus has no right to life even if it becomes a child as that life is depedent on a mother’s body. I think it does. For example, say a mother has a child in the wilderness, where the only source of viable food for a newborn is breast milk. If she decided not to feed the child, would that be OK with you, even if the chid died?
Selohesra
Whilst abortion sometimes a necessary evil it surely cannot be used in a civilised society as an alternative to contraception