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?”
alastair
“You assert that a fetus has no right to life”
A fetus has the exact equal right to life as you or me. You and I also have the limit on our right to life that we cannot use someone elses body against their consent.
If I would die without use of my mother’s body then does my right to life give me the right to use her body against her consent? If not then why do you argue that a fetus has more of a right to life than me?
“say a mother has a child in the wilderness…”
Then it wouldn’t be analogous would it?
When a child is born it is no longer exclusively dependent on its mother’s body at which point if the mother no longer wishes to look after the child a civilised society will look after it.
If the mother is in the wilderness either stranded there or a theoretical mother prior to the rise of civilisation then that sucks but not being able to use your bodily autonomy to sustain someone’s life is a right.
Alastair
That’s fine to admit, but given that you have admitted that you don’t know where the point should be isn’t it best to leave it up to each pregnant woman and her doctor who are in the position to know better what the point should be for them?
Bethany
It is analogous – it’s possible that a child can be born and be entirely dependent on its mother’s body for food and thus survival, even now. The mother refusing to breast feed such a child is clearly morally wrong, not to say anything about criminality. ‘It sucks’ doesn’t cut it. But the transplant issue is an interesting one, because it is clearly different from my example and I’m trying to work out why.
Bethany
No, because there is a clear point where it shouldn’t happen e.g. post 6 months, and if we are to have a rational, evidence-based debate then there will be objective things to measure, such as organ development, rather than a subjective ‘each woman knows best and should decide’. That evidence should inform the time limit.
JR
Bethany, I think you have hit upon an extremely valuable issue and area of discussion.
Post birth, a mother has a duty of care to her child. Not to feed, cloth and protect a child is neglect will result in prosecution.
However, that duty of care can be discharged under a number of different situations to a number of different parties, including the state. This is about social expectation being enforced by the law and it is not black and white. There are any number of permutations of how such a situation can play out that, needless to say, do not need to be listed here.
Abortion is not the same at all.
The difference in examples, which you highlight, is key. It is also interesting to note that the common sticking point of debate (is the foetus alive) does not change anything. Giving the foetus the rights of an adult, for the sake of argument, just highlights that the rule of law is about a balance of individual rights rather than moral sentiment.
Even if the foetus is ascribed the right to life of any child or adult individual, this right to life does not supersede that of the mother any more than any other child or adult.
Cruel as it may seem, the law can not compel me, or a mother (pregnant or not) to give a starving adult or child a sandwich. it can not make me invite them into my house for dinner. It certainly can not (and should not) require me to give them, my brother or any other human being (even my own child) a blood transfusion or a kidney.
People resort to blanket regulation when they have lost the logical argument. Debate about abortion is not going to go away, but the law here should remain clear and fact based.