Sunday, 24 January 2016

Let's talk

This blog entry isn't about abortion. It's about women.

There's an anti-abortion campaign underway in Scotland right now. There have been articles in the press and letters in newspapers about this campaign and the one thing I've noticed is that so far all but one of the people involved are men. There's probably always a campaign like this on the go but this one is being influenced by activists in the USA who seem to be exporting some of the tactics used there. Activists are going to be praying throughout Lent outside the part of the new Southern General where women go for - among other things - abortion advice and sometimes abortion medication. This is the gyne/maternity building. I was there for a day procedure last year and I'm not sure how I would have felt about walking past anti-abortion activists, even if they were praying. Will they have placards? Will they be lighting candles? Will women going in have to run the gauntlet of the media? Apparently, they don't accost women going into the building and yet activists claim in the USA to have persuaded women to give up their plans to abort. How did they do that then?

It's a very one-sided campaign. The Scottish Government says there are no plans to change the abortion law. There doesn't seem to be much support for such a move among the Scottish public either.

The problem with campaigns like this is that they give the impression that, while they are run by people with sincerely held beliefs, they tend not to put the women involved or their partners, children and parents at the top of the list of issues. The 'dead baby' comes first.

Women still don't tend to talk about stuff like this in public, whether it be contraception or abortion or any other aspect of their sexual health. It was till fairly recently a very secretive area of women's lives. Les Dawson's skits about women discussing problems 'down there' in hushed voices was pretty close to the truth for my granny's generation. That's why so many of them lived with medical conditions like prolapses and uterine cancers that could maybe have been treated. And sometimes had quite unnecessary procedures like hysterectomy or mastectomy.

We are different now. We have taken control of our reproductive cycle and got over the worry that using contraception at all means defying the instructions of our religion. We go for breast screening, though more of us could go for cervical screening. We just get on and do what is right for ourselves and our families. It's 50 years since the abortion law was changed and I don't think we're planning to try to turn the clock back.

And yet, I think it may need women to take a more open role in this campaign or we'll be railroaded without proper discussion into making changes that we don't want. We make enough noise on behalf of everybody else. Maybe it's our turn now.



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