Member-only story
Roe Vs Wade: The United Kingdom Isn’t any Better on Women’s Reproductive Rights
And we are in grave danger of reversals too…
If I said to you that abortion was illegal in parts of the United Kingdom up until three years ago, would you believe me?
That parts of my country was no different from the state of Texas, Arizona, Alabama in America with its obsession for control of the female body.
Well, I haven’t made this up.
This was the case in Northern Ireland till 2019.
For several thousands of women in this province, the facility of getting an abortion was one that had to be undertaken several miles away in mainland Britain; it meant travelling to England to see a doctor to get this procedure done.
As a bloke I cannot begin to imagine the pain, anguish and not to mention the huge expense that these women have had to bear to exercise what should be a fundamental human right in an advanced democracy.
And yet, when the issue of making abortion legal in Northern Ireland was up for a vote in the house of parliament, here in London, you would not believe how many Conservative MPs voted against the proposal?
84 Tory members of parliament in 2019 voted to restrict the rights for women to have an abortion in the United…