In the United States, women's reproductive rights, gained over half a century of feminist struggle, are rapidly being replaced by reproductive ills.
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that gave women the constitutional right to abortion. Since then, access to abortion has been restricted in 28 states based on gestational age, with bans ranging from six weeks to more than 24 weeks. Abortion is almost completely banned, with limited exceptions, in 14 other states. In Idaho, for example, abortion is permitted only in cases of rape or incest that have been reported to the police, or when necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. A similar ban is in effect in Indiana, while in Kentucky and Louisiana it is prohibited except in the case of a medical emergency or if the pregnancy is “medically futile.”
There are also efforts to establish not only the rights of fetuses but even those of embryos frozen in laboratories as superior to the rights of women.
Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos have the same rights as children under state law. The baffling decision was issued in connection with a “wrongful death” lawsuit brought by three couples whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic.
The justices, citing Bible verses, ruled that an 1872 state law called the “Wrongful Death of a Minor Act” that allows parents of deceased children to seek punitive damages when “the death of a minor is caused by a wrongful act , omission or negligence of any person” could apply to “all unborn children, regardless of their location.” The ruling will have far-reaching implications for the state's legality of in vitro fertilization (IVF), which is itself problematic as it fuels the surrogacy trade. Most importantly, however, this ruling has far-reaching implications for women's bodily autonomy. It means that any man who impregnates a woman – even through rape – could sue that woman under the Wrongful Death of a Child Act for requesting an abortion at any time during the pregnancy.
This blatant war on women's reproductive rights and body anatomy in the United States should worry not only Americans but also feminists in Europe, and especially those of us in the United Kingdom. This is not only because we must expose and challenge threats to women's rights wherever they appear, but also because the cultural norms and political perspectives that are gaining ground in the US will have a significant effect on the British politics and, consequently, on the rights and well-being of women and the British. girls.
In fact, in recent decades, as the anti-abortion movement began to make legal and political progress in the United States, we have begun to see a similar trend in the United Kingdom.
Since 2015, the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group (APPG) has been working to reduce abortion rights across the UK. For the past four years, the country's leading anti-abortion charity, Right To Life UK, has acted as secretariat for this multi-party group. In 2021, as feminists campaigned to fully decriminalize abortion, this same charity ran adverts calling on supporters to stop Parliament from introducing “extreme” laws that “introduce abortion, for any reason, up to birth”.
Since October 2022, Maria Caulfield, Conservative MP for Lewes, has served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Women, as well as the Women's Health and Mental Health Strategy. Ella Caulfield supports lowering the abortion time limit and voted against buffer zones outside abortion clinics. She is vice-president of the APPG Pro-Life and voted against the legalization of abortion in Northern Ireland.
The very fact that such an outspoken and proud opponent of abortion rights has been appointed women's minister is appalling in itself, because it communicates the government's sympathy with efforts to restrict the rights and freedoms of British women.
Caulfield has called the UK Abortion Act 1967, which legalized abortion in Britain on certain grounds by registered practitioners, “one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world.” But this is not true; Britain has some of the most draconian abortion laws in the world and still sends women to prison for “illegal” abortions.
In fact, in June 2023, a woman in Great Britain was sentenced to 28 months in prison for having an abortion after the legal limit of 24 weeks of gestation during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Following an appeal, her sentence was upheld. reduced to 14 months and suspended, but the case was a clear warning to all women that this could happen to them too.
Feminist activists are now demanding a review of the outdated laws under which the 44-year-old mother of three was convicted. These laws date back to the Offenses Against the Person Act 1861, under which all abortions were criminalized except those performed to save the life of the mother, a warning introduced in 1929. The Abortion Act 1967 legalized abortions with a licensed provider, but this was a mere amendment to the 1861 law, which was never repealed. Therefore, deliberately terminating a pregnancy remains illegal in the UK unless certain conditions are met.
The Abortion Law originally allowed abortions up to 28 weeks, although in 1991 this was reduced to 24 weeks, the point after which the fetus is accepted to be viable outside the womb. Today, a woman in the UK may be allowed to have an abortion after 24 weeks. weeks only if her life is at risk or if the child she is carrying would be born with a serious disability. The crimes covered by the Crimes Against the Person Act carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Prosecutions are rare, but according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act in England and Wales, 67 women were prosecuted for “causing an illegal abortion” between 2012 and 2022.
While the overturning of Roe v. Wade did not directly affect UK abortion law, it certainly emboldened anti-choice activists, many of whom have joined forces with their American counterparts to spread propaganda to the public. We have also witnessed a rise in anti-abortion activism outside of some abortion clinics. I think this is because, after the largest democracy on the planet abandoned federal abortion rights protections, many anti-abortion activists here began to feel more optimistic about their chances of achieving change in the UK.
There are still many battles to be won in the UK before we can claim to be on the side of reproductive health and women's choices. Until very recently, abortion was only permitted in Northern Ireland in the most exceptional circumstances. And although it is now allowed in theory, the Department of Health regularly refuses to commission abortion services, leaving many women still having to travel to England to exercise their reproductive rights. This problem is not limited to Northern Ireland either: according to the pro-choice group Back off Scotland, many women are forced to travel to England for abortions in the second trimester, between weeks 13 and 26, because no health board in Scotland actually offers abortion services. care up to the legal limit of 24 weeks. Between 2019 and 2022, a minimum of 170 Scottish abortion clients were referred by their doctors to travel to England for an abortion.
Women seeking to access legal abortion in the UK face bureaucratic nightmares, and loud and very active anti-abortionists keep a constant hum of anti-choice rhetoric alive in the narrative.
So when Roe v Wade was overturned, many in the UK reacted with anger. And that is why we observe with fear and concern the constant retreat of reproductive rights there. Of course, we support our sisters in America in their fight to protect their rights, but we also know that what happens there will have consequences for us in the UK.
In the November presidential elections in the United States, the right to abortion will be high on the agenda. That election will decide whether American women will face further attacks on their hard-won reproductive rights or whether they will have the opportunity to work with an administration that is committed to trying to repair the damage caused by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. However, whatever the outcome of that election, women in countries around the world, including those in the United Kingdom, will continue to suffer the consequences of the US Supreme Court's fateful decision not to grant constitutional protections to the right to abortion.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
