I think we can assume that if men gave birth, the NHS would find itself providing four-poster beds with goosedown pillows, “sexy” cars to serve as ambulances, comely midwives with soothing bedside manners, and pain relief on tap – none of this nonsense about pushing.

Equally, if said men found themselves in need of an emergency abortion, I don’t expect their doctors would chuck some kind of horror-pill at them and tell them to go home and sit on the loo until the foetus was expelled. And yet government advisers are, as we speak, paving the way to make DIY abortions “easier” for women. I like “easier”. It’s a bit like the NHS providing penknives and Savlon to anyone who fancies a caesarean, or who can’t quite face the queue for a mastectomy.

MPs are currently conducting an inquiry into abortion legislation – there’s a debate on the abortion bill this week – and so various leading medical bodies have been looking into the subject and presenting their evidence.

Currently, if you take an abortion pill – two pills, actually: mifepristone, which detaches the foetus from the womb, followed by misoprostol, which induces miscarriage – you are given both in hospital. If the law is changed, the second pill will be made available as a takeaway, so that you can stagger away cramping and finish the job in your own bathroom.

The Independent Advisory group of Sexual Health and HIV said in its evidence: “It is perfectly safe for the second stage of early medical abortion to be carried out at home within the structure of properly organised services.” The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said in the report: “Regarding abortion at home, there is an increasing body of evidence from both developed and developing countries that home use is safe, effective and acceptable to many women.”

The number of abortions in the UK has reached its highest-ever level - 193,000 are performed each year. Yet at the age of 45 these women start making breezy remarks about “trying for a baby at some point”, as though biology simply didn’t exist. They are mad with self-delusion and there are more and more of them. You want to shout: “Your fertility has been in decline for 15 years! It’s not going to happen! You are TOO OLD!” but you end up giving them a tight little smile and muttering, “Gosh, well, good luck”.

Now, think what you like about abortion – I’m not keen, as it happens, though I do see that it needs to be legal and freely available – but surely chucking pills at women and expecting them to go home, cramp and bleed until the thing is done and then – what? Flush the loo? – is a brutality too far. It is, obviously, an act of brutality towards the foetus (which I would call the baby, hence my issue with this whole subject) but, my goodness, it is also an act of supreme brutality towards the woman.

Regardless of how commonplace she finds abortion, regardless of how breezily she checks into the clinic, regardless, even, of the fact she may consider abortion to be just another form of contraception, surely a civilised society cannot expect women to flush their own foetuses away in the privacy of their own homes, and not even consider the kind of emotional impact this might have on them? I know it’s hardly as though foetuses aborted in hospitals are afforded the respect of any kind of graceful exit – but sending it whooshing down into the sewers?

There are broadly three situations in which people have abortions: 1) when they are very young, and think having a child would be an unimaginable calamity; 2) when they are not so young and already have children, and simply can’t face, for any number of reasons, another addition to their family; 3) when they’re not particularly fertile or careful, get pregnant by accident, and have a termination without batting an eyelid. There are a couple of subgroups – when the abortion is the consequence of rape or incest or when the foetus is more disabled than its parents can bear. I don’t imagine either of these subgroups would be sent home with a prescription to end their agony, so I’ll discount them.

Of the main group, though, I would say this: it’s a rare hard nut who doesn’t, at some point after the termination, be it minutes or decades or both, feel some distress. Get drunk with a gaggle of girlfriends and talk about children, and there are always one or two who’ll slur something like, “I’d have a 20-year-old by now”, or, “It meant absolutely nothing at time, but it does now”, or, “If I’d known how hard I’d find getting pregnant again . . .”

I’m not saying these women should be used as an example of How Abortion Is Bad, but rather that they have been brutalised enough (and it’s a particularly horrible kind of brutality, because it’s by and large secret – just you and the nighttime and your perfect recall). No counselling – not that it wasn’t offered, but more that they just wanted to get the thing over and done with, understandably, and move on quickly. No sympathy, except from the handful of other women they might have confided in. Shame, sometimes. And regret.

But those women had their abortions in clinics or hospitals. They had a “procedure” – a very comforting thing because it’s medical and clinical and cold and doesn’t require you address anything emotionally. There was probably a kindly nurse, and a nonjudgmental doctor, white sheets and other women in the same boat. All of this helps.

The point is, nobody wants to have an abortion. Nobody thinks, “When I start having sex, I’ll have loads of terminations, hooray.” Abortion isn’t nice, and I’m talking about women now, not about foetuses. But the idea that it should be made even worse seems incredible to me.

Forget the fact that the abortion pill is “safe” and “effective”, and rather imagine the mother of four who simply can’t contemplate another child. She’s been to the clinic and taken her first pill, and she doesn’t feel great. She supervises the homework, puts another batch of laundry on, sorts the children’s tea, bathtime, bedtime, then she swallows the second pill and goes to her bathroom.

I mean, if that woman was your worst enemy, you’d break into her house to rescue her, or at least hold her hand. And in the morning she’s expected to get up as though nothing had happened and get on with life, with nary a look back at the lavatory pan. I know we’re “copers”, but this is ridiculous. It is also completely obscene.

india.knight@sunday-times.co.uk

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