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From The Sunday Times

January 27, 2008

Abortion is under seige

Rachel Johnson

I am sitting with an abortionist in a counselling room in a central London clinic. Downstairs, on a padded surgical bed covered with blue paper, 5,000 pregnancies a year are ended. In the waiting room sit women and their male lovers. None of them is leafing through the magazines provided, but some are clutching Kleenex.

All look haunted. Don’t panic. This isn’t going to be a Me and My Abortion article, a grim Tracey Eminish journey through my harrowing gynaecological history.

I’m here because it’s the 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade in the US, a country where a woman’s right to choose is far from constitutional and remains under constant attack from the pro-life, evangelical Christian Bible Belt and the Catholic church; a country where schoolchildren are encouraged to adopt, name and pray for the souls of blastocytes destined for termination, and where a bill signed by Governor Mike Rounds, in South Dakota almost two years ago, made abortion illegal in most cases, including rape or incest.

I’m here because the pro-life lobby is also making hay in Britain. Antiabortion lobby groups are attempting to hijack the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill currently going through the Lords, in the hope of introducing an amendment that would chop the time limit on legal abortion from the current 24 weeks down to 20 weeks. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act last year, there was a rally in Westminster and a ghoulish “service of remembrance” for the estimated 6.7m foetuses destroyed since 1967.

There are also upsetting stories around that women are airily opting to abort for abnormalities as minor as cleft palates, webbed toes and club feet, stories that do not stand up on examination, but are designed to add to the impression that our abortion rate is immorally high; that women are treating abortion, even at advanced stages of pregnancy, as a form of contraception; and that women are choosing to kill their own babies because of some minor, indeed cosmetic, defect.

But I am here, above all, because there has been a war of attrition between the pro-life and the pro-choice campaigns on both sides of the Atlantic for decades, and if I am going to discover what is really going on, I need to report from the front line of this war – the abortion clinic.

So here goes, taking each of those three charges in turn.

Yes, the abortion rate here is high (though curiously it’s even higher in the US). But the fastest rising rate of abortion is for under18s. Deanna, who manages the Marie Stopes clinic I am in, says: “Business is growing all the time, really, because of binge drinking and teenage pregnancy, coupled with the fact that lots of girls are simply clueless about contraception.” So it would seem that the protesters should not be tough on abortion, but the causes of abortion.

Two, women choose abortion as a form of contraception. Frankly, I don’t know anyone who would choose foeticide as their preferred form of birth control. I do know lots of women, however, who have taken responsibility for not bringing another baby into the world when the resources – emotional, psychological and physical – sadly aren’t there for it.

And as for late-term abortions, there is no evidence that these are being sought for trifles such as webbed toes alone. There were 136 terminations beyond 24 weeks in 2006. All of them were for what is called a “ground E” case – meaning if the child was born, it would be seriously handicapped.

Meanwhile, about 1,100 women had an abortion between 22 and 24 weeks: teenagers who panicked and hid their pregnancy; women who had no idea they were pregnant because they were on the contraceptive pill. One wonders what on earth these girls and women would have done if safe, legal procedures weren’t available for them.

“I didn’t go through uni and med school thinking, ‘Yes! I want to be an abortionist’,” says Dr Kate Worsley of Marie Stopes International, who has carried out many. “But it’s a small aspect of medicine that’s most needed to be done well.” According to the World Health Organisation, unsafe abortions kill more than 66,000 women worldwide every year. The Lancet has called it one of the most neglected public health issues of our time.

British women are lucky. The law gives us strength and legitimacy to decide what is best for us and our families, and control over our reproductive destinies. Any changes to return that power to MPs or lords (few of whom will face the experience of abortion themselves) will erode trust in women to take responsible decisions about their own pregnancies. As the American feminist Florynce Kennedy said: “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”

I came away from the clinic with nothing but respect for the doctors – trained, after all, not to take away life but preserve it – sympathy for their patients and more than ever convinced that the decision to end a pregnancy, whether wanted or unwanted, is never undertaken lightly by the woman who needs the termination or the doctor who performs it.

“Every day, women leave the procedure room,” says Worsley, “and they always turn and say, ‘Thank you’.”

I understand why.

It took years for the greens’ miserabilist message of doom and gloom to be adopted by the mainstream media who now, as if to make up for lost time, send reporters to deliver pieces to camera from beneath Antarctic glaciers or halfway up a gumtree in the Costa Rican rainforest at the drop of a hat. You can hardly switch on the news without seeing a telly chap swinging from a helicopter or harness, complete with hard hat and large wedgie.

But now the greens are worried they have overplayed their hand, and so their new message is: chin up, we can all save the planet, it’s never too late to start composting. I saw them all at the launch of Andrew Simms and Joe Smith’s ace new book, Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?, in Fitzrovia (everyone wore green, arrived on bicycles and grazed on canapés of authentic English cheeses as a quartet played lutes. Honest).

None of the starry contributors appeared to be there (all on their organic farms, book tours or at Davos) but anyway, I asked Andrew Simms when he thought that the greens finally started preaching to the choir.

“Well, I thought that the piece Susie Watt did for Newsnight last week, questioning whether economic growth is good, was a real marker,” he said, “But I think the real conversion took place about 18 months ago . . .” He trailed off to snaffle a tranche of Cornish yarg before resuming, “when I was asked to attend a BBC seminar on climate change, and Fergal Keane was there.”

We both nodded. For the BBC, of course, only rolls out the Fergal when it thinks something really awful that will make us cry is going down.

rachel.johnson@sunday-times.co.uk

We tend to forget that Hitler was fond of foeticide and the termination of the disabled to produce his 'arian master race'.

What has changed if we do not challenge these ideas creeping into our secular society.

The fact remains that babies do survive after 20 weeks more and more these days so how can we justify abortion up to 24 weeks?

The numbers are way too high and yes we need to educate people about contraception as well.

Medical advances make the 24 week abortion limit untenable. Those over 20 weeks only represent 2% of abortions anyway.

Who stands up for the rights of those who cannot speak? Come on where are our values of decency and fairness for the unborn?

Paul, Nottingham,

If it's only "religious fundamentalists" that oppose the killing of the unborn, then you might like to ask yourself what that tells you about a society without religion.

As Indira Gandhi said, " A woman chooses to have an abortion like a fox in a trap chooses to gnaw its leg off". The abortionists and the pro-abortion movement don't help the woman out of the trap, don't help prevent her falling into it, they just help her cut her leg off, they hobble her for life.

They are the hopeless deliverers of death, the deadly purveyors of hopelessness. They posit violence and killing as the answer. And violence and killing is never the answer, it's the problem; it just breeds more violence and killing. We can never be at peace with ourselves as individuals and as a society as long as abortion is off the list of criminal offences,as long as the innocent are ripped apart and discarded like so much fecal waste.

Michael Calwell, Edinburgh,

Why do "Christians" try so hard impose their own strictures on other people who clearly do not agree with them ??

You don't have to have an abortion if you don't want one BUT

You have no right to meddle with other folks decisions.

Sean Shalor, Coventry, UK

Well how clear it is that religious fundamentalists of any stripe are a truly appalling lot and must be restrained by law.
Firstly gIving up a child for adoption is a life sentence for both Mother and child. Then pre abortion times meant women living in terror and dying a lot of backstreet abortions.Thirdly we are an overcrowed planet and cannot afford endless infants whose mothers are confined to poverty by their birth.
Wicked is all to do with perspective isnt it? There is no perfect answer to women vs infant. If men had to get pregnant we wouldn't even be discussing it.Why not tackle the age old and completely false myth that men "have" to have sex.

Sam, Maidstone, UK

Everyone knows what abortion is, and everyone knows that is it is profoundly wrong. Everyone knows that they were once helpless and choiceless and defenceless in the womb. Everyone knows that abortion is the killing of the very people who least deserve it.

But we are so inured in a nihilistic, anomic, selfish, joyless, reckless culture, so dependent on the quick, lethal fix that we have to invent ideologies to defend it. They're bogus, specious, transparent; they'd be laughable if what they defended wasn't so barbaric and unconscionable. But we have to keep up the pretence that somehow they have some substance because on some level, we have to. Paradoxically, in the depths of our depravity, we have to feel morally justified.

Michael Calwell, Edinburgh, Scotland

Why is this country (and world) so pre-disposed with taking people's rights away so much and not working to give people more?

Linda, Bournemouth, Dorset

Pro-abortion activists tell us that a fetus is nothing more than a collection of cells, no more a human being than is a tumor.Our politicians on the pro-choice side are constantly telling us that they would like to make abortion "Safe, legal, and rare," Why should abortion be "rare" if all that's being done is removing an unwanted growth? I don't hear anyone calling for wart removal to be "rare." Could it be that they all recognize that a fetus has separate DNA from its mother, unlike any other "growth" to be removed for the person's health, or in most cases, convenience? If we are to decide that the mother's well-being is of more importance than the separate life that has been created, why stop at abortion? Why not infanticide? Why not dispose of the elderly who have outlived their usefulness and are a burden to their families and society?

W Bissinger, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

I'm sure that people can think of lots of 'good' reasons why they should kill a baby in the womb... but the fact remains they are still killing a baby. Ultimately the only difference between the baby inside and outside the womb is loaction. Outside the womb the baby is still 100% dependent, outside the womb the baby still has a lot of developing to do, outside the womb the baby is essentially the same! Fine if you want to carry out abortions... but at least have the integrity and honesty to call it what it is rather than use euphemisms like 'termination'.

Andrew brown, derby, UK

I suggest a very simple solution to the present dilemma, refuse to allow abortions, especially where handicapped , rape victims etc are concerned, and when the issue is a matter of fact, hand it over to one of the most mouthy and virulent of the pro life mob.

Maybe we will see just how anti they really are.

Having a child to look after that will never have any satisfactory life or expectancy thereof, may give that 'so called' caring person a taste of what the potential abortion would have prevented happening.

No if's or but's, just taken to the clinic or hospital where the child is delivered, given the birth certificate, some telephone numbers where help may be obtained in emergentcy, and the baby in question.

Nothing voluntary involved, just a case of.. " Here gobby, this is now yours, seeing as you were all set to prevent the birth mother from aborting it, you will now carry the burden hereafter"

We would soon see the anti's case collapse, I am sure.

morgan, Pontypool, Wales

Considering: "add to the impression that our abortion rate is immorally high"

What would you consider to be a morally acceptable level of abortion then?

Would a lower rate than today's be more moral and a higher rate be more immoral?

Does that mean that the present situation is immoral compared to no abortions?

And by what moral measure do you make such a judgement?

For if you believe it is not immoral than why not campaign for abortion as just another, freely available contraceptive; quite practical?

If that idea too much to accept, why do you think that is? What makes one pragmatic position more moral than another?

At what point does it become immoral to kill (foeticide) a foetus/unborn-baby?

Who decides who has the moral right to make that judgement?

Is it just medicine and personal well-being?

When does the well-being of the foetus/un-born baby equal that of the woman/mother?

I'm not sure any of us have the moral right to make these judgements.

Nathan D, Inverness, UK

Babies are always wanted. The waiting list to adopt is years long, yet all pro-abortion arguments ignore this fact. For the majority of cases, women choose death over life because of embarrassment and inconvenience, certainly not the best interests of the baby!

kt, Lyme, US

"I often wonder what the pro-lifers really want." To try and protect those who can not protect themselves. Yes women would still abort if it was illegal but you cannot make it legal to kill to protect the women who do it from the harm they risk doing to themselves

Helen, Beds,

I often wonder what the pro-lifers really want. Even if abortion was made illegal, desperate women would still find a way, probably down a back street at the risk to their own life.

And I'm sure that a woman has to be pretty desperate to choose abortion at 24 weeks, a hideously unpleasant surgical procedure.

Hanna, Sheffield,

"A woman has a right to abortion because until a baby is born, it is part of a woman's body"

Except that it isn't. The genetic code is that of a unique individual. Please don't use that argument, it doesnt work.

Sandy Cox, London, London

I think women should have control over their bodies but i am curious as to the point at which people feel a baby becomes an individual itself and needs to be protected? is a it truly the baby and the woman are one entity? or does the unborn but alive child have individuality in itself?

d.k, keele,

Young girls often go into pregnancy with an idealised picture of a perfect baby in perfect surroundings at little cost to their social lives. Wouldn't it be more constructive if the reality hit before the pregnancy? Imagine a class of 12 y/o's changing one of those interesting nappies. Someone needs to explain to them that its like homework that's never finished no matter how hard you try and it never goes away.

Udo, Melbourne, Australia

S. Osbourne - you are born with your kidneys. A baby is a parasite that feeds off a woman until it is born, which people chose to love and dress up in tiny clothes and is therefore not really comparable with a kidney.
Children are a gift, albeit one which is sometimes thrust upon you by force or by your own stupidity. Should you really have to pay for your mistake/misfortune for the rest of your life?
There are way too many people in the world already, why add more - especially if they are going to be unwanted anyway? Also, with the world going to hell in a handcart creating children who are going to have to live in it seems like one of the cruelest, most selfish things to do.

Caroline, Windsor,

I am surprised that no-one has picked up on the contradiction between the first and second of Rachel Johnson's 'counter arguments'; namely

"Business is growing all the time, really, because of binge drinking and teenage pregnancy, coupled with the fact that lots of girls are simply clueless about contraception.â€

and

"Two, women choose abortion as a form of contraception. Frankly, I donâ€™t know anyone who would choose foeticide as their preferred form of birth control."

Surely what those referred to in the first quote are doing is exactly to use abortion as a form of contraception.

To C Maguire of Liverpool, you say "...women have the right to decide what happens to their bodies. The decision should not be made by a group of stuffy MP's...'

In law no-one has total autonomy over their own body. For example you cannot agree to sell one of your kidneys and there is no question that a kidney is part of your body.

S. Osborn, London, England

Over a third of all pregnancies end without the woman ever knowing they are pregnant.

The sensible way to look at this: it is a natural quality control.

If you want a religious look at this: God aborts more often than humans do.

Look at the desperation and poverty of countries like El Salvador where contraception is banned, and so is abortion. Where women who have abortions can be sentenced to 25 years in prison - and they are chained to beds for forensics before they are allowed any medical help needed after a back street butcher has damaged them.

Yet El Salvador was held to be a shining example of morality by the Vatican.

Paul, Northampton, UK

Rachel, for the sake of objectivity will you be be visiting some post-abortion counselling centres to talk to those who have suffered long term depression as a result of having abortion?

Or maybe talking face to face with some of the nurses and other medical staff who have no choice about assistiing in abortions within the NHS. Some of them have interesting stories about the trauma involved.

K Thompson, Reading, UK

Those at the extreme end of the pro-life movement are offensive. I do not push my beliefs on others, why should they be allowed to push theirs on me?

I sometimes wonder why they want to see women suffer, either through illegal / badly performed / unsafe abortions, or by forcing them to raise a child that they do not want.

I fully accept that there must be a cut off point which this procedure should not be allowed unless in the most extreme of circumstances (rape, incest, real threat to the life of the mother etc).

But we women, and men who care for women should speak and rise up against any attempt to take this right away. Every woman in this country has the right to choose what happens to her body.

I agree with an earlier poster that if men fell pregnant and not women the right to abort would be an absolute given without question.

Imelda, London,

Did anyone see the article in the Metro, showing a 5 month old baby in the womb responsively moving his hands, his facial features absolutely perfect - or should I be using the term 5 month old foetus, or perhaps blastocyte preferrable? From 12 weeks on, a babies nervous system is fully developed. Say no more. Blatant truth of the matter sex education is needed, and more responsibility. What is it to be human these days? Is being human something to be proud of? I dont know anymore.

CA, London,

A woman has a right to abortion because until a baby is born, it is part of a woman's body, and women have the right to decide what happens to their bodies. The decision should not be made by a group of stuffy MP's, nor should pro-life groups force their opinions onto others.

C Maguire, Liverpool, Merseyside

Abortion doesn't 'end a life', perhaps it prevents a life, but you do that every month you use contraception or decide not to have sex on a fertile day. We are not morally obliged to produce as many babies as we are physically capable of!

However, the lack of safe, legal abortion ends many lives, just look at history to see that, or even some of the countries that currently ban or severely restric abortion.

Sarah, London, UK

Which ever way you look at it, destroying a foetus is killing an unborn child; a scrap of humanity and which should also enjoy the same rights as the mother. Abortion is morally deplorable and should not be done in a civilised society other than in the most extreme and exceptional circumstances. We have largely abandoned religion and that's something I, as an atheist, welcome. But we also threw away the baby with the bathwater when we discarded the moral compass that established religions gave us.

S Foster, Doncaster,

I am a feminist and an agnostic.

In an age of universally available contraception, abortion is not about a woman's right to control her own fertility: that she can do anyway. The question is, in what circumstances can it be morally acceptable to kill an unborn child, for that (as any person who has been through fertility treatment will be acutely aware) is what even a blastocyst is. I do not believe that there is no such circumstance; but I do believe that this is a matter of gravity, that society and the law should treat it as such.

This is an area in which women should perhaps grow up and start taking some moral responsibility

Helen, London,

"Quoting abortion clinic workers is hardly balanced - I'm saddened but not surprised that they promote the work they do. Why are prolifers not quoted?"

Because pro-lifers are a bunch of nutters. I, for one, don't want to hear anything they have to say. How dare anyone tell me what I can and cannot do with my own body.

Coco, London,

It's a real relief to see an article defending the right of women to chose abortion after so much recent propaganda attacking it. We let these things slide at our peril. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Anne, London,

The majority of pro-lifers are devoutly religious people, they choose not to abort a pregnancy on the grounds of their belief, so why should their dogmatic views be pushed upon non-believers? Whilst some women may view termination as a form of contreception, I am sure these are in the extreme minority, the vast majority of women do not make the choice lightly. Laws are made [supposedly] for the good of all citizens, not to enable a minority view to be imposed upon the majority, I hope our MPs remember this when the bill goes through parliment.

Les, Southport, England (a country, not a state)

We cannot afford to be complacent. Keep fighting for a woman's right to do what she wants, including any procedure that involves her body.

It's not nice, but legally available abortion is the only way forward for any civil society.

Keep all the religious and political idealogues where they belong. In the past, fighting to control something that has nothing to do with them...

F.S.SUMMERS, N.Y/LONDON,

What about the womens rights of those girls aborted beyond 20 weeks when they can feel severe pain

Graham Ryan, eastleigh, hampshire

The only people that abortion legislation affects is the poor.
Those with money who want an abortion but live where abortion is illegal can fly off and have an abortion.
It is a personal, moral decision for the individual.
Those who campaign against choice are overwhelmingly middle class and are campaigning against the poor.
Abortion is, for whatever reason, sad, and perhaps immoral, but for most 'choice' is only the decision as to 'where'. In this the poor have no choice. Not surprisingly the number of illegitimate births is greatest among the poor, many of whom are minorities, who are then criticised.
Many of those who are against abortion are also against contraception services and in favor of capital punishment.
Realism and self-examination in debate are sometimes helpful.

Howard, West Palm Beach, Florida

What nobody but the Ms Johnson seems to have considered here is the safety of the abortion procedure in a sterile, medically controlled environment. A woman's right to life, the right to make a decision about her own body. Her right to professional, medical services.

Abortion is an ugly thing whichever way you view it - and I do not believe women who opt for an abortion ever do so blithely - but as the procedure has been performed since time immemorial, and often with ghastly consequences to the woman's health and fertility, surely it is better that safe, legal abortions are available? We must not allow emotion to cloud the central issue: that no one has the right to interfere with a woman's choice. It is her body, her private decision and nobody else's business.

Clearly, education is required to help young women understand and control their fertility better, not withdraw a medical service hard fought for and mercifully won.

Angela, Canberra, Australia

Thankyou Rachel for writing this article. I am a 41 year old married mother of two and if there is one issue that I would get up and march for it is to preserve the sensitive and sensible laws on Abortion in the UK.

Abortion is no more the destruction of a life than the usual monthly period in a women or (similar) for Men.

All this talk by the fundamentalists who have responded to your column must be very painful for both the many women who have taken the difficult decision to have an abortion and for the many women who have experienced miscarriage.

Pro-lifers seem to have a mysogynistic view of the world where a womens life can be destroyed by something that a man has been just as culpable in. It is no coincidence that in the US it is the states who are most anti-abortion that are also those who send the highest numbers of 'lives' to be ended in the electric chair.

Sex before marriage is a fact of our socielty and it isn't going to go away,

Deborah Blaxell, Paget, Bermuda

Hijack? Some context:

The Abortion Act which formally legalised abortion started life as a private member's Bill so was doomed to failure. Until, that is, the then Labour Government gave it tacit support in the form of extra time.

In the light of the dramatic increase in the abortion rate which followed several attempts were made through further private member's Bills to tighten the law. None was given Government time.

The first real opportunity, therefore, came with the first Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in 1990. Although the time limit for most abortions was then set at 24 weeks, abortion for disability was legalised up to birth. Because of confusion over the combined implications of the amendments many MPs (ours included) had no idea they had voted for this. By the time they did the then Conservative Government had imposed a whip (on a matter of conscience).

Now is the first opportunity since to look again at this legislation and both sides intend to take it

Pauline Gately, Surrey,

This is a very simplistic article about abortion which fails to get to grips with the reality of what abortion is - doesn't the gravity of the fact that abortion ends a life deserve some sort of defence? There are no facts about what abortion entails or the fact that women are not given the facts about abortion. Quoting abortion clinic workers is hardly balanced - I'm saddened but not surprised that they promote the work they do. Why are prolifers not quoted?

The idea that women saying thank you (a common politeness that is drummed into most of us from when we are children) is some sort of endorsement for abortion is very simplistic.

Why can't we find alternatives to abortion that respects both the right to life of the child and supports women? why does the child have to die?

sophie, london ,

"Business is growing all the time, really, because of binge drinking " Really? It is news to me that alcohol makes you pregnant - I was under the impression that sperm was involved. Unwanted pregnancy is the result of either sex without contraception, or failed contraception. It is this area that needs to be tackled - teaching young women how to be assertive enough to refuse sex without contraception and how to use it properly.

emma, london, england

I think orphans are best placed to judge on this issue. If you were your mother, what would you have done? Abort or adoption?

Stewart Ford, Warsaw,

As medical science has now progressed to doctors performing inter-uterine surgery to save the life of an unborn child--or to correct genetic defects (unthinkable 30 years ago), and with prematurely born babies surviving at earlier ages than ever before, the boundary for the so-called right to choose whether or not to terminate life can no longer logically stop within the womb (if accepted as a right). For a society known for its compassion to animals, how about a thought for the pain felt by the unborn during the abortion procedure. To dehumanize the unborn baby by referring to that person in technical medical terms is philosophically dishonest to the argument.

Fred , Omaha, Nebraska

Thank.you for an unbias article on abortion. The anti-abortionists manipulate the facts and figures and use intimidation to advance their cause. The claims that fetuses with webbed toes and cleft palates have been aborted is true, but what they refuse to tell people is that these fetuses had other more serious conditions, and it was for these conditions that the fetus was aborted. They say most doctors want to ban abortions, but refuse to mention that in a recent survey only one hundred doctors bothered to return the survey, which is an indication of how little doctors are concerned about it, and of those one hundred only nineteen were against abortion. This nineteen out of thousands are the numbers behind the 20% of doctors want abortion banned stories. The anti-abortionists do not want to save babies they want to control the lives of women. They tend to be against any movement that gives women freedom whether it be flexi hours, parental leave or contreception.

Ash, uk,

I live in an Opus Dei hall of residence and their attitude is disgraceful. They tell young women, many teenagers from foreign countries away from home for the first time, that they will go to hell if they even comfort a friend who has had an abortion, that contreception is wrong, homosexuality is wrong and that they must do all they can to fight these things. They encourage the girls to take the 4 year graduate course in medicine after they graduate so they can become doctors and tell them that they must live by their giuidelines or go to hell. I know one young girl who has been persuaded to become a nummery (like a nun) as well as a doctor, and she has confirmed that she will refuse to treat homosexuals (for anything), patients who want contreception or treatment for sexual diseases, abortions etc. She even spoke to the Priest about this and he told her that is what she must do. This is a very good way of controlling the medical system.

Name withheld, manchester,

Women who miscarry much wanted babies feel the need for some kind of funeral or symbolic act of closure for the loss of their child.
So I don't think it is "ghoulish" to hold a service for those other dead babies, whose lives ended deliberately because their mothers didn't want them. I nearly typed "unwanted" but childless families for whom adoption is no longer a hope would have wanted many of them.
I supported more choice for abortion in the beginning, naively expecting it to be like battlefield euthanasia, a lesser of two evils (rape, incest, extreme disability ) in rare and extreme cases.
But I am sorry to have known just in my own circle this last 30 years a good half dozen young women who were careless and went for, in some cases their second, abortion as if they were going to have ingrowing toenails operated. In the deep of the night they may have suffered agonies but they don't appear to.
When "Meat is murder" but babies are merely blastocytes ours is a strange world.

CA Metcalfe, Hornchurch, Essex

Someone once said that legal abortion in the US was more protected because abortion was always a political issue, therefore the pro-choice movement was already ready to assert itself when required. They were right.

Your calm and dignified article is very welcome in the current climate, but it is worrying that, like the welfare state and NHS, access to safe and legal abortion is taken for granted; an assumption that - whatever happens - it will always be there.

I hope that when this bill makes its way through our political system, defenders of access to safe, legal abortions make themselves heard above the santimonious, propaganda-driven dross that calls itself - somewhat ironically - the 'prolife' movement.

Maz, Yorkshire, England

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Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson has written for among others, the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the Evening Standard and Easy Living, and is author of The Mummy Diaries and Notting Hell. She is married with three children and lives in London. Her column appears weekly in The Sunday Times.