Jessica Walker, blogpost
During the 25th-27th February 2022, I had the best and most edifying weekend I’ve had in a long time at the SPUC Youth Conference.
I got the opportunity to listen to some amazing testimonies and keynote speakers from incredible people who have been on the frontlines of the pro-life fight.
The history of abortion
The first of these speakers was SPUC’s Public Policy Manager, Alithea Williams, who gave a very insightful talk on the history of abortion. Alithea began by discussing the two Parliamentary Acts which made abortion illegal in England; the 1861 Offenses Against the Person Act and the 1929 Infant Preservation Act. Alithea went on to speak about a variety of different contextual factors which led to abortion becoming more accepted and ultimately enshrined into law in the 1960s. I was already aware that one of these factors was the prevalence of ‘backstreet abortions’ taking place in the 1950s and 1960s. I was, however, shocked to learn that the prevalence of these abortions was in fact greatly exaggerated.
Some sources at the time claimed that upwards of 100,000 women were receiving medical treatment for these backstreet abortions. In reality, there were 14,600 women in the whole country who received treatment after a backstreet abortion in 1962. This revealed to me, that the notion I had in my head, of hundreds of thousands of women desperately risking their lives for unsanitary backstreet abortions, was simply a myth.
It was quite shocking to me, that the main argument which caused the legalisation of abortion in 1967 was based on false information.
The harsh reality of abortion today
During the conference we participated in various workshops where I learned about the current state of the law on abortion. I found out that currently, 98.1% of abortions in England are performed on the grounds that the pregnancy hasn’t exceeded 24 weeks and that the continuation of the pregnancy would have a detrimental effect on the mental health of the mother. This is a far-cry from the hard cases of rape and incest which the pro-abortionists appeal to in defending their views.
Over the course of the weekend, what shocked me the most, was discovering just how long abortion providers have been pushing for DIY abortions. During a presentation from Kevin Duffy, who oversaw 550 abortion clinics worldwide at Marie Stopes International, he described how the abortion industry was pushing for home abortion drugs to be sold as early as 2016. Again, I was naively under the impression that the UK government’s DIY abortion scheme, which allows women to perform abortions at home, was introduced because of the pandemic.
These DIY abortions involve women receiving abortion drugs by post, following a telephone or video call. Women then perform their own abortions at home. At no point in the process does a woman receive a proper consultation before the drugs are sent to her. Kevin Duffy described how in places such as India and rural Africa, these drugs are sold to women in a “pharmacy”, which is often just a man selling medication out of a shack on the side of the road. The drugs are popped out the box and wrapped in a napkin with the instructions discarded. This is the harrowing reality of what the abortion industry today appears to be pushing for.
The abortion industry no longer appears to even pretend to try and protect women from ‘backstreet abortions.' The DIY scheme means that they are advancing towards their own form of backstreet abortion.
Proud to be pro-life
Although I had spent the weekend both facing the harsh realities of the abortion industry and immersing myself in the excellent pro-life work conducted by SPUC, I still felt as though once I returned home my life would continue as normal.
Other young pro-lifers will be familiar with keeping our thoughts and opinions on abortion private, out of fear of being alienated by our peers. I continued to feel this way until the final day of the conference, when we received a presentation from March for Life UK. A March for Life UK representative said: “Imagine if tomorrow being pro-life became illegal. Do you honestly think there would be enough evidence to convict you?" And it was at this moment I realised, probably not. Aside from my close friends and family I tend not to broadcast my pro-life views due to the fear of receiving negative feedback. But why should that stop me? This issue is much bigger than me and my little worries.
So now, I am firmly of the mindset that being pro-life is something to be proud of and it’s something that should not be hidden away from others.
If being pro-life became illegal tomorrow, then please lock me away and throw away the key.