My Body, My Choice

Thoughts on attending a Pro-Life Rally in London, Sept.

On a warm Saturday late morning, I caught the tube up to attend my second pro-choice demo of the summer. I had been attending political rallies, demos and marches since I was radicalised in the 2010s with the interminable Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems deceit once in coalition with their Tory chums, and the role out of tripling tuition fees. Even though at the time I was in the fortunate position of having been the last cohort to pay the “reduced” price (although whether there should even be a ‘price’ for education is questionable in the instance, especially as the politicians introducing them had all been university educated largely for free), I felt a moral duty to attend. It was first time in my life that I had felt the unfairness of things playing out on a national level. How a party can campaign to be elected on a platform advocating free university tuition, and once in power, not only cease to advocate for that but to go one further, and conceded to a tripling of fees. I simply couldn’t get my head around it. But it happened, and it was done.

What I mean to state is that, people protest by in large over things that are topical and of the moment. My political awakening came during the student tuition fees protests, because that as the most pertinent of causes at the time. There are always a hundred different things that are wrong with society that one can campaign on, but it is the new that people seem to rally around. But some injustices exist over centuries, and can resurface when certain cases or reasonings become a cause celebre. Many in England think that abortion is legal, but some are shocked to find out that it is still a criminal offence, unless carried out in a very specific way. The 1967 Abortion act only legalised abortion under certain conditions; namely needing to secure the approval of two doctors, taking place through an authorised provider, happening within the 24 week framework, unless exceptional circumstances dictate that it must be otherwise. It feels as if we have agency over our own bodies, until we look a little closer and realise, we don’t. What predates the 1967 act, and was never repealed, therefore is still enshrined in law, is the 1861 Offences against the person act. It is this law that is still the foundation for which our current abortion laws are built upon, and criminalises all abortions, carrying the maximum penalty of life imprisonment. If one’s termination is not carried out in these specific remits, then sentencing and going through the courts looms.

It is this antiquated law that has been making the rounds in the criminal justice system this year, and the reason why the decriminalise abortion cause has been making headlines alongside it. This year, women are being charged for terminating their pregnancies, or to have been suspected of doing so, in circumstances the state deem inadmissible. Carla Foster, Bethany Cox, and countless nameless individuals have all faced the injustice being carried about my a nominally called justice department. In 2021, a 15 year old girl who experienced an unexplained stillbirth was subject to a year long criminal investigation, where police searched both her phone and laptop for supposedly incriminating evidence. In 2022, a women was kept for 36 hours in a prison cell after her stillbirth, due to unfounded suspicions of how it had occurred, and now has a diagnosis of PTSD.

The pro-choice rally was more of an anti-protest. The reason we had gathered there was because an annual pro-life rally was happening in Westminster that day, with a march (route unknown) culminating in a gathering in Westminster square. As the Saturday morning turned into the early afternoon, speakers for our cause came and went in our make-shift area near the Millicent Fawcett statue, trying to make themselves heard over the cacophony surrounding us. The message that came through over and over again, throughout their talks, was one of determination, but also, incredulity. It is 2023, yet we still have a law in place that is being used this year to imprison women for abortion. How can this be? We like to claim ourselves as agents of our own destinies. After all, the liberal democracy that we inhabit claims to be meritocratic. A society where everyone is born equal, and has equal access to all that life can offer them. But this is simply not the case when it comes to women. In fact, it is decidedly un-so. “Everyone is born equal” writes Orwell in Animal Farm “But some are born more equal than others.”  

“Abortion remains in criminal law. Women are being prosecuted when they should have been supported by health professionals. We’re here to demand an end to misogyny and racism in healthcare. We want full decriminalisation.” Said Dr Sonia Adesara at the rally, NHS doctor and National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow. But when will that be? Rather than history bending towards the path of righteousness, we see time and time again how it can bend in the opposite direction, retreating towards what once was, afraid or fearful of change. It is no coincidence that the rise in women being prosecuted for so called ‘illegal’ abortions is accompanied by a rise in the so called ‘pro-life’ movement. Entrenched within the US political discourse since the introduction of roe v wade, it has seemingly seeped itself into UK politics, although it was, until recently, a rather fringe topic. Something on the periphery of right wing and far right narratives. But this has changed. Emboldened by the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US earlier this year, the pro-life lobby in England has seen a seed of hope. The UK based charity Abortion Right, a national pro-choice campaign, noted at the rally on Saturday in their speeches that they had seen a more active and organised pro-lifer movement over the past year or so; a worrying trend. At the national conservative conference earlier in the year, what was once a fringe event saw mainstream politicians attend and give speeches, such as the current Home Secretary Suella Braverman, where topics such as ‘the great replacement theory’ were flirted with, and speakers harked back to a simpler time when the ‘traditional family unit (i.e. a man and a woman)’ were at the centre of society. The great replacement theory instigates that abortion is contributing to a depletion of the white population, purposefully organised by a ‘Marxist elite’. With all conspiracy theories, it actually has a kernel of truth to it. Indeed it is predicted that by the middle of this century, the majority of Americans will no longer be ‘white’, due to migration, inter-racial relationships, and falling birth rates. And with all conspiracy theories, it is built upon anxiety and fear. Fear that the privilledged afforded to white people simply because of their skin colour and dominance in the northern hemisphere will no longer be a given, fear that the way the world currently looks and operates will change, fear that what makes them special no longer will. Within this, therefore, there is a desire to preserve a way of life that has, for centuries, benefited them immensely, and within that way of a life is an ability to control womens bodily autonomy.

What was shocking to me on Saturday, was seeing how many people were attending this official ‘pro-life’ march. Their numbers just never seemed to end. When the March finally reached Westminster, where we had set up our counter protest, it took several minutes for them all to file past us. So the first shock was simply the size of the thing. The second was the people. I am not sure what was worse. That so many of them looked so ordinary. That there were so many families with young children, so many girls and women who looked just like me. Or that the rest of the crowd were exactly what you would expect. Entitled, largely white men, although very much a mixture of both the young and the old. Religion played a large part of their demonstration. Pictures of the Virgin Mary was carried above the crowd, giving it very much a pilgrimage feel, indeed a statue of the Virgin Mary herself, adorned with flowers, was being carried on the march as if it were indeed a religious procession. Many men had handwritten signs talking of God and Jesus and sins. I have never had so many rosary beads shaken at me before by old white men, in fact, I have never had rosary beads shaken at me period. It was quite an experience. At first one is bemused, and then one is saddened by it. As the pro-life rally reached the square outside Westminster, where a stage had been set up to welcome the marchers, our side started to clash. Police intervened to line up in between the two sides, and there was several hours of protracted chanting from both camps. After a while, I left, tired and drained and hoarse. It was very hot, and I felt the need to go home. A friend I had made at the rally texted me later to say that it had gotten a little rowdy after I’d left, but that no arrests had been made, and the police seemed to be on the ‘pro lifers’ side. The crowd had continually tried to bless them and cleanse them of their sins, as if every woman who was at the pro-life rally had somehow had an abortion themselves, and therefore needed to be cleansed. This strikes me as a little odd, given that religion proposes compassion and empathy, and yet cannot see a reason why someone would march in solidarity for a cause, if they had not gone through the experience directly themselves.

I am not sure where this leave the movement, and I am not sure where it leave me. I wish to return to this topic. There are people I would like to interview, stories I would like to tell, and wider themes I would like to discuss. But for now, this will do.