Lately, Britain has been abuzz with the abortion law review. This article is another in a series.
The article focuses on 26-year-old Helena, who is having an abortion.
"They gave me a pill that stops the blood supply to the ... I don't know, whatever you want to call it," says Helena.
"Whatever you want to call it." Hm. A lot of ambivalence there.
Helena's will is strong, yet as she talks her chin begins to wobble. Her eyes are watering. "You have mixed emotions," she says, as if talking about somebody else. "Your head is telling you that you just can't entertain the idea of being pregnant. Your heart is telling you it's an amazing thing to happen, the most important thing anyone can do in their life ..."
If her will was so strong, why isn't strong in the opposite direction?
It doesn't cost anything to give birth. Raising a child, that's a different issue. Birth costs nothing.
Liz Davies, head of Marie Stopes in the UK, says the two-doctor rule should go but the legal limit should stay. "The needs of the woman are paramount. Not the needs of the foetus."
There you have it: feminist supremacy. Only the woman matters. If the fetus has to suffer, oh well, too bad for you. No compassion for that baby!
There are no babies in the language of this clinic, only neutral words like foetal tissue. "We do everything we can to demedicalise this place," says Deanna, the centre manager. "These women are not sick; they have come here for a procedure. We don't want it to look or feel or smell like a hospital."
Hm. Only neutral, medical words, but they try to dress up what is really going on.
Liz Davies says Dispatches showed pro-life propaganda, namely a whole foetus being wrapped in plastic. She thinks it was a stillbirth, not an abortion. But what about her own doctor's words? Were they exaggeration?
She's equivocating and saying to herself an "induction" (late term abortion) is not an abortion-- they're not classified the same way. Here's why I say this:
"These are the bald facts of abortion," she admits flatly. "We make no attempt to hide from them. The foetus is not removed whole in late abortion.
Well, here's an example of a late-term abortion being removed whole:
Here's another one:
So that torpedoes her theory.
Death of the foetus is instantaneous at the commencement of the procedure.
"Instantaneous" is in the eye of the beholder. It takes about 2 minutes. During which the fetus suffers cardiac arrest.
The purpose of abortion is to bring about the demise of a foetus for the betterment of a woman's life."
There you have it. The woman is important. The fetus? If he suffers, too bad! Feel the compassion for this poor, helpless creature!
When the procedure is over, what happens to the foetus? That is not something they like to talk about. "We don't want the pro-lifers getting hold of this stuff," says Liz Davies. But she also insists they have having nothing to hide, so describes how the "foetal tissue" is put into a large plastic tub, along with all the other "products" of the rest of a day's work at the clinic. The tub is sealed and securely stored by the clinic until it is taken away by a specialist clinical waste firm to be incinerated.
They have nothing to hide? Here's an idea: get a digital camera, and take a picture of the "products" of the day's work, and then you can debunk pro-lifers' claims, if they are false.
Have nothing to hide? Prove it!
Cramps have made it impossible to ignore what has been happening to her. "I do feel I have a relationship with ... I don't know what to call it. Definitely." That surprises her, she admits as she leaves, going back to a sofa, a hot chocolate and a favourite film. "I'm not sure what to think. It's not a person though because it has not formed enough and not taken on an identity," she says tentatively. "It's still special, though. It's still something. It's not nothing, is it?"
That's the question society has refused to answer, at least in Canada.
