Abortion: The Choice of the Woman or her Doctor?

Why should a doctor be the one to give a woman the thumbs up for an abortion? Let alone two doctors. This is what the law currently states.

The probability is that the day a woman walks into that clinic to prematurely end her unborn child’s life, she will already be feeling pretty shit. Worrying about the permission from two doctors who have probably never met her before and cannot comprehend her reasoning for doing this, nor her circumstances, surely only add unnecessarily to the pain.

So if one doctor says yes and one says no, what happens? Are you allowed an abortion, or are you told to come back in six weeks so they can sleep on it? Or are you allowed half an abortion?

The former Professor of Ethics at UCLan, Ruth Chadwick, has called for this permission from two doctors to be scrapped. And rightly so, I say. It will just take a lot more women to agree with Ruth and I for the law to be changed.

I think everyone can say they know someone who has had an abortion: a friend from school, perhaps, or a friend of a friend, or a colleague. This piece of information is not usually shared over a light lunch; it is always a hushed whisper behind a hand, or a quiet confession told in shame or relief. Or both.

The reasons why women have abortions are infinite. So the probability that one will pour their heart out to their family GP, especially at a tender age, bearing in mind Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, is very unlikely. Doctors should not be allowed to play Russian Roulette with women’s lives, especially when there are potentially two lives involved. Are there two doctors because there are two lives?

I have never heard of a woman who has been denied an abortion. Not even in Take a Break. And if we did hear it, I am sure women everywhere, probably men as well, would have something to say about it, especially if the decision is at the disposal of an impersonal professional in a white coat. Will they be the ones the infant will be keeping awake at night? Will they feed and clothe it? Well why should they decide whether it exists or not.

This topic poses a huge debate anyway; always have and always will, so on the other hand pro-life campaigners could argue: well why does the woman get to decide if their child lives or not? Someone has to play God here, be it the doctors or the pregnant woman.

Despite the ever-increasing official statistics, abortion is not something you can read in a woman’s face.

Abortion rates are at an all-time high – in the year 2000, 185,000 women had abortions. In 2007, a quarter of a million women did; in both cases the majority being of age 20-24. So the doctors don’t appear to be cracking down.

I think abortion should be a solely and entirely personal decision. It is every woman’s prerogative to decide whether she is ready to be a mother or not. It is not the decision of two doctors who are under NHS grant restrictions or statistical targets to play God.