RAbout 36 hours after I first heard about the horrifying Maga taunt “Your Body, My Choice,” I learned I was pregnant, despite having a contraceptive IUD. My relief that I was living in Britain, and not the US – where abortion is fast becoming illegal or at best inaccessible – was great. Yet I realized I had no idea how to get an abortion, smugly assuming it would always be available when I needed it. After some fraught Googling I came across the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. A few days later I had my first appointment and I quickly discovered that it wasn’t purely “my choice”, even in the UK.
Of all the words you don’t want to hear as a surprise, “transvaginal” is at the top. I thought the scan to determine how pregnant I was would be the kind where a technician puts goop on your stomach. It wasn’t until I arrived that I was told it would be internal, due to the supposed early pregnancy. A second surprise: the IUD was gone, most likely sucked out by my menstrual cup. Later that day I had a telephone consultation. The nurse told me that two doctors would have to sign off on the termination and asked me to justify why my life would be negatively affected if I were forced to continue the pregnancy. Shocked, I said that I should just be able to say: I don’t want to. She was extremely gracious and agreed, but said this was a legal requirement under abortion law.
I told her I lived hundreds of miles from my partner. We hadn’t been together long and agreed on this. I lived in a one bedroom apartment. I could barely afford my own life. My career would suffer. The presence – or so I thought – of an IUD was supposed to show that I had actively protected myself from pregnancy. What more did she want? I’m optimistic toward the authority I disagree with, but I’m furious with any less strong-willed person seeking an abortion—already struggling with guilt and overwhelmed by dealing with the medical establishment—who might comes to doubt his own needs when confronted in this way.
Accessing abortion is like a full-time job, one that sent me to three clinics in North, South and Deep West London to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. If I had waited for a local appointment – or if a restrictive job or childcare situation kept me from traveling – it would have been another two weeks of increasing nausea, exhaustion and pain. Termination was not an emotional decision for me and my partner, but the process was extremely exhausting, even with the loving support of friends. This also applied to dealing with well-meaning people who projected sadness onto the situation. I asked them to talk to me as if I was having a wisdom tooth pulled (except you don’t need two doctors to sign that off).
On the way to West London for the termination last Monday, I read the Guardian’s interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, who believes abortion is “morally indefensible”, even in cases of rape or incest. I was shaking with anger as we navigated in panic along a slowed northern line. What is morally indefensible is the idea that any woman or person capable of bearing children must live with the unconscious products of such violence. If physicians must be convinced that continuing the pregnancy would cause “serious permanent harm to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman,” then I will brave any situation to meet those requirements more accurately.
I felt, as a person experiencing it, that even in Britain the decision to end is seen by some as frivolous and a luxury; It’s not really a last resort that often leaves you struggling to stand up for yourself in the midst of terrible pain. The male doctor who performed my procedure told me that menstrual cups were unsanitary and that it was better to use tissues. (The Lancet cites studies that say cups are less chance of infection then tampons or pads.) “Spoken like someone who has never had a period,” I said, exchanging a look with the female nurse. “I mean sanitary pads,” he stuttered between my legs.
Not that I wasn’t naive: I had no idea about the abortion is still technically illegal in Britain unless certain conditions are met. You might think: if abortion remains accessible, this is only a technical fact. But there has been a sudden increase in the number of women being prosecuted for so-called illegal abortions, and there have been reports of healthcare providers violating patient confidentiality. This continued criminalization enables the erosion of rights. The new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, voted against legislation in 2022 to introduce buffer zones around abortion clinics and hospitals to limit harassment by anti-abortion protesters, and in return for the government’s ‘pills by mail’ program to facilitate abortion at home without in-person consultation (both laws passed). Another Conservative amendment earlier this year aimed to reduce the abortion limit to 22 weeks.
Labor must move forward on decriminalizing abortion (a cross-party proposal to decriminalize abortion up to 24 weeks was shelved after this year’s snap election) and must urgently provide strong protections for anyone seeking such healthcare, especially as the country faces the threat of abortion. a Tory party that is an existential concession to reforming Britain – a party that leans further socially to the right than many people of reproductive age will have experienced in our lifetimes. Anyone seeking an abortion experiences enough stress without being subject to a system that legitimizes a culture of shame and suspicion.
It must also make that struggle intersectional. Two days before my abortion, I was still running a 10K that I had participated in months earlier, determined not to be stopped. Without really thinking about it, I started my playlist with Planningtorock’s Get your FKNG laws off my body. It’s a techno song about transgender rights, but I didn’t expect Jam Rostron’s lyrics to irritate me that morning. It intuitively underlined for me that denying bodily autonomy to any group legitimizes it all denial of bodily autonomy – a fundamental fact overlooked by anyone who sees the rights of one group as an attack on another. “My body, my choice” is just an empty slogan if it does not apply to everyone.
Now on the other side, in a state of stunned relief – and still furiously sore breasts – my only lingering shame is my previous ignorance, because I’ve learned the hard way that obtaining an abortion in Britain isn’t that easy at all is. I’m infinitely grateful that I didn’t have to cross state lines, but the process still felt like touching the edge of powerlessness at some points. It felt terrible.