Our bodies our choice!

I debated whether or not to write this post because of some of the messages I had received regarding some stories I put on my Instagram. It’s a difficult conversation to have but needs to be talked about. My posts were about abortion and condemning the choice of Alabama, America, who recently passed a law to make it a criminal offence to have an abortion. There are also several other states trying to pass bills that would make it illegal.

Just in case you don’t understand what this means for thousands of women and families here’s a few points to make you think;

• · This law means that women and girls as young as 12 will be forced to carry a child full term or face criminal charges

• · Women with mental and physical disabilities will have to carry their child full term risking further health problems and possible health problems for the child also

• · Women who are survivors of rape and abuse will have to give birth to their rapist’s child or risk being jailed (sometimes for longer than their attacker).

• · Taking away a women’s right to terminate a pregnancy can cause a rise in risky ‘makeshift abortions’ in unsanitary and unsafe conditions which would put hundreds of women in danger.

• · With some women not being financially, mentally, physically or socially able to bring up a child this could force more children in to an already overcrowded foster system where children can be subject to abuse, lack of attention and care and poor standard of life.

• · This law takes away a women’s fundamental right to make a choice with her own body. The same way as it is our right to make other choices such as tattooing our bodies, what clothes we want to wear and what hair style we have. These are our own choices to make and nobody else’s!

Every child deserves to be brought in to a loving and caring family where they are provided for and given the support and guidance they need as they grow in to young adults. As a 22 year old women, currently living with her grandparents and very little disposable income to support another human if I were to get pregnant right now I don’t know what I would do in that situation. But I also have a choice.

I received some very confusing messages from people asking me ‘why I cared so much’ or ‘why I was posting about it as it’s in America and isn’t affecting England’ but that is so fucking ignorant and disgusting to me. With British politics as uncertain as it currently is what’s to say that some guy with a Trump complex won’t be voted in to power? It then doesn’t take much for laws to be changed and there go OUR rights. In 2018 one white man blocked a law to make up-skirting a criminal offence punishable with up to 2 years in prison. Luckily this bill has since been passed, but if one person can stop a law for it to be illegal for people to take pictures up women’s skirts without consent, then it wouldn’t be so far-fetched to believe that more female rights can be taken away from us.

So many women say “oh us girls should stick together” or some sort of bullshit but when it actually comes to supporting the rights of women across the world they stay silent like, if it’s not affecting them then it doesn’t matter. I get it, we can’t donate to every charity or volunteer for every soup kitchen but when it comes to women kind and our rights as women then we sure as hell should be fucking standing up for what we all deserve!

It’s not only Alabama that are making changes to their laws on abortion. The Kansas anti-abortion bill has recently included a provision that would mean that doctors can withhold information that they believe could cause a mother to seek out an abortion. Alongside this New Hampshire adopted a similar bill that would tell doctors to inform patients, that abortions can cause breast cancer although there is very little evidence to support this claim.

This anti-abortion bill is new in America but currently worldwide there are 66 countries where it is illegal to terminate a pregnancy. Many for religious and political reasons these tend to be in the Latin American and Caribbean area. In some of these countries women go as far as drinking turpentine or bleach. As well as some women using coat hangers or twigs causing lasting injury to their vagina and reproductive organs. Although there is a very low percentage of unsafe abortions currently in America I found a couple of stories that could become a lot more common as laws such as the one passed in Alabama continue to be passed;

“Kenlissia Jones from Albany, Georgia, ordered pills online to end her pregnancy. After ingesting them, she gave birth to the fetus in a car on her way to the hospital. She was arrested on charges of murder and illegal drug possession and taken to county jail. The prosecutor dismissed the murder charges, but Jones still faces charges of drug possession. In Georgia, 58 percent of women live in a county with no abortion provider.

In Indiana, Purvi Patel suffered a miscarriage and put the fetus in a bag in a dumpster. At the hospital, while suffering from heavy bleeding, law enforcement arrived to question her. During the investigation, local police found text messages that indicated Patel had ordered drugs online to end her pregnancy, but a toxicologist testified at her trial that no drugs were found in her blood sample. In March, Patel was sentenced to 30 years in prison for neglecting a dependent as well as six years for feticide.”

In some places even miscarriage can be treated as criminal offence and more women like Patel could be imprisoned for losing a child using loopholes within these laws.

It isn’t only single women who get abortions either, people in relationships, married, with children, lesbian, transgender… all people from all walks of life will be forced to carry a child that they may not be able to support. Just because you don’t/wouldn’t choose to have an abortion doesn’t mean that every other women on this planet shouldn’t be able to make that choice without being judged.

No women has an abortion because it’s easy, I’ve seen the lasting effects that this kind of choice has on a women but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right one. For all those women who have had, are planning to have or may have an abortion in the future, there’s no judgment here. We deserve the choice and we will fight for that choice!!!

I have tried to make this post as factually accurate as possible and would appreciate it if you could share this and keep educating yourself about what we as women can do to help other women around the world that aren’t as fortunate as ourselves. I have recently donated to alliance for choice who campaign for abortion in Northern Ireland and support pro-choice campaigns elsewhere and the yellowhammer fund who support abortion in Alabama. If you have some spare pennies go and support some great charity's and just use your voice to help destigmatize abortion and support women!

Thanks for reading,

Leah xoxo.