It would be monstrous to decriminalise abortion. I speak from experience
by Isabel Oakeshott, The Telegraph:
If there is to be any change to the law at all, it should be to reduce the 24 week legal cut-off at which abortion is routinely allowed.
A long time ago I had an abortion, the memory of which still makes me feel almost physically sick. I am ashamed of it, which is why – despite holding very strong views on abortion law – I’ve never spoken of it.
The only reason for sharing this horrible personal information is to demonstrate that what I feel compelled to say about the growing campaign to decriminalise terminations does not come from any position of moral superiority on my part. Quite the reverse: I fully understand that women can, and do, find themselves with unwanted pregnancies for all manner of reasons, and that for the vast majority, deciding to end the pregnancy presents far more than just a medical challenge.
What horrifies me is that any parliamentarian should want to decriminalise the fatal poisoning or dismemberment of unborn babies that are so well developed that they could survive outside the womb. No amount of sugar coating this can remove the repellent reality of what – if the law is changed in the way certain MPs want – could end up happening.
If you can’t imagine what it looks like, just ask Nadine Dorries, the former MP who used to work on an abortion ward. She has never forgotten her ghastly experience, as a nurse, of having to dispose of an aborted foetus in a bedpan. It was still gasping for life.
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