Disclaimer – I can’t recall who expressed what views within the context of the group meeting and if I have absorbed your views within my own and you wish to claim some authorship for them then please comment upon what I state. I wasn’t comfortable at the time but I think it was an involved and stimulating discussion…----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At an Amnesty International meeting last year which was used to discuss the issues of abortion before Amnesty was willing to back the notion of an international women’s right to have abortions, I felt particularly comfortable. I tend not to be able to think very clearly within group situations and there was a great deal of tension for me personally because of the experience I'd had with an ex-girlfriend, then girlfriend who had an abortion stating it was my child to be. I had made the mistake of not enforcing influence that I had and supported her through what I believed to be the right thing to do which was to support her individual decision not to keep the child. This may have been largely through what I thought was the best course of action for both of us – she was about to turn 21 and I was merely 19.
On reflection, I should have stated what I thought was suitable in the context of the relationship. Whilst I don’t blame the ex-girlfriend concerned for wanting an abortion especially when the circumstances were not particularly good I do not feel content with what happened. She had fallen pregnant before going away for a few months (the actual man who got her pregnant does cross my mind from time to time) and had returned after months of heavy drinking – with the potential that this could have caused all manner of deformity to the unborn child. Having issues like that to deal with does mean that I’d like time to prepare for a discussion on abortion related matters.
See - http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17378
At it’s worst, discussions on abortion can raise harsh social divisions and tap into longstanding Catholic – Protestant divides in the UK, if not the whole of Europe. At best the discussion on abortion is not likely to be pleasant. Having said that, that it is not most people’s idea of a leisure activity to discuss such things, it is a very important issue area – perhaps a barometer of our times. There does seem to be a tendency within the west to conceptualise abortion almost as a late form of contraception, without regard for the unborn child.
I state this and there could be much clearer conceptualisation, say through the arts of this particular process. There tends not to be frequent, open and frank admission of what the experience is like for women, nor for men for that matter, and neither would-be-siblings of the unborn child.
What was striking about the discussion was that it was quite heavily biased towards the group forming the conclusion that a woman having a legal right internationally to have abortions was the right thing to do. This may be owing to the nature of the political and legal establishments worldwide having failed women in so many respects. The cases that were used as examples within the discussions did lead to a conclusion that this may be a suitable goal for a human rights organisation; however, the specifics will always be debated by political leaders all over the world. One person did say she regarded it as her right to have an abortion and while I don’t disagree with the individual having this ‘right’, there are a number of issues which precede this that may need to stated before the ‘right’ is recognised.
With regard to men and their lack of rights to stop a female partner having an abortion, if this is the case then this needs to a matter that men are fully aware of prior to any consenting sex: in a position where there are no legal rights there is a duty to self to ensure that no risk is taken. If this is considered, it may become appropriate for men to be in control of contraception to a large extent. This is not to disempower women but rather to control for factors which will be beyond the control of the man in the relationship.
One other major element in relation to the discussion and its breadth was that there were no Muslim men present. How ‘Muslim’ the perspective I expressed may have seemed, of wanting men to have some form of legal right to contest abortion or even force a woman to give birth to a child if she were to become pregnant during marriage, I can’t say. I guess there is the issue that men are generally deemed as being in the ascendancy in society and there being a need to offer a few token gestures to women - including rights to legal control their own bodies through abortion. When this takes place and there is no reference to the need to change the multitude of issues of relationships which may restrict the progression of women in employment, rather than aiming to introduce an international human right for abortion, I must state that there needs to be a great deal supplementing the project of introducing an international human right for abortions to take place. To a large extent it seems that there was some lip service to the unborn child did not figure in what was presented – these seem to be very ill supported rights in Britain at present.
It is the 21st century and I do find abortion to be a barbaric act which shouldn’t be taking place in society today. If there are major restrictions on men or women from using contraception or if they are not able to participate in relationships without the ability to assert themselves to a point where they feel comfortable to do so, then there are other factors which need to be considered in relation to abortion before the relatively thorny issues that were presented to the Amnesty group are dealt with. Maybe amnesty is slightly outstretching itself on this matter as some seem to state:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/02/2006_21_thu.shtml
There are risks to women overseas who do not have the freedom to have an abortion which most of us don’t want to see, irrespective of views on abortion generally. For women to die during the course of abortions carried out by non-medics is extremely saddening. It is perhaps that many issues need to take precedence to the abortion freedoms that we were asked to discuss – will we be asked to discuss these? It is perhaps, ironically, only within the context of a bold international strategy to irradicate abortion altogether that there will be success in establishing an international right to abortion – this should only be a short term aim. The longer term aim of reducing the need for abortions tends take precedence altogether and without emphasis on this Amnesty will be unsuccessful.
In respect of the issues of contraception, men and the lack of legal rights to ensure that a pregnancy results in an attempt at child birth, if this is what were desired by the partners, there is a pressing need to ensure that all men are willing to assert their views. It is a position where the politics of persuasion need to operated by men because this is one area where their rights are vastly less than women’s are and in the absence of rights or legal power other forms of power and persuasion need to be drawn upon – hopefully personal expression will be the strongest of these.….
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