Catholics preach against abortion, bears seen heading towards woods.

Abortion is in the news again. This week, Cardinal Keith O’Brien delivered a noteworthy sermon at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh. Railing against the increase in abortions in Scotland, he called upon universities to teach that abortion is wrong, for a “boycott” of politicians who fail to legislate against it, and for “a generation” of doctors to stop performing the operation. He likened the abortion-rate to being like “two Dunblane massacres, every day.”

Of course, the Cardinal’s dramatic outburst might not mean very much, in the grander scheme of things. O’Brien’s pretty chippy when it comes to many of the more inflammatory issues of the day. He may be pro-gay priest, but he’s anti also gay marriage and anti gay adoption, likened sex education for children to “abuse”, and has called upon Muslims to “apologise” for 9/11. And of course, pronouncing against abortion is pretty much what you would expect a Catholic archbishop to do.

Given that it’s a key part of Catholic belief, it’s amazing all Catholic priests don’t give sermons like this every day. It’s kind of their job.

Perhaps it’s a measure of how long British Catholics have been quiet on the matter that Cardinal O’Brien’s sermon is so inflammatory. He’s having to make up for lost time. However, O’Brien’s outburst does come at a time when there is something of a sea-change in the air over abortion.

Whilst Britain is vastly pro-choice, with only 3% wanting to see a total ban on abortion, the anti-abortionists have been emboldened by the success of their contemporaries in America - where total ban support runs at 22%. Campaigners are stepping up their activity here, in time for the 40th anniversary of legalisaiton, in October. In the last eight months, three bills have been tabled in the Commons, seeking to curtail womens’ access to termination.

The forthcoming Human Tissue and Embryos Bill is expected to be used by pro-life MPs to tack on abortion-limitation clauses. And, as Libby Purves noted in her column last month, an “unprecedented number” of doctors are opting out of terminations, dismayed by the year-on-year increase in operations. A great deal of the reason why anti-abortion sentiment is allowed to hold ground is that the abortion debate is just that – an ideological, religious or socio-political debate on abortion. It’s very rarely discussed in terms of personal, everyday experience, despite record numbers of women – 186,416 in 2006 – having them.

Women – always loathe to talk about the more visceral elements of female reproductive physicality, such as the reality of menstruation, childbirth or menopause – are too ashamed, or unconfident in their reception, to discuss their terminations – even with friends, or partners. This brings about the curious circumstance that, whilst pretty much everyone in Britain must have someone dear to them – mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, aunt, niece, grandmother – who has had an abortion, the chances of them actually discussing it with their more conservative elders, or menfolk, are remote.

Subsequently, we have a climate where anti-abortionists can discuss abortion as if it’s something that “they” do, over “there”; rather than the reality - that has, in all likelihood, been a calm, rational, well-thought-out act, which has statistically occurred very close to home.

This reluctance amongst women to discuss their terminations was made real to me last month, when I wrote a piece in The Times. In it, I mentioned how, having had two children, I had an early abortion when I found out I was pregnant with a third, and hadn’t – contrary to what I was “expected” to feel – experienced any indecision, guilt or trauma. Perhaps naively, I was amazed at the reader-response – over 400 on-line comments, and over 100 letters and emails.

By a rule of thumb, those who were anti-abortion cited no experience of pregnancy or abortion, whilst those who were pro-abortion, did. The response that I found most surprising, however, was a wonderful letter from a well-known and thoroughly redoubtable feminist columnist, who said that, although she had written about abortion many times, she had never mentioned her own terminations – she wasn’t “brave” enough.

It’s this silence from women – however strident they might usually be - that the anti-abortion lobby hopes to capitalise on. One of their recent publicity coups – causing unease in many instinctively pro-choice, including myself, initially – has been highlighting the rise in young women having multiple abortions. In short, women using abortion as a primary form of contraceptive.

But of course, young women having multiple abortions is, clearly, a matter for contraceptive and emotional education – not limiting access to abortion. And besides, I’d still rather have feckless young women having multiple abortions than feckless young women having multiple children.

And so, clearly, would the feckless young women. And that - thankfully for both them and us – is their right. But then, with Cardinal O’Brien simultaneously vetoing contraception, abortion and sex-education, it seems that, in 2007, the hardliners in the Catholic church are reverting to a more old-fashioned ideal of women. That they remain virgins until they are ready to become mothers, and that they then mother, without cease, until they drop.

Comments

[Jill]

I very much beieve in a woman's right to choose. Its other names is contraception. Once she has chosen, or not bothered to choose, contraception, any baby that results should also have the right to life. What about adoption? There are plenty of childless couples who would love to have one of those aborted babies.

The real question is: when does human life begin? If you believe, as many of us do, that it begins at conception, then abortion is murder, whether you belong to any religion or none. If you don't, where do you believe it begins? Wherever your line is, draw it.

[Sarah]

"men decide to have abortions too" siad J....

No they don't.
My partner told his ex-wife when she got pregnant (in the fall out of him discovering her affair with his friend) to get an abortion if she wanted them to stay together... she had the abortion.

When I got unexpectedly pregnant, my partner told me the same thing (he was too old to "start again" apparantly): I told him I'd pack his bags for him and show him the door. That I wasn't going to kill a child conceived in love because he wasn't enough of a man to deal with it.

He stayed. And he'd just started showing enthusiasm about the pregnancy when I miscarried.
Life's a bitch sometimes.

[Sarah]

The journalist who hadn't written about her own "terminationS" might do better to research contraception and maybe use it in future!

The fact is that abortion is murder of an unborn child. Sometimes it is utterly justified...and sometimes women have their foetuses aborted because it's inconvenient or because they were too stuipid/selfish to use contraception.

I'm fed up of people talking about abortion as if it's equivalent to sneezing or having your appendix removed. It isn't. I've supported 2 people through an abortion: one went on to drop out of college and was deeply affected. The other recovered well - but still has pangs and wonders "what if...".

Abortion is horrific and the result is the death of a foetus - to me, a child. Those who go through with it need a heck of a lot of support. And those who DO treat it like a sneeze deserve opprobium.

[dawn]

J's comment is spot-on. Men decide to have abortions too. I have been married twice, and in both marriages experienced contraceptive failure (once condoms, the other time the pill). Both husbands categorically refused to have a child (against my wishes - I very much wanted the babies). For them it was a deal-breaker. Who wants to bring a child into the world against the father's wishes? I did not believe in "tricking" them into waiting until the birth hoping that he would "grow to love the baby". They got their way, but needless to say both marriages ended in divorce.

[Robyn McL]

As someone who considers abortion the moral equivalent of... well, not quite murder, but more of hit-and-run driving ("Shit, I was careless and might have killed a human being there! Better to hide the evidence, or it might mess up my own life-plans...") - there is something that genuinely puzzles me about pro-choice mums. I can understand the child-free, get-those-horrible-parasites-away-from-me types wanting abortion to keep their lives the way they want them: children are an abstraction, a hypothetical. But once you've had children, (how) do you tell them about any abortions you have? I'm trying to picture myself explaining to my own children "Mummy loves you very much, of course, but if you'd come along at the wrong time, she'd have asked a doctor to kil you." I'm genuinely curious. How do your own children respond when you explain why you're pro-choice? Do you have to make it very, very clear that now they're born, they're safe?

I had two abortions before i was married. Now am married with 4 children and find it really hard to cope with what I have done. I was brought up catholic and always opposed terminations, I cant understand why this happened to me but it just did, I have to try and accept it and get on with life for my sake and for my childrens. Its the stigma of abortion I guess that makes it so hard. I was young and alone and petrified and hormonal, I guess this is the only way I can understand why this happened. Where not bad people just we were very frightened and confused.

[J]

Rosie, tell me how it works, being a catholic and using contraception? I find myself wishing a church like the catholic one, which has such influence over so many poor people with little education and power (I dont mean Brits) would teach that responsible contraception for married people is OK- but I thought it doesnt. So is your option only available to sophisticated catholics? how does it work?

[Rosie]

Sorry, my previous post should have said "In response to Sarah's comment" not Jane's.

[Rosie]

In response to Jane's comment, I too am Catholic and these Catholic women you refer to who have small families use contraception, like the vast majority of Catholics. All my Catholic friends are responsible adults who are very careful about their use of contraception, whether or not they are married. Let's be realistic, if you don't use contraception, you end up pregnant, end of story. It's the only way of preventing abortions.

[Delilah, USA]

R, I don't think anyone is proposing the abolition of a woman's right to have an abortion; but the blog invites judgment on why there are so many in a society where women don't like admitting that they have had one. The parameters of choice in Britain today simply aren't the same as they were in the 40's and 50's; and the debate is not served by diverting attention to those countries where the parameters have not changed. In Britain, single parenthood is socially acceptable, if a struggle; for those that can't face it, babies can be adopted from the delivery room without the mother having to spend the rest of her young life in a laundry run by nuns; contraception has moved light years beyond the old Russian Roulette methods (withdrawal, condom, ill-fitting Dutch cap). Every British woman has the means available to avoid pregnancy in 99% of cases; I know women who reduce their odds still further by using two methods at once. So it seems quite obvious why abortion still carries a stigma - in the same way that drunk driving carries a stigma - for a failure by an adult to take proper care with an activity (ie, sex) which can have devastating consequences for another person's life. What is strange is to me why so many women seem prepared to undergo it, often not once but multiple times. It almost implies a level of exploitation and loss of control belied by the words "right to choose".

[R]

I find it extremely interesting to read the comments from the readers.
It is quite surprising that women have completely forgotten about the pre-legislation times in 1950's when it would have been difficult and extremely dangerous to have an abortion.Whatever people's view's are I think the mother has the ultimate right to decide whether she can cope with that baby during that particular period.I am surprised that people can pass judgements about it,in this day and age.Please remember that the foetus does not have any right until it is born.This is a difficult ethical issue -let's not forget about the women who go through abortions.They need to be supported and helped in making their decisions.I don't think anyone has any right to impose their values or judgement on them.
I think people who oppose abortions should spend time in developing countries where illegal abortions are strife and teenage girls die everyday because of complications.

[J]

wow Jane I cant let that pass. How many people do you know who had an unplanned baby, and hardly anyone even blinks because they were in a marriage already so the child is a "lovely surprise". And the younger you are, the more fertile. Contraception fails you know. What a wicked thing for you to have said.

[jane]

The real problem about abortion is that a baby has to be sacrificed to the negligence and selfish carelessness of adults who had unprotected sex. But would those negligent, selfish and careless adults make good parents? Maybe the baby is better off dead, than raised by such people.

[Sarah]

As a Catholic, I naturally disagree with the views on abortion expressed here. But the last sentence in particular does not hold up.

It's an unfortunate but prevalent myth that Catholic women are required to produce a whole tribe of children. This is far from true. Issues surrounding family planning are routinely taught as part of marriage preparation. If you look around a Catholic church, you will see a whole mix of families of different sizes.

I find it infuriating when the Catholic Church is presented as a spiritual home for Stepford wives! I know many Catholic women who are intellectuals, career women, and feminists. Some of them are mothers too. This notion of conveyor-belt reproduction really does not do justice to these women - or indeed, the teaching of the Church.

[NL]

Excellent article.

We must defend our right to choice - anything else would be a dramatic step backwards.

[Delilah, USA]

The catholic church is trying to have its cake and eat it too with its total ban on both abortion and contraception. But in the real world, where cheap and extremely effective contraception is freely available to catholics and non-catholics, the abortion of healthy babies has become far harder to justify on ethical (as opposed to purely practical) grounds than it was in the '50's and '60's. I suspect this is the reason for the "sea-change" in attitude to abortions, rather than any resurgence of religious fundamentalism - that, and advances in ultrasound which have made the myth of insentient foetuses equally hard to maintain.

[j]

What a lot of virgin births you have round your way- must be all that Catholicism. Behind every feckless young woman getting pregnant there is a feckless bloke as well.

Seriously, let's not forget that the abortion debate tends to discuss things as if it is all the girl's fault and also entirely her decision. Sometimes she absolutely needs that independence- but a bit of recognition of the joint responsibility for both problem and solution wouldnt hurt. Men decide to have abortions too.