Last Thursday finally saw the safe return of the 15 British sailors taken captive by Iranian warships two weeks ago. Upon their return they were subjected to intense media scrutiny with interviews asking them to detail their experiences and questions demanding they explain their refusal to fight back against the Iranians when captured as if they were facing charges of cowardice. Undoubtedly, their capture has ignited the case for war with Iran especially when compounded with the deaths of four British soldiers, killed by bombs allegedly made in Tehran. But before we return to calling out for yet another costly and needless war, we should really take a moment, as should the sailors who have just returned, to thank the British government for a fortnight of diplomacy so skilled, I did not originally believe they could pull it off. Following the Iranians' dramatic escalation and with stakes so high that a single miscalsulation could have led to war, the government and by that I mean the Foreign Office, still managed to control the situation and achieve their goal.
First, it is important to draw the distinction between the Foreign Office and simply the 'Government' as most of British foreign policy has been dominated and ineveitably botched by No 10, the two most significant examples being negotiations over EU economic reform and of course Iraq. A former former office official, based in Tehran for several years, whom I had the luxury of meeting a few years ago at university told me quite bluntly that the decision to go to war in Iraq had been solely driven by Tony Blair and his apparachiks in No 10 with literally everyone in the foreign office arguing against the move. If ever, there was a better example for all those Eurosceptics out there as to why the biggest threat to British sovereignty is not the European Union but the unbridled power of the modern Prime Minister, which only empowerment of local councils on the one hand and of the European Parliament on the other could rectify, then I have yet to see it, but I digress. FYI, this official also told me that it had already become clear to them (back in 2004) that Iran was next on the list, but then I'm not one to fuel unsubstantiated speculation, so I'll just let that one fester in your minds instead.
So, as Mr Blair clearly reasoned that he had neither the strength nor the support to go to war for these sailors and that even if he had such an action would have doubtlessly led to their executions, he decided to leave the Foreign Office to do what they do best. Their tactics were logically based on their best assessment of Iranian foreign policy objectives and processes. For example, the capture of the sailors could have been interpreted as an 'in your face' act of aggression from a power that believed itself to be ready to fight and win a war in the extreme against a militarily stretched and politically fragmented western coalition. Equally aggressive public statements coming from the Iranian President that the sailors could be put on trial, prompted by accusations of British espionage and the parading of the sailors on national television admitting their wrong-doing could have been interpreted as the highest political authority making his country's intentions loud and clear. The American administration for example has time and again taken such declarations from President Ahmadinejad as gospel, directly determining the state of bilateral relations between the two countries.
If the Foreign Office had come to the same conclusion, it would have led to either a dangerous escalation or an embarrassing capitualtion, committing both countries and their allies to positions from which they could not withdraw without provoking the extreme ire of their own people and sacrificing all their original objectives, leading inevitably to increased hostilities perhaps up to and beyond the point of war. Such a dramatic collapse of negotiations would almost certainly have risked the lives of all the sailors as well as a vast array of issues previously up for negotiation that otherwise had no link to this particular crisis, namely the nuclear proliferation question. That said, the capture of the sailors in the first place was unquestionably politically motivated -that strait of water had been patrolled by American sailors as well as British for many years yet the Iranians only chose to act now and only chose to target British personnel and not American. The embarrassing fact of the matter concerning this point is that the Iranians would never have dared arresting American personnel as either they would have fought back starting a war with the full backing of the American people (the current lack thereof I am sure is the only reason why the U.S hasn't yet initiated a war with Iran) or the American Air Force would have literally blown Tehran back to the stone age to get their people back irrespective of the risk to the soldiers' lives such is the 'come back with your shield or on it' mentality of the American military. The good news though from the Foreign Office's perspective would have been that the Iranians' choice of hostages automatically outlined their intention. The Iranians' sought political concessions, such as the release of five Revolutionary Guards (they say they're diplomats)from U.S cutody in Iraq or the downgrading of western hostilities in the form of U.S war games in the Gulf. Therefore, they were clearly banking on the Americans to stay out of it in public at least, seeing no potential risk or gain in terms of their own national interest with few if any Americans prepared to endorse a further commitment of their forces for British lives. The Europeans too, they must have calculated would have only just got round to agreeing to issue a statement once the crisis was already over considering their fraught relations with the UK of late. They therefore reasoned that should the UK capitulate, they would do a deal with the U.S to secure the release of the revolutionary Guards in return for the British Sailors and if the UK escalated, the Americans would do the deal themselves to prevent a war for which they had no appetite from breaking out.
Thus, the two key assumptions that would direct foreign policy in this instance were: 1) Iran did not want war and; 2) the buck in Iran does not stop with the President but the Ayatollahs and therefore his words must be contrasted to the actions of the regime as the delicate balance of hardliners and pragmatists is maintained. The goal of the Foreign Office therefore was to confound the Iranians' expectations and to give the impression that Britain would go to war if necessary and that the only concession they would grant would be to order their army to stand down in exchange for the safe return of all the sailors. They could only achieve this though by securing the whole-hearted support of the Americans, without whom military action would untenable, the European Union due to the massive economic leverage they exercise over Iran and the international community who would also play a prominent role in future decisions over the sanctions imposed on Iran and its nuclear programme.
The first of these key actors to take up the British cause was predictably the international community. Always fearful of anyone taking military action anywhere -especially in response to a breach of a UN mandate such as the patrolling of the waters where the sailors were taken hostage- the UN Security Council expressed its grave concern, the language may have been watered down by the Russians and the Chinese, but to get something so close to an outright condemnation from Iran's two biggest allies and benefactors was something of a diplomatic coup itself. However, it is not impossible to fathom why Russia and China came to Britain's aid. China, for example, may view Iran as a political ally, manifested in their massive investment in Iranian oil supplies, but with little political capital to be gained for China by the crisis and with the economic uncertainty it provoked raising oil prices, there was always going to be a limit to China's complicity with Iran's actions. Although, high oil prices certainly wouldn't bother the Russians, standing alone and vetoing a purely symbolic resolution, jeopardising their already tense relations with the West just wasn't worth it.
So, to the EU and the US. As has already been established, the U.S had no interest in intervening in this affair and would not say let alone do anything -the war games continued throughout the crisis and they made clear from the outset none of the Iranians held in Iraq would be released- unless it cost them nothing to do so. This meant that Britain would have to get the EU on board first to put the pressure on Iran by making it clear that taking British soldiers captive would be an affront not just to the UK but also the EU with serious economic and even military consequences. This was achieved with the governments of both Germany and France summoning their respective Iranian amabassadors to demand the immediate release of the British sailors. This was furthered by Angela Merkel's statement on behalf of all 27 members of the EU (Germany currently holds the rotating EU presidency) declaring their unconditional support for the British, reiterating the demand for the immediate release of the sailors. Only the Foreign Office with its constant record of pro-Europeanism (and anti-Americanism) could have pulled this off, surely prompting a re-evaluation of the significance of lasting relationships with our European partners, something Tony Blair will hopefully come to appreciate much more after this. In the meantime, the Foreign Office and Prime Minister were sticking to their strategy of defiance by insisting no deal would be done and intimating escalation without bluntly saying they were considering militry action.
At this point, the Iranians would have observed that their only powerful friends had deserted them, the UK was only getting more aggressive, Europe was rallying around Britain defiantly at a time when they were struggling economically with the consequences of the sanctions imposed by the UN on them for their nuclear programme and the U.S wasn't offering any deals and wasn't cutting back on the war games. Broadcasting the sailors detailing their 'illegal actions' and sending letters to their families on their behalf was only further inflaming a hostile media and by now, hardliners in their own populations were staging demonstrations outside the British embassy and drawing battle lines demanding tougher action on the sailors as public opinion across the world became more polarised. They were approaching the point of no return and were looking vulnerable. Then, and only then, did President Bush come out and condemn the Iranians for their actions, whilst simultaneously ruling out a deal, the last thing the Iranians expected or wanted.
The next day, on April 1st, the Iranians blinked first. Though still placing the honus for a resolution of the crisis on the British, they added that they were seeking a "moderate approach." Des Browne, defence secretary, signalled that Britain was not beyond reproach yet by publicly reiterating that both countries were in direct bilateral contact. At this point, the Iranians changed spokesman, substituting the President for the foreign minister in line with their change of tone. The following day, Ali Larijani of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council that is directly answerable to the Ayatollahs, spoke directly to Channel 4 to communicate the Iranians' desire to broach a diplomatic solution. In addition, further footage of the sailors' 'confessions' was withheld because of a "positive changes" in the UK's stance. 2 days later, the sailors were released as a gift from the President to avoid giving the impression to the hardliners that their man had been sidelined by the pragmatists. By making themselves look like the generous and forgiving nation they proclaim themselves to be and exploiting their people's pride in Islamic and Persian traditions of hospitality and respect for foreigners, they attempted to appease the hardliners who were demanding the sailors be put on trial.
One question remains though. If capitulating early on and pursuing a deal with the Americans on the Iranians held in Iraq was an option that could have led to the even swifter release of the sailors, then why did the foreign office not pursue this as well? The answer to this at first may appear that behind the scenes, away from overt and public scrutiny that would have negatively affected public opinion, they did. For example, even though the Americans refused to do a deal on the five Iranians in their custody, one Iranian diplomat being held by the Iraqis, but who the Iranians allege was abducted by the Americans, was released the day before the British sailors. In addition, the Iraqi foreign minister stated that his government had also been seeking the release of the five Iranians being held by the U.S in order to facilitate the release of the British sailors. Furthermore, on the day the Iranians released the sailors, U.S House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat) visited Syria to discuss how they could play a constructive role in the middle east, despite the U.S -albeit Republican- administration's insistence that no dialogue with the Syrians or Iranians would be sought. Walid al-Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, then described, just before Nancy Pelosi left, how Syria had played a key role in the resolution of the crisis with the information minister declaring that "Syrian efforts and the Iranian willingness culminated with the release of the British soldiers". However, I would dispute this on the grounds that such revelations only emerged after the tables had been turned on the Iranians by the British. In addition, I find it hard to believe that the Syrians would have made any effort to cajole the Iranians into releasing the sailors when the political concessions Iran sought such as downgrading hostilities in the Gulf would have stood to benefit the Syrians just as much. Similarly, the Iraqi administration with its close ties to the Iran at such a contraversial time did not want to be tainted as complicit in Iran's act of aggression once it became clear that Iran was not going to win this one. So, the two countries instead decided to show their support for the British cause to avoid attracting the ire of an reinvigorated power with most of the world on it's side.
So, a toast to British diplomacy I say and hopefully a lesson learnt by No 10: the more bridges you build, the more your presence will be felt across the world and the more friends you will make. Tie yourself down to just one and you will make none.
Saturday, 7 April 2007
Sunday, 25 February 2007
Why Liberals Should Be Pro-Life
The Lib Dems I know and have worked with are generally an open minded sort ready to listen to new and different ideas, never dismissive of anything and anyone and inclusive of all creeds with all views. That is until I told them about my views on abortion. How can I call myself a liberal and not be pro-choice they say, despite the President of their own party being opposed to abortion? So I thought it was about time I clarified my views if for no other reason than to stop those wild accusations of being a closet Christian fundamentalist who invariably hates all women, gays, old people (I'm against euthanasia too) which inevitably ends up somehow making me a fascist who secretly gets off watching the bad guy in "V for Vendetta" as part of a radically right wing socially conservative agenda. Some really cross the line though, and accuse me of being a closet Conservative.
I have always been personally opposed to abortion but in the beginning was outwardly indifferent (as in I didn't consider it a priority as opposed to not giving a damn about others) because even though I felt uncomfortable with the notion of terminating what could be a living breathing human being, I had never really thought about it in much depth. Then one day a couple of years ago, the Evening Standard published pictures, taken courtesy of new technology enabling much more graphic and detailed ultra-sound scans, of an embryo at 24 weeks -the legal limit up until which abortion is permitted here in the UK. The pictures showed the foetus, which looked like any newborn baby appearing to walk in the womb and suck on its thumb. Although hardly a conclusive case for pro-lifers, it did bring the issue of abortion to the front of my mind and made me think about it like never before. Since then, abortion has become much more prominent in the minds of the wider public too as pre-natal genetic engineering, sex selection and disability screening before 24 weeks to offer parents the option to abort early on in the pregnancy have provoked wide-scale debate.
Furthermore, the experts have been split over the issue with one of the UK's leading abortion clinics calling for the upper limit to be reduced back in 2005 and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service calling recently for the abortion laws to be liberalised. The issue has become so prescient that the British Medical Association was led to debate the abortion limit for the first time since 1989, only just deciding to reject calls to revise and reduce it. Indeed even Parliament itself debated reducing the limit and imposing a 10 day 'cooling off period' that would require women to wait ten days after requesting an abortion before undergoing the procedure with the intent of the proposal being to give them time to reconsider their decision. The motion was defeated with Labour MP Chris McCafferty labelling it as "an attack on women's reproductive rights".
So, why do I oppose abortion? First, the issue is not and should not be perceived as life versus choice. The foundation of the pro-choice movement is that they do not consider a foetus that is not viable -cannot survive outside the womb- to be alive. To quote pro-choice feminist Zoe Williams: “if you do not consider this foetus human, then it becomes no more of an issue than getting a tumour removed.” My argument, however, is that within a de facto liberal democracy such as the United Kingdom, the unborn should be considered alive and their right to life protected by and enshrined in the law. There are four reasons why I believe this. 1) The current definition of when life begins is inconsistent, 2) Being uncertain that the unborn are alive is not confirmation that they are not, 3) Far from empowering women, abortion as a solution to unwanted pregnancies undermines the progress of the women's movement, 4) It is morally inconsistent to live in a society which prohibits euthanasia, but permits abortion.
1) The current abortion term limit in the United Kingdom is 24 weeks and requires the consent of two doctors. The limit used to be 28 weeks as established by the Abortion Act of 1967, but was cut to 24 in 1990 following the passing of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. This limit reflects the viability of the foetus i.e. if it can survive outside of the womb and is commonly, but mistakenly, understood to determine when a foetus becomes alive. However, when discussing the origins of human life, there is hardly a consensus around 24 weeks as the starting point. Developmental biologists consider it to be the completion of fertilization. Reproductive physiologists argue that implantation –the beginning of pregnancy- is a more accurate estimate. Indeed, to quote Justice Blackmun who wrote for the majority of the US Supreme Court in the case of Roe v Wade in 1973: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” This is why the viability of a foetus is used to establish the abortion limit. However, as technology improves, more and more premature babies, delivered before 24 weeks survive outside the womb. In addition, most doctors and clinics in the UK today will not consider carrying out a termination after 20 weeks unless it is a medical emergency in which the mother’s life is jeopardised because of the questionable nature of the 24 week limit. This, however, provides only an argument to reduce the current abortion limit– a proposal backed by David Steel, the man responsible for introducing the Abortion Act in 1967 in the first place.
2) As stated above, there is no consensus around when human life begins, contrary to the claims of many such as former President of the National Organisation of Women, Eleanor Smeal who asserted that “everybody knows that life begins only after birth.” As such, the issue of when life begins is fudged by legislators with emphasis being placed instead on viability. Such a judgement presumes then that the foetus is not alive prior to the expiry of the 24 week limit, not even on the 28th day of the 23rd week of pregnancy –bearing in mind at this point that just last week, the world’s most premature baby, born four months ago after less than 22 weeks in the womb, was deemed healthy enough to be taken home by her parents- even though the question of when life begins has not yet been answered, meaning that we are no more certain that the unborn foetus is not alive than we are that it is. In other words, as demonstrated by the words of a supreme court judge as well as the achievments of modern technology, it is entirely possible for a foetus to be alive and to be viable, but still be terminated.
This is significant as no judge in a liberal democracy such as ours that deems the right to life as the most sacrosanct of them all would allow the termination of a foetus considered to be alive and doubtless virtually no woman would request one, except if her life was at risk or her child was destined to be born with severe and life-threatening disabilities as is the rule of thumb now with late term abortions. My question therefore is this: In a liberal democracy where life is sacred and the law chooses sides only when all reasonable doubt has been eliminated; how is it that in the case of the unborn child, the burden of proof is placed on those who argue that it is alive rather than on those who argue that it is not when the evidence is inconclusive at best? Furthermore, why is it that when a bill in Parliament is introduced to amend current abortion law, accepting the premise of viability as an appropriate determinant of the legal abortion limit, to cut that limit in order to reflect the progress of medicine and technology that enables babies born at 22 weeks to survive, is voted out of Parliament and seen as an attack on the progress of women’s rights as if the two were mutually exclusive?
3) One of the most widely held assumptions today is that abortion is a feminist issue and that to be pro-life is to be a shauvinist and misogenist. I would heavily dispute both these assumptions. First, the claim that abortion is a feminist issue is based on the premise that women are entitled to choose what happens to their own body and that to therefore oppose abortion is to oppose a woman’s right to choose –hence pro abortion movements calling themselves pro choice. One look at the reasons why women abort though reveals that such a decision often has very little to do with choice. The top reasons for having an abortion, according to a 1998 study across 27 countries are desire to delay child-bearing, fear of interruption of career or education and financial or relationship instability. If anything, such reasons demonstrate the continuing capitulation of women to a society dominated by men where having a career and children at the same time still carry such a negative stigma, not to mention the remaining disparities between men and women’s rate of pay which directly affect one’s capacity to bring up a child.
More to the point though, historically, feminism has had a substantial pro-life element about it. Some of feminism’s most pioneering activists and thinkers dating back to the 19th century were staunchly anti-abortion. Two of the leading figures of the women’s movement back then included Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull. Anthony argued that “abortion was the product of a social system that compelled women to remain ignorant about their bodies, that enabled men to dominate them sexually without taking responsibility for the consequences, that denied women support during and after the resulting pregnancies, and that placed far more value on a child’s legitimacy than his or her life and well-being.” Anthony was not just another campaigner loosely associated to the women’s movement though. She was a publisher who regularly wrote about the hypocrisy of society regarding the treatment of women, vociferously campaigned for the abolition of slavery, women’s right to own property and founded the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, playing an instrumental role in the securing of women’s suffrage. Her views on abortion were echoed by the first woman in the United States to become a doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell. Woodhull too asked: “Is it not equally to destroy life, to crush it in its very germ, and to take it when the germ has evolved to any given point in its line of development?” Again, Woodhull was not just your average feminist, she was the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1870. Such sentiments were not exclusive to America either. Many of Britain’s greatest feminists including Mary Wollestoncraft and Emmelline Parkhurst shared very much the same views
4) Euthanasia is relevant to the abortion debate for one simple reason. How can it be deemed just to take a life not yet lived without consent but not a life lived out with consent? True, this is as much an argument in favour of euthanasia, but I am against euthanasia, for reasons to which I will devote a different article. Nevertheless, both camps would surely recognise the same contradiction in the law that deems it criminal to grant the request of an individual who is approaching the end of their life to die because their life has become unlivable, promoting life over choice, whilst sanctioning the termination of the unborn precisely in the name of choice.
To take this argument further what of those who exist in vegetative states, relying on life support machines? Those who show no sense of consciousness or awareness other than minimal reflexes if that? Their guardians, spouses or families are not allowed to decide for them whether they should live or die unless their doctors conclude that they have no hope for improvement. Noting that there is increasing evidence, that unborn foetuses are far more aware of themselves and their surroundings than once presumed. Considering that if carried to term, they would ‘improve’ to the point of being fully developed newborn babies, providing no complications occur during the remainder of the pregnancy, then why does the law not extend the same rights and protections to the unborn as it does to those in vegetative states?
All the above are reasons why I am against abortion, but to ask me whether I would support a ban on abortion such as that imposed by the state of South Dakota in America last year is a different question, one to which I would anwer with a resounding NO. This is not to say I do not believe that access to abortions should be more restricted, I do. I would like to see the UK's abortion law more closely resemble that of Ireland, where only a risk to the mother's life through complications or threat of suicide would warrant an abortion. Such a law would not come with any abortion limit as viability should not be a factor, only life, although I expect that in cases where the baby is viable and the mother's life in risk, emergency caesarions become the more likely option. Such changes should only be made, however, in tandem with a vast array of reforms and initiatives that are missing from these countries' and states' abortion laws. These include revamping systems of state support and counselling for mothers to be, especially those who would otherwise abort because of financial difficulties. The liberalisation of adoption laws in the UK is a massive step forward with gay couples being allowed to adopt to make up for the shortfall of children left at the mercy of the foster system where they are moved from home to home, never allowed to settle with some suffering horrendous abuse at the hands of those entrusted with their safety.
Readdressing the way society addresses sex is another hurdle that needs to be overcome with a real need for increased provision and accessibility of contraception. The socio-economic factors that see so many teenage girls fall pregnant, with the UK having the highest rate of teenage births in Western Europe also urgently need to be addressed. But most importantly of all, women need to be convinced. specifically I mean women who aren't necessarily highly vulnerable individuals, but undergo abortions because they are not ready for childbirth as it risks undermining their careers, their education or their relationship. To scream abuse at women who choose this option, accusing them of being child-murderers who see abortion as just another form of contraception is not just unhelpful, but also unjust especially considering that their actions are entirely legal as things stand. Furthermore the latest research as revealed in a joint study by the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organisation shows that abortion rates remain the same in countries where it is banned as in those where it is not with only effective provision of contraception proving to effect a decline in abortion. In any case, as strongly as I feel about abortion, a repetition of the case of a 14 year old girl in Ireland, prevented from leaving the country to go to the UK for an abortion, is something that we must take great pains to avoid. Respect for women and women's rights and a substantive effort to fund and support the alternatives will achieve more than a simple 'crackdown' on abortion, but the law does need to change.
I have always been personally opposed to abortion but in the beginning was outwardly indifferent (as in I didn't consider it a priority as opposed to not giving a damn about others) because even though I felt uncomfortable with the notion of terminating what could be a living breathing human being, I had never really thought about it in much depth. Then one day a couple of years ago, the Evening Standard published pictures, taken courtesy of new technology enabling much more graphic and detailed ultra-sound scans, of an embryo at 24 weeks -the legal limit up until which abortion is permitted here in the UK. The pictures showed the foetus, which looked like any newborn baby appearing to walk in the womb and suck on its thumb. Although hardly a conclusive case for pro-lifers, it did bring the issue of abortion to the front of my mind and made me think about it like never before. Since then, abortion has become much more prominent in the minds of the wider public too as pre-natal genetic engineering, sex selection and disability screening before 24 weeks to offer parents the option to abort early on in the pregnancy have provoked wide-scale debate.
Furthermore, the experts have been split over the issue with one of the UK's leading abortion clinics calling for the upper limit to be reduced back in 2005 and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service calling recently for the abortion laws to be liberalised. The issue has become so prescient that the British Medical Association was led to debate the abortion limit for the first time since 1989, only just deciding to reject calls to revise and reduce it. Indeed even Parliament itself debated reducing the limit and imposing a 10 day 'cooling off period' that would require women to wait ten days after requesting an abortion before undergoing the procedure with the intent of the proposal being to give them time to reconsider their decision. The motion was defeated with Labour MP Chris McCafferty labelling it as "an attack on women's reproductive rights".
So, why do I oppose abortion? First, the issue is not and should not be perceived as life versus choice. The foundation of the pro-choice movement is that they do not consider a foetus that is not viable -cannot survive outside the womb- to be alive. To quote pro-choice feminist Zoe Williams: “if you do not consider this foetus human, then it becomes no more of an issue than getting a tumour removed.” My argument, however, is that within a de facto liberal democracy such as the United Kingdom, the unborn should be considered alive and their right to life protected by and enshrined in the law. There are four reasons why I believe this. 1) The current definition of when life begins is inconsistent, 2) Being uncertain that the unborn are alive is not confirmation that they are not, 3) Far from empowering women, abortion as a solution to unwanted pregnancies undermines the progress of the women's movement, 4) It is morally inconsistent to live in a society which prohibits euthanasia, but permits abortion.
1) The current abortion term limit in the United Kingdom is 24 weeks and requires the consent of two doctors. The limit used to be 28 weeks as established by the Abortion Act of 1967, but was cut to 24 in 1990 following the passing of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. This limit reflects the viability of the foetus i.e. if it can survive outside of the womb and is commonly, but mistakenly, understood to determine when a foetus becomes alive. However, when discussing the origins of human life, there is hardly a consensus around 24 weeks as the starting point. Developmental biologists consider it to be the completion of fertilization. Reproductive physiologists argue that implantation –the beginning of pregnancy- is a more accurate estimate. Indeed, to quote Justice Blackmun who wrote for the majority of the US Supreme Court in the case of Roe v Wade in 1973: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” This is why the viability of a foetus is used to establish the abortion limit. However, as technology improves, more and more premature babies, delivered before 24 weeks survive outside the womb. In addition, most doctors and clinics in the UK today will not consider carrying out a termination after 20 weeks unless it is a medical emergency in which the mother’s life is jeopardised because of the questionable nature of the 24 week limit. This, however, provides only an argument to reduce the current abortion limit– a proposal backed by David Steel, the man responsible for introducing the Abortion Act in 1967 in the first place.
2) As stated above, there is no consensus around when human life begins, contrary to the claims of many such as former President of the National Organisation of Women, Eleanor Smeal who asserted that “everybody knows that life begins only after birth.” As such, the issue of when life begins is fudged by legislators with emphasis being placed instead on viability. Such a judgement presumes then that the foetus is not alive prior to the expiry of the 24 week limit, not even on the 28th day of the 23rd week of pregnancy –bearing in mind at this point that just last week, the world’s most premature baby, born four months ago after less than 22 weeks in the womb, was deemed healthy enough to be taken home by her parents- even though the question of when life begins has not yet been answered, meaning that we are no more certain that the unborn foetus is not alive than we are that it is. In other words, as demonstrated by the words of a supreme court judge as well as the achievments of modern technology, it is entirely possible for a foetus to be alive and to be viable, but still be terminated.
This is significant as no judge in a liberal democracy such as ours that deems the right to life as the most sacrosanct of them all would allow the termination of a foetus considered to be alive and doubtless virtually no woman would request one, except if her life was at risk or her child was destined to be born with severe and life-threatening disabilities as is the rule of thumb now with late term abortions. My question therefore is this: In a liberal democracy where life is sacred and the law chooses sides only when all reasonable doubt has been eliminated; how is it that in the case of the unborn child, the burden of proof is placed on those who argue that it is alive rather than on those who argue that it is not when the evidence is inconclusive at best? Furthermore, why is it that when a bill in Parliament is introduced to amend current abortion law, accepting the premise of viability as an appropriate determinant of the legal abortion limit, to cut that limit in order to reflect the progress of medicine and technology that enables babies born at 22 weeks to survive, is voted out of Parliament and seen as an attack on the progress of women’s rights as if the two were mutually exclusive?
3) One of the most widely held assumptions today is that abortion is a feminist issue and that to be pro-life is to be a shauvinist and misogenist. I would heavily dispute both these assumptions. First, the claim that abortion is a feminist issue is based on the premise that women are entitled to choose what happens to their own body and that to therefore oppose abortion is to oppose a woman’s right to choose –hence pro abortion movements calling themselves pro choice. One look at the reasons why women abort though reveals that such a decision often has very little to do with choice. The top reasons for having an abortion, according to a 1998 study across 27 countries are desire to delay child-bearing, fear of interruption of career or education and financial or relationship instability. If anything, such reasons demonstrate the continuing capitulation of women to a society dominated by men where having a career and children at the same time still carry such a negative stigma, not to mention the remaining disparities between men and women’s rate of pay which directly affect one’s capacity to bring up a child.
More to the point though, historically, feminism has had a substantial pro-life element about it. Some of feminism’s most pioneering activists and thinkers dating back to the 19th century were staunchly anti-abortion. Two of the leading figures of the women’s movement back then included Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull. Anthony argued that “abortion was the product of a social system that compelled women to remain ignorant about their bodies, that enabled men to dominate them sexually without taking responsibility for the consequences, that denied women support during and after the resulting pregnancies, and that placed far more value on a child’s legitimacy than his or her life and well-being.” Anthony was not just another campaigner loosely associated to the women’s movement though. She was a publisher who regularly wrote about the hypocrisy of society regarding the treatment of women, vociferously campaigned for the abolition of slavery, women’s right to own property and founded the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, playing an instrumental role in the securing of women’s suffrage. Her views on abortion were echoed by the first woman in the United States to become a doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell. Woodhull too asked: “Is it not equally to destroy life, to crush it in its very germ, and to take it when the germ has evolved to any given point in its line of development?” Again, Woodhull was not just your average feminist, she was the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1870. Such sentiments were not exclusive to America either. Many of Britain’s greatest feminists including Mary Wollestoncraft and Emmelline Parkhurst shared very much the same views
4) Euthanasia is relevant to the abortion debate for one simple reason. How can it be deemed just to take a life not yet lived without consent but not a life lived out with consent? True, this is as much an argument in favour of euthanasia, but I am against euthanasia, for reasons to which I will devote a different article. Nevertheless, both camps would surely recognise the same contradiction in the law that deems it criminal to grant the request of an individual who is approaching the end of their life to die because their life has become unlivable, promoting life over choice, whilst sanctioning the termination of the unborn precisely in the name of choice.
To take this argument further what of those who exist in vegetative states, relying on life support machines? Those who show no sense of consciousness or awareness other than minimal reflexes if that? Their guardians, spouses or families are not allowed to decide for them whether they should live or die unless their doctors conclude that they have no hope for improvement. Noting that there is increasing evidence, that unborn foetuses are far more aware of themselves and their surroundings than once presumed. Considering that if carried to term, they would ‘improve’ to the point of being fully developed newborn babies, providing no complications occur during the remainder of the pregnancy, then why does the law not extend the same rights and protections to the unborn as it does to those in vegetative states?
All the above are reasons why I am against abortion, but to ask me whether I would support a ban on abortion such as that imposed by the state of South Dakota in America last year is a different question, one to which I would anwer with a resounding NO. This is not to say I do not believe that access to abortions should be more restricted, I do. I would like to see the UK's abortion law more closely resemble that of Ireland, where only a risk to the mother's life through complications or threat of suicide would warrant an abortion. Such a law would not come with any abortion limit as viability should not be a factor, only life, although I expect that in cases where the baby is viable and the mother's life in risk, emergency caesarions become the more likely option. Such changes should only be made, however, in tandem with a vast array of reforms and initiatives that are missing from these countries' and states' abortion laws. These include revamping systems of state support and counselling for mothers to be, especially those who would otherwise abort because of financial difficulties. The liberalisation of adoption laws in the UK is a massive step forward with gay couples being allowed to adopt to make up for the shortfall of children left at the mercy of the foster system where they are moved from home to home, never allowed to settle with some suffering horrendous abuse at the hands of those entrusted with their safety.
Readdressing the way society addresses sex is another hurdle that needs to be overcome with a real need for increased provision and accessibility of contraception. The socio-economic factors that see so many teenage girls fall pregnant, with the UK having the highest rate of teenage births in Western Europe also urgently need to be addressed. But most importantly of all, women need to be convinced. specifically I mean women who aren't necessarily highly vulnerable individuals, but undergo abortions because they are not ready for childbirth as it risks undermining their careers, their education or their relationship. To scream abuse at women who choose this option, accusing them of being child-murderers who see abortion as just another form of contraception is not just unhelpful, but also unjust especially considering that their actions are entirely legal as things stand. Furthermore the latest research as revealed in a joint study by the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organisation shows that abortion rates remain the same in countries where it is banned as in those where it is not with only effective provision of contraception proving to effect a decline in abortion. In any case, as strongly as I feel about abortion, a repetition of the case of a 14 year old girl in Ireland, prevented from leaving the country to go to the UK for an abortion, is something that we must take great pains to avoid. Respect for women and women's rights and a substantive effort to fund and support the alternatives will achieve more than a simple 'crackdown' on abortion, but the law does need to change.
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