Guest Blog: “It can’t happen here”: The future of abortion rights in Scotland (and what we can do about it)

Guest Blog: “It can’t happen here”: The future of abortion rights in Scotland (and what we can do about it)

In this guest blog, actor, writer and campaigner Ally Ibach explores how anti-choice narratives became entrenched in the USA, and why Scotland needs modern abortion law that works for women in the face of rising threats to reproductive rights.

Long before Roe v. Wade (1973), abortion was not nearly as outwardly contentious or topical an issue in public American media.

After all, American Republicans have historically identified themselves as the party of free will in a free-market capitalistic structure; if you want to do something, you should be able to, without the government peering over your shoulder. This argument has served for years in defence of lowering taxes regardless of income, defending gun ownership, and many more classic conservative American stances.

Abortion and authoritarianism in America

Yet the shift for abortion becoming a conservative stance can be traced back to Ronald Reagan’s presidential election. When Reagan served as Governor of California, he passed The Therapeutic Abortion Act of 1967, a liberal policy advancing access to abortions to Californians years before Roe. When it came time for the presidential race, there was a major swathe of undecided voters in the Bible Belt - predominantly white evangelical Christians. Thus, the Republican Party became the ‘Pro-Life’ party. It is impossible to ignore that America as we know it today, like many Western nations, was founded by White, Christian men, who brutally enforced their perceived / contrived “white supremacy” to take power from the global majority. To control the development of society, it is necessary to control reproduction.

Lewis Sinclair’s It Can’t Happen Here (1935) has served as a cultural touchstone for if/ when the fear of populist leaders in America rise to power, with the vast support of, and mass apathy in the American population. In the novel, Buzz Windrip is a charismatic, fascist leader who slowly erodes the constitutional rights of the citizens while enlisting ‘Minute Men’ to beat down American resistance (sound familiar?). Sinclair posits that when people are distracted, disgruntled, and desperate, we are capable of atrocities previously referred to as the “fascism over there!” The novel posits that, under the right circumstances, even the United States of America can be primed to succumb to populist, authoritarian regimes, using the very same ideology that has given Americans a cultural identity as a constitutional federal republic. Oh, if only you knew, Lewis.

Abortion and the law in Scotland

Now, let’s jump back across the pond to Scotland. The 1967 Abortion Act for Scotland, Wales, and England determined abortion as a medical procedure, and secured access to abortion for women if obtained within 24 weeks gestation, with the support of two doctors to agree to the procedure, and within other circumstantial rules. Sounds pretty solid, right? Well… while this was a win in many respects, women still had to rely on doctors agreeing to their need for medical care for a life-altering, time-sensitive procedure. That, paired with only having sporadic clinics throughout the country, made the geographic and classist inequities clear when it came to abortion access in Scotland.

Beyond travelling to a clinic, the question of the doctor being liberal and comfortable with the surgery is another hurdle that this law presented. With the newfound access to abortion, the NHS was flooded with requests, forcing them to have abortion care on a lottery system. If a Scottish woman was lucky, she would have an abortion in Glasgow or Aberdeen. If not, she would have to shell out the funds for travel and a private doctor. This happened so much in the 70s that the Glasgow-Liverpool train became colloquially known as the “Abortion Express”.

Furthermore, if any complications from the procedure arose, tracking proper medical records was harder to access for Scottish family doctors’ post-care. The NHS services in Scotland were so stretched that Edinburgh and Glasgow had to limit transfers for abortion care. Regional English practices started to limit their access by enforcing location-based restrictions on patients. As for the two-doctor recommendations: one woman may receive sympathies and support from a doctor, while another is left without care or the means to travel to obtain an abortion. The Abortion Act 1967 does not decriminalise abortion after 24 weeks, leaving patients at risk when needing care.

Let’s make one thing clear - women will always need and find ways to obtain abortions. The question is why, in recent history, this medical procedure that is life-altering and saving, has become so contentious and legally polarising. In both the Abortion Act in Great Britain and the pre-existing Roe Decision in the United States; gray areas were written into these laws that “pass the buck” to the willingness of medical providers, circumstance of the mother, willingness of the state, without clearly confirming the legal right to abortion access for all people regardless of race or class to have the procedure under any circumstance from a trusted medical provider of their choosing.

Why we need modernised abortion law that works for women

In 2025, the Scottish Government looked to an Expert Group of clinical, legal, academic and reproductive rights experts to review the current abortion laws to make suggested recommendations on what a modern abortion law should look like. The group met over the course of the year with the aim to ensure proper medical care, modernise the language and practices of abortion (example: over 90% of abortion procedures are at-home prescriptions), remove unnecessary barriers to care, and firmly understand reproductive rights as healthcare. Beyond a medical procedure, abortion is a human right of bodily autonomy that should be protected for all citizens of Scotland. The changes to abortion laws in Scotland proposed by the Expert Group would protect abortion rights and improve abortion care and best practices in the modern era of technology and medicine for the foreseeable future.

We cannot ignore the rising far-right movement across America and Europe. State-sanctioned violence and threats to reproductive care are pervasive. We cannot afford to leave women’s lives and bodies up for interpretation. From the other side of the Atlantic, I see that our systems are fragile. The findings of the Expert Group are vital in this process of tangible change. I encourage those in Scotland to heed the advice of the report, join grassroots organisations, and urge their MSPs to reform abortion law and to make abortion services truly accessible for all of Scotland.

In short, it can happen here. In long, the path to reproductive freedom is hard-fought and won. Now it is time to act, to expand those freedoms, and to make it crystal clear in the legal and medical systems that the pregnant people of Scotland deserve the right to choose what happens in their bodies. Justice can happen here, and it needs all of us to be activated. Let’s change the Act!

Ally Ibach is an actor, playwright, voiceover, and theatre artist. Ally holds an M.A. in Acting from East 15 Drama School in the United Kingdom. Ally Ibach wrote and performed their play Midnight Cowboy Radio about abortion rights in America across the US/ UK (Edinburgh Fringe, Theatre Row, The Pen Theatre, The Tank, etc.) partnering with Reproductive Rights Scotland, Reproductive Rights UK and Reproductive Justice of Maryland. Ally’s Independent Theatre work in New York has been supported by IndieSpaceNYC, the Bechdel Project and The Dramatists Guild. They are a founding member of Red Rogue Theatre with the New York Democratic Socialists of America.

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