The Freedom to Choose

The Freedom to Choose

In this guest blog, VAWG professional, writer, activist, and Let’s Change the Act campaigner, Alice Jackson, explores abortion rights and coercive control. 

Last week, the House of Lords voted to decriminalise abortion and pardon and expunge the records of women who had been criminalised for seeking abortions outside of the legal limits. A historic day, and a day hard and long fought for. There are now only three steps left until this bill becomes law, and the landscape of how abortion is delivered in England and Wales is changed, hopefully forever (though we can never be too careful).

I was proud to support, and work in a very minor capacity, on this campaign. My earliest professional roots were in reproductive and sexual health, and although I now work full-time in VAWG (Violence Against Women and Girls), abortion and reproductive healthcare remains a key part of my focus. Not only is abortion a feminist issue, it’s a VAWG issue. A lot of the work I do is in Health; if you’re experiencing abuse, you’re most likely to seek support from, or disclose to a healthcare professional, and the NHS has more contact with people experiencing abuse than any other service; and yes, that includes police. Healthcare professionals are uniquely positioned to identify and respond to abuse, and they enjoy much greater public confidence and trust than the criminal justice system and other statutory services. 

A radical approach to reproductive rights is important, recognising and enshrining the idea that simply not wanting a baby is a good enough reason to not have a baby and that a person need not have “suffered” in order to be deemed “worthy” of abortion care. But compassion, humanity and understanding that people are not always free or safe to make choices within our laws and within our expectations is important too. The context, the reality, the humanity behind the stories that are so often demonised or judged in media and online is so vital.

For people experiencing abuse, and the lack of control and agency that comes with, including sexual, medical and reproductive, abortion decriminalisation is a vital step. Victim-survivors are one of the most at-risk groups for criminalisation. According to the Centre for Women’s Justice, nearly 70% of women in prison and on probation are victim-survivors of domestic abuse.[Centre for Women’s Justice]. This may be as a result of a counter-allegation made by a perpetrator, they may have contracted a brain injury as a result of their abuse that has impacted their ability to act safely towards themselves or others, they may have been coerced or threatened into offending, they may have killed their perpetrator. For Laura*, it was procuring an abortion outside legal limits, following pressure from her perpetrator. She would serve a two-year prison sentence. Her perpetrator was interviewed several times by police but never charged. [The Times].

What Laura*, and many others will have experienced, is called reproductive coercion; a form of abuse. It’s a lesser known form of abuse, and is the act of using pregnancy, contraception, reproductive healthcare or sex to control, manipulate or harm a person.

In practice, this can be ‘condom tampering’; poking holes in condoms, breaking them intentionally, or removing them during sex without consent (known as “stealthing”); interfering with birth control, destroying it or hiding it or preventing a person from accessing birth control or reproductive health services; coercing or forcing sex without contraception; deliberately transmitting STIs; threatening or harming a person for continuing or not continuing with a pregnancy or forcing a person to continue or not continue with a pregnancy. For women who are victims of domestic abuse, the risk of gynaecological or sexual health issues is three times higher, as a victim of domestic abuse, you are most at risk of domestic homicide while pregnant. [The Lancet, National Institutes of Health].

According to research by the BBC, more than 50% of women in the UK have experienced at least one form of reproductive coercion. [BBC News]. Perpetrators will often work to ensure that their victims have limited or no access to professionals or services that may identify abuse, additionally abuse victims may also seek to avoid health services, fearing repercussion from a perpetrator, judgement, discrimination or even their own criminalisation, as a result many women are often forced to seek abortions outside legal limits. 

In my time working in Health and VAWG, one of the most significant lessons I have learned is that choosing and choosing safely and legally are not all freedoms or privileges all of us are afforded. Victim-survivors desperately need change and they deserve safety and advocacy when it comes to their reproductive rights. England and Wales are making great progress, but we need that here in Scotland too. We need abortion law reform. We need to be thinking about victim-survivors as a key part of that reform. We need to Change The Act.

The ‘Let’s Change the Act’ campaign is working in Scotland to secure a modern abortion framework that is in sync with the realities of modern healthcare, upholds human rights for all those that need abortion and prevents harmful police investigations and prosecutions. 

Alice is a VAWG professional, writer and activist, living in Scotland. She is a part of the Let’s Change the Act campaign.