A number of my posts over the last year have been about relating my personal experience to wider political issues. I believe the early feminists were right. The personal is political. Our experiences of power and powerlessness, separateness and community and equality and division shape the way that we think about the world around us. As a result, I have re-branded these posts and will continue this occasional theme of testimony and politics.

I’ve never had an abortion. But I might have done. There was a time, at university, when my period was several weeks late. The man I was having a rather tragic sexual relationship with was moving 5,000 miles away. We were always safe, but accidents happen.

So I went to the pub with a friend, ordered a double vodka and peed on a stick.

Thankfully, the test was negative. There but for the grace of a little blue line go I.

But if that test result had been different, I have no doubt that I would have been considering an abortion. I was poor, unqualified, immature and single. I at least had the self-knowledge to know these weren’t the best attributes for motherhood.

I’ve seen a number of my female friends go through similar experiences. Some weren’t as lucky as I was and did have to go on to make that choice. Some chose abortion, some did not. All found the choice difficult and felt scared and vulnerable while doing so.

Women like us deserve the best and most dispassionate advice about abortion available to us. We do not deserve to be treated as a political football for those who put their dogma above their ability to evaluate the evidence as Frank Field and Nadine Dorries have. They should not have anyone’s morality thrust upon them, but be given the facts and guidance to make their own moral choice.

I’ve never had an abortion because I was careful and lucky. But I simply won’t be preached to on the issue by anyone.

Tags: abortion, Frank Field, Nadine Dorries, The Personal is Political

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 at 09:15 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.