0151-Girlz: '68,000' by Elle Johanna Williams
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| Geurts 2018 Watching My Insides |
Every 11 seconds a woman dies due to complications from an
unsafe abortion. 68,000 women a year die because of their lack of
access to safe abortion procedures and basic medical care. An
estimated 20 million unsafe terminations are carried out globally
each year. Barbaric and unfair abortion regulations in countries
the world over are pushing women into these acts of desperation.
If a woman does not die from the infection and disease that often
accompanies a botched operation, they are often scarred and
maimed for life.
In England we are lucky. Lucky that we have widespread access
to free healthcare, a government that does not control our bodies,
lucky that we have access to even the bare minimum, such as hot
water and sterilised medical instruments and dedicated clinics
specifically for abortion. It wasn’t always so. 1967 was the year
abortion was made legal in the UK, and before that you could
face prison time for even seeking out alternative methods. Before
the legalisation of abortion, women across the country were
routinely dying from embolisms, haemorrhages and infections,
they were visiting older women or quack doctors with little to
know medical experience who were carrying out intensely painful
procedures in insanitary conditions, often being left with
permanent damage to their uterus if they survived. What was
reality for many British women before 1967 is now reality to
millions of women across the world in 2019.
26 countries have outlawed abortion, under any circumstance,
with no exceptions. 25% of the world's population live in
countries where abortion is strictly regulated by governments and
abortion is safe and legal in just one third of third world countries.
A lot of countries in the developing world adhere to strict
religious guidelines and lifestyles, with the popular belief that
abortion at any stage is murder and that life starts at conception,
which has been scientifically proven to be made up religious
propaganda, despite what organisations such as the American
Convention on Human Rights have to say about the matter.
Where some countries only allow abortion if the mother has been
the victim of sexual assault, most victims of rape and domestic
abuse are forced to carry their pregnancies to term, even women
who are gravely ill due to complications in their pregnancy are,
under law, obliged to carry their child, if one of them doesn’t die
first. 13.5% of maternal death globally is attributed to the
complications that follow botched terminations, which are only
sought out in the first place when a government has no sense of
value over the lives of its women, preferring to demonise and in
some cases, execute women for daring to decide what happens to
their bodies. So many of these forgotten women become statistics,
suffering in unbearable pain and in silence for what is essentially
a human right, taken away from them by people in higher
positions of power. Women are even using improvised tools,
including the infamous wire coat hanger, the ominous and ever
present symbol of DIY abortion, other methods incorporated is
the ingestion of poisonous plants, inserting foreign objects into
the uterus, throwing themselves down flights of stairs and even
the 1950’s era method, the “gin bath” wherein a woman sits in
scalding hot water drinking gin, which is supposed to be a
abortifacient, in the hope it will induce a miscarriage. A leaflet on
unsafe abortion methods tellingly reads “improvised methods
quite often lead to death or serious injury.”
propaganda, despite what organisations such as the American
Convention on Human Rights have to say about the matter.
Where some countries only allow abortion if the mother has been
the victim of sexual assault, most victims of rape and domestic
abuse are forced to carry their pregnancies to term, even women
who are gravely ill due to complications in their pregnancy are,
under law, obliged to carry their child, if one of them doesn’t die
first. 13.5% of maternal death globally is attributed to the
complications that follow botched terminations, which are only
sought out in the first place when a government has no sense of
value over the lives of its women, preferring to demonise and in
some cases, execute women for daring to decide what happens to
their bodies. So many of these forgotten women become statistics,
suffering in unbearable pain and in silence for what is essentially
a human right, taken away from them by people in higher
positions of power. Women are even using improvised tools,
including the infamous wire coat hanger, the ominous and ever
present symbol of DIY abortion, other methods incorporated is
the ingestion of poisonous plants, inserting foreign objects into
the uterus, throwing themselves down flights of stairs and even
the 1950’s era method, the “gin bath” wherein a woman sits in
scalding hot water drinking gin, which is supposed to be a
abortifacient, in the hope it will induce a miscarriage. A leaflet on
unsafe abortion methods tellingly reads “improvised methods
quite often lead to death or serious injury.”
Deaths from abortion are also a socioeconomic issue. Even in
countries where the practice is legal, thousands of women are
without access to competent medical care and quite often without
health insurance. As a white woman in a developed country, I
accept and understand my position of privilege and believe that
more women in my position should use their platform and indeed
their own privilege to stand up for less fortunate women. What
makes me so different to a woman the same age as me in
Botswana who has died from infection due to an incomplete
procedure? Why was I able to walk away from my termination
with my life? Why was she left to die in a makeshift hospital,
undignified and ignored? Because I was lucky enough to be born
in a country where your life is worth more than the “opinion” of a
man in the sky who may or may not exist, because I was taught
sex education, taught about contraception and relationships,
because I was able to access, for free, abortion services and
contraception afterward. Because I was not, like so many women
my age, forced to marry a man years older than me as young as
13. This fate meets so many women globally, when the problem
needs to be tackled at the root. Children in third world countries
should be given proper sex education lessons which focus on
contraception, it should be an essential part of their curriculum
like it is for children in Europe and beyond. They should be
taught about relationships, and the fear of god should not be
instilled into these young people. Instil into these young women
that an unwanted pregnancy is not shameful, and that you will not
be struck down dead by God if you choose to have an abortion.
No more women need to die because of religious ignorance,
sexual stigma and a lack of access to contraception. It’s my belief
that abortion is a human right and should be classed as such, total
control over your body is a human right and deciding not to bring
a child into a life where you cannot support it is a human right,
despite what more radical groups would have us believe.
their own privilege to stand up for less fortunate women. What
makes me so different to a woman the same age as me in
Botswana who has died from infection due to an incomplete
procedure? Why was I able to walk away from my termination
with my life? Why was she left to die in a makeshift hospital,
undignified and ignored? Because I was lucky enough to be born
in a country where your life is worth more than the “opinion” of a
man in the sky who may or may not exist, because I was taught
sex education, taught about contraception and relationships,
because I was able to access, for free, abortion services and
contraception afterward. Because I was not, like so many women
my age, forced to marry a man years older than me as young as
13. This fate meets so many women globally, when the problem
needs to be tackled at the root. Children in third world countries
should be given proper sex education lessons which focus on
contraception, it should be an essential part of their curriculum
like it is for children in Europe and beyond. They should be
taught about relationships, and the fear of god should not be
instilled into these young people. Instil into these young women
that an unwanted pregnancy is not shameful, and that you will not
be struck down dead by God if you choose to have an abortion.
No more women need to die because of religious ignorance,
sexual stigma and a lack of access to contraception. It’s my belief
that abortion is a human right and should be classed as such, total
control over your body is a human right and deciding not to bring
a child into a life where you cannot support it is a human right,
despite what more radical groups would have us believe.
The loss of 68,000 women annually should be enough for heads
to be raised. On researching this piece I was surprised that there is
a startling lack of people in the public eye who are raising
awareness and using their platform to speak out about this
epidemic. We have the likes of Kim Kardashian, arguably the
most famous woman in the world, a mother herself, using her
platform to flog appetite suppressants and her husbands ugly
trainees, instead of speaking out for women whose voices go
unheard, simply because of the circumstances they are born into.
68,000 women a year dead because they are forced into
dangerous situations with dire consequences, dead because they
wanted to avoid stigma, religious persecution and the societal
shame that often follows abortion. 1.6 million women scarred,
maimed and left infertile from incomplete procedures, carried out
by those who want to help, but do not have the right training or
equipment to carry out such procedures. 68,000 a year are dead
because of decisions made by people they will never meet.
epidemic. We have the likes of Kim Kardashian, arguably the
most famous woman in the world, a mother herself, using her
platform to flog appetite suppressants and her husbands ugly
trainees, instead of speaking out for women whose voices go
unheard, simply because of the circumstances they are born into.
68,000 women a year dead because they are forced into
dangerous situations with dire consequences, dead because they
wanted to avoid stigma, religious persecution and the societal
shame that often follows abortion. 1.6 million women scarred,
maimed and left infertile from incomplete procedures, carried out
by those who want to help, but do not have the right training or
equipment to carry out such procedures. 68,000 a year are dead
because of decisions made by people they will never meet.
If, like me, you enjoy Elle's writing, you can check out her projects further; she makes up half of the exciting 'Words for Birds' podcast (@wordsforbirds), her poetry can be easily accessed @allimsayingis_ on Instagram and you can also catch her upstairs at the Jacaranda on the 27th February at 7pm for a poetry reading :)
Thank you for reading x
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