One of the most horrifying (if predictable) consequences of the coronavirus lockdown is the upsurge in domestic violence. Recent reports show that suspected domestic abuse killings have more than doubled during the lockdown. Support charity Refuge said there had been a 25% rise in phone calls to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline in a five-day period a week after the social restrictions were introduced on 23 March.
The Government recognises this problem and additional money has been pledged to organisations that work with domestic abuse victims. A new campaign has been launched telling people experiencing domestic abuse, or who are at risk during the coronavirus lockdown, that help is still available to them.
However, all this rings rather hollow when the Government itself has authorised a measure that puts vulnerable women at greater risk of one of the very worst forms of domestic violence – being forced into an abortion. After a confused series of u-turns, the Government authorised both abortion pills being given to women to take at home following a telephone conversation – removing any requirement for a woman to see a doctor face to face.
Women abandoned without safeguards
We at SPUC are greatly concerned about the physical health risks to women taking these powerful drugs at home. There are also the devastating mental health consequences of flushing a recognisable baby down the toilet.
However, another obvious risk is that women in abusive situations could be forced to order these pills and then made to abort their baby, with only the perpetrator there while she goes through this ordeal. Extraordinarily, the Government itself put this forward as a major reason not to allow these DIY abortions. Just a few days before it u-turned again to allow the measure, a Government spokesman said in Parliament:
“We do not agree that women should be able to take both treatments for medical abortion at home. We believe that it is an essential safeguard that a woman attends a clinic, to ensure that she has an opportunity to be seen alone and to ensure that there are no issues.
“Do we really want to support an amendment that could remove the only opportunity many women have, often at a most vulnerable stage, to speak confidentially and one-to-one with a doctor about their concerns on abortion and about what the alternatives might be? The bottom line is that, if there is an abusive relationship and no legal requirement for a doctor’s involvement, it is far more likely that a vulnerable woman could be pressured into have an abortion by an abusive partner. [emphasis added]”
There has been no explanation of why this was a concern on 25 March, but not by the 30th. So the Government has authorised a situation, where, by its own admission, it is “far more likely” that a woman can be coerced into abortion by an abusive partner.
The 1967 Abortion Act is a bad law, but at least stipulations such as a woman seeing a doctor in the flesh provide some safeguards for vulnerable women. With the whole process being done remotely, the medical professional has no way of knowing who is really on the other end of the phone, if she is being coerced into an abortion, or if the abuser is in the room with her. From a medical point of view, there is no way of knowing the gestation of her pregnancy (the pills are only supposed to be used up to 10 weeks), if she is following the medical protocols, or if she’ll be able to seek medical help if anything goes wrong.
In these extraordinary times, when many people are under enormous economic and emotional strain, seeing a doctor in person could be the only opportunity a woman has to express her own view on the pregnancy. Moreover, women can (and do) turn away from abortion clinics at the last minute, but once abortion pills arrive at the front door she cannot escape and the man can force her to take them.
The genie is out of the bottle
One of SPUC’s main fears about abortion being decriminalised has been the prospect of abusive men having easy access to abortion pills. This is even worse –The Government has handed vicious men the power to abuse women in one of the worst possible ways. And this has all happened with no parliamentary debate or scrutiny and with no need to even change the law. The claim that pills through the post is temporary is no comfort. I for one cannot see the abortion industry relinquishing this power now they have it. The genie is out of the bottle. And even if things do somehow go back to normal, it is the current crisis that is fuelling a rise in domestic violence, and it is now that abusers have been given another way to inflict it.