Does home abortion fuel domestic abuse?
Introduction by Dr Mark Houghton
Amid huge controversy home abortion by abortion pill (medical or chemical abortion) was legalised in some places during the Covid emergency: does it help or harm women? Few British doctors know more on this than Dr Trevor Stammers.
Does home abortion fuel domestic abuse?
by Dr Trevor Stammers
BSc, MA, FRCGP, DRCOG, FHEA, Dip Psych
It’s ironic that abortion providers campaigned for amendments to the UK’s Domestic Abuse Bill in order to make abortions at home a permanent measure, even after the Covid crisis is over. I used to work closely with Merton Women’s Aid in London for many years, when I was a GP, so I have good reason to consider it a real irony that abortion advocates are pushing this.
In my long clinical experience, most abusive men tried to coerce women who want to keep their child, into having an abortion they did not want. Making abortions easier with pills by post will be a real gift to abusers who can continue, for example, sexual violation of their partners without having to take responsibility for a baby they have fathered. Relaxing existing abortion safeguards further will offer no protection for women but make their lot worse. Such abortion coercion is often detected in the consulting room face to face, where those with coercive partners know they will not be overheard.
With these emergency DIY home abortions, involving just a telephone call or video consultation, what guarantee can there be that the abuser is not in the room, just out of camera shot, to ensure he gets his way? I lost count of the number of times that women said to me that they felt they had no choice but to have an abortion because they feared the repercussions of defying their abuser if they didn’t do what he demanded.
7 in 13 women lose their abortion choice
Very few studies have formally explored the incidence of coerced abortion in abusive relationships. In one of the published papers that has investigated the problem, 7 out of 13 women reported having experienced coercion to have an abortion [i]. In a much larger US study of 954 women, one third of the participants reported such pressure to abort [ii]. Such abuse of women by forced abortion may not be detected if women are denied a face-to-face consultation where privacy can be assured without a third party listening in.
In the coronavirus pandemic, the opportunity for such reproductive coercion is obviously greatly enhanced and recent news reports confirm a rising incidence to 25% of domestic abuse in the UK [iii] under restriction of movement. This is a serious social problem. Making the abortion pill available by post over the phone simply aids and abets abusers.
Abortion pills by post is not a lifeline for abused women who become pregnant but rather a lifeline for abortion agencies to increase their reach during the Covid-19 crisis and maintain their profits long after coronavirus has passed.
Dr. Trevor Stammers
BSc, MA, FRCGP, DRCOG, FHEA, Dip Psych is the author of Love Lies Bleeding: When Intimacy Turns to Abuse (Hodder) and was a medical practitioner in South London for 27 years. He is currently an associate professor in medical ethics and law.
References
[i] Hathaway J E, Willis G, Zimmer B, Silverman J G 2005 Impact of partner abuse on women's reproductive lives Journal of the American Women's Medical Association 60 42-45
[ii] Chibber KS et al . 2914 The role of intimate partners in women's reasons for seeking abortion. Women's Health Issues 24:e131–38. doi:10.1016/j.whi.2013.10.007
[iii] Kelly J, Morgan T 2020 Coronavirus: Domestic abuse calls up 25% since lockdown, charity says www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52157620
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