You can’t stop abortions – taking away a woman’s choice is just barbaric

If women are to take full responsibility for the fact of a pregnancy, then women must also be allowed to take full charge of what happens next, writes Katy Brand

Protesters in the city of Edinburg, Texas (AP)

You can’t stop abortions. You can only stop safe abortions. And for as long as people continue to have sex with each other, there will continue to be unwanted pregnancies.

For as long as men continue to rape women, there will continue to be unwanted pregnancies. For as long as men commit incest against their female relatives, there will continue to be unwanted pregnancies. To believe otherwise is to deny any sense of the reality we humans live in every day.

For centuries, women have been dealing with pregnancies that are either dangerous, unplanned, unwanted or unaffordable by having some form of termination. How safe, dignified, affordable and available that termination is is down to us as a society. If you want to stop all abortions, you will have to stop all sex except that which occurs in a mutually supportive loving environment where all babies are wanted and a blessing. Raising a baby on your own is hard, especially without a lot of money. Perhaps if the state demands that women go it alone regardless of circumstance, there should be some fairly hefty funding available. I’ll wait.