What seems to be a common theme about abortion advocates is how right and entitled they feel. Eva Wiseman is no different when she writes for The Guardian, “Oh midwives, you are so wrong about abortion.” It’s about as sensational as you’d expect.
Wiseman starts off in mentioning that her child was unwanted, an archaic term which is repeated later in her article as well. While she writes, “I expected my views on abortion to change after I had a child,” she very quickly admits they didn’t, and says “the idea of doing this babying against my will… the idea of giving birth to a child that wasn’t wanted has made me appreciate abortion even more.”
It’s a horrifying way to begin to be sure, but it at least let’s the reader know what to expect.
Wiseman does mention midwives, eventually, but in reality, she merely uses the controversy over midwives objecting to abortion as an excuse to rant in favor of abortion and against those who dare to disagree. While her pro-abortion points are typical, they are also written with a flinching amount of casualness to prove that yes, there are really people who think this way.
Wiseman “loves” abortion, even comparing it to life-saving “liver transplants and antidepressants”:
I love that it rescues women from lives they are not prepared to live, from poverty, pain and death. I love that I live in a country and a time when we can choose to have children and how to plan our lives. Lives that include sex, unplanned and sometimes silly, sometimes regrettable. I love that abortion allows women to control their own reproduction when a condom breaks, or when that’s what they need to tell their sister.
Wiseman is not the only one to advocate for abortion because of poverty. And while some studies show that most women do have abortions for socio-economic reasons (and some don’t), these reasons, along with the potential emotional and physical pain of pregnancy, are likely to be temporary. An abortion, which takes the life of a child, is forever.
Planning one’s life, at least responsibly, means taking into consideration that sex, whether it is “unplanned, and sometimes silly, sometimes regrettable” or not, can and does produce children, despite birth control use. But to claim to “love” abortion, especially in the context of pain, death, and regrettable sex, completely and callously disregards the undeniable fact that a real, existing human life is ended in abortion.
Wiseman finally gets to the issue of “‘mutinying midwives,'” linking to a piece in The Daily Mail which references Cathy Warwick, who stunningly happens to be both head of the midwives union and chairman of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the UK’s leading abortion chain.
It is understandable that British midwives “mutinied,” as Warwick signed them up, without their consent, to a campaign to do away with the 24-week abortion limit in order to allow for abortion up until birth. Yet Warwick believes she’s done nothing wrong.
Even those who do support abortion earlier in pregnancy don’t necessarily want to remove all limits on abortion. Sharon Hayes told The Daily Mail, “I’m not against abortion… it’s a woman’s right to have that choice, but I think the 24-week cut-off is right and proper.”
But author Wiseman doesn’t take too kindly to the view of someone who might disagree with her, even when the role of a midwife is to deliver babies rather than kill them. She claims that “members of the Royal College of Midwives should be in favour of helping their patients have children when they choose,” and later references them in her closing.
Wiseman further insults the objecting midwives by claiming their “concerns, that if the abortion time limit were to be removed then some women would terminate at any time up to nine months, are unfounded.” Part of her reasoning is that “women know what they’re doing, and what they want.” Some women who were lied to by doctors they trusted would disagree.
Wiseman says that “control[ling] our own reproduction” is a right “at the core of women’s long and tedious fight for equality.” On this, she’s completely wrong. In fact, at least here in the United States, those feminist foremothers dedicated to real women’s equality knew that women’s rights should never include abortion, as abortion turns a mother into her own child’s oppressor and executioner. The Susan B. Anthony List and Feminists for Life have done a fitting job communicating this message.
Wiseman saves her conclusion to once more rant against midwives:
I’m surprised at the mutinying midwives, people who have seen the blood and passion of birth a hundred times over, who should know the gravity of reproductive choice. The word midwife means “with woman”. To support the criminalisation of abortion seems in clear opposition to that role. Instead of standing with women, it is pushing them away.
The only surprise here is that Wiseman acknowledges the role midwives play, and then suggests they should be okay with killing the very real, human babies of the women they assist.
Wiseman’s perception of the role of a midwife is what really seems to be “in clear opposition”… to reality.
