Violence.

I was going to write about something else this week. And then the reversal of Roe vs. Wade in the United States was announced and in its wake, several states passed legislation banning abortion. I cannot ignore this here.

I’ve studied in the United States and I lived there for many years. I often look back to those times with regret, wondering whether it was a mistake to leave. I was happy there. I felt free. I was able to express myself as a human being, free from pressures to behave and feel a certain way just because I am a woman.  

That the United States of all places has chosen to inflict such violence on women is a betrayal beyond words.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslet has today written a stark piece in The Guardian about what being forced to carry a pregnancy to term means for a woman (and surely anyone able to get pregnant): ‘The point is forced birth, which amounts to torture.’ And she goes on to observe that, ‘It can be hard to find the words when faced with such hatred’ (my emphasis).

That’s what this is: Violence. Torture. Hatred.

No human being should be forced through any such experience. No-one should be told that their life matters less than another’s.

No-one’s body should be turned into a tool to torture them.

That is what may now happen to women and girls in the United States.

The message I take from this is that we must not be lulled into a false sense of security. For as long as women are underrepresented in our parliaments, for as long as women continue to be paid less than men, for as long as women are measured by different values: women are not safe from such attacks on their lives and their status as human beings and citizens.

Anywhere.