The Abolition of Woman: How Radical Feminism is Betraying Women
By: Emma Lloyd
Tags: Abortion, Life, Pro Life, https://righttolife.org.uk/news/tag/diy-abortions/, Baby

By F. Nash (2018)

With utter conviction, Nash, a bioethicist and a writer, demonstrates that feminism has absolutely rejected the value of the unborn. Central to this book is: why are the majority of ‘feminists’ advocating abortion as female empowerment? According to the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) (notice: children, not fetus or baby) 197,533 abortions were carried out in England and Wales in 2017; Scotland alone reports 13,583 abortions in 2019.[1] And yet is it reported, by the Guardian, 95% of women in the US do not regret having had an abortion.[2] Is this the world we live in? From the UK to the US it seems that the narrative of choice is incredibly powerful. Nash explores gendercide, misogyny, surrogacy, and abortion in China specifically, to name a few. And not only that: her snappy writing is compelling and compassionate. Exactly what a pro-life writer should be.

Amongst all striking references and quotations in this book, there are two that I can still recall easily and quickly, the first:

“At an Abortion Rights meeting in London’s Parliament in May 2012, a columnist from the Guardian was reported to have said, to much laughter and applause: “If you reach the end of your life without having had an abortion, you are either a man or you haven’t been laid much”.”[3]

The remark colloquially serves to emphasise not only how common and pervasive abortion is, but that there is no room for opposition: the language used to describe the unborn varies depending on your stance, a fetus if she is going to have an abortion, a baby if she is keeping her unborn child. It is difficult to create a meaningful discussion when the language used doesn’t foster discussion, but obliteration. How could you respond to those comments by a columnist from the Guardian? The answer is resounding: you almost cannot unsevered. The tone of mockery is an attack on womens sex lives which degrades both men and women, because, despite the narrative of it being a woman’s choice, it is also a joint choice. Ostensibly a ‘choice’ that must be completely within your lifetime, with a badge of honour.

The scientific argument that life begins at conception has been disputed in the name of denial. Confronting the fact that abortion, at any stage,[4] kills an unborn child is avoided because dehumanising the unborn has warranted the legality and availability of abortion in the Britain over the past fifty years. “Ignoring the fetus is a luxury of [pro-choice/pro-abortion] activists and advocates.”[5] Reducing the value of the unborn by abortion is undeniably an act of violence, it is not feminist nor feminine, it is misogynist. Nash argues that rape and the brutal death of a child, as abortion can be seen as a sort of surgical rape, are the most significant female horrors.[6] China’s birth control policies and societal attitudes, such as the “one-child policy” and “unauthorised” children, sees this as population control. A policy that, in Nash’s contention, is intrusive and coercive by definition.[7]

Nash reports the suicide of Wang Guangrong. He had two “unauthorised” — i.e. illegal — children, who were unable to be registered at birth due to their lives having breached China’s population control rules. This meant they couldn’t gain an education, access health services, be employed, use public transport and have legal representation if they were victims of a crime. I would argue that these state imposed restrictions are crimes itself, and, although Nash does not state this, she does refer to it as a casualty. Guangrong could not afford to pay the large fines required by family planning officials, and having had his livestock seized, his family were left poor and despondent. Even then, heavy fines were still been chased by family planning officials. He took his own life due to the unpreceded strain. Being an “unauthorised” child in China during this time was dangerous. Although Nash doesn’t state their gender, even when born the old Chinese proverb expresses that having one disabled son is much more preferable that eight healthy daughters; in India girls infant death rates are seventy-five percent higher than boys.[8]

My second striking reference and quotation is:

“Gosnell ran a filthy and dangerous abortion facility… illegal late-term abortions were routinely carried out and babies who survived the abortion procedure were murdered by having their spinal cords severed by a doctor who joked about the way their tiny bodies twitched as they died.”[9]

As much as I would like to leave that quotation to stand alone, as it is horrifying and sadistic, looking into abortion more and attitudes surrounding it is what Nash is up to. It is mildly comforting that Gosnell and his wife received extensive prison sentences. With DIY abortions now legal in Britain, seeing a tiny born dead baby is possible if the home abortion procedure occurs significantly after the ten weeks window. Right for Life UK reports of a woman that took the abortion pills while twenty-eight weeks pregnant. Her child died.[10] This form of abortion is extremely difficult to regulate due to taking place in the home. As the above quotation demonstrates, illegal abortion is a criminal offence, in a clinic or a in back alley or in your own home.

In the chapter Abortion, Misogyny and Turning a Blind Eye Nash comments on how the deaths of Savita Halappanavar and Aisha Chithira have been used, publicly, in different ways. The former died from a septic miscarriage — there were, she reports, thirteen “missed opportunities” to save her life — which caused outraged.[11] At the time abortion was illegal in Ireland, her death became an opportunity to attempt to dismantle pro-life Ireland. Pro-choice advocates logic: if abortion was legal she would have never died. She died due to failures of the hospital, not lack of abortion. The latter, on the other hand, was barely acknowledged in the public eye. Nash rightly asserts that if Aisha’s death was the result of an illegal — backstreet, home — abortion, she would have gained media attention. Her death didn’t, probably, fit in with the narrative: it didn’t support the pro-choice feminist agenda; she died due to a legal abortion. As tragic as these accounts are, unless they are politically advantageous, accounts similar to them are easily overlooked.

Surrogacy is exposed in this book as a complete devaluation of the mother-child relationship. Women are not walking, living, incubators. The mother-child relationship is both a genetic and an emotional bond, and giving their child to an unknown couple or family can be difficult, even when the “deal” has been already made.[12] Children are not commodities. Commercial surrogacy, where women from developing countries are exploited by Westerners, has been banned in several countries, including Britain. In 1991, in France, the high court ruled “the human body is not lent out, rented out, and it is not sold.”[13] Nash contends that lives become expendable in particular situations in both commercial surrogacy and abortion. Children should never been thought of as being owned, or as products, or as chattels to be used how their parent sees fit. Commercial surrogacy is really a terrible thing indeed.

I hope this review has been eye opening on the reality of abortion, and about Nash’s exploration of the issues surrounding it. It is important that we are equipped to protect unborn children: read Nash’s book!

[1] https://www.spuc.org.uk/News/ArticleType/ArticleView/ArticleID/384023; https://www.spuc.org.uk/News/ID/384517/A-catastrophic-attack-on-innocent-lives-as-13583-unborn-children-killed-by-abortion-in-2019

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/12/abortion-women-do-not-regret-study

[3] Page 30. See also: page 149.

[4] See: Peter Singer, Practical Ethics

[5] Page 23.

[6] Page 69.

[7] Page 73.

[8] For several reasons, see: 124–125. Compared to maternal mortality, for example in Britain, is an exceedingly rare occurrence, page 137.

[9] Page 50–51.

[10] https://righttolife.org.uk/news/tag/diy-abortions/. For more information on the abortion procedure, see: https://www.mariestopes.org.uk/abortion-services/online-medical-abortion/

[11] Page 63.

[12] Page 98. Nash analyses the word “deal”, in this context, to have a threatening and condensing tone.

[13] Page 92.