Two things I'll never forget. Arriving in Dublin, first visit to the land my ancestors fled post-Famine. An elderly priest and nun walked up and down the median strip, nun saying the Rosary, priest carrying anti-abortion placard.
On a bus in Sydney, pro-life march walking in street. Elderly women on bus gets v angry. Shouts about how her backyard abortion in her youth nearly killed her, the terror and poverty of a pregnant teenage girl, how dare those sanctimonious bastards judge her.
Everyone in bus looks away, tries to ignore the embarrassing mad woman. I'm young and not brave enough to speak (I wish I had been) but I look at her directly and listen. She's bottled this up for years. She has to speak her fear and anger.
And this: Catholic women have told me how they could not use contraception other than unreliable 'rhythm method', could not have abortion, and COULD NOT REFUSE THEIR HUSBANDS SEX. They stayed up long after husband went to bed, hoping he'd fall asleep and lose interest.
They had young children at the time too. Already overworked and overtired, they had to lose more sleep to prevent further pregnancy. This was their contraception method. I asked one, were you able to discuss this with your husband?
No, she said, such a conversation was unthinkable. It wasn't like today, where people are encouraged to talk about such things in relationships. This was Australia in the 1960s and 1970s.
The very idea that a man should take his partner's needs into account was so unthinkable that, as one woman told me, her doctor offered her a 'mickey finn' to slip him secretly so he wouldn't want sex. For her, health risks of pregnancy were too great.
She refused as it would be unfair on him. Just think about this. The one thing that couldn't be questioned was the man's right to sexual access to her. Everything else about her life, her health, workload, autonomy, career, ambitions, desires, was secondary to this.
Sure, this was a reflection of Australian Catholic culture at the time, but don't for a minute imagine that it wasn't embedded in wider societal expectations of women. And don't for a second imagine these views were miraculously erased from society when women began to gain rights
The other side of the abortion coin is how society supports male expectations around sex and haven't we seen some great examples of how that works out lately.
So for all the men with opinions about abortion 1. Stop thinking it's only an issue for women and 2. Have a good hard think about how your behaviour contributes to controlling and removing safe choices for women. Even if you think this doesn't apply to you.
