'I thought I'd be damned' - one woman's abortion story

For the first time, Jessica – whose name we have changed – is willing to speak out about the abortion even her own mother doesn’t know she had.

With abortion rights once again under scrutiny, Jessica wants as many people as possible to understand the importance of a woman’s right to choose.

READ MORE: Abortion rates rise in Cumbria

“There are more reasons for abortion than people may think,” she says.

“Our baby was not developing properly, her tummy was not all there.

“My choice was to have an abortion or to risk getting more and more attached to a baby who could die inside me – or to give birth and watch my baby die.

“We chose abortion.”

Abortion rates in 2021 reached their highest ever level in England and Wales, with more than 200,000 legal terminations being carried out.

But even now, abortion is only allowed if approved by two medical practitioners acting under strict parameters.

Under current law, any woman who ends their own pregnancy at any gestation outside of the guidelines stipulated by the 1967 Abortion Act can face up to life imprisonment.

And decades after England’s abortion laws were introduced, a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy is being questioned, even in Parliament.

A recent Parliamentary debate on the resurrection of American abortion bans saw Tory MP Danny Kruger say women do not have “absolute right of bodily autonomy”.

He said that right, in the case of abortion, is qualified by the fact another body is involved.

READ MORE: Abortion in England, where women can be sent to prison

But in Jessica’s case, that body could never have survived outside of her own.

She is one of many to have terminated her pregnancy on medical grounds – and she knew it was simply the right thing to do.

“I sat for ages in the hospital staring at the pill,” she says, “talking options over and over.

“I felt like I would be damned to hell for killing my own child but knew it was the right thing as I could not face giving birth.”

The recent developments in America are a “backward step”, she said.

“Religion should not influence health care choices and an individual’s right over their body.

"Ultimately it is the woman that gives birth - her body.

“Had I had to go through with my pregnancy, it was certain the baby would not survive.

“How can you force a woman to continue in that situation, knowing every movement you feel may be the last?

“Knowing the pain of childbirth holds no joy, only misery?”