It started with a Twitter message: had I seen an article quoting me published on a well-known ‘pro-life’ website? (Picture: Rose Stokes)

A couple of years ago, I found myself in the position of needing to undergo a routine medical procedure.

So routine that an estimated 56million people (including women, non-binary people and trans men) between 2010-14 had undergone it per year worldwide.

Luckily for me, it was a safe and legal — albeit emotionally challenging — process that I have never regretted, not even for a second. The procedure I’m talking about is an abortion.

Unfortunately for me, the operation wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped. I had elected to have a medical abortion, which didn’t go as planned, and was classified as ‘incomplete’ one week later, which meant I later had to have a surgical abortion.




It’s worth mentioning that what happened to me is extremely rare, and that this procedure achieves the desired results in 95 per cent of cases, according to Marie Stopes UK.

And so I decided to share my experience publicly in the hope that other women going into an abortion would be better informed and prepared for any uncommon side-effects or uncomfortable physical responses to the procedure.

I wanted my story to be a comfort to anyone seeking it, and I therefore worked closely with two editors to ensure that the article was implicitly and enthusiastically pro-choice, and not a stealth abortion deterrent for pregnant women considering their options. That was the most important thing.

And yet… and yet… and yet…

It started with a Twitter message: had I seen an article quoting me published on a well-known ‘pro-life’ website?

In the spirit of curiosity, I followed the link, not really prepared for what I was about to read, which was an opinion piece generously quoting me out of context to promote the idea that abortion was unsafe for women — and should therefore be avoided.

Funnily enough, it fell short of providing information and statistics on the impact being forced to continue an unplanned pregnancy has on maternal mental health, on birth complications or foetal abnormalities, and the physical and emotional toll these have on mothers.

It started with a Twitter message: had I seen an article quoting me published on a well-known ‘pro-life’ website?

Not to mention the millions of children globally in social care systems — or those living in countries without such infrastructure, who are left to fend for themselves.

I was outraged; not only had my words been taken out of context, but my own experience was being used to promote the idea that abortion is fundamentally dangerous, which is just not true.

In my despair, I tweeted asking for the site to remove the story, supported by Twitter’s women’s health expert in chief, Dr Jen Gunter, which they refused to do.

Since that time, another article has been written and republished across several pro-life sites by a man who I refuse to name (he doesn’t deserve the publicity).

But to summarise: it is a condescending and inelegantly thrown together compilation of words masquerading as an ‘article’ that seeks to rip apart my personal experience — an experience that the writer neither could nor would ever be able to understand.



It is hard to explain what it feels like to have your own words weaponised against you, especially with a subject matter so personal, and so sensitive. As a writer, I know full well that once my words enter the public domain, they effectively become public property — often without consent and out of context. We live in an era of fake news, after all.

But seeing your carefully crafted sentences being cut and pasted, reimagined and twisted provokes a special strain of ire.

Luckily, thanks to my almost Teflon-grade self-esteem (the product of a strong commitment to therapy, and my incredible friends and family), as well as an unwavering confidence that the decision I made was absolutely the right one, these articles don’t hurt me… but they do frustrate me.

What if I — like many women (and my younger self) — wasn’t so confident? What if I hadn’t learnt that the only opinion of myself that matters is my own? What if the pregnancy had been the result of a sexual assault? What if the decision to abort had been based on the health of the foetus? Or my own health? What if… what if… what if?

What I will say is that the ‘decision’ I took didn’t really feel like a decision at all — it was more like an instinct.

Because the truth is that there is no black and white when it comes to abortion; a decision to abort is incredibly complex, nuanced and multi-faceted. It is grey by its very nature, and can’t be reduced to a one-line analysis by a Person on The Internet — no matter how hard they try.


I’m not going to go into the details surrounding my pregnancy and decision to terminate it, because I truly believe that it is no one’s business but mine.

But what I will say is that the ‘decision’ I took didn’t really feel like a decision at all — it was more like an instinct.

At the time, I — a reasonable, compassionate and humane woman — spoke at length about my reasons for and against going ahead with the procedure with those closest to me, my sexual partner and my therapist.

We discussed the implications for both me and for the embryo in question, were it to continue its development into a baby… and then be born.

Contrary to the narrative often promoted by pro-lifers, this was not a decision I took selfishly or because I did not want a child. It was not flippant. I wasn’t pressured, and it wasn’t in response to fear. I was calm, rational and lucid, despite the obvious sadness of the experience.

Not that it should make a difference, of course. Even if that weren’t the case — if I wasn’t ready to be a mother, if my decision was based on any other consideration or if I simply didn’t want a child — that choice would be just as valid and worthy of acceptance.

As it happens, I have always wanted to be a mother. This is not a piece of information that I have ever hidden — either privately or in public. I play a big part in the lives of the many children that friends and family have happily adorned me with, and I am certain that I will make a terrific mother when the time is right, and in whatever form that takes.


But in these particular circumstances, I did not feel that it was fair to bring a child into the world without absolute certainty that I could give it everything it deserved.

There is only one person whose opinion on my abortion matters, and that’s me. My body, my choice — it really is that simple.

In short, it was an instinct I followed for the embryo’s sake. My own needs — or desires — were secondary. I know this is an experience shared by other women, because I’ve spoken to many of them.

As someone who cares deeply about a woman’s right to protect her own emotional and physical health by choosing what happens with her own body, in sharing my story I wanted my experience to contribute to the literature available for any and all people going through this difficult experience.

I wanted to help to further the knowledge of people of all genders about something that one in three UK women will experience in their lifetime, according to BPAS statistics.

And I’m pleased to say that the response was overwhelmingly positive, and I still receive messages to this day from women who say they found it helpful and supportive at an extremely difficult time.

People will always have their opinions, that is an immutable fact of life. In most circumstances this is a Really Good Thing that promotes healthy debate and contributes to human progress. But I find the absence of compassion in the case of abortion particularly galling.

Medical intervention at each and every stage of human and foetal development has saved millions of lives, and more than that, it has given us more control over the quality and length of those lives.

The irony, then, in the case of the ‘pro-life’ movement, is that it puts the very state of being alive ahead of the quality of that life, despite these advances, and would prefer to see women suffer rather than take control of their own bodies.

In the end, I choose to read their interpretations of my words with a compassion and empathy that is notably absent from their own analysis. I will respectfully reclaim my own story from the clutches of their misjudgment and use this experience instead to motivate me to keep fighting against ignorance — and keep disregarding these opinions.

Because in the end, there is only one person whose opinion on my abortion matters, and that’s me. My body, my choice — it really is that simple.

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