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"I still remember the scene, sitting in the classroom, staring at the exam paper, I heard the teacher say, 'Open the exam paper, start answering', and then my brain is blank, the words, the questions all become foreign languages that you can't understand, don't worry too much, okay?" 」
With a gentle smile on her face, Teresa coaxed her little son, who was still nursing, in her arms, while comforting her eldest daughter, Ora, who had just undergone an important exam, and advised her to relax.
Ola, 15, looked at her mother wordlessly, describing it as withered and withered with a gray despair. "I'm pregnant," the girl said to her mother in a trembling voice for a long time.
▲Image source: "Three Families"
The smile on the mother's face gradually disappeared, and a heavy atmosphere gradually condensed between the mother and daughter.
If this scene takes place in a domestic youth drama, under the guidance of small advertisements full of people on the street, the heroine may next appear in an unknown small clinic in a cluttered alley, lying in the dim and turbulent surgical light, accepting her predictable fate.
But this is Northern Ireland, which claims to be the most stringent abortion bill in the world, and although the Abortion Act of 1967 allows women to have abortions in the UK, the bill does not cover Northern Ireland.
Here, the fetus has the right to life, abortion is an unforgivable "murder", and abortion is illegal unless the pregnancy threatens the life of the pregnant woman. Anyone who attempts to terminate a pregnancy illegally could face a sentence of life in prison.
Thousands of Northern Irish women would choose to fly to England for surgery in order to legally terminate their pregnancies, but it's clear that this impoverished family doesn't have the financial strength to do so.
Abandoning the dream of college, obeying the law to give birth to a child, or desperately taking risks, quietly aborting against the law, the young girl Aura and the mother Teresa are facing unprecedented difficult choices.
The episode comes from a British drama that aired this year, "When It Happens To You."
▲Image source: Network
Set in Northern Ireland between 2013 and 2019, before the Abortion Act was amended, the series is based on true events and tells a series of heartbreaking stories about abortion and childbirth that three women and their families were affected by the Abortion Act.
The story of the first family, the accidentally pregnant teenage girl Ola, after finding out that she was pregnant, Ola panicked, but she was only 15 years old, and she still dreamed of taking the college entrance examination and entering the university, so she did not hesitate to choose abortion.
She told her boyfriend about this matter and wanted to discuss a solution, but she was beaten violently by her boyfriend.
A worried Teresa, distressed by her daughter and determined to help Ora have an abortion, first tried to contact the only private clinic in Belfast that offered abortion advice, only to find that the clinic was surrounded by anti-abortion demonstrators every day and could not sneak in.
Teresa had no choice but to secretly order single mifepristone and misoprostol tablets on the Internet without her family, and instructed her daughter to eat them, but she did not expect that this behavior would soon involve herself and her family in super tricky trouble.
Ola took the abortion pill, and woke up in the middle of the night with heavy bleeding, and for her daughter's safety, Teresa had to take her to the doctor and revealed to the doctor about the medicine.
It wasn't long before Ola was called to the headmaster's office, and in the face of the police officer's insightful interrogation, Ola was completely panicked... Soon, Teresa received a summons from the police station and a flyer from the court.
"You are accused of illegally procuring 'poison' that caused Ola Healy's miscarriage, in violation of section 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861."
Above the solemn courtroom, the judge's posture is dignified, his voice is meticulous, and the voice that reads the accusations is as peaceful as a robot.
Teresa, who had to go to trial in court because she bought "poison" online for her underage daughter for abortion, was not as calm as she seemed, and she knew very well that the verdict that awaited her could be up to 5 years in prison.
In fact, the plight of Ola and her mother Teresa may occur in more than half of the countries in the world where abortion is not legalized, and even women who are pregnant due to sexual assault, incest, accidents, etc., cannot have their own reproductive choices, because once they choose abortion, they may face harsh legal rulings.
The abortion debate around the world has a long history, and it is a controversial social issue that is still inconclusive and involves ethics, morality, values, laws and religion.
The pro-abortion right party calls itself "Pro-choice" (for self-choice), arguing that women have the right to decide whether to terminate pregnancy, and that legal abortion can reduce the rate of illegal abortion and maternal mortality; the party opposing abortion rights calls itself "Pro-life", emphasizing that the human embryo is already a "human" to some extent and therefore cannot be arbitrarily deprived of the right to life by others.
Life is worth awe, but we still need to think about the question: Is banning abortion and giving birth to undesirable or unhealthy children what some people call "respect for life"?
The director and screenwriter discussed the issue with the story of the second family.
On the other side, Hannah, also in Northern Ireland, is sitting on the toilet in a daze.
In the face of her husband's reminder to work, she pretended to be relaxed and said: "There are two kinds of women in the world, one is eager to come to menstruation, the other is eager not to come", it is clear that Hannah is the latter.
This is a loving little couple, trying to conceive for a long time, Hannah began to supplement folic acid and various vitamins early, just waiting for the exciting good news.
On this day, the pregnancy test stick finally showed the two bars she dreamed of, and the couple happily kissed on the beach, both of them looking forward to this upcoming little life with love.
However, not long after the happy days, during the 20-week obstetric examination, the fetus in Hannah's abdomen was found to be fatal teratogenic dwarfism - the baby's heart occupied the entire chest cavity, resulting in no place for the lungs to develop, so the baby was destined to be a stillborn, even if born alive, it would die of respiratory failure after birth.
Hannah, who can't accept reality, is very bitter, and for this child who has been waiting for too long, both husband and wife are very reluctant, but a child who is born and is destined to suffocate to death, and it is not a good thing for everyone to continue to let her grow.
After careful consideration, the two decided to ask the attending doctor to sign off on the termination of the pregnancy (only in local law is abortion can not be prosecuted), but unexpectedly, because of fear of taking responsibility, the doctor refused this request.
The private abortion clinic also only accepts pregnant women under 9 weeks, that is, Hannah will be pregnant with a child destined to die for up to 5 months, while feeling her growing up in her belly, while convincing herself to accept that the day of her death is approaching, and also need to eat two morphines a day to relieve the huge pain of continuing pregnancy, no one can understand what kind of suffering Hannah is in her heart.
Like all the average mother in the world, hannah gave birth to her baby, Jasmine, after suffering severe labor pains.
But Jasmine hadn't even had time to open her eyes to look at this world, and she was already dying in pain. The couple erected a tombstone for the child to commemorate her arrival.
If Hannah was not allowed to have an abortion because the existence of the child itself did not threaten the life of the pregnant woman, the story of Roshi in the third family better illustrates the harshness and ruthlessness of the Northern Ireland abortion decree.
Roshi is a 40-year-old pregnant woman who, like Hannah, is pregnant and has been diagnosed with a fatal disease.
Roshi's physical condition was fully compliant with the abortion laws: she had frequent migraines, accompanied by persistent nausea, diarrhea to the point of not being able to work, going out, having a nervous breakdown, physical pain to an unbearable degree, and had a definitive diagnosis of depression.
Roshi, who was in an extremely dangerous situation, wanted to apply for termination of her pregnancy under the law, but doctors told her that because the bill was so restrictive that almost no one could meet the standards, she could not be performed an abortion.
It wasn't until the child died in her womb that Roshi was allowed to make an appointment for induction of labour, and before the operation began, she had to carry the dead child on her to life.
While many anti-abortion advocates may say that children are innocent and that no matter what parents do, unborn lives should not pay for their parents' faults, should women experience such suffering? Whether or not you have been raped, whether you expect a child to be born, whether your child is healthy or not? Does the so-called respect for life and the defense of the human rights of the fetus have to come at the expense of the mother's rights?
No, no one should experience such pain.
Moreover, it is probably difficult for anyone to say who is more tragic, the mother who is forced to give birth, and the child who is not born and grown up in love and expectation.
These children are born with hatred and anger, there is no good growth environment, without the deep love and teaching of parents, this psychological trauma may affect their life, lucky people can heal themselves in growth, and unfortunate people may spend their lives to heal the childhood without love. Is this fair for children who are brought into the world without asking for consent?
I think that the so-called respect for life, not born to be called respect, born without raising, raising without teaching, directly or indirectly causing the pain of one or even countless people's lives, is the real blasphemy against life.
At the end of the story, Northern Irish women, who are suffering from abortion decrees, rise up in rebellion in pursuit of bodily autonomy and choice.
In October 2019, northern Ireland finally legalized abortion, and from then on, women in Northern Ireland can choose whether and when to have abortions under medically guaranteed conditions, without fear of being arrested and imprisoned, just like women in other parts of the UK.
Teresa is finally over a 6-year long battle with the court, Hannah is about to have her healthy second child, and Roche and her partner are starting a new life.
The plot is over, but the struggle of women in other countries around the world for their own bodily autonomy and reproductive rights continues, and on September 1 this year, the U.S. state of Texas began to implement the nation's strictest anti-abortion law, the Texas Senate Bill VIII (S.B.8).
The new bill prohibits doctors from providing abortion services to pregnant women if they detect a fetal heartbeat (hence the bill' called the Heartbeat Act), unless the pregnant woman faces the threat of a health emergency, and prohibits abortion even if it is a pregnancy resulting from rape and incest.
Fetal heart rates are usually detected at 6 to 8 weeks of pregnancy, but some women may not realize they are pregnant at 6 weeks of pregnancy. In addition, under the bill, anyone who provides an abortion service to a pregnant woman who is more than 6 weeks pregnant or assists her in obtaining abortion services can be sued, such as the winning plaintiff receiving a return of at least $10,000.
The passage and implementation of this bill has caused an uproar around the world, and many media have called it the "most radical" "extreme", "most stringent", "anti-human" and "historical regression" bill in history, and too many people have said that it is really difficult to imagine that this kind of thing happened in 2021, where we live.
In our country, although the control of abortion is not so "dehumanizing", the discussion of women's reproductive rights and body autonomy is still a frequent hot search. At least for now, most people believe that every woman has the right to choose her preferred lifestyle, that she can decide whether and when she will have children, and that no one but herself can decide whether she can become a mother.
But our support for women's right to choose abortion does not mean that we encourage abortion, it is undeniable that whether physical or psychological, the trauma caused by abortion to women is almost devastating, and she even suffers from the different eyes of society and others, and the man who bears the other half of the consequences of abortion pays a much smaller price.
Although medical technology is advancing day by day, there are injuries, both abortions (surgical abortions) and drug abortions in terms of abortion methods, including direct injuries and potential risks.
Surgical abortion is suitable for pregnancies before 14 weeks, the advantage is that the surgery is very clean, but the operation is bound to have risks, the most serious of which is uterine perforation, rupture, and other risks of infection, bleeding, endocrine disorders.
Medical abortion is generally suitable for pregnancy within 49 days of pregnancy, the specific drug used in medical abortion is mifepristone + misoprostol, the purpose of the former is to combine with progesterone in the body, at this time the pregnancy can not continue to develop because of the lack of progesterone, causing miscarriage; the role of prostaglandins is to contract the uterus, which can cause the uterus to contract strongly to achieve the purpose of excreting pregnancy tissue.
Unlike Aura, who has no choice in the show, people in other countries where abortion is legal choose the drug flow because they can avoid surgery, and they also avoid a series of complications from surgery.
However, it should be noted that the success rate of the abortion is only 75%, which means that one in four people has a failed or incomplete abortion, and may need to be cleared again, and the abortion will also cause bleeding after the abortion, sometimes the bleeding will last for a long time, and there will be a risk of infection.
The lack of sex education in growth, the lack of formal medical science knowledge of the public, and the concept left over from the past may cause everyone to misunderstand abortion, but in fact, blindly harsh and discriminate against women who choose abortion will not help at all, because they themselves are also innocent victims, and scientific and perfect sex education is the root cause.
If there is no birth plan, contraception should be done every time you have sex, safety is the most important at all times, and try to avoid putting yourself in a disadvantageous situation. But then again, no contraceptive method has a 100 percent success rate, the condom may break or fall off, and the contraceptive pill may fail afterwards due to various factors.
No one can guarantee that an accident won't come to her, but if she really isn't prepared for a small life, any woman should have the right to choose a way to minimize the damage.
The International Day for Safe Abortion is celebrated annually on 28 September to encourage safe abortion, legalize abortion and oppose unsafe abortion.
In many countries around the world with strict abortion laws, women do not have access to safe and legal abortion channels, and can only seek underground clinics or abortions privately, and many people suffer physical and mental injuries or even lose their lives.
But thankfully, in recent years, more and more people have begun to pay attention to the issue of abortion, and the development of multiple rights campaigns has also led to the continuous revision and improvement of more scientific abortion bills.
In May 2019, when the U.S. state of Alabama passed the "most stringent anti-abortion bill in history," there was a hashtag on Twitter called #youknowme, where countless people who resisted the abortion bill discussed their views and shared their own abortion stories.
American actress Busy Philipps tweeted: "1 in 4 women have had abortions, and many people think that none of the people they know have had abortions, but #youknowme( you know me)." More importantly: "Stop the stigma of female abortion."
Yes, stop the humiliation of female abortion, no one should experience this pain, hope that we meet these girls who have been hurt in life, can understand each other, help each other, less discrimination and accusations, more attention and help.
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