I don’t know about you, but as a kid I couldn’t wait to make my own decisions; to be taken seriously and listened to as an adult. The older I got, the more I wanted to make my own choices - from what clothes I wore to where I went to university. The right to choose is incredibly important.
At its most basic level, it allows us to feel empowered in a world that is so often afflicted by things beyond control, no matter how hard we try. That autonomy, which is a fundamental human right, is something that many people take for granted while others have for decades had their rights curtailed. This is particularly true for women.
In the last year alone, we have seen so-called “advanced democracies” retreat to a time when women’s healthcare decisions were made not by her, but by someone else. READ MORE: Gillian Martin: Why I am attending New York Climate Week Legal aid deserts: 439 solicitors quit court in three years Victims 'forgotten' as early prisoner release failed Abortion buffer zones law is 'key milestone for women's rights' That someone is often motivated by reasons that have little to do with the woman in question, and everything to do with how society sees women’s healthcare and women’s rights. This debate has raged on for years, dominated by politics or personal belief with women rarely at the centre of it.
This is a conversation that should have health and bodily autonomy at its heart, but instead wider narratives are weaponised in a way that ignores the be.