A bunch of cells?

We had someone come to talk to us about abortions in church last night. He didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, although I'm sure many others hadn't been aware of a lot of the facts. He showed us a video clip of the developing baby in the womb at around 6-10 weeks (that's the time that most abortions, at least here in the UK, are done) but that was not new to me, in fact I had seen a better video clip once, probably when I was on the pregnancy counselling course - it was beautiful, I really felt like I was watching what it says in Psalm 139, "you knit me together in my mother's womb."

But this guy showed us another video clip, which I couldn't bear to watch for more than a few seconds. It was a clip showing what actually happens in an abortion.

It wasn't the sight of all that blood that did it for me. It was the sight of these tiny little limbs being scraped away, as though they're rubbish. Bits of human body being scraped out. And why? Unwanted pregnancy - that's what they call it. Unwanted. Inconvenient. Extremely and highly inconvenient sometimes. Having a baby just now would mess up my plans, it would mess up my education, my career, my plans for the future. Or: I can't afford to have a baby just now, I have no way of supporting it. There are lots of reasons, and they all seem like very valid reasons at the time. I know. I've made that decision twice, and I know how unbelievably sensible it seemed at the time. (Of course with all such reasons of "inconvenience", giving birth and having the baby adopted would work perfectly well - for every unwanted baby there are so many couples going through the agony of not being able to have children.)

I also know now what I didn't know at the time: that it wasn't "just a bunch of cells" - well, no more than I am just a bunch of cells, which I suppose in terms of my biological makeup yes, that's what I am.

The doctors use these euphemisms to try and make it all more palatable - for the woman having the abortion, and also for themselves, as they also have to live with what they do. I've heard that some doctors and nurses who perform abortions report nightmares - having seen just a few seconds of that video clip I'm not surprised! When a woman has an abortion she doesn't see what's going on, they protect us from the awfulness of it. Just as they protect us through the language they use - talking about "termination of pregnancy" rather than describe the violent removal of a baby from the womb, bits of its body being scraped out as though it wasn't a fellow human being.

But that's what they need to keep telling themselves - if they are to be able to keep doing what they do, they need to believe that it's not a human being. The use of terms like foetus and embryo helps them to believe that - let's not call it a baby just yet, so we can pretend it isn't. Because we all know that killing babies is wrong.

That's why the doctor didn't say to me: ok, let's arrange a date to have your baby killed.

But leaving aside for the moment the horrendous fate of the baby, the other thing they don't tell you about when you're considering having an abortion, is what it will do to you. They don't tell you that women who have had an abortion tend to develop a version of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which can only be healed through some really good and deep counselling.

Because despite all the euphemisms, deep down you actually know what happened, you know there was a baby inside you and that you acted totally against the role of mother - instead of protecting and nurturing, you destroyed and killed. The guilt is huge. The grief and loss feel unbearable, especially as you have no outlet for them - you feel you're not entitled to grieve, because you brought it on yourself; and society around you tells you that you have nothing to grieve for, it was "just a bunch of cells". So you bury the grief as deep as you can. You find all sorts of ways of numbing the pain - it could be stuff like alcohol or drugs, it could just be keeping very very busy. I found that seven gin and tonics every Friday night did the trick for a while. So you go through life, sometimes for years and years, not realising why you are living the way you are living, not realising why you need these pain-numbing mechanisms, not realising why at a particular time of the year you get especially sad (it's often the anniversary of when the baby would have been born), not realising that the pain is still there and is never going to go away until you bring it out and deal with it.

I am so grateful to have received God's forgiveness and healing. "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (Isaiah 1:18)

Let us reason together, God says. We know when we've done wrong. All we have to do is repent, turn back to him and he will forgive us and give us a clean slate. But carrying on as though it wasn't wrong - that is the way to constant grief and never-ending pain.

P.S. If you have had an abortion, don't suffer in silence. There is hope, there is help available. This is one place I can highly recommend.

Equality for women in the workplace - not quite as straightforward as some would like to think

There's been quite a bit in the papers here recently on the subject of women's equality in the workplace, including this interesting article in the Times a few days ago. As far as I understand, it all started when Nicola Brewer, chief executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, said that "improved" maternity leave legislation is actually making employers more hesitant about employing women.

Is that really surprising?

I think the campaign for women's equality started with good intentions but has been spoiled by a gradual erosion of common sense. There have been some issues that were certainly worth fighting for, and I'm very glad I live in a time and place where women have the right to vote, the right to own property and manage their own bank accounts, etc. And the principle of equal pay at work sounds good too, but...

When the government intervenes and says to the employer: you have to keep your employee on if she gets pregnant, and you have to give her 39 weeks' paid maternity leave - sorry, but how is that fair and equal? How is the employer supposed to fund these extra wages, when he still has to pay someone else at the same time to do the work that he's paying his female employee not to do? How are small businesses supposed to survive under such conditions?

It's putting employers in an impossible situation. The law says they're not allowed to prefer men to women when they're choosing staff. That sounds good - surely they should just hire whoever is best for the job. But the issue of paid maternity leave changes the arithmetic and we no longer have a level playing field. If an employer knows that when he hires a woman of childbearing age he risks having to pay extra every time she has a baby - well, it's going to make very clear economic sense to hire a man instead; unless he could pay the woman less, but oh no, we want equal pay.

It seems to me we've been trying to do what the Brits call having your cake and eating it. We demand to be treated equally, loudly asserting that of course we are just as capable as men are of doing the job (if not better in some cases). Treat us as you treat your male employees, we demand. But treat us differently when we have babies.

Sorry, but why on earth should they?

I'm not sure I have a solution, except that I'd like the legislation to get a bit more common sense mixed into it. I'd like to see a clear distinction made between sexual discrimination - treating someone differently just because she is a woman - and reasonable discrimination, which in fact is what people do all the time, applying common sense to choices they have to make. When I want to buy something I make choices about which shop to go to, when I need a plumber I make a choice about which one to call. If someone needs to hire staff, they make choices. If their choices are based on criteria that are relevant to the job, there shouldn't be a law telling them they're not allowed to. If the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work - which it is, as if I were suddenly to get pregnant and have a baby my performance can suddenly plummet from excellent to non-existent for a while and at that time my boss would be obliged by law to keep paying me (and guess what, even if you're not planning to have a baby, these don't always go according to plan) - now where was I? yes, if the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work, then my potential employer should be allowed to take that into consideration. He should be allowed to decide that he prefers a man for the job; or an older woman. He should be allowed to say: I'd like to take you on, but I'll pay you a bit less than I would pay a man, because I'm risking additional costs and inconvenience in case you get pregnant. He should be allowed to say these things without worrying about employment tribunals.

I'd like to see employment tribunals concerning themselves with real discrimination and real ill-treatment of employees by their employers. I'd like to see employers free to make reasonable choices that make sense. Equal pay for equal work - yes, that's an excellent principle, that is fair. But can we women guarantee that we will give our employers equal work? No, we can't. There is a small biological difference that we can't ignore.

And why should employers have to pay us when we take maternity leave? If the government thinks we should get paid, let the government fund such payment out of our taxes. I know there are countries where the government pays women to stay at home and look after their babies - I'd love to see that here. Being a mother is one of the most important jobs that exist, and as these days most households require more than one income to survive, I'd like to see the government recognise that and provide financial support for mothers who stay at home to perform this crucial job.

But demanding that employers cover it? Of course it puts them off hiring women. Employers are normally in the business of making a profit, they do their sums and if they don't do their sums they'll go under.

Or am I missing something?