We need to talk about abortion. I know: I've had two

When my first novel came out – the ridiculously-titled Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma – and I started doing press, I was terrified of being hounded by those who would not understand my choices. But that’s exactly what they were, my choices and I still speak about them now because I believe every woman should be able to make whatever choice is best for them free of shame or fear of judgment.

It's not easy to have conversations about abortions. The dialogue around it is understandably highly emotive. It's often complicated because we don't know what the person we're speaking to feels about this subject which is often very raw, nor do we know what their own personal experiences are. But I do believe that it is necessary. As with any sensitive subject, in secrecy grows shame, stigma and blame.

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As a country we should be proud we’re well beyond hot baths and a bottle of gin (my mum’s suggestion when she first heard I was pregnant in the 1990s) or seedy backstreet "doctors’" It is, I believe, a sign of a truly progressive society. But we also must be vigilant about any backslide in these rights. Never was this more evident when, last week, a mother of three was imprisoned for having a late-term abortion.

I'm sure you'll be familiar with the case. During lockdown, and desperate, the mother accessed abortion pills at 32 weeks. Despite health bodies and many other organisations speaking out against a conviction being in the public interest, the judge, a man, thought that taking her away from her three children for a jail sentence of 28 months would be a just punishment for choosing not to have a fourth.

The women I know are frustrated and appalled that this could happen in the UK in 2023 and have urged each other to fight for our reproductive rights in the UK including for the outdated legislation, circa 1861, to be reformed. I think instantly of Poland, where women have had extreme restrictions to their access to abortions for more than two years now and there were thousands protesting in the streets at the time of my recent visit.

I cannot imagine the horror of being denied the ability to decide what happens to your own body. I do, however, know the horror of what it means to carry a child you know you cannot care for. I know the brutality of being pregnant with a child that I believed I would likely harm inadvertently because I was simply emotionally, mentally and financially unable to be a parent at that time.

I had my abortions at 16 and 17. The first was because I was a deprived teen going wildly off the rails and was easily taken advantage of by a man eight years my senior. My second was a result of rape. Should I have been made to have those children and raise them, perpetuating the same cycles of neglect, deprivation and disenfranchisement that had led me there?

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It's not incidental, by the way, that I came from a poor background. Figures released by Public Health Scotland showed that women in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland had twice as many abortions as those in the most affluent areas. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service also says that the cost of living crisis as one of the key reasons women seeking abortions was up 19% in 2022.

Again, not that it's my job to justify my decisions to anyone, but I can tell you those abortions were two of the hardest things I've ever gone through in a life of some fairly hard knocks. I was essentially grieving for children I knew I could not take into the world but the stigma, secrecy and shame around abortion meant that I could not reach out to people for support. At the time, it made me very ill and it took me many years to be able to speak about it clearly, rationally and openly.

It is my belief that many of the people who would seek to curtail access to abortion do not understand that a woman close to them will very likely have faced this decision too, for whatever reason, in whatever context, with whatever feelings related to it. Instead of thinking of a faceless stranger who they want to cast judgment on, they should imagine their sister, mother, their favourite aunt or best friend having to make that decision. Those who think abortion is the issue should perhaps consider addressing disadvantages in society, better childcare to help parents into work, campaign to improve provisions for education and health care for children. There is a lot of energy and passion around this subject and I believe, if we really care about children’s lives, it could be better used.

For now, I think the answer is sensitively, rationally talking about abortions. Reproductive rights are not shameful; choosing what to do with your own body should not be a crime in any modern society. Even if the judge on the case above, Mr Justice Pepperall, has chosen, in this instance, to make it so.

So, I'm saying it here in the pages of this paper. I've had two abortions. I hope other women, if they feel able to, will join me and be open with those around them about their abortions too. They’re far from a rarity for most women. In solidarity with that desperate mother of three and every woman who has the right to her bodily autonomy.