Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal

“This book isn’t a blueprint for a new conversation. It’s an explanation of why we need one, and an invitation to participate in moving that forward” (12), says Katie Watson in the introduction to her book Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law and Politics of Ordinary Abortion. She does herself a disservice with this; in many respects her text provides us with just that—a model for what a more productive discussion of how society responds to and organizes around the issue of unwanted pregnancy might look like; a question that has remained contentious across the centuries and for which we may never have an ‘answer.’ It is precisely because perceptions of abortion are so hard to prise apart from our attitudes towards women, sex, social roles and the meaning of motherhood, that we may never find permanent peace—more a truce that each generation must work out for itself anew. And Watson’s book could well be a handbook this generation needs in its arsenal as it seeks a settlement for the 21st century.

Watson, a professor of bioethics and medical humanities, wrote this book while experiencing pregnancy herself and the text reflects, as she says, the journey she has been on as a lawyer, a woman and now a mother. I work as the director of communications for a British charity providing abortion care and advocacy and for my part read this book in the Autumn of 2018; I reflected upon her thoughts as we campaigned to fully decriminalize abortion in the UK—including in Northern Ireland, [End Page E-16] where there has been no access to lawful abortion. While the book is written in reference to the febrile conversation in the US, there is much that is relevant from a European perspective—and much we can learn from successes and challenges on either side of the Atlantic.

Scarlett A is a reference to the sentence given to the character Hester Prynne in the novel The Scarlet Letter; when pregnancy reveals she has committed the sin of adultery she is to forever wear a scarlet A as a symbol of shame. Watson contends abortion stigma today brands the women who need this care and the professionals who provide it with an invisible scarlet A that most women, and indeed many care providers, will never reveal. It is this stigma which prevents women from speaking about ordinary abortion, the theme which shares the title of this book. Watson identifies ordinary abortion as the key component missing from the conversation, a conversation which is dominated by heart-wrenching tales of extraordinary abortion including rape, fatal fetal anomaly, and pregnant 12 year olds. One in five US (and UK) pregnancies end in abortion and most are for the ‘ordinary’ reason of not wanting to be a mother, or expand one’s family, at that time—and it is real stories of ordinary abortion which pepper Chapters 1 and 2, interwoven with analysis of the competing abortion narratives—“abortion is always a difficult decision” (50) (the stories illustrate it isn’t); “abortion is a women’s issue” (60) (yet this neglects the fact that many abortions are the result of a decision taken within a relationship); abortion is about sex and promiscuity (yet abortion is also a family issue, and the majority of women who have abortions are already mothers). Why don’t we hear more stories of abortion as a straightforward decision, as a couples’ issue, as a family issue, Watson asks. Ordinary abortion is a large part of abortion experience and a small part of abortion narratives.

Chapter 3 explores the language we use to speak about abortion and which in turn shapes our debate, using the case of a 17 year old girl in a small Utah town who paid a local boy to assault her so that she would miscarry her 7 month pregnancy in legal proceedings that sought to establish that that pair had undertaken the attempted murder of a ‘human being...