Donald Trump’s election is devastating news for women in Scotland and around the world, writes Lara Henderson.
The US election. The topic is still on our minds at the moment, especially for women. Rightfully so. But you are in Scotland, so why are you so angry? I am angry at what our world has turned into. I’m only seventeen but I’m terrified. Why does it feel like we are going backwards? Why are people’s rights getting fewer and fewer? Do they think this is progress? Because I certainly do not.
What about what we fought for, all of those years ago, the suffragettes and suffragists? We all know how hard and strenuously they fought for their say in what happens to the country they live in. They were listened to then. But what is happening now, in the modern day, when you would assume that it would be easier for your voice to be heard and listened to because of the progression of our ideas and the advance of technology? It’s like people in the highest positions of power don’t even care anymore, if ever they did in the first place.
Donald Trump has issued an executive order which aims to reinstate and expand the Global Gag rule that prohibits foreign US-funded NGOs from providing legal abortion services, meaning that there will be even less access to the healthcare which is vital to female reproductive health. No matter where you are in the world this will affect you. What if we are going back to the time when women were not just individuals, with minds and bodies of their own, but were property of the men around them? Sometimes it feels like that is happening.
Take what is happening in Afghanistan, where the Taliban treat women like they are barely even human beings, with no privacy, no education, no respect. The new law passed by Haibatullah Akhundzada gives the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry the power to enforce a strict code of conduct for Afghan citizens. For the women this is another layer of issues they have to tackle. One woman told the BBC, “if we can’t speak, why even live? We’re like dead bodies moving around.” Women are scared to speak because of intense fear that something horrendous will happen to them, leaving the house with the fear that they might not come back home safely or even at all. Women are running secret schools to try and grasp some freedom. When they try to speak up for themselves they ensure they are covered head to toe in loose black clothing or dark blue burqas, with the majority choosing to cover their faces with only their eyes visible. When women gather in small groups to demand their rights get broken down by the Taliban’s forces. They are forbidden to contribute to the society they live in because of their gender.
Here in Scotland, the laws, stigma and conversations about female reproductive healthcare are nowhere near where they should be. Under the current law, people who find themselves to be pregnant do not have a legal right to end the pregnancy if they so wish. This decision is up to doctors who have to be the ones to put the request in, which takes time. This is more significant than it sounds as it means that there is an extra layer of issues that can delay a procedure that needs to be done pretty rapidly to lessen the risks of complications for the individual. If you compare Scotland with other European countries, you will see a stark difference in the abortion laws. I believe that it’s a human right at the end of the day that should not be regulated using criminalisation or other measures.
Some of the assumptions of the Abortion Act 1967, which is still in force, date back to the 17th century, when women were supposed to be silent, when their identity was that of their father’s or husband’s, and they were accused of being witches. I can assure you that I am not a witch but you cannot assure me that I will go into the future with the right to be able to choose what I do with my body, or that other women in other parts of the world will be able to choose what to do with their bodies. The Act was adapted in May of 2022, making it legal for women to have an abortion at home. A new law was also passed in September of this year to protect women and girls who undergo abortions, and prevent people from trying to scare individuals away from the healthcare they need. Safe Access Zones have been put in place which means that there is an extra level of protection for workers and individuals.
We still have a long way to go, and further in certain parts of the world than others. But lets not forget what has become normal in women’s everyday lives, in every part of the world. Our hypervigilance about ourselves and our surroundings every day and every night. The harassment, the fear, the under-education about our own bodies. I know I am not the only one who is scared of what the future is going to look like, and what I will be allowed or not allowed to do with my own body, my body, nobody else’s, mine. I am the one that makes the choices about what happens to it. Not Trump. Not you.
Lara Henderson is a seventeen-year-old student from Edinburgh.