Safe abortion must certainly be seen, in the words of
Imane Khachani, an obstetrician from Morocco, as a
choice, a right, and a service—acceptable, available, and
accessible to all women. Women Deliver was right, and
courageously so given its sponsors, to make abortion
a headline issue. However, one line of argument in the
otherwise overwhelming case in favour of ensuring
access to safe abortion is troubling. Furedi spoke about
the moral status of the fetus, which she described as
“debatable”. Although a woman’s decision about her
own body, her own life, is hers and hers alone, the fetus
cannot be so easily wished away. A stillbirth is a baby
born with no signs of life at or after 28 weeks (in the UK it
is 24 weeks). We must all step up the fi ght to reduce the
mostly preventable 2·6 million stillbirths that occur every
year. Women want these children. They and their families
suff er terrible and often undisclosed anguish at the loss
of their child. In the realm of preventing stillbirths, one
would never question the moral status of the fetus.
Rather, one would reinforce it. And yet access to safe
abortion and tackling the unacceptably high number of
stillbirths are both issues that sit on the edge of global
health advocacy and action. Each seems to challenge the
other. The apparent opposition of values—protecting
the moral status of the fetus or calling that status into
question—casts both positions into an ethical void, one
that allows paralysis to eclipse action. Let us not call the
moral status of the fetus “debatable”. Let us, instead,
defend that moral status and defend equally the right
of a woman to decide the fate of her own body, her own
life. Let us make access to safe abortion and preventing
stillbirths the foundations of a renewed 21st-century
movement for reproductive health.