Ethics of abortion must include ethics of a woman’s right to choose

If I live to be 100 I will never forget that first time hearing my baby’s heartbeat while having a scan. It was, and remains, the best sound ever.

It filled my own heart with hope as I listened to what I remember as that odd, whooshy, under-water, really-fast-beating sound that signaled the beginning of a life, and the tiny speck visible on the screen of the ultrasound machine.

As someone who had trouble getting pregnant and staying pregnant I lived for those ultrasounds (and I had a lot of them) which, as time progressed, didn’t just involve the comfort of hearing the heartbeat but also working out the various limbs and their movement, and registering the amount of growth visible since the last scan.