The Week Spotlight: Who exactly are they protecting?

We have pointed out that we keep hearing the same line from the far right: they’re doing all this to “protect women and girls”.

Sorry, but protecting us from what exactly?

Because this week alone, reporting in Britain showed that around 20,000 women a year disclose domestic abuse to maternity services in England, with midwives warning they need more resources to support them properly. Another report found young women facing stalking, image-based abuse and doxxing online, while police and tech platforms repeatedly fail to protect them.

That is violence against women. That is a threat to women’s safety.

Meanwhile, we have men in balaclavas forming self-appointed “vigilante” groups, some claiming to be protecting women and children while targeting migrants. The Guardian reported this month that at least 28 such anti-migrant groups have sprung up across Britain in the past 18 months.

We’ve heard versions of the same language around abortion too.

Anti-abortion movements have always been very keen to tell women that restricting our choices is actually for our own good. But strip away the branding and you get to the same question: who gets control?

We do not have to look very far to see where that politics can lead.

In Texas, the family of Tierra Walker, a 37-year-old mother who died after developing severe pre-eclampsia, is suing state officials and doctors. Their lawsuit alleges that Texas’s abortion ban stopped her receiving the abortion she needed as her condition deteriorated. The defendants have not yet established liability in court, but the case is another stark example of the uncertainty doctors and patients face under sweeping abortion restrictions.

And a new statement from US maternal-fetal medicine specialists says abortion bans can make it impossible in some circumstances for doctors to provide evidence-based standard care.

That is the bit the “protect women” rhetoric can never quite explain.

How is a woman protected when doctors cannot give her the care they believe she needs?

How is she protected when politicians get the final say over her pregnancy?

How is she protected when someone else decides what risks she must accept with her own body?

The language about women, family, birth rates and “traditional values” is in reality cover for seeking greater control over women’s bodies and choices. It’s not about protecting us.

Women do need protection: from violence, coercion, harassment, discrimination and a healthcare system that still routinely fails to take women seriously.

What we don’t need is a bunch of blokes deciding that the answer is taking away our rights.