IN October, I watched the final presidential debate in disbelief. I watched Donald Trump – the next President of the United States – discuss abortion with a frightening level of ignorance. At this point, I was still safely ensconced in my we’ve-made-progress bubble (the one 2016 has stamped on repeatedly). This stunning display of pro-life rhetoric, half-truth and downright lies wasn’t something I expected to see in my lifetime.

Mercifully, on this matter at least, Scotland has been a tonic. Here we have an informed leader who can talk sense on the matter. In response to Patrick Harvie’s questioning, the First Minister underlined her commitment to women’s equality. She stated she will consider opening up our NHS to Northern Irish women denied access to abortion. I’m proud to have a leader willing to shelve scare-rhetoric and speak unabashed truth to one of the greatest global threats to human rights of our time. The debate has always come tangled in the social, political and religious milieu of the day. Right now, it seems the most toxic it’s been for years.

When religion and politics intersect, women suffer. In October, 30,000 women took to the streets of Warsaw to protest the proposal of a total abortion ban in Poland. In Northern Ireland in 2012, Savita Halappanavar died from sepsis when doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy she was miscarrying. There, a woman has been given a custodial sentence for buying abortion pills online when she couldn’t afford to travel for a private procedure.  In America, the right-wing, pro-life president-elect is willing to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that gave women in all states access to first-trimester terminations. There, Catholic hospitals care for around one in 6 patients, but will not carry out terminations, risking infection, death and emotional trauma. Since 2010, more than 300 state abortion restrictions have been passed. In recent years, women’s health has become a political bargaining chip.

Too often the most important decision a woman ever has to face is decided for her. The world is tightening its grip on women, risking their health and denying their human rights in the process. It goes unchallenged because so many still default to emotion rather than pragmatism. It’s necessary to dismantle the myths and half-truths surrounding the issue that prevent us from having a rational conversation. We can’t avoid reason when so much is at stake.

Like many, I was indoctrinated into the pro-life movement early. I grew up in a catholic family and attended a vehemently pro-life faith school. Before I knew what abortion was, I’d been gifted a special pin-badge – a tiny, gold pair of feet that I wore with pride. I had no idea I was broadcasting reproductive propaganda on my lapel. I was an easy sell – did I believe killing babies was wrong? Of course. What nine-year-old wouldn’t? The seed was planted that took a decade to change. By high school, before I’d had formal sex education, my class had to watch The Silent Scream – a right-wing pro-life film that shows a live abortion. We also had an angry man from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children visit, who reduced a class to tears with slides showing the leftovers from a dilation and curettage. They’d done a hearts-and-minds number on us – there was no nuance or balance to the debate – sending us into adulthood biased. They’d converted us before we had any notion of the magnitude of that reproductive confinement. It took a hard dose of real life and self-education to course-correct.

It was only as I became more attuned to the finer details of the global struggle for equality that I realised the scale of the injustice. Women’s rights to good health are not a reality when access to a full range of reproductive health interventions – including abortion – are restricted.

The truth is that removing access does not stop it. All it does is remove the safety from the equation. Women have always sought and will continue to seek control of their reproductive health. From ancient civilization to the present day, terminations have been a reality. Today, across the world, more than 40 million women choose to have an abortion and around 20 million are unsafe. They’re conducted without the required skills, outwith safe medical environments. However squeamish you are about medically safe abortion – consider the alternative, as regularly documented by the World Health Organisation. Women drinking toxic substances like bleach or turpentine. Women inserting sharp, unsanitary foreign bodies like coat hangers, sticks and chicken bones into their vaginas and wombs. Women dying.

Around five million women every year find themselves in hospital following unsafe abortion, facing haemorrhage, sepsis, disfigurement and more. It’s a leading cause of maternal mortality, leaving well  over 200,000 children motherless yearly. Desperate women take desperate action.

When access is removed, it puts women’s lives in the hands of backstreet abortionists and internet pill providers. It disproportionately disadvantages vulnerable women, whose access to reproductive health is already hampered by income, religion, culture and geography. In countries like America and Northern Ireland, where medical provision exists to remove risk, opening women up to such risk is a crime.

As the lurch to the right sees politics march further into women’s wombs, we need leaders to start a sensible, honest conversations about abortion – and I’m glad to see Scotland leading the way. We have a loud US President who will set the tone on abortion for the next four years, with the power to impact the lives of women. In Northern Ireland, women face life imprisonment. We have the opportunity to be a beacon of hope for women living under the imprint of these dangerous times – given the gravity of the situation, I hope Nicola Sturgeon remains true to her word.