Sublime

Thousands of mothers are being forced out of their jobs, and hundreds of thousands more face other types of injustice such as demotions, halted careers or an impossible workload.

2020 was the year we finally realised that the needs of pregnant women and mothers are often sidelined and ignored with sometimes disastrous consequences for families.

‘Let me give you some examples. In the UK, 54,000 women a year are pushed out of their jobs due to pregnancy or for taking maternity leave, and 77 per cent of working mums face discrimination – that’…

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In gynae clinic, I go online to look up some management guidelines for a patient. The trust’s IT department has blocked the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology website and classified it as ‘pornography’.

Estelle told her the story of how she’d waited until Antony had gone away with his family to Palermo for a fortnight then took a jar of emergency cash she had literally buried in their back garden, went to a woman in Koreatown and had her tubes tied in secret.

It wasn’t “good timing,” most would say, but that little baby was there, and its tiny heart was beating strong, and that little life had value. And we could rejoice in that.