A woman who lost two pregnancies due to domestic abuse is still campaigning for legislation to protect pregnant victims of violence, more than a year after telling Holyrood her partner drove a car at her when she was six weeks pregnant.
Nicola Murray lost her baby as a result of the attack in 2013, before losing a second pregnancy in similar circumstances four years later. She has been campaigning for the Scottish Parliament to introduce the Unborn Victims of Violence Act that would make it a specific offence to cause a miscarriage through violence and abuse.
Murray also runs Brodies Trust, which offers support to other survivors of pregnancy loss as a result of domestic abuse.
Pregnancy is one of the most dangerous times for victims of domestic abuse. Two women were killed in Scotland while pregnant in the past three years. Fawziyah Javed was pushed off Arthur’s Seat by her husband in 2021, while earlier this year, teacher Marelle Sturrock was killed when she was 29 weeks pregnant. David Yates, who killed Sturrock with a hammer, was later found dead.
Pregnant women killed
They join 34 women from across the UK who have been killed by men while pregnant since the Femicide Census and the Counting Dead Women project first started to collect data on women’s violent deaths in 2009.
“My partner was abusive, and I had asked him to take his things, not make a scene, and leave,” Murray told The Ferret during the annual 16 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women and Girls, which runs from 25 November until 10 December. “He wasn’t happy. He started screaming at me, saying that I didn’t get to say no to him, that he would decide when we were over. And stupidly, I laughed at him”.
“The next thing I knew, I was being dragged across the road by his car,” she continues. “My child ran over to try and pick me up, and all I could think was ‘oh my god, the baby, the baby.’”
Within 48 hours, Murray had miscarried. The experience of losing her baby, and the second forced miscarriage four years later, led her to the Freedom Project, where she learned she was not alone. “Nearly all of the women in the support group had gone through it,” she says. “It was scary how many of us had been through a pregnancy loss or a forced termination.”
Freedom of information data proves the extent of domestic abuse during pregnancy. Between 2017-21, Scotland’s police received 7,310 reports of domestic abuse when the victim was also identified as pregnant – four women every day.
These figures are likely to be the tip of the iceberg, however. Pregnant victims of domestic abuse may choose not to report to the police, fearful that their child will be removed by social services. Women who miscarry as a result of domestic abuse may also experience feelings of shame and guilt that inhibit them from reporting.
There is also the risk that perpetrators will avoid prison even if found guilty. In November this year, Thomas Law, from Perth, was spared jail after kicking his pregnant partner in the stomach, and squeezing her neck before throwing her down a flight of stairs. The violence did not result in miscarriage.
“Some of the women who come to us at Brodies Trust have never spoken about what happened to them. They carry a lot of trauma, self-blame. And hardly any of the perpetrators have even seen the inside of a courtroom.”
Nicola Murray, Brodies Trust
“Some of the women who come to us at Brodies Trust have never spoken about what happened to them,” Murray says. “They carry a lot of trauma, self-blame. And hardly any of the perpetrators have even seen the inside of a courtroom”.
While there is an urgent need to protect women from domestic abuse in pregnancy, laws around forced miscarriage and pregnancy loss can be weaponised by the anti-abortion movement.
In the US, where multiple states have banned abortion since June 2022, women have been arrested following miscarriages, including victims of domestic abuse. Even before the overruling of Roe last summer, women were jailed following miscarriages, especially if the woman had a history of drug or alcohol abuse.
In September this year, Scotland’s cabinet secretary for justice and home affairs, Angela Constance MSP, responded to Murray’s petition, writing how she was “not persuaded at this time that we should introduce a new offence”, while recognising “the tragic circumstances outlined by the petitioner which no woman should ever have to endure”.
The case for a new law is disputed, with some campaigners and politicians arguing that existing offences – such as common assault – can be used to prosecute pregnancy loss as a result of domestic abuse.
It is claimed that this would avoid opening debates about whether the foetus was considered to have “foetal personhood”, a term used by anti-abortion campaigners to argue the rights of the unborn baby trump those of the pregnant mother.
“I fully considered the petition and provided a comprehensive response to the Committee outlining the challenges in creating any new offence in this area,” Constance told the Ferret. “I understand this is still subject to consideration by the committee.”
“I was quite disappointed by the response,” Murray told the Ferret. “Sympathetic words do not change the plight of these women. Offences exist, but that does not mean we do not need a specific offence, just as we did with other crimes against women such as upskirting or stalking. If we have a specific offence, it shows to perpetrators we are taking it seriously”.
Cover image thanks to iStock/Motortion
