No, you can't

I don't usually write about politics, but I have to share my shock and dismay at the US Supreme Court's new ruling that the Constitution doesn't include any right to abortion.

It's more than politics of course. It's a major blow to millions of women who for very good reasons don't want to have a child and will now be driven to desperate measures - travelling abroad or to another state, or using back-street abortionists - to free themselves from pregnancy.

Judges Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett voted to overturn Roe v Wade. The other four judges voted to keep the original decision.

As any woman knows, there are many valid reasons for seeking an abortion - the woman was raped, she accidentally became pregnant, she's extremely poor, she's extremely ill, she couldn't cope with another child, the child would be disabled in some way, or the child is incestuous - and forcing her to give birth is cruel and doctrinaire and utterly blind to the circumstances.

Of course the decision to have or not have an abortion should be up to the woman concerned, and it's absurd that the law can intrude on such a personal matter.

Those who oppose abortion sometimes maintain that women "casually" rid themselves of a child, as if they're discarding an unwanted present. They must surely realise the emotional anguish and turmoil that accompanies both the fraught decision to have an abortion and the aftermath of what they have done. To suggest the woman takes the decision lightly is ridiculous.

I can only hope that some way is found to reverse this new ruling and restore the original judgment in Roe v Wade.

(My apologies for all the mansplaining!)

Pic: Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump

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Put it behind you

How often have you heard a politician or some other public figure - or even a family member or friend - refer to some traumatic event in your past and say "You've got to just put it behind you"?

Do they realise how deep a trauma can be and just how hard it can be to "put it behind you"? Yes, maybe you can bury a minor personal upset, but a truly devastating emotional injury is a different matter.

A serious trauma can embed itself in your psyche so deeply that it lingers for years, set off by one chance trigger after another. You can't simply tell it to go away. You can't simply shove it in your mental attic, shut the door and forget about it.

So those people who tell you to put it behind you are being both offensive and ignorant. Offensive because they imply it's something quite superficial and easily disposed of, and ignorant because they don't understand the reality of living with profound emotional anguish.

My mum's brother was flying a Spitfire in World War Two when he went missing and was never heard of again. I think my mum was still grieving her loss when she died at 96.

Northern Irish people are told to "put the Troubles behind you". Survivors of the Grenfell Tower inferno are told to "put it behind you". Ex-prisoners are told to "put it behind you". What if they can't?

But it's a convenient attitude for people who don't want to deal with the intransigence of someone's mental suffering and just want it to be gone. Do they think you can wave some magic wand and poof, it's all done and dusted?

Never felt the need

It's funny but I've never for a moment regretted not having children. I'm happily sailing on without them and have never felt there's some kind of void in my life that needed to be filled with scampering offspring.

I've never had a yen for descendants who can carry on the family name, or for someone to love and admire their daddy, or for the delight of childish innocence or misunderstandings or precocity.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not in any way criticising those who have had children and (in most cases) got huge pleasure from them. It's an individual choice, after all. Some are raring to have kids from an early age, and know they'll love it, while others wonder what all the fuss is about and have never felt the need.

All those daft arguments about selfishness don't help, because of course they work both ways. Are you selfish to not want children and not help to replace the older generation? Or are you selfish to have children and expect others to contribute to the public services they'll need? You can go round and round in circles and just get everyone's backs up.

But I must say, from what I see of parents and children every day (and I see a lot of them because there are two schools close by), there's nothing that makes me feel I missed out, that I'm lacking a vital experience.

When I see parents angrily reprimanding their wayward children, when I see children running round restaurants screaming their heads off, when I hear about children with serious mental and emotional problems, when I hear about children in thrall to drugs, when I hear about relentless bullying, I just think that bringing up kids must be equal parts joy and anguish.

So - no charming son who loves and admires his daddy. But suppose he turned out to actively loathe his daddy. What then?

Sigh of relief

Teachers who organise school trips are getting more and more nervous that they'll be held responsible for every little cock-up that takes place, however innocent or unpredictable. So much so that some teachers are refusing to organise such trips altogether - to the great disappointment of the kids who lose out.

But teachers who went on a school trip to Belize where two pupils were raped have been held not responsible, and the pupils themselves have been told their behaviour was partly to blame.

That doesn't excuse the rapes of course, but it does help teachers who're stressed out with anticipating every possible accident and mishap and waiting for an accusing finger to be pointed at them.

The High Court found that the pupils had broken two basic rules of the trip by letting a man into their cabin and drinking alcohol. And they had not asked him to leave.

The court also found that the teachers had no reason to suspect the rapist, the resort owner's son, who had no criminal record and as far as they knew had not behaved improperly to anyone.

The teachers must have been greatly relieved, especially as the case has taken seven years to reach court - presumably seven years of nailbiting anxiety and self-accusation. Perhaps the teachers deserve to get damages for all the anguish they've been through.

The fact is that with the best will in the world, and with all possible precautions being taken, disasters can still occur. You just have to accept that they couldn't be prevented and deal with them as best you can. Dragging people through the courts seldom helps.