Woman's Hour - Women in Ukraine, Baroness Sue Campbell, Abortion law in Texas, Drastic hair

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

The Sunday Times' Christina Lamb on the women involved in the war effort in Ukraine.We look at the trend of brides having their long hair cut into bobs before re-emerging with new hair at their wedding. Kyrelle Burton of Devon Wedding Hair, did her first mid-wedding chop for a bride last year.Molly Duane is the senior lawyer for the US-based Center for Reproductive Rights who are challenging Texas state law on abortion on behalf of more than a dozen women. The case is regarded as important because it is being seen as a nationwide model for abortion rights advocates to challenge new abortion laws that have rolled out since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade a year ago this month. Molly discusses the case with Nuala.No single person can take credit for the huge boom in women’s football but if any one can it’s the woman who placed second on the Woman’s Hour Power List, Baroness Sue Campbell. The Director of Women’s Football at the FA joins Nuala to discuss the Lionesses legacy, the upcoming World Cup and the future of the Women’s Super League. In 2020 Baroness Cumberlege authored a report into two drugs and a medical device that caused women or their babies harm. The device in question was vaginal mesh, and the report described how using mesh in surgery for prolapse and incontinence had resulted in serious adverse outcomes for women across the UK. One of the recommendations from that report is about to get underway, to measure the impact of surgery on women’s lives. Anita is joined by Georgina Jones, Professor of Health Psychology at Leeds Beckett University to find out more, and by Hannah Devlin, science correspondent for the Guardian.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Emma Pearce

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, this is Nuala McGovern, and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Next month, the Women's World Cup begins on July 20th. It's in New Zealand and Australia. And as you may know, the Lionesses are one of the favourites. Now, Baroness Sue Campbell, who has been central to women's football success in England, will be with us this hour. She is the FA's Director of Women's Football. And I want to ask her, what can we expect next month?

And how important is this tournament to the profile of the women's game? We're also going to take a look back at her magnificent career and hear what she thinks the impact of women's football has been on other sports for women and girls.

Also today, could a questionnaire change women's experience of surgery? Well, one of the recommendations of the Cumberledge report on the impact of vaginal mass surgery is about to get underway. And we're going to hear why some believe participation in this new survey could in fact improve women's health care in the long term. Also, we are going to be in Texas. This is a year on almost from the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And we're going to be speaking to the lead lawyer who

is suing the state of Texas over medical exceptions in abortion law. And the question really is, how do you define when the life or the health of the mother is at risk. And to something completely different, a story we saw this morning, women getting their hair cut midway through their wedding. Yes, I thought maybe the same thing that you're thinking, what? But apparently it is a thing. I thought it was a surprising time to choose to change it up,

but maybe not. We are going to speak to a hairdresser that did it for her client. But it also got us thinking, did you decide to get a drastic haircut as something to mark something momentous, a life event for you? Now, it could be something wonderful, something really good, or maybe something not so good that you want to put behind you. I'd love to hear your stories. The way to get in touch, you can text the programme 84844 at BBC Woman's Hour on social media or a WhatsApp message or a voice note to the number 03700 100 444. So your drastic haircuts, what do they look like?

Why did you do them? I want to hear it all this morning. But before that, let us begin with stories out of Russia and Ukraine. Russia's defence ministry says it has thwarted a Ukrainian attack in the occupied Donetsk region. Kiev hasn't responded directly to the claim, but this is what some are asking. They're not confirmed whether it is to be the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, moving from defence to attack. And despite the danger in these areas, there are thousands of Ukrainians that are returning to their homes close to the front line, even though officials are urging them to stay away. And this does include, in this movement of people, women and children. The BBC's James Waterhouse is in Ukraine and heard from Victoria.

She's a woman in her 20s. She's heading back to the town of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine with her baby, Eva. It's impossible to leave like we did. We traveled around, all around Slovakia, all around Ukraine. We have to settle our family. This is where we belong. Victoria's travelling with her precious cargo on her lap. Baby Eva. She left with her during Russia's full-scale invasion last year, but has now had enough of being a refugee.

We are very grateful to them for hosting us and not abandoning us at such times. But it's time to go home. There's no other way. So Victoria deciding to make the journey. But there are also other women who have risked their lives to stay in Ukraine. And that is the country's group of female drone pilots. It's a world first. We have Kristina Lam with us, the chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times, who has been visiting these female pilots.

Joining me live from Kiev. Good morning, Christina. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning. So these women are fascinating to me and I think they will be to our listeners as well. Tell us a little bit about what they are doing. So basically, there is what they say is the world's first school for female drone pilots or pilotesses and they are learning to use a drone not just for recreational purposes

but actually for military purposes because in this war drones are playing a really key part so they're learning to do things like using them for reconnaissance to be able to see Russian movements and Russian positions, but also more advanced ways of using them actually as attack drones. And Ukraine has squadrons of combat drones. It's so interesting. We can get a little bit more into how those drones are being used in the war. But some of the women, when I was reading your headlines, was like a wedding planner, a flautist. Tell me more about these women and why they decided to take that route. Absolutely. So, yeah, the women I met the other day, as you say, included a woman who plays the flute in the symphony orchestra, a bar manager, a wedding planner, a policewoman and a pulmonologist, actually. Basically, they felt that there are not many women on the front line in Ukraine.

It's mostly men. There are some. And it's quite difficult for women to join up. A lot of these women are mothers with young children. So they wanted to find something they could do to help in the war effort, which wouldn't necessarily mean them going to the front line. And Ukraine has a big shortage of drone pilots. So this was a sort of perfect way of doing this and I think particularly listeners might be aware that Kiev where I am the capital of Ukraine over the last month has really been blitzed by Russian missiles and many of them are drones they use these Iranian sort of kamikaze drones more than 400 were fired on Kiev in May 11 so many of these women told me, you know, we watch these every night and we think, you know,

why can't we do something to stop this or, you know, to do it back? And how does it work exactly, Christina? Because we hear about drones, you know, blitzing Kiev, as you mentioned there, or it becoming a very important part of the counteroffensive, for example.

Where is the person? How are they operating it? What can they actually achieve? So one of the women I met, Yavinia, was actually a leading lawyer here, a human rights lawyer, and she joined up right on the first day of the invasion in February of last year. So she goes to the front lines, but she stays just behind the forces in the front line. And she's operating the drone,

giving them information about where the Russians are. But more critically, Ukraine, as you've probably heard endlessly, says they don't have enough ammunition and that the Russians are using far more than them. So it's very important that their ammunition is used wisely. And so the drones are able to see where the shells are landing and correct. So she sits there saying to them, you need to be firing a bit more to the left, a bit more forward, a bit backward.

And so that's incredibly useful but she's also using these drones that they've created here they're sort of refashioning or refurbishing what they call wedding ceremony drones really to actually drop targets and this is a very innovative country. Lots of people here work in IT. It's also the country that built the world's biggest aeroplane, actually. And so the combination of those skills are being used to create these sort of quite geekish people are at work trying to create these things. So I watched some of the women who had actually done the course already and have now become teachers themselves, teaching men how to use these drones that can drop missiles and drop targets to try and destroy Russian equipment. So a couple of questions.

When you say like a wedding ceremony drone, would it have been used for photographs before or something like that? Yes, exactly. And how long does it take to train and who's funding it? So it's a four week course. They have two days a week for about four hours. It's actually free. There's volunteers volunteers so there was soldiers teaching them how to do it but they asked them for donations so if people can give money to

contribute they would but a lot of it there's a lot of fundraising generally almost everybody you meet seems to be involved in raising money to buy drones or to buy night vision or equipment for the military. And coming back to that on the ground then, Christine, I mean, how are people surviving with their jobs, with money to be able to donate? I'm just trying to think of it like there's a war scenario obviously fiercer

conflict in certain areas than others at times. Yes, I mean a lot of people are still doing their jobs all the women that I spoke to the drone pilots are still working and so the flautist is, you know,

there are still concerts amazingly there's still opera going on. I think there's a real feel that normal life needs to go on as much as possible to keep people's spirits up. And also to say to the Russians, you know, you can't daunt us. We're not going to give in. We're not going to change our lives. But the women I met just felt very strongly that they want to be part. And also if the Russians were to actually try and move on Kiev again, that they would

have some skill that would be useful to help stop this. And which brings me again, that headline we were hearing in the news bulletin, questions about whether what is happening now is the beginning of a bigger counter-offensive by Ukraine against Russia. How do you understand what's happening at the moment across the battlefield? Quite confused. I mean, obviously, no military is going to say to us, yes, we're starting the counter-offensive at 10 o'clock on Tuesday and Zafareza be there. So, you know, there is a lot of kind of smoke and mirrors. And I think that obviously there have been some operations in the East, which some people are saying is part of an offensive, but it's not like the massive counter-offensive that people have been talking about and so that we're being told that

they're still waiting for more equipment maybe they're waiting to get the combat aircraft the f-16s before they can really launch a major because what they don't want to do is launch some major counter-offensive and it not actually succeed, that would be a huge setback. And the women you have met that are training to be drone pilots or training others at this point, they still resolute, still high morale? How would you describe it? Absolutely. I mean, look, there's no doubt that people in Kyiv are tired because if every single night, almost every night, actually last night was quiet, but almost every night for the last five weeks, there have been air raid sirens at three in the morning and sometimes more than one. People have gone to

the shelters. You hear anti-aircraft fire because the air defence is very good. 90% of these things are not getting through. But there's a lot of noise in stopping them coming through. And so people are not sleeping. And, you know, that affects people. It's hard to stay really high morale when that's happening. And you see people losing their tempers a bit quickly and so it does get to people but people are also very determined that you know they won't give in

there's a picture that people there's lots of these things on social media might have seen a picture of a cat called Chloe in a pink blanket being taken to a shelter last week with a really angry face so most people in Kiva saying this is how I feel everybody's identifying with Chloe Christina it was lovely to have you on thank you so much for bringing us up to date and also fascinating those stories of the women pilots that are training with drones I want to move on, as I was mentioning, to something completely different, but a lot of you have been getting in touch in the first few minutes of the programme, but drastic haircuts. If you missed me mentioning this a few minutes ago,

basically a thing, getting a new hairdo halfway through your wedding day. I'm thinking like chop-chop, not that they cut it in braids and then they give you an updo or something. There's lots of online videos. So maybe the long hair cut into a bob, for example, and you re-emerge mid-wedding to the excitement of guests and your spouse. The US and Australia are leading the charge on this, but it's also happening in the UK.

I can speak to Ciara Albertan of Devon Wedding Hair. You did this for a bride and welcome. Welcome, hi. How was it? Tell me what happened. So my wedding was last year, so it was for a bride called Sophie and I was cutting her hair for a little while. So she and we she spoke about actually cutting her hair before the wedding. But I suggested maybe to do something a little bit extra rather than a second dress change, maybe a mid-wedding chop. And she was on board with it. So how drastic are we talking about here? So it was she actually grew out for the wedding initially. She was she was growing it for a few years and we actually chopped it to almost just below the collarbone. So, or just above, sorry, the collarbone.

So yeah, big chop. And how long did that take? I mean, what I'd be concerned about is that I miss my cocktail hour or something because I have to get my hair cut. No, no. So it's pretty quick. So normally a cut is around an hour, but it took about 15 minutes maybe. So people didn't even notice that we slipped off. And what was the reaction?

Lots of screaming and giggling. Everybody loved it. They were really excited. You know, I've got a lot of people getting in touch about when they decided to have their drastic hair. Not necessarily with weddings. Let me see a couple here. I got a haircut in solidarity with my sister who was undergoing chemotherapy 20 years ago and had all her hair fall out. So I cut mine off and we had a good laugh and blinged up together and enjoyed our new look. Sadly, she says we eventually lost her cancer, but I really liked my short hair look and kept it for several years. That's Jess getting in touch.

Let me see. I had longish hair until 38, then felt so empowered after giving birth to my daughter that I had a great pixie cut. Let me see. After a broken engagement, I chopped my long hair into a short crop and bought a sewing machine with my savings.

I've never had such short hair since... When did she sell? Let me see. Why did she have money? With my savings. Oh, never had such short hair since... When did she sell? Let me see. Why did she have money? With my savings. Oh, maybe just savings she had already. I've never had such short hair. My sewing machine, a small Elna,

is still going strong. What about that, Kirill, this moment that people decide to just chop the hair off to mark something momentous? Yeah, I think it signifies a new beginning. And I think long hair can be a big faff. It can take lots of time. I know for my bride Sophie, she was traveling a lot. She was all over India. And I just think she just wanted something easier, something sleek,

something a little bit more grown up. And do you think this is something you're going to suggest to other brides or something that people have come to you already for? I think we'll see a lot more of them this year, definitely. What's behind it, do you think? Is it about the haircut or is it more about

causing a splash, another event at the wedding? I think, yeah, I think, yeah, there's definitely that. Because, you know, the last few years, I've seen lots of dress changes midway. So I think there's a part of it about being a little bit extra. But I do think that new beginnings and a fresh start is, yeah, behind it. What about this?

This is Diane getting in touch. I'm a divorce lawyer and part of my initial advice to female clients is to get an entirely different haircut new glasses and use that time to change their lives it's a shock tactic for both parties oh interesting i'm just seeing another line for you here corral know, another business opportunity. Possibly. But OK, and I'm saying that the US and Australia have been leading the way, but do you think the UK is going to start catching on to this trend of chopping your hair halfway through your wedding? 100%. I think with TikTok and social media,

we are, you know, getting more American. And so, yeah, definitely looking forward to them. OK, I've got to just throw it out there. I'm going to leave it for my listeners. 8-4-8-4-4. Thank you so much, Carell, for sharing your experience. I'm Sarah Treleaven,

and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Now, I want to turn on Woman's Hour to really take note of this month. It's a year, can you believe, since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,

the 1973 ruling recognising that the decision whether to continue or end a pregnancy belonged to the individual, not the government. Now, the Supreme Court reversal triggered a wave of change with states introducing new laws around access to abortion. Some were more restrictive than others. Texas is one of those states. Currently, there are more than a dozen Texan women who have joined a lawsuit led by the Center for Reproductive Rights. It's against the state's law,

which prohibits abortions unless a mother's life is at risk. An exception, the centre say, that is not clearly defined. Texas doctors who perform abortions risk life in prison and fines up to $100,000, leaving many women with providers who are unwilling

to even discuss terminating a pregnancy. Now, the women involved say they were put in danger by Texas's abortion bans, and they want to force the state to clarify medical exceptions in the laws. So the case is viewed as an important one because it's been seen as a nationwide model for abortion rights advocates to challenge strict new abortion laws in some other states. And the law surrounding abortion rights is a very contested and contentious issue, as you'll know, in the US, with both sides of the debate lobbying hard. In Texas, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

has said he is committed to doing everything in his power to protect mothers, families and unborn children. And he will continue to defend and enforce the laws duly enacted by the Texas legislator. Molly Duane is leading the lawsuit on behalf of the Center for Reproductive Rights. And she explained what the organization is trying to achieve. What we're trying to do in this lawsuit is seek clarification of the exceptions to the abortion bans, because what folks in the United States hear all the time is that, yes, there are abortion bans in place, but there are reasonable

exceptions. Of course, the life of the pregnant person is always an exception to an abortion ban. But if you look at that critically, or even really just with one eye open, you can see that those exceptions do not work at all in practice. And so Texas is a perfect example of that. Texas purports to have an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person. But what we are seeing in Texas is that that exception just doesn't work at all in practice. So I would imagine then you differ, and correct me if I'm wrong, Molly, with the Texas legislator about what the life or the health of the mother is. I mean, that's the thing. I actually don't think we disagree at all. Legislators keep saying that the life or health of the pregnant person is protected. But the problem is

that these laws were written by people who do not have medical degrees, who do not understand anything about reproductive health. And what we are seeing on a very wide scale is physicians do not understand what the language of the exception means or when they'll be protected, right? This is not medical terminology. The language of the exception is, let me see if I can quote it from the top of my head, when the life is at risk or there's a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function. What does that mean? I don't know. And more to the point, doctors don't know. So what we're seeing across the state is that patients are being forced to wait until they're

at death's door to be able to access abortion care. And the legislators who wrote this law claim that that's not the intent. And yet doctors have been crying out for help, for guidance to say when does the exception actually apply? And the response from the Texas politicians and legislature has been silence, right? So we had no choice but to file this lawsuit. And what the experiences of our plaintiffs show, I mean, this is a, we started with five, we're now up to 13 patients from across the state with a variety of different health conditions. And yet the same stories reoccur in every one of their situations. Doctors felt that their hands were tied behind their back. And even though these patients needed prompt abortion care, they were delayed or denied abortion care entirely.

So in that case, then the doctor, perhaps more apt than the legislator, did not feel the woman presenting themselves was close enough, if I put it in very layman's terms, to death, or their health wasn't compromised enough by that child that they were carrying. Exactly right. And this is something we're seeing not just in Texas, but in every state where abortion is now banned. These exceptions don't work and doctors don't know what to do. And they're terrified of losing their licenses of being, in Texas's case, sentenced to 99 years in prison if they get it wrong, right? If a prosecutor or jury second guesses their medical judgment. So of course they're erring on the side of what to them seems to be caution, but is really coming at the expense of patient care. I heard this before because I'm from Ireland and followed that abortion referendum very closely.

And I think also what I saw there coming up to the last referendum, I'm seeing a little bit here in the sense of some of the women coming forward, pushing for their abortion access. Here it's for clarification of what the medical exception is. They might be carrying, for example, a child with a fatal fetal abnormality. Yeah, so the patients who are plaintiffs in our case have suffered from a variety of complications during their pregnancy. In many of their cases, their water broke prematurely. And I think the case that you're referencing in Ireland was the same, except that in her case, she actually died. Thankfully, none of our plaintiffs were that extreme. But I think each of them will tell you that it's only a matter of time before a woman in a situation like theirs is forced to the brink of death or dies entirely. And that woman was, sorry, just to give her name is Savita Halapalavar,

which was a number of years ago and kind of began the discussions about abortion again. But I want to stay with Texas for the moment because this case has been going on. We spoke about it in March. What progress do you feel you've made over the past couple of months? Well, I think there are a couple really important things going on in the case right now. First, when we added new plaintiffs to our case, we also submitted a request for a temporary injunction, which is essentially asking for the relief that we're seeking in our case on a temporary basis while litigation continues. And has that been successful? Well, we only filed it last week. The next step is for us to get a hearing date with the court in Texas. And, you know, we're going to put on evidence of

exactly the harms that we're talking about here to show why we need urgent relief in this case, so that patients are not forced to the brink of death. But do you think that really might happen? That you'd be able to get an injunction to block Texas's abortion bans? This is a state that is so highly conservative. Just to give our listeners a sense, if they're not familiar with American politics,

you have a Republican governor, a Republican legislator, a chief legal advisor, and Republicans traditionally support much stricter abortion rulings. Well, the relief that we're seeking in this case, in some ways, is very small, because we're not seeking to block the abortion ban entirely, right? We are realistic. I've litigated in Texas for seven years or so, and I know the political obstacles that we're up against. But the one thing we should all be able to agree on, and I think that we do,

is that patients should not be forced to the brink of death to be able to access abortion care. And so, yeah, I do think it is realistic that the injunction that we're seeking here is something that will be granted. Because all we're saying is that when a patient is facing a severe pregnancy complication, the decision of whether or not she can access abortion should be left to her doctor in consultation with the patient, right? We have patients who are suffering from kidney and heart disease, from cancers, from pregnancy complications like placental abruption, premature rupture of membranes, and of course, right, these devastating fetal diagnoses, which mean that their pregnancies are not viable.

There are reports that some moderate Republicans have talked about wanting to add exceptions for rape or incest. What I'm hearing from you is all about medical exceptions. What about rape or incest? Well, there is no exception for rape or incest in Texas. In some of the other states, there is such an exception. But I want to be really clear about this. Those exceptions don't work either. Because in the states that purportedly have a rape or incest exception, there are all

of these things you have to do to qualify for the exception, including reporting the rape or sexual assault to law enforcement. Now, if there's one thing that we know about sexual assault, it's that victims are very unlikely to report to law enforcement for a variety of reasons. And so even in the states where that is allegedly an exception, it is not working as intended. RISA GOLUBOFFA- And do you think it will be successful? RACHEL BRONSON- I do. I mean, the other thing that we have argued in our lawsuit

is that even if the court disagrees with our interpretation of what the exception should mean, the Texas Constitution, like every state constitution in America, has guarantees for life, liberty and equality of its citizens. Now, I think that a right to life is not just a right to be alive, but a right to live a life with dignity, which means that the state can't take away your life, your fertility, put your health at risk, all for a pregnancy that will never survive to term. And so I think that is a really important piece of this lawsuit where we look to cases like what happened in Ireland and other countries across the world, like Mexico, Colombia, Kenya, that really grounded the right to abortion in a human rights framework and

said that having access to health care, and in this case, abortion care, is part and parcel of a fundamental human right to live a life with dignity. But it may be not accepted in those terms, particularly among some conservative circles within Texas in particular. When we talked about this case previously, people talked about the potential to replicate a lawsuit like this in other states. Has that happened? It hasn't happened yet, but I think it's inevitable that it will. I mean, if you read the news closely in the United States,

you see that patients like the ones who have stepped forward to be plaintiffs in our lawsuit in Texas are telling similar stories in places like Idaho, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee. You know, this is a widespread problem. And I think the thing I really want to emphasize is that those who oppose abortion claim that what happened to our plaintiffs, you know, these are isolated incidences of doctors not understanding the law, but the plain facts of the situation across the country speak a very different story. It's widespread, and doctors are understandably afraid that their attorneys general, that their prosecutors, and even, you know, juries will disagree and say these abortions were not necessary. And so you, doctor, go to prison for the rest of your life.

I want to turn to the state of Ohio for a moment, Molly. It has similarly restrictive laws around abortion. There was a case recently of a 10 year old girl from there who had been raped and was the focus of the doctor who had performed an abortion on her, but in the state of Indiana. Can you tell us more about that case? Yeah, I mean, this is a perfect example of both why the exceptions don't work and why doctors are terrified to speak out publicly. Basically, a very young rape victim was forced to travel out of state for abortion care. And when the doctor who provided the care to that patient spoke out publicly and said, look, this is happening right now, right? This is a patient who clearly should have been offered abortion care in her home community. She faced severe

political repercussions. The health department came for her license. She had to go through months and months of really punitive, unnecessary investigations. And then the end had to pay fines. I mean, all of this is why doctors are afraid to do abortion care, afraid to speak publicly about the care that they're providing. This word gets thrown around a lot in this country, but it really was a witch hunt. And this doctor did the best that she possibly could for her patient and provided exceptional health care and nonetheless faced these really nonsense investigations. And so I think it just goes to show why even in states that purport to have these exceptions, they aren't real for the patients and they certainly don't provide safety for the providers either. You say this is a small lawsuit in some ways. But I would imagine that those

that want abortion restrictions would consider it that you are trying to chip away at the Texas ban on abortion. Well, I'm not going to deny that. Obviously, we want to chip away. And a case like this is often where decriminalization and liberalization of abortion laws start. And certainly those that opposed abortion took a tripping away strategy after Roe v. Wade was decided. They took away one piece of the right, one after another, after another, until nothing was left. And so I'm reasonable about this. I know it's going to take a long time to rebuild the right. But what I think is important is that we rebuild this right in the right way, that it's not just about abortion. It is about reproductive autonomy grounded in a human rights

framework. You know, many would say, though, for those that were pushing for abortion rights, that the actions that they're taking are too little too late, that Roe v. Wade has been reversed, that this work should have been done years ago when it looked like it could potentially be on the table? Well, what I can tell you is that I have been working for nearly a decade and my colleagues have been working for much longer than that to defend the right to abortion. And it has been an uphill battle. But I measure success one patient at a time. Every patient that I've been able to help along this road is a victory. And so sure, it has been challenging, and we have faced setbacks. But I believe that in my lifetime, we will see, you know, a more liberalized, fair, legal regime in this country,

because we've seen it across the world. And so yes, it's going to take time. It's going to be challenging. But what I think is different now is that women are willing to speak out. Abortion has been very stigmatized for a very long time in this country. People are afraid to talk about their abortion experiences, about their miscarriages, right? And I think what is changing now is that people are willing to talk about those experiences openly with their friends and with the public. And I think that is the beginning of something very new, exciting, and ultimately the path that we need to get on to set these policies right. Molly Duane there leading the lawsuit on behalf of the Centre for Reproductive Rights,

and that lawsuit is in Texas. We'll continue following it. Lots of you have been getting in touch throughout this hour of Woman's Hour about your drastic haircuts. Here's a few. Let me see. I left my job as a nurse and at my leaving due, I asked everyone to take a shave off my hair until I was completely bald, free at last. Don't have a name for that person, but I really like it. Let me see another. My marriage was not going well. My hairdresser gave me a pixie cut from a longer bob. My ex said the haircut was the final straw. My hairdresser tells people he was responsible for the breakup of my marriage. Here's another one. I was traveling around Asia with my boyfriend when I was 20 and growing dreadlocks. By the time I got to Australia, I was too hot and couldn't stand it anymore and went to

the barber who gave me a number two. All the men were aghast at the chop while the women loved it. I was very happy and loved my crop and my cooler head. I keep them coming, 84844. Right, let us move on to football and summer. This huge boost that we've seen over the past year in women's football, it cannot be put down to one person. Not even Chloe Kelly, whose goal in extra time at last summer's Euros and that iconic sports brand moment,

it won England their first major trophy since 1966. But the success we've seen, you know, we could talk about the sellout crowds or the increased TV audiences or the record transfer fees. It's a testament to the work of many people, many women over many, many years. And my next guest is celebrated as one woman whose dedication and drive has been unflinching over a 50-year career in the world of sport. It's resulted in an MBE, a CBE, a Damehood, a Peerage

and also now number two on the Woman's Hour Power List. I'm talking about Baroness Sue Campbell, the Director of Women's Football at the FA, where she's been for the past seven years. And during her tenure, the number of women and girls playing football has doubled. Excitement for the game seven years. And during her tenure, the number of women and girls

playing football has doubled. Excitement for the game is reaching fever pitch. And we also finish a record-breaking Women's Super League season. And looking ahead next month to the Women's World Cup, Baroness Sue Campbell, welcome to Women's Hour. Thank you. Good morning. Great to have you with us. I remember in the radio theatre when we were doing the big reveal of the women in sport for the Women's Hour Power List. You were the superstar in the room and there were lots of sporting stars there, but you were the person that everybody was trying to queue up to get a photograph with. What was the day like for you yeah it was a wonderful day I thought so many of the women that you highlighted were doing just incredible work from grassroots all the way through to elite sport

and it was a wonderful morning to celebrate all that's good in sport but all that's great about women in sport it was terrific and for you to place on our women's our women in sport power list how did that feel well I'm I'm always slightly embarrassed by that because as you said quite rightly in your introduction um you know you get these accolades but you you know as a leader that that actually it's a team that makes things happen and no matter where I've been and I've been in a number of organizations I've been blessed with great people around me and an opportunity to really do the thing I think I was probably born to do which is is to use sport as a power for good in in society and in particular for girls and women so very I felt very humbled and very privileged to be on that list.

I had a long chat with Lear afterwards because I think she should have been number two and I should have been number one. That's the way to think about it. This is why you're a leader. Not afraid to be because my next word that I wanted to get to is disruptive, that you have been described. And I think you describe your style of leadership there as you talk about, you know, the work

that has been done. What does being disruptive mean? Well, I think it means it means driving change. You know, every organisation I've gone into, the National Coaching Foundation, Youth Sport Trust, UK Sport and then the FA, there was a need to drive really significant change in the ambition, in the people that worked in the women's game, football or really changing the aspiration of our Olympic and Paralympic programs at UK Sport, changing the vision of what physical education school sport could be like at the Youth Sport Trust and building a whole new framework of what coaching and coach development meant across every sport in the country and to do that which means you've got to challenge the status quo, you've got to challenge what's there, you've got to be willing to quo. You've got to challenge what's there.

You've got to be willing to, you know, take the setbacks, bounce back. It means you are disruptive. It doesn't always make you popular. But as long as you're disrupting in order to drive something better, to create better change, then disruption is very important, I think. So I think it's fair to say there has been a disruption, a very positive disruption when it comes to women's football over the past few years as well. It has turned around, I suppose, particularly their win last summer

at the Euros that I mentioned. You talked about it being a moment of great joy, but a moment of great opportunity. Almost a year on, how do you think it looks? We're going into the World Cup, how do you think it looks? You know, we're going into the World Cup. How do you feel about it? Whether the potential

was really harnessed? Yes, I think we often talk about legacy and I think really to embed legacy, you've got to start way before that special moment because when youngsters

are inspired and or oldsters are inspired to want to play the game those opportunities have to be there so our legacy program started two years ahead of the euros where we were building local infrastructure local opportunities whether it was older women who wanted to try football for the first time walking walking football, soccer size, or whether it was making sure that that youngster who suddenly looked and wanted to pull on that England shirt had a place to go and play.

So we did a lot of work with the host cities. There were a lot of people involved, local authorities, local clubs, my own colleagues who worked tirelessly to make sure that everything was put in place. So I think in participation terms, we've captured that moment really well and a lot more youngsters involved now at grassroots and beginning to come through on our talent pathway. And in terms of the fans, I think the fans just loved it. And they came to the stadiums, whether it was England or other countries.

And you could see how it was like a big party. I think Gabby Logan said at one point it was like the best nightclub she'd ever been to. It was just a happy, happy family atmosphere. And people really were captivated by it. And you saw last week record crowds at the Women's FA Cup, record crowd at the actual Euro final, sold all our tickets for our friendly game there against Brazil. People are now really interested in the game,

enjoying watching it and loving that atmosphere that they get when they go along. And it is different, right? When I've attended women's games or men's games, I feel it's different. I'd be curious for your take on it. But it has been announced that next year, the Women's Super League, so the domestic women's league currently run by the FA and the Women's Championship, will operate under an independently, so club-owned, club-run structure.

And I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on that, but also about whether there's an issue that it is going to become more like the men's game and lose some of that uniqueness um the women's game is you know it's been very special to watch it emerge and evolve and one of the great and the strongest things and i'm sure when you talk to leah there is a there is a real commitment by the present group of players to grow the game and to take responsibility for how they behave, the fact that their role models, their relationship with the fans. And of course, as numbers grow and it gets more and more popular, that becomes more and more difficult that you can keep that direct interface. But we are going to work at those things and we are determined to treasure what is great about the women's game and the new co-working group

which is made up of the chief executives of um the some of the clubs we we met all the clubs in the championship and the super league and we we asked for volunteers to go on a working group and we're actually to be honest overwhelmed by the response which was wonderful and that working group's been working really hard and one of the one of the really reassuring parts of that is their recognition that this needs to be built differently we need to think differently and actually we've stopped using the word different we've started using the word distinctive understanding what is distinctive about the women's game what makes it special and how do we grow that so we've got some challenges ahead we've got a year to get the

new company in place it's august 24 when it will go live um but a lot of work to do in the interim but absolutely committed to keeping what is good about the game but i suppose baroness campbell a lot of the questions are about money right and? And even before I get into pay structures and whatnot between men and women. But with the men's game, people could argue that the club with the most money does the best. And a fellow powerlister is Maggie Murphy.

She's CEO of Lewis FC, a fan-owned club, which was the first in the world to pay their men and women players equally. I know you know that, but just for my listeners. And Maggie spoke to Anita in April and said her team can't keep up with the big clubs when it comes to funding.

So will clubs like Lewis FC disappear as the game grows and perhaps increasingly depending on the men's game to subsidise in a way? Yeah, well, I think that has been a model, you know, that the the premier league clubs have as you quite rightly say subsidized the um investment in the women's game and and and

we're very grateful for that they've made a massive contribution to the growth of the game but as we start to increase both broadcast revenue, commercial revenue, attendances, looking at how we distribute those revenues is going to be very important because people like Maggie have done a remarkable job with her club and we don't want those clubs to no longer have a future in this game. However, if you take clubs, and if I just take Angel City in America that doesn't have a Premier League parent, if you like, they are generating, they've generated this year millions and millions from investors.

So I think as the game grows, there'll be other sources of investment other than our very generous Premier League colleagues. There will be other sources of investment. And we need to take very responsibly the distribution of income to the CEO working group that they've already acknowledged and we're already starting to talk about. released ahead of the World Cup? Serena Weichmann would like players sooner, but clubs are reluctant to release the players in time to begin a training camp, which is June 19th. So we're just around the corner. Yes.

I mean, we're still working with the clubs to find a resolution to this. Serena followed the same pattern she did for the Euros, which was she went and met the clubs in December, January of this year to talk about her plans, her preparation plans, which if you knew Serena, you would know are meticulous,

detailed, based on good science, based on great thinking, looking at how we build up to that moment when they step onto that pitch for that first competitive game. In the interim between that conversation and now FIFA and ECA, FIFA the International Federation and ECA are the European Clubs Association met and came up with a different date which was the 23rd. Serena had based her whole plan on the 19th and we're in the business of trying to now resolve that between us. Clearly, the players are on contract to their clubs,

and it's really important that we respect that. But equally, we have to respect that Serena, in my view, is the best coach in the world in the women's game. She's already won two European Championships and taken a team to the final of the World Cup. I think we have to respect what she wants.

So I am busy trying to find the solution to this and working closely with the clubs and obviously with Serena. So interesting. We'll have to have you back to talk more in more detail about pay.

Do you think the women will ever match the men's pay? If you were to give me a number of years, what would it be? No, I don't know that we need to start there. That's kind of,

it's like comparing two very different businesses. OK. The women's business model will be different. And of course, women should be paid well and should be paid

the fair and going rate for what they do in women's football. But do we want to get to a place where the salaries take the players so far away from the fan that the game becomes top heavy in that sense? I think these players that we're working with want to be paid fairly. They want to be paid well, but they also have a real commitment to the whole game and to the interests of the whole game. Well, I shall have to take it up with them. The distinctive, I'm going to use that word for you, Baroness Campbell, the disruptive. Number two on our power list, who believes she should be number one. Oh, I shouldn't have said that really, I'm only joking.

No, I love that you said it. I love your disruptive comments. You're welcome on any time. Thanks so much for joining us and we'll chat again soon. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Bye bye.

OK, let us turn. I want to turn to another Baroness. You may remember when we spoke to Conservative Peer Baroness Julia Cumberledge last December on Woman's Hour. She expressed her frustration at the slow progress of the Department of Health

in implementing recommendations of her report. It was called First Do No Harm. It came out in 2020. The report looked at two drugs and a medical device, all which caused women or their babies harm. The device in question was vaginal mesh and Baroness Cumberledge described how using mesh in

surgery for prolapse and incontinence had resulted in serious adverse outcomes for women across the UK and concluded that the healthcare system had become disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive. Well one of her recommendations from that report is about to get underway and I'm joined by

Georgina Jones, Professor of Health Psychology at Leeds Beckett University who can tell us more. So tell us Georgina, welcome to get underway. And I'm joined by Georgina Jones, Professor of Health Psychology at Leeds Beckett University, who can tell us more. So tell us, Georgina, welcome to the programme, this work that you're about to start. Thank you, Nuala. So what we're developing

is a new questionnaire that eventually every woman undergoing surgery for prolapse, incontinence or mesh removal will be asked to fill in to tell us the ways that surgery has impacted upon their quality of life and their experiences of care. The Cumberland report is led directly to this work because one of its key recommendations was that there needed to be a better way to monitor and follow up women after surgery and to gather data on the risks and benefits of surgical procedures,

which our questionnaire is designed to address. I think the first question my listeners would be thinking, hang on, a questionnaire? Really? Is that where we're at? Is that really going to help things? Yes. So these questionnaires are really important. So an individual's patient's testimony is extremely important. But what these questionnaires do is enhance the information gathered, because by asking every woman the same questions using the same questionnaire, regardless of where they're being treated and by whom, means it's possible to directly compare the risks and benefits of

different procedures, and to be able to work out which patient groups are most affected. And this will only, that you were mentioning, women that would have been affected with some of the issues that were previously being, vaginal mass surgery was being used to try and fix, which obviously didn't work for many, many women. But you believe it may have a longer term health effect than those cases? Yes. Well, our project is all about measuring the impact of surgery for pelvic floor problems of prolapse and urinary incontinence.

So it includes mesh surgery, but also its alternatives such as hysterectomy. We're also including women who are having surgery to remove mesh that's already been implanted and eventually it's hoped that a new questionnaire will also be used to assess the outcomes of new emerging surgical techniques that may not currently be used but what will happen eventually is that our questionnaire data will be included into a new surgical registry that's being developed by NHS Digital to collate all this patient information. Okay, I understand. So that's why you're very eager for people to take part in that if they are one of those women. Hannah Devlin is science correspondent for The

Guardian. And thank you, Professor Georgina Jones. What progress has there been made on mesh with the Cumberledge report? Yeah, so thanks for having me on. It's quite a mixed picture, really. I think, as Georgina just touched on, a really positive step has been the setting up of this new mandatory medical device outcome registry. And that was launched last week. and the idea is that it's going to collect information on any sort of high-risk medical device so it includes mesh but also pacemakers, hip joint replacements, breast implants, anything that's categorised as a higher risk device and that's quite a big undertaking. It'll be about 10 million devices that will be going into the registry each year and it's going to collect details of the procedure, which doctor was involved, and crucially, the outcome for the patients.

And I think there's a really strong feeling that if we'd had something like this, we might not have seen some of the scandals that we've seen involving implants and, you know, includes mesh, but also things like metal or metal hits and protective breast implants. And because there's just been this problem that maybe in some cases, the implant has solved, partially solved the medical problem, such as incontinence, but it's left some patients with really terrible outcomes, other outcomes, like pain and other problems that haven't really been collected in the right way. I understand. There are also, Georgina, Hannah, excuse me, mesh complication centres, so nine of them that are up and running. Do we know how many women have been treated?

Yeah, so another thing that's happened is NHS Digital has started publishing more details on the number of procedures being done and the number of removals. And so from that data, we can see that there's about 400 women who last year had some sort of removal procedure at these clinics. But the removal rates are quite variable across the centres so there's some of the centres that at least according to this published data have done almost no removals and and it's not really clear why that's the case and whether we've kind of got you know higher demand in some areas or whether we've got a situation where different doctors are sort of following slightly different routes and maybe more open to removal and others are sort of being more cautious. So I think that does place patients in quite a difficult position

if there isn't really a uniform view across the medical profession on what the right route is for these patients. And that's it we'll continue to update of course our listeners on this hannah devlin science correspondent for the gorgon thank you so much i do want to read um a statement we got from the department of health and social care they say we're ensuring all patients can access and receive the right care safe in the knowledge their voices will be listened to the national pause remains in place for the use of vaginally inserted mesh to treat prolapse and specialist mesh centres across England are ensuring

women with complications get the right support. Thanks to both my guests on that. I do want to let you know that tomorrow I'll be speaking to the writer Emma Klein. Maybe you remember her 2016 debut novel The Girls. It was hailed as an instant classic about female adolescents.

In her new book, the thrilling I have to say, the guest, a young woman, Alex, drifts through her life trailing trouble in her wake. Who is she and what does she want? Do join me tomorrow when we will speak to Emma. And thanks for all your comments coming in. An awful lot of drastic haircuts

that have been taking place, including somebody who had an autism diagnosis and decided not to have long feminine hair anymore, but has a myofarrow cut, sleeps better and less irritable during the day. Thanks for getting in touch, Louise. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

Hello, I'm India Axon and I just want to quickly talk to you about witches. In this series from BBC Radio 4, simply titled Witch, I'm going to explore the meaning of the word today. It is a twisting, turning rabbit warren of a world, full of forgotten connections to land and to power, lost graves, stolen words and indelible marks on the world. Because the story of the witch is actually the story of us all. Come and find out why on Witch with me, India Rackerson. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.