Who really owns your body, when a pregnant woman can get fame for an abortion 'stunt'?

It’s one of the more bizarre things we’ve seen on Twitter (and that’s saying something) but it brings to light an issue we’re facing for the very first time in history: just how far can you go, to go viral?

A woman, known as Saipanting, is supposedly making the decision to abort her baby (or not) depending on the number of re-tweets her latest tweet receives.

“Four months pregnant. 4k RTs & I won’t abort it,” she posted to Twitter, alongside an apparent image of her growing baby bump, last Wednesday.

4 months pregnant. 4k RTs & I won’t abort it. pic.twitter.com/z9lzWPuHIn

— ???????? (@saipanting) August 23, 2017

It’s very likely it’s all a ruse for clicks. The situation escalated rather drastically – with the father of the unborn child, ‘King Nathan’, replying to her tweet with the accusation: “Instead of letting me know it was my baby, you decided to come on Twitter with this bullsh*t?”

We then learn Saipanting sold King Nathan’s dog for tickets to a Lil Pump concert. (A decision she says was worth it.) Before a third character comes into the mix – King Nathan’s current partner who is also pregnant with his child.

It’s suspiciously hoax-like. But that doesn’t make it anymore okay.

The decision to terminate a pregnancy has no place in the social media world of ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’. They’re reactions that seem too trivial when a person’s life – that of the mother, or the foetus – hangs in the balance.

More than this: abortion is never an act of attention-seeking. Saipanting – whoever she is, whatever her motivations – is turning a very real, very personal issue into a parade of vanity that is the worst of social media.

It’s a huge injustice to women who’ve had to make the decision to terminate a pregnancy.

Wider than this, it’s a dangerous direction to take in the conversation around abortion.

Women seek abortions for a number of reasons. Their health. Their finances. Their place in life. Their relationship with their partner. Their future. Never, not once, is it done to garner attention.

Abortion is a personal choice. Always, it should be her choice – one we need to protect and value and respect, going forward. Women past and present fight for this right.

In no world, and for no woman, should it – or the pretense of it – be used as a tactic to go viral.

Fake or not, the mere fact that a stunt like this can attract such an overwhelming response, shows we have a long way to go in educating people on who exactly gets to make decisions about women’s bodies.

LISTEN: Donald trump’s abortion law.