AIBU to think a foetus is alive before birth?

Well, exactly, so it's impossible to know if abortion is actually reduced in those regions or just not captured in the numbers.

Obviously Tunisia is the only place you could get clear data, as it’s legal there.

Methodology would be a bit Wild West in other NA countries.

You actually have to have a ‘strong passport’ to go abroad, so it’s not as easy as you think (Westerners are the exception here) and I do think that people are very cautious because the penalties are so very serious. Luckily you could get birth control pills OTC without much fuss in the Gulf at least.

That’s why I say abortion bans do work … much too well.

From a quick Google, it seems as though in North Africa, the abortion rate is unusually high despite abortion being heavily restricted or illegal in most countries - 3.8% to the UK's 2.3%.

Obviously, data for countries where abortion is illegal is hard to get hold of, as women aren't admitting to their abortions. But according to Google AI, it's estimated that roughly 900,000 women have unsafe abortions in North Africa every year, with a high maternal mortality rate.

So is it that abortions are really reduced significantly, or is it that they're all just unable to be counted properly in the stats?

You own example of living with an abortion ban stated that women travel or have illegal abortions so you are actually agreeing with PPs point that abortion bans don't ban abortion, not sure why you think it reduces the incidence of abortion when very few stats actually show that even for the MENA region there is a high rate of abortion whether legal or illegal. Banning abortion hasn't successfully reduced abortion anywhere, it only reduces safe abortions.

To be clear, I don’t think it’s a positive outcome.

But if all you care about is the reduction of abortion, yes, total abortion bans reduce incidence of abortion. I don’t think it’s worth it of course.

Well I lived in Ireland and became sexually active when there was a total abortion ban. We travelled to the UK for our abortions. It by no means meant they didn’t happen, they just happened under unnecessarily difficult circumstances, where poor women were travelling home on the ferry, bleeding.

This isn’t really true. I have lived in MENA with a total abortion ban. People are aware of this and change their behavior to avoid negative outcomes like imprisonment (contraception is available OTC). Of course many will go abroad to get it done, and poorer women have fewer options, but it definitely reduces the incidence, if that’s your goal over all else.

Studies in the US are preliminary but it seems there is a slightly higher birth rate in places with abortion bans.

Iirc Hispanic birth rates particularly seem affected by this (maybe because they are Catholic?) but black birth rates are down, perhaps they are responding by increasing contraceptive usage.

Unfortunately the teenage pregnancy rate is higher in general it seems.

Banning/restricting abortion doesnt stop or even reduce abortions. It simply leads to unsafe abortions and increased maternal death and poor health outcomes.

There is no good reason for restricting access to abortions it doesnt create better, safer outcomes it simply causes more harm and suffering to women and girls.

The majority of abortions take place within 12 weeks, most before 8 weeks. But regardless of when it should not be a criminal offense. You cannot force women to continue eith a pregnancy they dont want or cant continue with whatever their reason.

Once you start prescribing situations where it is and isnt ok you are ascribing more or less value to human lifre. This actually adds to discrimination we see ie towards disabled people.

As early as possible, as late as necessary. Women must have complete bodily autonomy and its a very slippery slope when this gets restricted.

What a load of tosh. When I see stuff like this it just makes me want to fight even harder for the right to choose and for safe legal abortion to remain in place. Reading your misogynic post is like a daily reminder of why many of us choose to keep fighting,

It's inevitably misogynistic even when that's not the intention. I think you do get some pro-life people that are motivated by concern for the foetus as an entity but that doesn't seem to be what's behind the broader movement.

To control and punish women. That's always the answer with this type of person, not that they'll admit to it.

Again: foetuses should have the same rights as any human. And no human has the right to use another person's body if that person revokes their consent, even if they will die, and even if the person revoking consent created the situation in the first place.

Your comment hasn't rebutted that point at all. And you don't understand what bodily autonomy is, because it has nothing to do with needing to work or pay taxes.

But why would you choose to risk that level of trauma when you don't have to. What good does forcing someone to do so even do? We can't even properly look after the unwanted children we do have. Why add to the misery?

Why not save both (if medically possible)?

Doesn't pre-eclampsia start at 20 ish weeks?

Deliver the baby early to save the mother, then save the baby as well?

The woman's act (voluntarily in 99% of the cases) created the dependency. It's a foreseeable consequence of having sex.

Parents are legally and morally required to use their bodies, time, resources. You can’t starve or neglect a toddler because “I withdraw consent to use my body for feeding and changing.”

The womb is the only environment where that child can survive the natural developmental process. Refusing to let the child continue that process is actively destroying a human life.

Your entire worldview reduces the unborn to second-class humans whose lives can be sacrificed on the altar of feelings.

We live in a society where every single working person is legally compelled to use their body, their time, their health, and their energy to work, earn money, and hand over a massive chunk in taxes that directly funds welfare for the poor. Is that bodily autonomy?

But why? Why force someone through all that suffering for an unwanted baby?

People can have sex. But if you happen to create a new life, you shouldn't be allowed to kill the new innocent human being.

With pre-eclampsia the medical advice is reduce the mother's BP safely, deliver the baby, remove the placenta. Save the mothers life and also try and save the baby's in the NICU.

Seeing this kind of disregard for women's lives and health is disgusting.

It's a fact that no other human would be expected to provide the usage of their body to another human. In the old violinist experiment where a person would have to 'actively' kill the other person, no one would force someone to give up bodily autonomy in order to keep another person alive.

It's only women who have their right to deny consent to the use of their bodies stripped away.

I absolutely see foetuses as human, but no human should have the right to use another human's body without their consent, and no other human does.

So I think foetuses should have the same rights as any other human; if a woman removes consent to the use of her body, then no one else should be able to continue using it, regardless of the consequences for them.

Sex is a perfectly normal part of life. Not everyone follows a religion or personal belief that limits it for reproduction.

And yes, you devalue a woman when you expect her to put aside any other priority in her life just to contribute to the birth rate.

And don't try that temporary inconvenience on me. Would any of you far right lot be coming over to help raise my children if I suffered a pre-eclampsia related stroke like my relative?

A pregnancy doesn't randomly pop out of thin air? A pregnancy doesn't reduce or devalue a woman and her accomplishments in life.

Pro-life means one thing you do not get to intentionally kill an innocent human being to avoid temporary inconvenience.

We don't demand you ignore born children or dreams. We demand you solve problems without killing the unborn.

CDC data:

Risk to woman's life or major bodily function: ~0.3%
Other physical health concerns: ~2.2%
Fetal abnormality: ~1.2%
Rape/incest: ~0.4%
Everything else (finances, timing, education/work interference, caring for other children, "not ready," partner issues): 95.9%

I think I also struggle with the idea of reducing women of childbearing age to gestational carriers. What I mean by that is that according a strict pro-life position a woman must be prepared to put a pregnancy first, irrespective of any other career or educational plans, any health considerations, any responsibilities to her born children or other loved ones that need her to stay well or any other dreams or talents she has.

Women are as unique, complex and multifaceted as men and being told that actually no, as soon as that fertilised egg implants any other potential you have becomes irrelevant to your duty to contribute to the birth rate, it's not easy to swallow.

Quite staggered by the dismissal of womens pain and long term health impacts of pregnancy and childbirth.

Pregnancy simply requires? How on earth do you get to have an attitude that women should just have to continue with pregnancy because its 'nature'. Utterly bizarre.

One third of women experience long term health complications after pregnancy ranging from pain, to incontinence to mental health. Even your dismissive attitude to diastasis recti is just staggering.

I have been fortunate to have easy straightforward pregnancies and births, with one that was more complicated. But these were pregnancies I chose. The final one I considered termination, for a variety of reasons that wasn't the right choice for me, it did result in a very traumatic complicated birth and a child with complex needs. I had no idea they would end up with complex needs. But it was my CHOICE to contine with the pregnancy and that should never be taken away.

How anyone can be so dismissive of womens lived experiences, to the point of giving unborn fetus rights over their body is reallyunfathamoble to me

If you dont agree with abortion, dont have one but you dont get to minimise and ignore the reality of other women or choose for them.

I would have more respect for you if you weren't so dismissive.

www.who.int/news/item/07-12-2023-more-than-a-third-of-women-experience-lasting-health-problems-after-childbirth

I think it comes down to who is anyone to decide what health risks someone should be prepared to take or what permanent bodily changes you should accept for the life of another person. In my experience this is a very unique thing, some people are more risk averse than others and most people are going to feel differently taking these risks for a loved one.

Even accepting the humanity of the foetus, personally I find that debate just turns into an unhelpful semantic debate, when you look at the history of womens health I think the harms of banning safe abortion are very obvious.

The law allows safe-haven relinquishment or adoption for born infants—precisely because society recognises the child's right to life.

Abortion is not "relinquishing care." It is the deliberate destruction of the child.

Your own example proves the pro-life point. We draw the line at killing. Pregnancy simply requires you to let the child continue its natural developmental process (which ends in birth, after which relinquishment is available). You are not "required to care for it" forever—you are required not to kill it.

Pregnancy is unique—because it is the only way a human being enters the world. That doesn't make the unborn child's right to life evaporate.

Most changes reverse post-partum. Permanent effects like diastasis recti or stretch marks are cosmetic or minor. Society does not let parents kill born children because caring for them causes "trauma" (sleepless nights, financial strain, emotional exhaustion).

Maternal mortality is low in the developed world. NHS even say 98.6% of pregnancies have no major health issues.

Pregnancy is not "forced organ donation." It is the natural consequence of the act that created the child. You are being asked not to evict and kill your own son or daughter from the only environment in which he or she can survive.

Refusing a blood transfusion to a stranger is passive withholding—you let nature take its course. Abortion is active, intentional killing.

We do affirm a specific, limited negative duty to not kill your own offspring. That is not "enforced transplants." It is the same principle that stops you from smothering a born infant because you don't want to change nappies.

Your entire post rests on treating the unborn child as less than human, or as a mere "clump of cells" with fewer rights than a born infant. Science (distinct DNA, heartbeat by 6 weeks, brain waves, pain capacity) shows it is as alive and is as deserving of life as anyone else.