pro-life feminism- an oxymoron?

differentname That is so bloody unfair! I had a sterilisation at 29 after only two DC, when I was single, ffs! I had two counselling sessions beforehand but none of this 'we know best' paternalistic crap! It's terrible that access to tl should be such a lottery, especially as it doesn't even seem to be based on cost, but on the whims of HCP.

'following lights with their eyes, turning their heads in response to my voice'

You can programme a robot to do that with about 10 lines of code.

As I said before, the people squawking and whining about term abortions are people who don't like women. They're prepared to believe that there are lots of women who will abort within days of their due date just because they have 'changed their minds'. This is definitely an antifeminist view because it's buying into the idea that women are wicked and selfish and can't be trusted and therefore need to be controlled for society's good and their own.

I am reminded, though, of one of the recurring nightmares of my own pregnancy which started after a well-meaning friend said 'What are you going to tell them to do if it all goes horribly wrong and they have to choose between saving the baby and saving you?'
After about a fortnight of blubbering over that one I spoke to the MW who said 'Look, that doesn't happen any more, they do their best to save you both if it goes wrong.'
But I do remember reading (and am prepared to accept that this may be a myth) that Catholic doctors are required to prioritize the baby over the mother, or they used to be.

Sigh - I am not saying that abride. I mean in terms of whether they have any strong wanting to be alive desire in a conscious way.

Anyway, this is a ridiculous debate - like I said in my last post, I find it hugely irritating that these discussions always end up being about term abortions when the reality is that they don't happen and, even if the abortion rules were relaxed, they would still be vanishingly rare.

It still should be a woman's choice of whether she brings a child into the world or not. I am not advocating infanticide. And yes I do think there's a difference.

'any of us who have held a newborn will know that they really aren't that conscious'

Really? Both mine were very awake and alert, following lights with their eyes, turning their heads in response to my voice.

I don't think you can decide on whether or not an action is moral or ethical on the basis of how it makes you feel personally. That leaves the door open for all kinds of things. Killing your newborn as a result of all the bawling? Smothering your elderly parent because they're a nuisance? Drowning your dog because it's become incontinent?

Back on the late abortion grounds I find the maternal life argument quite odd. In many cases of life-threatening conditions to the mother doctors will try to deliver ASAP, not abort.

Unless that's supposed to reflect the fact that up until the birth actually takes place the mother's medical needs automatically come first, which is perfectly logical?

Isn't it...we obviously can't be trusted to know what we want to do with our own bodies, yet we are allowed to make a decision that affects thousands & thousands of people (vote)...I find that quite bizarre!

bedlambeast, I hope your friend gets the help she needs. It is very wrong when people are denied basic human rights, such as to be in control of when they procreate.

It is horrible that she is forced to live through this too.

And that is exactly how I felt, bedlambeast. Like I had no voice. Thank you, you pointed out exactly how it was & how I felt.

Like no one believed that a mum, at 35 with 2 complicated pregnancies behind her, could know what she wanted, didn't believe her when she said she didn't want to do it again. How could she possibly know what she wanted, how dare she be in control of her body & her life. How dare she decide when she gives birth & when she doesn't, how dare she decide how many children to raise!

We are still seen as baby making machines & in my view, that is worse than being a porn star, because at least a porn star is allowed to decide what she does with her body, women with babies inside them don't get that right, according to many!

bedlambeast, thank you.

The irony is, the very same hospital that told me no for TL, did it for a very close friend of mine.

The difference? She had 3 children. That's it! She was younger than me too. Double standards. A nurse friend, who went on to become a midwife within that same hospital tried to investigate our cases, asking why I was denied & friend wasn't. But she didn't get any firm answers, just told 'I expect we thought a family with 2 children wasn't complete'

It is crazy, it really is. My friend gets to say what happens to her body just because she has 1 extra child to me? NOT RIGHT, not right at all!

how is having a baby adopted,and knowing that at least your baby is alive,worse than it being dead?

I personally couldn't have done this, because 1/ it is the pregnancy that takes it toll on me, not the baby, per se. I have had 2 horrible pregnancies. With dd2, it was NEVER an option to terminate, but I would cry regularly wondering why I was putting my body at risk of PE & HELLP again.

I have had 2 sections. I have numbness in my legs where my nerves have been permanently affected by either the spinal or the section incision. Same for my feet, I have to wear socks in bed as the colder weather makes the painful.

I have aches & pains in my pelvis after 2 lots of SPD.

I get increased numbness & pins & needles in my hands after carpal tunnel with dd2. Which was so bad at the time, I couldn't even hold her when she was delivered, because I couldn't feel to grip her. I still get problems now if it is too cold.

The surgeon who delivered told my baby told me after that the placenta had to be scraped off the uterine wall in pieces.

So I should go through all that & give the baby away? No I don't think so. I would never leave a baby I bought into this world out there, all alone. And I couldn't explain to it, if it came looking for me why I loved it's sisters, but not him/her. Because I suffered that as a child, only my mother didn't give me up, she had me.

I don't see what is so wrong with choosing how big your family gets, how many children you bring into this world, or how many you raise. I don't understand this 'it happened, so you must bare the responsibility for it'.

How about letting a woman decide what happens to her body, he life?

Would you force a woman to marry someone she didn't want to?
Would you force a woman to rob a bank?
Would you force a woman to have sex when she didn't want to?
Would you force a woman to learn how to drive?

No? But you want to force her to have a baby....nice.

Coleysworth, thank you! I have complained to the practice manager about it. My dr said it was practice policy & the practice manager confirmed that, so no one else within the practice would have done differently.

I told her how wrong it was & what a mess my life was as I waited for a termination.

I still see the dr who refused my request for tubal ligation, because he deserves to live with the fact that I had to terminate because he rebuffed my feelings & thought he knew better.

I do understand that I probably wouldn't have had the op before I fell pregnant, so it may still well have happened, but he had NO right to deny me something so basic. He thought he knew me better, because of his profession, he doesn't. He looked very shocked the day I told him I needed a referral for a termination.

Like some on here, he obviously didn't believe that I knew what I wanted. I was 35, ffs. I think I know how many children I want!

No, it wasn't an error. My earlier post said:

'I really don't understand the right to life stuff. I never have, never will. If you are not a conscious being (and any of us who have held a newborn will know that they really aren't that conscious) why does it matter if you live or die?'

I seriously do not understand this whole sanctity of life stuff.

But really, we're talking about the dramatic absolutely point end of the pencil here because 99% of abortions are carried out when the foetus has no chance of survival outside its mother's uterus. That is really what the abortion debate is about. Pushing it to extremes renders it theoretical (because term abortions with no disability are currently not legal anywhere as far as I know)

there, not their, obviously

LadyBiscuit, I'm sure it was an error but you wrote "a newborn foetus". Your argument rather hinges on their being a critical difference between the two. I struggle to understand how different can be the consciousness of a foetus - who SGB and others argue should be able to be killed with impunity - and a newborn baby - who cannot. Your pain and consciousness arguments don't stand up as far as I'm concerned. It is not necessary to prove either pain or consciousness for it to be wrong to kill a person. I think you must look elsewhere for reasons.

I'm clearly not the sort of feminist who will be to SGB's taste. I'm quite glad of that, tbh, and I think I'll stick with my own judgement about whether or not I'm a true feminist.

SGB has answered your question for me.

Like I said in my last post, a newborn foetus has no real consciousness. It's not thinking 'they're going to kill me', it's not thinking anything very much. Pro-lifers have used the pain argument in abortion debates for ages unitl it was proved that there was a physical reaction to stimulus at X weeks but that the neurology wasn't actually connected to feel pain.

If a pregnant woman does not want to carry her foetus to term, that is her right in my opinion.

And I don't think you can be a true feminist (to drag this discussion kicking and screaming to its roots) unless you believe that, however distasteful it may be to you.

MsHighwater: then you needn't have an abortion at 36 weeks (though I would hope that if you did need one due to the foetus being hugely encephalic or whatever you would be able to obtain one). The point is, the contents of another woman's womb and what she does with said contents are her business and NOT YOURS.

LadyBiscuit, I can't see that the difference between a foetus at,say, 36 weeks gestation and a baby born at the same stage who survives is enough to make it OK to abort the former just because of the mother's feelings. In reality, I expect that all women who h

ave late abortions have extremely good reasons for doing so because the law requires that it be so. I am questioning those who argue that this is not enough and that abortion should be legally available no matter how late and for no other reason than that the mother has decided she does not want to continue with the pregnancy. If it is not OK to kill a baby born at 36 weeks, why would it be OK to abort a 36 week foetus? "It would never happen" just isn't good enough for me.

MsH - it's about wanted and unwanted. I didn't want my aborted foetus. I wanted my miscarried foetus very, very much. My feeling about them both was hugely different. And the mother's feelings are all that's important.

^ that was to MsH

I agree LadyB, there are deeper issues there if her parents told her things like that!

Yes, I find it acceptable that a woman might decide to terminate her pregnancy at 39.6 weeks. Because I accept the woman's right to autonomy. It's not up to me, you or anyone else to take ownership of her body and make decisions for her. Why is that so difficult for some people to understand?

time for