pro-life feminism- an oxymoron?

Yes that is patronizing when you think about it Jeanine -the fact that the woman's rights are not part of the equation in the UK

"However, I sometimes think that campaigns to encourage people to have less penis-in-vagina sex might be a good thing. "

Exactly!

you can't give rights to a foetus without taking them from a woman,and if you want to control other womans bodies you are not a feminist. find a dictionary, find a new label.

"Without the woman there is no foetus"

Exactly!

I find it surprising that we still don't have abortion on demand in the UK. Is even more of a surprise that this doesn't seem to be a big feminist issue.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the status quo is pro-choice, but a woman's right to choose what happens to her body is no codified in UK abortion law.

We still have a pragmatic fudge that decriminalised abortion on the basis that a ban would do more harm - the 'lesser of two evils' approach.

A woman still needs two doctors to agree that , on balance, an abortion would be better or her physical or mental health. In practice this may be a formality, but it is still deeply patronising and paternalistic.

At least in the US, the have the landmark judgement in Roe v. Wade that establishes a woman's rights, even if it says these have to balanced against those of the state to protect a 'viable' foetus.

Thanks for the thought SGB but my sex life is fine thanks I suppose I should have said 'don't have penis in vagina sex'. Of course it is possible to have a sex life without it.

I wasn't specifically thinking of your situation differentname. I do think that society puts a huge amount of pressure on especially young people to be having lots of sex and it ought to be more acceptable/encouraged to say no. It also ought to be ok to accept the consequences of one's actions. And that goes for men and women, although of course the biological consequences are not the same.

And as far as a married couple who have had all the DC they want, I agree with SGB that a vasectomy seems like a sensible choice. I think that an awful lot of 'choice' can be exercised before arriving at an unwanted pregnancy.

I suppose I am an idealist, and I would wish for a world where 100% effective contraception was freely available, where women exercise genuinely free choice over sexual activity and where there is financial, practical and emotional support available to all pregnant women and mothers. I do recognise that the world isn't like that.

I have some difficulty working this all out in my own mind, and I have avoided such threads in the past and perhaps I should have avoided this one! But to answer the OP, I don't think it is an oxymoron.

"YOU CANNOT & SHOULD NOT EVER THINK IT IS OK TO FORCE A WOMAN TO HAVE A BABY SHE DOESN'T WANT." Finally, I get that you are passionate about this, but you can't tell another woman what she cannot and should not think; that's not feminism either.

Now that's a kind of interesting post which makes me feel rather sorry for you and the rubbish sex life you must have.
Sex is not just about conception. A great deal of sex takes place (and is greatly enjoyed) that will not lead to conception anyway - oral, anal, manual and same-gender.
Interestingly, quite a lot of the type of sexual activity that is not conception-related is more enjoyable for women than penis-in-vagina thrusting ie the sort that might induce conception.
I am entirely pro-choice because the bottom line is that women are people and foetuses are only potential people so they don't have 'rights', as the only way to give foetuses rights is to remove rights from women.
However, I sometimes think that campaigns to encourage people to have less penis-in-vagina sex might be a good thing. As well as encouraging het couples who are sure they have had all the DC they want to book the bloke a vasectomy (a considerably less debilitating and dangerous operation than female sterilization).

I also think that it is not necessary to have sex. If you absolutely cannot under any circumstances have a baby then don't do it

So, because I don't want any more children, I should stop having sex with my husband? OK, so that would turn me into a baby machine, surely? To only have sex when I want a baby!

What a ridiculous view!

If men would have to pay maintenance for every baby they make, they might not be so keen to do "it" without condom

yes, of course...because accidents happen only when you don't use contraception! Get real!

EVERY form of contraception fails. At some point.

That is a lot of unwanted pregnancies which = unwanted babies.

YOU CANNOT & SHOULD NOT EVER THINK IT IS OK TO FORCE A WOMAN TO HAVE A BABY SHE DOESN'T WANT.

That's not feminism!

I certainly agree with you about the public 'right' to tell pregnant women what to do. It makes me mad that a woman who might like an odd glass of wine during pregnancy is made to fee like a criminal.

A better term for prolifers is 'fetus-worshippers'. Their interest in a fetus stops the minute it's born. SOme prolifers actively campaign against thing like state-funded childcare to enable a single mother to work. Their whole agenda is about removing women's human rights. An awful lot of the harmful, stressful and misleading crap that is peddled to pregnant women comes from these arseholes, like the obsession with stopping pregnant women from drinking any alcohol at all (despite the risks from moderate drinking being negligible) and the scaremongering about what women eat and the constant nagging at women about the right age to get pregnant.

How would motherhood be a realistic choice for some mothers? It's the personal support that people require, raising that is unrealistic.

Perhaps if we made men more accountable for pregnancy they be less eager to fuck anything that moves.

Bugger, my second last paragraph should have said something like, I agree with the poster who said we need to raise the status of and support for motherhood in society so that it becomes a realistic choice for some women who feel it is not.

Without the woman there is no foetus. And the sexualisation and expectation of very young women is definitely a contributing factor in pregnancy rates, which again diminishes the concept of choice.

HerBex. All adults have their choice of actions constrained to some extent by what society as a whole thinks is acceptable. Thus, assault is illegal. Thus, abortion at 8 months is illegal.

Why can it not be acceptable for feminists to think that there are some circumstances in which a woman's right to act as she chooses must be constrained by a balancing consideration of the foetus? A foetus is not part of a woman's body. The moment that you accept that abortion over a certain limit is unacceptable you accept this in principle.

I'm with Highwater to some extent. If the decision on whether to abort or not lies with the woman, then so too does the responsibility for avoiding creating an unwanted life.

I am a feminist. I am anti abortion. I would not choose to criminalise it now as it would be driven underground and the problem would still exist. I wouldn't judge anyone who made the choice for themselves as some close to me have done.

As far as women's autonomy goes- we do not have full autonomy over our bodies- abortion is limited in term (unless there are severe abnormalities, which is a whole other debate). I also agree that there is another human being involved with rights of their own.

There are pro-life groups which support women through unwanted pregnancy and offer practical support like baby goods, I certainly agree that more can be done. And I also agree with the poster above who said that

But finally, I also think that it is not necessary to have sex. If you absolutely cannot under any circumstances have a baby then don't do it. Noone ever mentiona that as an option. I think that women, and young women especially, having more control and autonomy at an earlier stage over their bodies (and a less pornified society) would lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies.

Not in Holland it hasn't. They talk extremely frankly about sex there and have an very low rate of abortion. I think there is something more complex about the individual society behind abortion rates.

I would question the assertion that more information = fewer abortions.

There has never been more information made available to children of all ages. The abortion rate has gone up for decades.

Until the pro life lobby stop waving placards and offer REAL help to women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy, (practical help-not just throwing money at the problem,but things like babysitting & support) then its got to be pro-choice.

The pro-lifers are like bridezilla - all about the wedding and nothing about the marriage. Children are an 18 + year committment -where are the pro-lifers for all those years, except tutting about unmarried mothers, burden on the state, uncontrollable teens etc etc etc. There is a massive stigma associated with giving up a child for adoption now - women are expected to keep the child, and give up their own lives.

The pro-lifers have absolutely no knowledge of the mother's or father's cicumstances and sit in judgement. Many are looking at the situation from a fundamentalist religious perspective.

I find them deeply offensive and hypocritical, and so I do not believe a pro-lifer can also be a feminist, unless they are prepared to stand up and support that child for 18 years. Because that would actually enhance the mothers life choices, enable her to builda career if she wishes, or to stay at home.

Pro-life seems to be about punishing and limiting choices for the mothers who have dared to concieve out of wedlock, or who have decided that an extra mouth to feed is not feasible.

Chandon.....So a woman is forced to have a baby? Wow.

Hello,

well, I am a feminist, and I believe in an ideal world there should not be abortions.

I believe in the UK you can do it up to 24 weeks, at which time the baby is sometimes viable (alive!) when taken out, despite lethal injections, and isn't that just literally murder? If during an abortion, the baby comes out alive, and is then killed it IS murder for the law. odd really, or not?!

To me abortion should be for absolute emergencies (say a young girls who was raped), and only within the first 12 weeks.

the REAL key issue is, I think, that MEN should be held responsible for any pregnancy they cause. If men would have to pay maintenance for every baby they make, they might not be so keen to do "it" without condom.

It makes me sad that birth control and pregnancy are still seen as an entirely female domain. Men should be forced to support the baby, if they don't want that responsibility, then don't have unprotected sex.

Devils Advocate:

What about the rights of the father in all this? What if he desperately wants the baby and the mother doesn't?

I think abortion is one of those horrific moral issues because of course a woman should never be pushed into a situation where she doesn't consent to what is happening over her body (and I don't use 'the word control deliberately because pregnancy by it's nature is uncontrollable) but it doesn't just affect her.

Removing or campaigning for the removal of the option for abortion would be anti-feminist. Personally being anti-abortion and not acting on that belief or imposing it on others isn't anti-feminist and if being anti-abortion is being pro-life (which I don't think it is) then logically it must be possible to be pro-life and a feminist but I don't think you can be a pro-life activist and a feminist.

So going back to an earlier I think to be pro-life and a feminist does depend on ones labelling of pro-life.

I think society has been set up in a way that often makes it difficult for women to choose to carry their baby to term. Financial difficulties are the main barrier to completing a pregnancy. Or losing out on career prospects if you get pregnant young. So I think society should help mothers. Luckily, the UK is a caring society and we have a system that actually supports pregnant women, so they can have the baby even if there is no dad around. IN the past we didn't, and neither do lots of societies around the world today, which means that women around the world are forced to have abortions. Thankfully the UK has also got rid of the "shame" surrounding pregnancy without a father around.

BUt women have abortions for many other reasons, and of course they should be able to. The woman's life trumps the foetus' life.

In the past in Japan, abortion was the natural step for women to take if their family was already too big. LIttle wooden dolls exist here to represent the babies the women chose not to carry to term. They're slightly macabre to look at, because you know they represent a baby, but I find it interesting that abortion was accepted as being a natural part of the life cycle here. If the mother knew that having another child would cause problems for her current family, the only sensible option would be to abort.

I'm also reading Manon des Sources at the moment by Marcel Pagnol, and his female characters collect herbs to sell in the market, including the illegal "rue" herb, which could be made into a tisane to cause abortion. WOmen always used this method- since the dawn of time. It's silly to say the foetus' life trumps womens'