Can Pro-lifers be feminists?

Getting the legalities about right is not the same as getting the practicalities right, though, is it? It's perfectly possible to be more or less content with the current legal position in (most of) the UK but also advocate for improved provision of facilities

Absolutely agree.

I'm not denying anyone anything @TheNavigator as I've stated up thread my position is legal abortions for right now to prevent greater loss of life overall. However for me it's not a settled question. Furthermore every woman should have access to all the education and contraceptive options so I'm happy to shower choices in little gift wrapped boxes to every woman who needs them.

However if one makes takes the view that killing a foetus is an ethical violation then it's a violation wether it's you doing it or somebody else does. Wether that life is significant enough to justify a restriction is up to you and I can respect either position.

If your gold standard on what defines feminism is choice then that's fine but that opens up the floodgates on prostitution, pornography, paid for surrogacy and even selling your kidney. Even then by making abortion even legal there are doubtless many women forced to abort by their partners and families where is their choice?

Getting the legalities about right is not the same as getting the practicalities right, though, is it? It's perfectly possible to be more or less content with the current legal position in (most of) the UK but also advocate for improved provision of facilities

I agree that the Northern Ireland exclusion is a travesty. And that's what the UN was referring to (not the UN has much credibility regarding travesties).

So, what are you actually proposing. You've not said.
Are you proposing the right to terminate up to 40 weeks?
Whataboutery is necessary because there ARE circumstances you have skirted right over because it doesn't suit your argument. I'll repeat it. What happens to the sexually abusive female who got pregnant via a minor. Does she retain her rights or not?

Let's have some proper detail behind your thoughts.

Maybe I'm biased living in the UK, but I think we've got it about right in terms of the legalities.

No we haven't. I bears repeating, time and again, that many women in the UK do not have access to legal safe abortion. In this climate, philosophical bleating about 'Is that choice (to abort) still valid a day before birth? or even during the birth?' is either pathetic self indulgence or reprehensible whataboutery, seeking to deflect from the reality of the denial of reproductive autonomy to many women and girls in the UK. A denial, let us remind ourselves, that the UN has stated exposes women to 'horrific situations' and systematically violates their rights.

Maybe I'm biased living in the UK, but I think we've got it about right in terms of the legalities. It's a different debate regarding how easy/difficult it is for some people to access abortion services within the UK legal confines.

As I see it, the UK law's acknowledged that once a foetus reaches viability, a whole raft of issues come to the fore about the rights of the woman vs those of a potentially sustainable life. They seem to have reached a compromise that most people can live with, and if medicine discovers more about the evolution of the embryo or improves the viability of early births then the 24 week limit might be adjusted accordingly.

It just seems so dismissive to say 'it's a woman's right to terminate at ANY point she chooses, and any other view is distinctly not feminist.'
It seems patently obvious that most people have a huge grey area of morality between 0 and 40 weeks, and you don't have to be at the 40 week scale of morality to qualify as a feminist.

Is that choice (to abort) still valid a day before birth? or even during the birth?

The posters on here who think that is the only true feminist position would say "yes"

The reality is that those countries like the UKwhich put the mother before the foetus /baby in a life or death situation will continue to act as they do.

Pursuing this line in countries such as Venezuela or Poland or Ireland will guarantee abortion rights are kicked into the long grass for ever.

Where does this reproductive choice start and end though?
Is that choice (to abort) still valid a day before birth? or even during the birth?
That's the debate many are having. You can say 'it's a woman's choice', but people are asking if it's unconditional right up to the moment of birth.
And again, what about the instance of the woman who got pregnant via a minor. What should her right be in that instance as opposed to the minor who is about to become a father via sexual abuse?

I'm still struggling to see how an anti-abortion stance is automatically not feminist. because you are denying another woman reproductive choice. A feminist may make the ethical decision that she would not have an abortion herself but she would not seek to impose that on her sisters. If you want to limit women's right to choose then that is not feminist, never has been, never will be.

At 24 weeks there is a 40-70% chance of survival.
At 25 weeks there is a 50-80% chance of survival.
At 26 weeks there is a 80-90% chance of survival.

I'm still struggling to see how an anti-abortion stance is automatically not feminist. I mean I get that depending on how you view the foetus determines what outcome(s) you find morally acceptable or not. If the foetus is of no consequence the issue is as clear as day (and I actually envy immensely the people for whom this is the case).

For those who feel the foetus IS of consequence the whole thing is an ethical minefield, but the acceptance of that premise is in and of itself a neutral position as far as feminism is concerned. My sticking point is those making the claim that seeing a foetus as significant is in and of itself anti-feminist, as you could argue with just as much validity that given that more female foetus's are aborted than male it is inherently anti-feminist to be pro-abortion.

It would be unethical to induce a baby 4 weeks before it's due for the convenience of the mother. If you're going to have the baby, have it at the right time, or just slightly early, by elective caesarian.
24 weeks is a long period of time. Why can't a woman be expected to abort in that period rather than wanting to do so later? If there are problems with abortion clinics being booked up, or women not understanding what the options rare, or whatever, that should be sorted, rather than the time limit being changed.

I have so many friends who have regretted their abortions.

This is not borne out by data, and a 5-month abortion is pretty unusual.

I guess I could sort of get to grips with a feminist pro-lifer in academic terms, although I'd imagine they're very few. But, in the context of the world today, how much suffering and poverty there is, particularly for women and children, I think it's a terribly unmeasured position.

When you say friends" Leilanii, I assume you mean "case studies cobbled together by SPUC"?

However the physical and emotional trauma involved in giving birth and giving the child away for adoption is enormous and should not be underestimated.

But also having a late abortion and giving birth to dead babies is also traumatic. I have so many friends who have regretted their abortions. One of my friends aborted twins at 5 months. A few months later she was pregnant again and said she was "hoping she would get the twins back." Another friend of mine was being wheeled in for her abortion and changed her mind. The nursing staff were so irritated by this that she decided to go ahead anyway as she "didn't want to put anyone out". This was over 30 years ago and she still regrets that decision. Another friend of mine (from Italy, so I think birth control issues there) had 6 abortions in her teens, got married in her late twenties and was never able to carry a child after that as she was so damaged inside. She is in her late forties now and never had a family. She said she wished she had had at least one of those children, as now she will never be a mother.

Are those of you who have stated on this thread that the viability of a foetus of 22-30 weeks gestation is relevant to this debate, aware quite how much vast amounts of intensive care is required for a preemie of this kind of gestation to survive? And the enormous rate at which these little ones, often very much loved and wanted, sadly do not manage to survive? (Viability just means there's a chance of survival - it can be a tiny tiny chance) And the rates of disability and long term health problems in the fraction of babies that do survive?

Seeing assertions like "but a 22week foetus is viable outside the womb" on these debates seems woefully ignorant to me.

Keeping a woman pregnant against her will is directly morally equivalent to enslaving someone of either sex to be connected up to coma patient to act as a budget life-support machine against their will. It is obviously morally unacceptable. The fact that either the coma parient or the 22 week+ foetus might survive if connected up to an artificial (ie normal) life support machine and provided vast amounts of intensive care has no bearing on the obvious immorality of enslaving some individual's actual body against their will to avoid expending that care.

I wouldn't have an objection to giving a pregnant woman who doesn't want a baby the right to choose at before the current 24 week cutoff point (or after if the pregnancy is discovered after that point) that she is willing to carry the foetus for a further X weeks up to a point of her choice and then be allowed to choose early induction/a cesarean to give birth to a live baby for presumably immediate adoption after whatever additional care was needed. (For the sake of NHS resources it would be reasonable to set a minimum of say 36 weeks - at that sort of gestation the baby would need much more moderate levels of care in a high-dependency unit rather than neonatal intensive care).

Currently a woman has no such right and if the pregnancy continues after 24 weeks the woman's bodily autonomy is reduced in favour of the foetus's best interests - so obviously ending that foetus's life before 24 weeks is the only way to preserve one's reasonable and lawful right to self-determination. This alternative would to establish a pathway that legally allows a woman to preserve her right to bodily autonomy and self determination after 24 weeks such that if she chooses she can bring the foetus to a later stage of gestation and end the pregnancy without ending the life of the foetus.

However the physical and emotional trauma involved in giving birth and giving the child away for adoption is enormous and should not be underestimated. I don't seriously advocate the establishment of such a pathway as I believe that the vast majority of the women who considered it would, once fully informed of the consequences to their physical and emotional wellbeing of such a pathway, prefer to choose an earlier abortion within the current legal cutoff period.

The situation is not one of the women dying though. A premature baby born after 28 weeks has a very good chance of survival.

The stance that abortion to term should be allowed in all circumstances and for no reason is, as has been pointed out several times, one which the vast majority of people do not find acceptable and will not find acceptable.

I see little practical point in arguing that case if the intention is to campaign for abortion rights where these are denied.

If a woman dies 28 weeks pregnant the fetus will also die. That is a fact. Because the survival of the fetus is dependent on the survival of the woman. You assume intervention is readily available for reasons I cannot understand.

Because the fetus survival is dependent on the survival of the woman

But after a certain point it isn't. 24 weeks is questionable but after 28 weeks isn't.

The survival of the foetus is not dependent on the survival of the woman though is it? That's a scale of viability from zero to full viability and a foetus CAN survive the death of the mother.
Equally, the 'right to chose' abrogates the rights of the foetus (if you believe the foetus has rights).

Essentially you're arguing that a foetus has no rights. That's a perfectly legitimate view to hold, but say it how it is.
You're arguing that mother wins no matter what - and that's the only legitimate feminist view. It doesn't stack up.

Because the fetus survival is dependent on the survival of the woman.

Not beyond about 22 weeks.

I see an unborn child as a separate human, albeit one residing in another person. And for that reason the separate human should be afforded certain rights as a human, ie the right to life.
Your right to life cannot require abrogation of another persons rights. This is why you cannot force someone to donate organs.
If you actually saw a fetus as a separate person with the same rights as the pregnant woman, as you say you do, you would not refuse the woman the right to separate herself from that separate human being. But you do. Because the fetus survival is dependent on the survival of the woman.

Very articulately put TheBrilliantMistake.