America's War On Abortion

I do not oppose the right to have an abortion. I have no wish to change the UK law , which , despite the 2 doctor rule , is one of the most liberal in the world. At the same time I find the "pro- life" arguments more logical than the "pro-choice" arguments.

"You , general you , are not "saving" anybody in carrying through a pregnancy. You are with the exception of rape doing what your body was designed to as a result of your own actions."

But when you are pregnant you are supporting a life. You are using your body to keep another being alive. I don't see why women have to be compelled to keep this process going if they don't want to.
This smacks of the naturalistic fallacy to me . If I smoke and get lung cancer, my body is just doing what it is designed to do as a result of my actions (lungs are apt to get cancerous if I smoke) but that doesn't mean I have to sit back and accept the growth of the tumours. Humans have always intervened with biological processes and bodily functions - that's the entire point of contraception.

What I detect here, with the talk of rape and with the mention of Julie Burchill's six abortions and 'carelessness', is a bit of a drive to punish women or at the very least to force them to entirely confront the consequences of their own choices. Rape victims didn't choose to get pregnant so they are permitted to get an abortion - suddenly the concern for the life of the innocent foetus goes out the window. But the problem with this argument is that the end result is you are forcing reluctant, careless women to have children - you are essentially treating a child as a life lesson. And children, to my mind, have to be entirely embraced and wanted. If a woman is so chaotic and dysfunctional in her life she keeps getting accidentally pregnant when she doesn't want children then I don't see how it's a good idea to force her to become a mother. It's not good for her and it's not good for the kid. You can't force people to become sensible or virtuous by having children.

What Julie Burchill, or any other woman does with her own body is entirely up to her!

And yes , as it happens ,I do think some women are very careless and lax about contraception. Julie Burchill and her 6 , I think, abortions for example.

I think the unique situation of pregnancy is even more persuasive in favour of abortion. We have absolutely no obligation to use our body to save anyone else -

I don't see that as equivalent at all. You , general you , are not "saving" anybody in carrying through a pregnancy. You are with the exception of rape doing what your body was designed to as a result of your own actions.

I'm in favour of choice but to be honest I don't find the arguments put forward terribly persuasive. It's a sort of lesser of two bad things but morally and logically I have no difficulty understanding the "pro - life" case.

"The "bodily autonomy" argument doesn’t convince me either as it fails to take account of the unique situation applying to a pregnancy."

I think the unique situation of pregnancy is even more persuasive in favour of abortion. We have absolutely no obligation to use our body to save anyone else - there was a tragic case in the USA where a little boy was dying of cancer and he needed a bone marrow transplant. His father was a match, but his dad refused to donate the bone marrow. The court said that a father could not be compelled to donate marrow even if it meant his kid would die. As another example, if you saw a child drowning in a puddle you are under absolutely no legal obligation to save its life. This is the approach of the law in the case of actual living people! And the reason for this is simple - we have absolute autonomy over ourselves and cannot be legally compelled to sacrifice anything to save the life of another. There must be full consent,

Turning now to abortion, the situation is even more stark because the life in question is using up your bodily resources - the life is inside you. Pregnancy is also not as simple as donating blood or bone marrow - it can end in death, disability, pain, and life long bodily and psychological changes. So if there is no obligation to even pick a child out of a puddle, there can equally be no obligation to expect a woman to sacrifice her body and possibly even her life or mental health for someone else.

That’s kind of a mistaken title though. Abortion law is mostly by State. So there is no “America war” on abortion. While some states ARE severely restricting abortions, other states like New York are relaxing laws for abortions.

It’s no surprise they picked Alabama as that’s the most extreme state for restricting abortions.

Make it illegal (which I think they will now in the US)

I don’t believe this is possible. As far as I’m aware the only challenges would be based on the constitutionality of state laws. So they’d only apply to those states if found constitutional. Any state would then be either pro or anti choice. The clinics might be along the Canadian border for states like Montana or idaho I suppose, but typically women would be traveling to another state.

What’s really terrifying is that there are some state laws (being challenged of course) which would make it illegal to travel to another state to have an abortion. So women could be prosecuted when they return home. It’s completely horrible. Women are dying every day because they happen to have been born in a backwards state that sees them as less than human.

If you’re in the USA: !!!VOTE!!!

Do you honestly think that any girl or woman makes the choice to have an abortion lightly Dido? Seriously? You have a right to your opinion, however a great many people disagree.
Safe legal abortion, as early as possible should be a right for any woman anywhere, and for whatever reason.
Women have ended pregnancies since recorded time, thousands and thousands of women have probably died over centuries due to unsafe abortion, and any end to safe legal abortion anywhere will drive women back to desperate measures. No woman should ever again have to use a coat hanger, or knitting needle to end an unwanted pregnancy.
I have lost three pregnancies in my lifetime and those experiences have made me even more pro choice than I was before hand.

@DidoLamenting in the UK we are in an extremely privileged position with the NHS. Pregnancy and birth have very few financial implications for us. However in the US it can coat thousands just to get the medical care. A friend of mine gave birth there and without insurance it would have cost $140,000! With insurance it was $5000!

Add to that the fact that contraception also costs a lot of money in the state and not all insurance plans cover it. Your insurance is mostly linked to your employment and if your employer is particularly conservative they can refuse to fund any contraception (they tend to be ok with viagra though🤷🏼‍♀️)

So if you're a married women (often the only ones 'allowed' to be having sex by these pro lifers) and you accidentally get pregnant because you cannot afford contraception then you could be faced with a massive medical bill which could bankrupt you. How would that impact you and any children you already had?

I'd call a potential bill of several thousand dollars more than an inconvenience.

It comes down to inconvenience really- the inconvenience might be considerable in some cases, less so in others.

Inconvenience? I suppose you might think so if you were financially secure, and that pregnancy wouldn't potentially affect your work and your health (and if you have good healthcare).

I think both are very silly and they don't strengthen pro choice arguments if one has to invent fictitious analogies.

I'm also not convinced by the " no forced birth" argument either. It's often said on here that if men don't want to have children then use contraception or don't have sex. Rape and incest aside - the same argument applies to women. If anything the "no forced birth" argument is in line with the antis who support abortion in the case of rape and incest.

The "bodily autonomy" argument doesn’t convince me either as it fails to take account of the unique situation applying to a pregnancy.

Whilst I support choice I can't get away from the fact it is ending a potential life which in most cases would otherwise have been viable. Non- viability is I'd guess the reason in only a tiny number of the UK's 200,000 plus annual abortions.

It comes down to inconvenience really- the inconvenience might be considerable in some cases, less so in others.

Watched last night and the level of misogyny displayed by the protesters was jawdropping. Examples already mentioned here but the names being called for the women accessing services and those protecting them (sluts, bitches), the rape references, the racial prejudices, the Islamophobia against the film-maker, the throwaway comments about just not 'fornicating' .... it was so clear that this was nothing to do with 'saving' babies. This was simply a chance to scream abuse at women in the most vile way. To remind them of their place and to try to shame them for accessing what should just be another form of healthcare.

My other take away from the programme was how much this was directed at women who had least access to other options. They couldn't travel easily, they had financial constraints that delayed being able to visit clinics, the childcare issues if there were overnight stays. This was class and race based policy making as well as a war on women's rights but with zero effort to actually make a difference in people's lives for the better. The focus was all on ensuring that people would carry to term but after that they were utterly on their own.

Its scary to think how easily those rights can be taken away and not even by one big court case, though that could happen, but by a thousand tiny ways to delay procedures, lack of funding and threats.

I watched this last night, wish I hadn't as it just left me angry.

But I am not surprised, most of these protesters are men and it normally about control of the women and their bodies rather than the welfare of the unborn child and mother as they claim it to be.

Because let's face it, if they really cared they would have set up food banks, support networks, protesting for free healthcare for children ect.

It summed up their mentality perfectly when the journalist mentioned the 11 year old girl pregnant through incest and their response was "we have to face hard times in life" or something like that, like the 11 year old already hadn't .

It's called self ownership, and its the basis of any civilized society.

Anyone with a cursory interest in history and women's place in it knows that many 'civilised' societies included controlling women, in particular with regard to fertility and assuring paternity. It's very explicit in traditional Christianity, but also in eg ancient Athens - the cradle of civilised democracy but only for Athenian males.

The notion that women are equal humans and should be accorded equal human rights to males is very recent and by no means universally accepted, unfortunately.

I think I've seen something similar.

Makes me sick. None of the protesters have cured cancer, or those developmental abnormalities. They aren't paying medical bills for sick babies or birth injury repairs. They have no intention.of feeding clothing or raising the baby They feel should be born regardless of how sick it is or whether or not the mother wants it

Occasionally they throw you a bone ajd "approve " in the case of incest or rape, like that makes them an ok person.

Just fuck off. They can all fuck off. Its ok to not want a baby. You don't need a reason. Not wanting one is sufficient

As an American from the West Coast, you give the Bible Belt the biggest swerve. It's the land of crazy redneck fundamentalist bullshit and the frightful thing is that it has legs and travels far. These bastards have power. That's what blows my mind. If you're in a place where you see billboards imploring you to 'go to church or else' and the trucks have gunracks, you need to take your uterus and get the fuck outta dodge, lickedy split.

And you can guarantee that some of those pro life protesters will be the same ones holding ‘My body my choice’ signs at the anti mask demonstrations. And they won’t see the irony because they are too bloody entrenched.

It's about fundamentally wanting women to suffer, isn't it?

religion does give a lot of seriously unhappy and unpleasant people an 'out' for their general desire to oppress others

it makes me rather despairing that that seems to be a fundamental urge for humans as a class

It's absolutely awful in many states in America. I had a friend who had a fetus that was incompatible with life (just a brain stem, no face/skull). She was nearing 20 weeks and her blood pressure was dangerously high so her doctor was pushing for an abortion ASAP. It was heartbreaking because it was such a wanted pregnancy. While she was in shock trying to come to terms with aborting while feeling kicks every day, she waited too long to make a decision and went past the 20 week mark, which forced her to drive out of state to get an abortion in a state that allowed it after the 20 week mark. She had 2 younger DC and her husband had to drive her 7-8 hours (both ways) to get the abortion, leaving her little ones at home with a sitter. It was just an awful, awful situation all around and fuck those 'christians' who shame women going through such hell.

I also notice that many of the groups & individuals howling at women who need abortions, rarely seem to offer any ongoing support for struggling families in poverty. They rarely campaign for improved access to affordable healthcare & benefits, childcare & housing for families with more children than they can afford to feed. It's as if life stops being sacred the moment a child is born. It's not a pro-life movement, it's a forced birth movement.

Interestingly, it appears that although in many states abortion is prohibited or strictly controlled, & a woman can even be jailed for engaging in behaviour that she could have predicted might accidentally terminate the pregnancy (like fighting), the US government didn't recognise foetuses as important enough to grant pregnant women the additional $500 stimulus money that other children got.

That woman at the end, I didn't catch her name. God love her. I hope she's doing ok now and I'm very glad she got the care that she needed - eventually.

Thank you for reminding me that this is on OP.
I am just watching this on itv +1 and it’s harrowing what those women have to go though, and those so called Christians abusing those women should be ashamed of themselves. They don’t give a shit about the women and their situations.
I admire the brave doctors , nurses and the support staff who are literally putting their lives on the line to help women when they are so desperately vulnerable. It reminded me of the film If These Walls Could Talk.

I watched it and it was so, so upsetting.

Those poor woman, often the poorest in society, having to go such extremes to get an abortion. Driving for 10 hours to the nearest clinic, having to save up for so long they are past 20 weeks, having to jump through hoops of having 3 separate appointments which just drags the experience out longer.

And those awful, awful, "Christians" at the gates, baying for their blood.

The "protectors" who helped the women to the door of the clinic were amazing, but what a toxic environment to be in day in, day out.

The level of ignorance, fear and contempt the protestors had though... it was like looking at people from 400 years ago at a "witch" burning.