Unplanned - Abortion Film **Trigger Warning** Title edited by MNHQ sensitive content*

[Mum2386]

Hi,
Last night I watched a film called Unplanned, which is based on a true story of a lady working within an abortion clinic called ‘Planned Parenthood’. The film itself brought me to tears on many occasions and it’s made me feel very uncomfortable surrounding abortion. I had an unplanned pregnancy with my third child but knew abortion wasn’t an option for me. I am quite shocked by the amount of abortions that still take place within our society. Does anyone else feel this way? I know we all have different views but i just wondered what other people’s thoughts were on this very sensitive topic.

*MyNewBearTotoro

You say that a sperm and egg combined is the beginning of life but a sperm and an egg combined is not viable on its own. It could definitely be argued that a fetus is not truly alive - if the mother dies then the fetus will die. It is not able to exist independently so arguably that is not life.

This isn't the criteria we use in any other sphere though is it?

A newborn can't survive without external help

A one year old can't survive without external help.

An elderly housebound person can't survive without external help.

A person on life support in the hospital can't survive without external help, eg the machines to aid breathing. We help them because we know it is right to do so and in this example because we hope/know that they are only temporarily 'helpless' as is the unborn.

It is not ok to force anyone to have a baby they don't want.

It is not ok to force anyone to have an abortion they don't want.

It is ok for anyone to find themselves pregnant to choose to continue, or not, with said pregnancy.

This not a difficult concept.

In all those examples the person isn’t solely dependent on one other person whose body is hosting them, so that’s a silly analogy.

I’m sorry but I don’t get all the fuss.

Unless of course you are vegan.

I really don't think this is the best argument. If I'm not vegan, does that mean I shouldn't care about animal mistreatment in factory farms?

Just because someone hasn't adopted doesn't make their opinion less valid imo

"They have no answers. Says a lot about their professed ‘sanctity of life’."

Quantity of life is far more important than quality it seems.

Well we ask people do you want to be resuscitated now don’t we.
We also let the next of kin end life.
There is a growing demand for euthanasia.

Just because medical science can keep someone alive, that does not mean we should.
I respect someone’s desire not to live. I don’t believe I have the right to force them to exist.

It does, Trendy. All about power over women.

Pro-choice is right that for most abortions, it’s an embryo not a fetus and so does not have hand or feet. However, pro-life is also right that later abortions do involve foetuses that do have hands and feet.

Abortion isn’t really a binary or pro-life versus pro-choice. And there is no real difference between men and women, except that men are notably more in favor of abortion in 3rd trimester.

Here is a poll done on Americans opinions in the US where this film was made:

“Public opinion on abortion rights is often framed as a binary choice between two political positions, but a closer look at new polling data from Gallup reveals more nuance.
While a majority of Americans support legalized abortion in early pregnancy, most oppose it in the later stages, according to the survey.
Gallup finds that 60% of Americans believe abortion generally should be legal during the first three months of pregnancy, known as the first trimester. That support drops by more than half, to 28%, once a pregnancy reaches the second trimester; it falls to 13% in the third trimester, at which point the fetus is often viable with medical support.
Responses varied by demographics. Men and women expressed similar support for abortion rights, though men were slightly more supportive of abortion in later stages of pregnancy; 31% said it should be legal in the second trimester compared to 26% of women.”

What do you want to do OP?

You can ban abortion by law but that's not going to stop it. It will force women to have unsafe abortions this and will lead to infertility and miscarriages later.

A woman has the right to decide over her own body.

Well if you care that much stop doing it!

What are all these anti abortionists doing to enhance the life of the surviving child?
List all the things they do.
I think you’ll find the majority do fuck all.
They have zero interest in the welfare of the child. It’s all about anti choice.

I see huge numbers of families unable to cope with the children they have, making them have more is not the answer.
That is why I say males need to use contraception.
Don’t rely on a female.
Take responsibility for your own reproduction.

Saucery

It’s job done for pro-lifers when the baby is born, isn’t it? Most of them just walk away. I’ve yet to see one on this thread stand up and say how women and children should be supported when the circumstances of that child’s birth mean poverty, unhappiness, illness, domestic violence (for both, remember, the child will suffer too)......
They have no answers. Says a lot about their professed ‘sanctity of life’

This is always said. You are trying to sound like you have the moral upper hand.

Anybody can say anything at all on here so If someone told you what they were doing I have a feeling you either wouldn't believe them, would say they should do more or in exasperation throw your hands up and say that it doesn't matter how much people help born babies because if a woman wants an abortion she should have one so I find it disingenuous.

Yes, there are lots of People being emotionally and financially supportive of women experiencing crisis pregnancies but for the most part they go about it quietly and humbly.

Surely most people can see a difference between an embryo which is not even fully developed being unviable outside of a womb and a newborn needing to be cared for in order to survive or a person on life support being mechanically kept alive?

A foetus cannot survive even with external help - if you could take a foetus out of the womb and continue to grow it artificially then maybe I could see the argument against aborting and disposing of the foetus. I imagine we would see all of the pro-lifers lining up to have the foetuses implanted into their own wombs and the problem would be solved. But science is not there yet. A foetus is unviable outside of the womb so once removed from the womb there is no choice but to dispose of it - we cannot artificially keep it alive as we can for people in intensive care.

A newborn is not unviable, a person on life support is not unviable - you could change the care giver and a newborn would still survive. You can give formula milk and have no need for another person to give you their body to ensure life. You could move a person in intensive care to another hospital, change the machine, change the doctor and they could still survive. No newborn or ill person is reliant solely on another person’s life and body as a foetus is.

A foetus cannot he kept alive unless it is in the womb of a living woman, and therefore I would argue it is only as alive as the human hosting it and does not have an independent life in the way a baby or ill person does. It is not independently alive and therefore it cannot have any right to life, because it is unable to retain life without the use of another person’s body. It is parasitic. That is not the case with a live human in any other context, regardless of whether they require external care or support to remain alive. (apart from arguably some cases of conjoined twins, and indeed operations have been carried out to separate conjoined twins knowing one will be guaranteed to die in an attempt to give the other a better chance of life).

The point is you cannot make a man and woman ( or girl and boy as the case may be) look after a child, you just can’t.
There are not enough people willing or able to adopt do what do we do with the unwanted children who turn into unwanted adolescents?
Who cares for them?

Well, we can discuss this or you can pre-write my posts for me which makes discussion redundant.
I believe I did mention someone upthread who I know personally goes about support ‘quietly and humbly’. Perhaps you missed that, never mind. So yes, I know those people exist. All credit to them.
I think everyone who has an opinion about what another woman does with her womb should be doing the same thing. Exactly the same thing and perhaps even more. You can say you do this and I will take your word for it, but you will be in the minority.

I never claim to have any sort of moral upper hand. I can only abide by my own personal morals, which include allowing women agency over their bodies. All women, whether I personally agree with their choices or not. It would be good if pro-lifers could afford women the same courtesy.

@Saucery
“All about power over women.”
Power over a pregnant woman is used both to force birth and to force an abortion. Trump, & most powerful men have at some point forced a mistress to have an abortion.
The right to an abortion is somewhat illusory because men still coerce women to do what he wants.

I think you're simplifying the reasons that people choose to abort. It's certainly not all 'careless' sex that ends with abortion. Sometimes women suffer with crippling prenatal depression and have to make a decision to abort a wanted pregnancy. Sometimes there are problems with the foetus. Sometimes circumstances change (relationship breakdown/abuse/loss of earnings/health issues) which force women into making a decision about aborting. Sometimes it's contraception failure, sometimes it's failure to use contraception. It can be family shame. The result of rape. There are so many reasons why women have abortions and no one is in a position to judge.

The bottom line, as has been said numerous times is, if you don't agree with abortion, don't have one.

And, more crudely, we're told time and time again that our population is becoming difficult to sustain at the rate it's increasing. If every pregnancy went to full term our economy, healthcare, housing, education etc would be even more crippled than they are now.

A foetus is unviable outside of the womb so once removed from the womb there is no choice but to dispose of it - we cannot artificially keep it alive as we can for people in intensive care.

I assume from this statement that you are against abortion where the baby could be viable then? Because that statement (at least in some cases) is a lie.

FACT: viable babies are killed and disposed of by abortion at least some of the time (you may say this is a small number but it happens and it is either right or wrong)

There are quite a few adults who survived being aborted.

How has an adult survived abortion?

Either they were aborted and therefore deceased, or they were induced/given a c-section/early spontaneous labour and the baby was given intensive care and survived.

There is no middle ground

“FACT: viable babies are killed and disposed of by abortion at least some of the time (you may say this is a small number but it happens and it is either right or wrong)”

Have you got details of these cases?

I assume from this statement that you are against abortion where the baby could be viable then?

I can’t speak for the previous poster but I support abortion “as early as possible, as late as necessary”.

IIRC, in the region of 9/10 abortions are less than 13 weeks and 4/5 of those are under 10 weeks.

A foetus cannot survive even with external help - if you could take a foetus out of the womb and continue to grow it artificially then maybe I could see the argument against aborting and disposing of the foetus.

Depends on the age. By 24 weeks a US foetus has a better than fifty/fifty chance of survival outside the womb.
From Reuters- “The raw survival rates showed a similar pattern, with most of the improvement reflecting higher survival rates among infants born in the 24th week. In that group, the rates went from 49 percent in the earliest period to 56 percent in the most recent one.” (Comparing survival rates improvement from 2003-2005 to 2008-2011)

To put this in context, here are the trimesters
1st trimester: week 1 to the end of week 12.
2nd trimester: week 13 to the end of week 26.
3rd trimester: week 27 to the end of the pregnancy.

The fact is that you can hand wring about fetal rights as much as you want, it doesn’t matter. Women have always aborted whether it’s been legal or not, and even now the majority of abortions are carried out in countries where it is illegal. ‘Pro life’ is not a moral stance when all it does is put women’s lives in danger for fetuses they are not saving.

Saw this video a while ago, yes it's possible

Jaques you have told me not to use emotive language. It was factual. I said 'tear apart'.

Just because it makes you think about the reality it's not 'daft'.

If I say tear a piece of bread off that loaf, is that emotive? It is the most accurate word, would you prefer dismember?

I've not gone into blood and gore.

And yes, I do know how the different types of abortion are carried out. Do you? Do you want me to go into great detail explaining maybe with diagrams so everyone reading this can be similarly educated?

No, thought not

It's simple. really.

A woman had autonomy over her body, a foetus doesn't.

So the woman gets to decide what happens to her body. This is why you get to decide if you can have a baby, in case someone tries to make you abort it. The same way you get to decide if you want to terminate the pregnancy if someone else wants you to continue with it.
It works both ways.