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.

You can be appalled by the thought of abortion and still be pro choice.

You can be disgusted by women who have abortions and still be pro choice.

You can know for an absolute fact that you would never have an abortion and still be pro choice.

You can think that the only people who have abortions are careless, feckless slags who should keep their legs closed, and still be pro choice.

Because the alternative is living in a society which forces women, against their will, to be nothing more than an incubator, to put their lives at risk, to go through medical procedures that they haven't consented to. Living in a society where women die from backstreet abortions or attempts to do it themselves. Living in a society with thousands upon thousands more unwanted children who have no one to love them, no one to care for them.

Is that what 'pro-lifers' really want?

Pro-life is forced birth. It really is as simple as that.

Hence the question of pro-lifers as to what they're doing to support all these children they believe should be born?

Ah, posted too soon.

If your heart bleeds too much, you can of course step up to adopt the living ones in care who were born into abusive and neglectful homes.

I've never understood this argument. To me, it suggests two things:

1. Pro-choice people feel no sympathy/empathy towards children in care/children that need the services of SS or a charity because their mother could have had an abortion.

1. Unless a woman is completely certain that for the next 18 years she will be able to provide for the child in all aspects of life, she shouldn't complain or seek help because she could have had an abortion.

It seems to suggest a huge sympathy for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy but none at all to a woman with a wanted pregnancy who, for any number of reasons, is not able to care fully for her child.

I find it shocking that in 2010, 34% of abortions performed in the UK by the NHS were repeat abortions!
I think it’s awful.

I've never had an abortion but I'm immensely grateful to live in a society where abortion is readily available to anyone who chooses to have one. The alternative is unthinkable.

Not my body, not my business as far as I'm concerned.

if your heart bleeds too much, you can of course step up to adopt the living ones in care who were born into abusive and neglectful homes

You can be against things but not do something about it.
I’m against abortion but I’ve never adopted a child.
I’m against the Chinese practice of eating dog meat. Does that mean I have to adopt a dog?

I am pro choice.

However, I think being pro life is a valid opinion providing you don't try to restrict other women's access to abortions.

I do think if you are pro life then you should own that opinion and be pro life regardless of circumstances.

You either believe life begins at conception or not.

I dislike the caveats for rape/incest, because it implies the only reason you were anti abortion before was because you want to punish women for daring to have sex.

Hope that makes sense.

You can be against things but not do something about it
I’m against abortion but I’ve never adopted a child

But that's the thing - you're against abortion so you force a woman to have a child. What then?

You think you should have say over someone else's uterus?

It always astounds me that some people would rather see unwanted children born, with all the neglect and unhappiness that that can entail rather than allow a woman to make a choice about her own body and her own future. It’s vindictive. Children should be a choice, not a punishment for not abiding by someone else’s moral code.

I think it’s awful.

Is it as awful as forced birthing though?

I am very firmly pro-life. MN label me anti-choice, which I have to problem with.

But you've opened a huge can of worms OP.

@JacquesHammer I said I’m against abortion. I’ve never campaigned to make it illegal and I’ve never prevented anyone getting an abortion. So no, I’ve never had a say over someone else’s uterus.

I said I’m against abortion. I’ve never campaigned to make it illegal and I’ve never prevented anyone getting an abortion. So no, I’ve never had a say over someone else’s uterus

Fair enough - I have no issue with someone being anti-abortion if they're only applying it to themselves. After all your uterus, your opinion should apply to everyone.

I can't decide whether people think forced birth should apply to all women are hugely arrogant or incredibly stupid.

If you don’t care about someone else’s bodily autonomy over the rights of a potential child then you should be doing all you can for that child once you’ve forced the biological mother to give birth. Don’t stand there with your placards and turn your back on the thing you profess to care ever so much about. Adopt a child, donate more than a token sum to organisations that provide specific material help to children who would otherwise have been terminated in the womb. Otherwise, your motives aren’t deep concern for that bunch of cells, they are everything to do with oppression, judgment based on some wonky religious code or pure maliciousness.

@formerbabe
“I do think if you are pro life then you should own that opinion and be pro life regardless of circumstances.

You either believe life begins at conception or not.“

Pro-life people are pretty varied in their beliefs as to when life begins. A minority of pro-life people believe life begins at conception. Those that do are considered to be fringe radicals by pro-lifers because if life begins at conception, then you must also be against Plan B aka the morning after pill. But the majority of pro-lifers view Plan B as emergency contraception.

To convert pro-life people, we need to listen and understand them better. It is not helpful to assume they all have extreme views or accuse them of irrelevant things like not caring about children in protective custody.

You either believe life begins at conception or not.

Agree with everything else but this. You can believe life begins at conception, he'll, even bacteria are alive. A living organism is a life to me. But it's about development for most people, which is one reason why people aren't fully prolife.

A zygote is completely juxtaposed to a 9 month fetus. (Yes I know 9 monthers aren't really aborted but to illustrate my point). I would support at some stages and not others, unless there was a valid reason. I do t think anybody is ever wholly prolife.

For example, if a woman decided to injure her 6month + fetus for revenge on a cheating partner for instance, I wouldn't support that. But I would support her right to abort at 6 weeks, you know?

That should be wholly pro choice**

Pro-life people are pretty varied in their beliefs as to when life begins
I agree and I think this statement could apply to pro-choice people as well. For example, some are pro-choice for throughout a pregnancy, some are unsure about abortion after 12 weeks, some are unsure about abortion after 24 etc.

I do think if you are pro life then you should own that opinion and be pro life regardless of circumstances.

You either believe life begins at conception or not.

I dislike the caveats for rape/incest, because it implies the only reason you were anti abortion before was because you want to punish women for daring to have sex.

Hope that makes sense.

It absolutely makes sense. People who are "pro life except in cases of rape" are nullifying their own argument. Either you believe abortion is murder and that every birth must be forced, or you don't. Obviously a pregnancy from rape is the absolute worst pregnancy for a woman, but how is forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy she didn't want or ask for okay when it isn't rape?

Pro lifers make no sense.

But the pro lifers who say they are against abortion except in the case of rape are surely just focusing on the 'morality' of the woman rather than the foetus's right to life. If you believe the unborn have a fundamental right to life, then the circumstances around the conception should surely be irrelevant? Otherwise what you are effectively saying is that if you willingly have sex then having an unwanted baby is a suitable punishment.

I feel that women have the right to do whatever they want to their bodies.

As another poster said, as early as possible (and that is about avoiding the trauma to the mother) and as late as necessary.

You chose not to terminate your pregnancy. That's your decision. Give other women the respect to choose their own bodily autonomy

It's pro life propaganda hiding itself
Don't like abortion fine for you

No idea if this pic is allowed, but I'm so tired of the mental gymnastics of pro lifers.

You say you watched a film op and made you think.

Well I lived and survived this shit...
Maybe this will make you think too.

This is what happens when abortion is illegal and the state can't cope and parents can't "make it work ".

@PiaLouisa
“find it shocking that in 2010, 34% of abortions performed in the UK by the NHS were repeat abortions!
I think it’s awful.”

Yes, I too think this is awful. But from a more clinical standpoint.
For decades, the go to explanation for why repeat abortions happen has been to blame the woman. Am I right? She is either not using contraception or forgetting/using it inconsistently. So focus was on sex education because the woman must be doing something wrong because contraception is 99% effective in a laboratory setting.

So, all these women have faced stigma of disapproval. On top of the emotions involved with deciding to be a mother or not.

But what this statistic shows is actually that contraception works less well IRL than it does in a lab. Recent studies have even shown some women are immune to bc pills and hormonal contraception. But this is not widely acknowledged.

So say a woman takes her bc pill faithfully, falls pregnant. Instead of being told the pill may have failed, she is told that she probably forgot to take it some days (because women are just that stupid), or she had some antibiotics that interferes with it and still had sex (her fault again). So she is back to taking a pill every day convinced the only reason it did not work was her fault....and no surprise she gets pregnant again.
Contraception effectiveness is not actually at the advertised 99%.

Pro lifers aren't always really pro life, a lot of them support the death penalty.