Page 10 | Has anyone else noticed that Mumsnet seems to be becoming more regressive on women’s rights?

CurlewKate · 2025-07-11T05:36:13+00:00

There are a lot of threads, on big issues and small, that seem to indicate a drift in that direction. Women shouldn’t be police officers. Marriage is wonderful. Changing your name on marriage is a good idea… And, most significantly, many conversational, this happened to me type pro life threads. Do we need to be even more vigilant, in the face of America’s lurch to the Right and the rise of Reform in this country?

GreenGully · 16/07/2025 18:53

Araminta1003 · 15/07/2025 16:22

And
“Women and girls who access abortion care at 22-24 weeks’ gestation
Women who need an abortion overwhelmingly access care at the early stages in their pregnancy. 90% of abortions occur before 10 weeks, and those who do present at 22-24 weeks, who are not having an abortion due to fetal anomaly, are frequently very vulnerable. If their ability to access safe abortion care up to 24 weeks is removed, this can have a lasting detrimental impact and may even be life-threatening.

Research by one provider3 found, in line with our own experiences, that the most common reasons other than fetal anomaly for needing an abortion at later gestations were:

Domestic abuse, particularly abuse which has worsened during pregnancy;
Health problems of the woman herself, both mental and physical;
A change in circumstances during pregnancy such as the loss of a partner or a serious illness diagnosis for an existing child;
Late detection of pregnancy, often as a result of health conditions or hormonal contraception;
Young women under the age of 18 who may have not realised they were pregnant or concealed it through fear.

Reducing the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks will target these especially vulnerable women and girls, forcing them to continue with a pregnancy that they do not want, which can have a detrimental and lasting impact on their health, safety, and wellbeing. No one would want to underestimate the difficulty in making a decision to end a pregnancy at such a late stage. However, forcing someone to continue an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy in these circumstances may put their life at risk.”

That is why the Grounds are in place.

OneAmberFinch · 16/07/2025 23:06

Araminta1003 · 15/07/2025 16:22

And
“Women and girls who access abortion care at 22-24 weeks’ gestation
Women who need an abortion overwhelmingly access care at the early stages in their pregnancy. 90% of abortions occur before 10 weeks, and those who do present at 22-24 weeks, who are not having an abortion due to fetal anomaly, are frequently very vulnerable. If their ability to access safe abortion care up to 24 weeks is removed, this can have a lasting detrimental impact and may even be life-threatening.

Research by one provider3 found, in line with our own experiences, that the most common reasons other than fetal anomaly for needing an abortion at later gestations were:

Domestic abuse, particularly abuse which has worsened during pregnancy;
Health problems of the woman herself, both mental and physical;
A change in circumstances during pregnancy such as the loss of a partner or a serious illness diagnosis for an existing child;
Late detection of pregnancy, often as a result of health conditions or hormonal contraception;
Young women under the age of 18 who may have not realised they were pregnant or concealed it through fear.

Reducing the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks will target these especially vulnerable women and girls, forcing them to continue with a pregnancy that they do not want, which can have a detrimental and lasting impact on their health, safety, and wellbeing. No one would want to underestimate the difficulty in making a decision to end a pregnancy at such a late stage. However, forcing someone to continue an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy in these circumstances may put their life at risk.”

I don't really get why those scenarios, while they do sound difficult, couldn't happen at 25+ weeks as well, so they are irrelevant in answering the question "why 24 weeks and not 22 weeks" even though they take pains to specify that they are only talking about abortions between 22-23 weeks.

They don't appear to be claiming that suffering abuse, late discovery, losing a partner (etc) at the 25 week mark, i.e., after the current "the baby's life counts now" threshold, would be appropriate justification - which is a bit confusing to me, as presumably they do consider that it would be as detrimental/life-threatening, etc if it happened at 24w1d instead of 23w6d, because it's intellectually incoherent otherwise.

The only arguments for 24 weeks that are coherent relate to either a) viability or b) the 20-week scan. All of the above is just general notes supporting abortion access for "vulnerable" women effectively until term, disguised as a defence of the 24 vs 22 week mark.

OutandAboutMum1821 · 22/07/2025 18:40

AliasGrace47 · 13/07/2025 04:03

Marriage and motherhood, great. But why is changing your name so wonderful to you? Not trolling, interested.

Show quote history

I love having the same name as my husband, very proud to be married to him and love matching his name, and our children.

I actually have very personal and upsetting reasons why I no longer want to be associated via a surname with extended family on either Mum or Dad’s side, but would have taken my DH’s name regardless. I like the tradition, simple as that.

I’m personally not a fan of double-barrelled names, as if 2 people then marry and both keep theirs you could end up with 4 different surnames! Each to their own though.

OutandAboutMum1821 · 22/07/2025 18:45

CurlewKate · 12/07/2025 13:43

@OutandAboutMum1821Nobody is saying that we cannot do those things. Of course we can. It’s important to remember that some things stem from the patriarchy, and make our decisions in that light. It is absolutely fine to make anti feminist decisions so long as we know we’re making them.

I haven’t been able to reply due to a glitch on here.

We’ll have to agree to disagree that it’s anti-feminist. To me, it’s only anti-feminist if you live in a society where all women and only women HAVE to change their name. We certainly don’t, people are free in the UK to keep their surname, change it, merge it, etc. It‘s up to the individual.