To want DSD to have an abortion?

[TessoftheDamned]

Heavy going stuff but really doubting myself on this.

DSD is 14 and we thought was a straight-laced girl, very into her studies, hardly ever goes out, etc. Anyway, has fallen pregnant and just had the nerve to tell us (lives with us full-time, her mother is not in the picture). The guy is 'long gone' as she says, refuses to tell us his name or where she met him. To be honest I'm a bit worried there was some pressure and perhaps even date rape thing going on, but I haven't pushed it as she's very vulnerable at the moment (as one might expect).

She is adamant she is keeping her baby. Although I'm sure it will end up looking to us as parents and her as a sister, we don't want another baby and don't want to look after hers. She's not an adult but it is her body, I'm so torn. I feel like she's doing herself and everyone else a great disservice bringing this heartache, but of course a baby is normally a source of joy...

DH is flabbergasted and shocked, he's still trying to find out who the boy is (she told us 3 days ago). She clams up when we suggest anything other than keeping the baby and refuses to speak to us.

AIBU?

'Expat - part of being a parent is supporting your children when things go wrong for them.'

I don't need to tell you what parenting is about. I have 3 children. I have made it patently clear to them that their father was sterilised and I'm still using birth control because we cannot have any more children.

If and when they chose to have children, they will need to bring them up elsewhere, because having children is a choice, unlike getting cancer or becoming disabled. And making choices comes with consequences and responsibilities, and a decent person tries as best he can to minimise the negative consequences of his/her own decisions on other people.

This is not just a decision that the OP just disagrees with. It's a decision which will severely impact the OP's life and that of her other children in that it may end her marriage.

As such, her needs and rights deserve just as much respect and consideration, IMO.

I hope they never bring drugs or drug dealers into your house then, No.

Scroobious, the distinction is that in the first two examples the parents coerce the child into an irrevocable physical act with lifelong consequences. In the third, if the parents end up "coercing" (if you can call "informing of the actual situation and consequences" coercing, which apparently you do. Fuck knows why) the child into having an abortion, that child avoids an irrevocable physical act (pregnancy and childbirth are FAR more traumatic on the body than an abortion) with lifelong physical consequences (living with a child is FAR more lifechanging than "living with the knowledge that a potential child was lost"

The problem here is that when a pregnancy exists, the immediate passive option is to not have an abortion. But to not have an abortion is an active choice - it is a choice to carry a child in your body, give birth to that child, and hopefully raise that child as it becomes a preschooler, an adolescent, an adult. It's a momentous, lifechanging experience. And yet the fucking antichoicers try and erase that decision from the landscape, and concentrate on the one single decision - do you terminate this pregnancy or don't you? once you've chosen, over to you - we don't care any more.

Expat - I hope that too! Also serious mental illness and disability, violent relationships, desperate bereavement etc - big list but there are no guarantees with children. Nobody gets to order a perfect child who will never cause you heartache - and no child gets perfect parents either.

What if the OP can't afford to give up work to care for it?

Larger than that, everyone who says the OP will have to suck it up and look after this child, you are saying the girl has a right to decide whether or not to have a child, but the OP, a woman, has no such right. She must, by force, because she does not want a baby and got sterilised to prevent it, effectively have another child.

So one child's 'rights' trump a woman's.

Well, hey, not too far a stretch to tell women they can't have abortions at all because of the unborn 'child's' rights.

I do have to say that people who say I choose to have a termination and never regretted it are talkingabout a different situation.

No one has said that all termination result in mental trauma only that forced or coerced termination often lead to mental trauma. the op DSD is claming up and refusing to speak to the op because the op is trying to convince her to do something she does not want to do.

I think the DSD is being mature many teenage girls who do not want a termination hide their pg till a terminmation is no longer a option. the ops DSD presumably knew what the reaction of her step- mum would be but decided to tell tham and take all the flak which to me is very mature, being mature and responsible to me mean saying when you have made a mistake and taking responsibility for it both of which the child has done.

If this child has a termination she will have to be coerced at least and that is very likely to do to harm. Saying I choose a terminataion and was fine is not comparable it is like saying to someone who has been forced or coerced into sex that I choose to have sex I was fine. You are talking about two very differnt acts.

Do you just post and not read, altinkum?

The end of that post says, 'No,' because it is addressed to Nothereisnobody.

Well, we all do have a choice about how we respond to our children's unexpected life events. If they get into bad debt, you could give them money, lend them money, refuse to help, provide advice but no money, and so on. Similarly, if you have a grown-up child who has a stroke, like my friend, you can insist they are independent, don't come and live with you, let them rely on the state as indeed a person with no family would do, or you can take them into the family home and care for them like a baby despite the fact they are 35.

I disagree that the OP doesn't have lots of choices, yes, one is to leave, but other ones include; getting external help to explain about termination and talk through options so she is not the 'bad guy', challenge her husband's rather simplistic response that she can help out and make it clear to him he will have to do much child-care, the baby may be miscarried and this will change, look into what will happen if they can't house the baby at home (mother and baby units), or change her own mind-set about helping out for a year or two (yes, not eighteen years, this girl will not be dependent for ever). These are all valid options, but not desirable ones as no-one wants to be in this situation, but you can't reverse time.

Expat - that arguement just doesn't work. There are lots of parenting situations which require compromise by parents, lots of situations where people feel they have little choice and yes that is very hard. Nobody has said though that the op should be forced to adopt the child, nobody has said that the girl should not be fully responsible for the child - what I am others are saying is that this isa very serious and major decision for the child and for nobody else.

First of all, I'm not arguing.

Secondly, 'what I am others are saying is that this isa very serious and major decision for the child and for nobody else.'

This is an extremely serious decision for the family.

It's not all about the girl.

The fact that so many believe it is is indicative of just how pervasive lack of personal responsibility is in our present society, and the results of that.

Lynette - I suspect that (unless OP leaves her husband) that that is exactly what will happen. IMO the "D"H sounds like a real peach, telling the OP that she can do all the grunt work and he can't be arsed to do anything. Incidentally, I do wonder whether the DH would be as keen to encourage the DSD to continue with her pregnancy if he knew that OP would leave him because of it (and therefore by default he would have to pull his finger out and help DSD, as he would then be the only adult in the house).

I have had 2 abortions in the past and do not regret them, the time was most definitely not right. It is possible to move on from abortion - and make a success of your life. This girl is so very, very young. Poor love. I had a hard time and I was 17! Really, she should still be playing with dolls :( so sad for all involved.

BUT - now that I have a child myself, gut instinct is a very strong thing and I dont think I could force DD's hand in a decision like this.

Expat - you do not own your children's bodies or lives. Are you saying if your young teen came home pregnant you would kick them out to live with Social Services simply to preserve your homelife? Really?

Altinkum, the sentence ended with a comma and then 'No'. That is how it grammatically indicates address to a person. For on, the comma at the end, secondly, the capital letter at the commencement of 'No', thirdly, it ends in a stop and not a question mark.

If the OP threatens to leave her husband through his daughter keeping the baby - that is underhand tactics in my opinion. What if it was OP's own daughter in this situation?

The family? The family aren't carrying the child - does a husband have the right to insist his wife terminates becaus it 'affects the family'. Pro choice means pro choice - not I will choose for you and you will make a decision based on the majority.

'Expat - you do not own your children's bodies or lives. Are you saying if your young teen came home pregnant you would kick them out to live with Social Services simply to preserve your homelife? Really?'

I do not claim to own their bodies and teach them independence and autonomy at every turn. As to their lives, again, I teach them independence and autonomy so they can go and live those lives as they fit when they are able. A 14-year-old, of course, cannot do that, therefore her life does not truly belong entirely to herself for a couple of years.

And yes, I would kick them out in such a circumstance because, if you had read the rest of the thread, I have mental health issues which preclude me from living with a newborn baby and still maintaining my sanity, which I'd need as my daughters have a younger brother. As a couple, we chose sterilisation and back up birth control to avoid having any more children in part because of my mental health issues (also because DH appears to have passed on learning disabilities to at least one of our children, his father and brother also have them).