To think that this woman was selfish and quite cruel

[MistletoeMush]

This has probably been done before and I know it is quite a controversial subject. I was just reading an article in Grazia about a woman who was expecting triplets and had two of them aborted. The reasons she gave included financial ones, not wanting to be a stay at home mum, wanting to give more attention to her individual child and not wanting to be bed-ridden during pregnancy when she wanted to be working. Her partner was initially against the abortion but came around. She says she doesn't regret what she did and one day will tell her surviving son about it. She wasn't on the breadline at all, she was working and describes herself as middle class.

Aibu to think that she was very selfish and that son may not be impressed when he is older and she tells him?

it's hateful to call her reasons lame or critique them for not being valid enough
a triplet pregnancy is high risk for mother and baby. having 3 children is a massive undertaking, especially when those babies could be very prem and very sick.

why is it worse to terminate 2 out of 3 than 1 out of 1 foetus?

I'm pro-choice but this makes me feel ick. There is something very unnatural about it. If I had been one of multiples and discovered my parents had terminated my sibling/s I'd be unlikely to forgive them TBH. Oh I support her right to do it but it makes me feel queasy.

Do we really believe this story is true, I mean really ?

EricNorthpolesChristmas - why does it matter that it's a multiple pregnancy? Any mother that aborts is aborting a sibling. Is it only OK for a woman to have an abortion if she's childless and then never has children?

yes, i believe it's true. selective reduction is offered in the case of big multiple pregnancies, it's just not written about in magazines terribly often.

i agree such prospects, as i posted earlier, why is aborting one of one ok, but not 2 of 3. with all the inherent risks of a triplet pregnancy

Yes there is something wrong with being a "pro-lifer" in that context.

Her body her choice, makes no difference what any of us thinks, which is as it should be.

And pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion what moron said that? Nobody is pro-abortion, we don't go around with placards shouting at people to have abortions.

FFS.

I read this, and my immediate reaction was....(I appear to be getting old) 'Why do people seem to feel the need to discuss intimate details of their private lives in public?' It just is part of a larger culture where we share everything, with no thought of what we are doing. I don't think it's a public duty to bring things out in the open; I think most people could find somebody to talk to about their experiences/ support group/ whatever rather than reading something in Grazia and identifying with it. When I was pregnant and we were having tests to establish the extent of ds' problems, I posted on Mumsnet rather than share with lots of people in RL - I don't get why you would want to be recognised as the woman who terminated twins. Or why your son would even need to know that.

I'm with you, Grumpypants, and I wouldn't necessarily look to Grazia for indepth coverage of a complex medical and social issue.

at the 'why not have them adopted?' responses - how much damage do you think that would do to someone?

There may be sound medical reasons for this decision - triplet pregnancies are incredibly high risk and often don't end well unfortunately. Not withstanding, it's BVU to judge before you've walked a mile in that person's shoes, as they say.

Yes her body therefor her choice.

Doesn't change the fact that she's a silly cow.

She is a silly cow. And her reasons were lame - sorry if that sounds "hateful" But had she aborted the siblings because they would have died at birth anyway or because the pregnancy would have put her own life in danger then TBH I would have had some sympathy. But it was a lifestyle choice pure and simple.

It would take a very, very cold person to go along to the abortion clinic and say oh take two out please.

I know this is a touchy subject. I hate the phrase "her body/child, her choice" which is generally used to justify the unjustifiable.

Whatever your thoughts on abortion, I don't see how selective reduction is any different than any other abortion. You either accept that women have the right to decide whether or not they continue with a pregnancy - or you don't. You can't change your mind just because it is a multiple pregnancy IMO.

I do think it's bizarre that "pro-life" quite often means "anti-woman". And that pro-choice is seen to mean "pro-abortion" when what it actually means is "pro-choice".

do we know if she recieved fertility treatment

because when i did i was made very aware of risk of multiples,and good job to as it resulted in twins for me,as ive said earlier slim but not impossible chance of natural triplets

think if they were concieved naturally i would empathise more BUT if treatment was obtained you do know the risks etc

may sound hard,but would like to know if natural or not

Do you think that she was just finding as many excuses as possible to rationalise what she has been through? It would have been a difficult situation for anyone to be in but I doubt she was truly as hard-headed as it sounds.

Perhaps part of her grieving process is to try to see the situation 'objectively'. And perhaps to ignore any medical reasons given.

To me it doesn't matter if she had fertility treatment or not. When she made the decisions she did she was pregnant and how she got there was essentially irrelevant.

Selective abortion is often carried out to decrease the risk of pregnancy and birth complications.

A triplet pregnancy is a high rick pregnancy - and that risk is not only to the mother, but to all of the babies. The chances are high that all the babies will be born very early with increased risk of morbidly and mortality to all of them.

Selective abortion is possible in the UK, there was someone on Mumsnet a few years ago who choose this option when she discovered she was pregnant with triplets.

It's very possible that the article has been heavily edited and that her reasons for the abortion were not just financial ones.

I read this too.

She didn't receive fertility treatment. The doctors told her she was carrying identical twins, and a slightly bigger singleton baby that they thought was a bit older.

I don't disagree with her choice but I think it was an unpleasantly glib article.

agree that going to a magazine is odd and insensitive

but i'm more at the amount of judgey people on this thread... "i'm pro-choice but"... be gone with you and your smug sense of subjective whims whether you think one abortion is "the best" or an "only" choice, but that one, her reasons don't seem valid to me, so that one is "wrong".

Her body, her choice. Despite the article, none of us know what her real motivation, feelings or home life are or would be like with one or three children. Stop being so fucking judgemental for a moment and remember how hard people have had to fight (and continue to fight) for the most basic of rights re: the choice about whether to give birth or not.

The thing with fertility treatment is that you might know the risks, but you don't always get a choice about them. So if you have IVF, then you can have a say about how many embryos are put back. But if you need injectable drugs (which I came close to needing) then you have a choice of

1. taking the drugs and running the risk OR
2. not having any children There is no half-way house. And the risks of multiples are very high with injectables. My doctor took one look at my body and told me "twins would be a big problem, triplets would be a disaster". Which is why we held off, and I got lucky without them. If I hadn't then I don't know what would have happened. I wouldn't want to abort a baby, especially after all that we went through, but the other choice isn't hardly great either.

The doctor was right, by the way, even a singleton baby put a huge strain on my body, and I have permenant damage after two singleton pregnancies.

p.s. you don't have to travel far back in time or distance to find people who thought that a woman who was likely to die in childbirth who was raped and conceived a child who was unlikely to survive - that those 3 things didn't add up to what was "acceptable" enough reason for abortion. You'd just have to be in Colombia in 2005 for that to happen.

she's a silly cow??

oh right, far better to carry on with the pregnancy at great persoanl, emotional, financial cost. possibly losing all three babies..

would she be a silly cow to terminate a singleton pregnancy?

i don't get why people think they can judge her as lame or selfish or anything else

not being able to financially support a child or multiple children is a good a reason as any to terminate

Yes Lulumaam she is a very silly cow.What kind of person sells her story to a magazine?
Her poor child may have to read that when he grows up.

On no that is so sad. If I were that boy I would wonder about my siblings for the rest of my life!

Did I read she is in the States? If so, then her financial considerations are even more important - the benefits system in the US is a lot harsher then in the UK and not only that, but think of the cost of medical insurance - that would cost thousands per month, and if one or more of the children are disabled (which is higher risk when you are one of e triplet), insurance will be even higher.