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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to have had an abortion and feel ZERO shame or regret

1000 replies

GetOrfMoiCase · 26/05/2011 13:00

In AIBU because it is a popular topic. I know I am not being unreasonable.

Thread is in response to a report I heard on the news yesterday which was shamefully presented, regarding abortion access.

There is a thread on MN currently about it www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/1222273-Chipping-away-at-abortion-rights-govt-appoints-Life-as-sexual-health-adviser

Apparently there is a twitter thingummy going around 'I had an abortion' for people to discuss guilt free abortions.

Just thought it would be appropriate to have a thread on here for people put a positive side of abortion.

My story: got pregnant 5 years ago. My dd was 10. I was in a relationship of 6 months duration and had recently started a new job. Condom failure. My partner and I agreed that we didn't want a baby, I booked an abortion and had it without a backward glance. No emotional fall out afterwards. No guilt.

OP posts:
Wormshuffler · 26/05/2011 16:09

I am not against abortion, but for someone to say they have ZERO regret I find so unreasonable, even if the pregnancy was a genuine accident.

TandB · 26/05/2011 16:12

Unless you inspect every condom for intactness after use then how would you be expected to know? Condom failure doesn't have to mean a massive bang as the semen escapes in a mighty flood - it could be a tiny tear allowing a little bit of sperm to get through.

bupcakesandcunting · 26/05/2011 16:12

"My mother says in this day and age there's no excuse for unwanted pregnancies.

(Rape obviously excluded)."

Is that the sound of everything falling into place?

porcamiseria · 26/05/2011 16:13

shirleyknot

"Why do you believe that she's not being "careful"?

I know for a fact she wan't careful!

" If you're anti choice, just say it, rather than skirting around it. "and its pretty fucking shit for the doctors and nurses that have to

I have had an abortion so I am hardly anti choice am I! But I dont take it lightly. I dont like the fact that someone had to hoover a foetus out of me and then someone had to sluice it away cos I was careless. OK?

I am amazed that by saying "actually, abortion is pretty harrowing and shit" you then accuse me of being anti choice! why cant I say that its horrible for doctors? do you think they enjoy performing abortions?

face facts. its killing a foetus. its not having a fucking mole removed

swallowedAfly · 26/05/2011 16:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

ChinnyReckon · 26/05/2011 16:13

Honestly, I have never regretted it but that doesnt mean I celebrate it.

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar · 26/05/2011 16:15

Ecellent post there, swallowedAfly

(that's the one before you chuckled at bupcakes Grin )

LadyOfTheManor · 26/05/2011 16:16

What a cunt.

Grin
TheRhubarb · 26/05/2011 16:17

Abortion is and should be a BIG deal.
Even if you don't regret having an abortion, surely you regret the circumstances that led to you having to make that decision?

As has been said time and again GetOrf, your thread title and your opening post came across as flippant.

None of the pro-abortion and pro-guiltfree brigade have answered as to how this thread helps? Presumably if you don't have any guilt then why would you need a thread like this to state the bleeding obvious? If you've told people about your abortion and they have tried to force you to feel guilty then I'm very sorry for you, but I don't really see that? I see people trying to make you understand that abortion is a big decision and that it should be treated with sensitivity because it is an emotive issue that causes a lot of heartbreak.

And I don't see any feminists who stand up for the woman's right to choose, also standing up for the women who are forced to have abortions against their will. In fact I'm the only person who appears to be mentioning them. THAT is the real dirty little secret, that there are still vulnerable women being subjected to horrendous control by families and partners. Teenage girls who are told that they aren't old enough to have a baby, that they will get no support and their lives will be ruined if they don't have an abortion; those girls are then taken sobbing to the clinics were nurses ask no questions. How do I know this? Because those women wanted me to tell their stories on my site, which I did and it would still be up today if the fecking hosting company hadn't lost it all 3 years ago.

bupcakesandcunting · 26/05/2011 16:18

Honestly though, anyone who thinks that rape is the only excuse for unwanted pregnancy is either a nobber or, errrr, a nobber.

LadyOfTheManor · 26/05/2011 16:19

Is the other excuse one of the thousands methods of contraception failing?

I'm talking now, not 20 years ago.

The morning after pill is available should you notice a condom splitting or not had the opportunity to use any protection.

fifi25 · 26/05/2011 16:19

I was concieved at 15 thru carelessness next brother planned, next brother failed pill, next brother failed coil. It does happen

ShirleyKnot · 26/05/2011 16:23

I really don't think Doctors who perform abortions think it's horrible Hmm I think they'd probably find it infinitely more distressing to have to try and save the life of a woman who has had a back street abortion TBH.

The point of this thread - was not to say "Oh yeah, it's GREAT having an abortion " it was to say "I had one, I am not ashamed"

TheRhubarb · 26/05/2011 16:23

accidents do happen. My first was unplanned, hence the website I started. I had only just come off the pill because it was making me depressed, we were using condoms and being really really careful. But on this one occasion the condom somehow ended up being in the bed with nothing in it. I was horrified but figured I'd be bloody unlucky to be caught out so soon after stopping the pill and after just the one mishap.

I considered abortion when I found out, but I couldn't do it. I considered adoption for a long time after that and suffered very badly from ante-natal depression, itself a taboo subject at the time. I almost ended up harming myself and my unborn baby and was visited by social services who advised giving up the child. However my dh was adament that I was suffering depression and he refused to give up on me. At the time I never even wanted her to call me mum, but with the right treatment the cloud lifted and now I would never ever be without her. If I had gone ahead with adoption/abortion I would be very very regretful and sad and this type of thread would have upset me immensely.

So yeah, accidents happen even in this day and age and you have to deal with the consequences.

PinotGrigiosKittens · 26/05/2011 16:23

The MAP isn't foolproof though.

ShirleyKnot · 26/05/2011 16:24

The MAP is not 100% effective either, and I say that as someone who was on the sharp end [snurk] of a condom failure and then a MAP failure.

VictorGollancz · 26/05/2011 16:25

I don't want to silence anyone who found their abortion difficult, or has had to work through a range of emotions as a result, but it just wasn't like that for me, and I'd be lying and (I think) cheapening the experiences of those who have found is difficult if I said it had been. I think, also, that my experience is representative of a significant percentage of women.

If taking a decision 'lightly' means that I, as a sexually active woman who had taken all reasonable steps to prevent pregnancy, underwent a straightforward procedure because I knew I was in no position to continue, well, then I guess I took it 'lightly'.

I'm not posting this to be controversial; I have found, in all instances where friends have had cause to consider or undergo abortion, that my experiences have been comforting. If abortion is traumatic for you then you have the right to be heard, and the right to seek appropriate treatment; equally, I think those women who have had my experience also have the right to speak about their experiences without being shamed for it, and the OP is not BU to have started this thread.

flyingspaghettimonster · 26/05/2011 16:27

YANBU but you are very lucky. I was pro choice and thought if I ever needed to have one, I would be fine with it. But then it happened, and I was far from fine. It was the most upsetting thing I have ever done. We had a condom AND morning after pill fail on us, and our marriage was on the rocks, it would have been too much pressure to have a third child then and I had to choose between being a single Mum to three under 5, or else save my marriage for my two other kids. Horrible, horrible decision.

The hardest thing is how few support groups there are for women who do regret/feel guilt and shame... so many places that support a pregnancy lost through miscarriage or for those that terminated due to chromosomal abnormalities, but for those that terminate healthy, viable pregnancies... I finally found one place, a forum called PASS

www.afterabortion.com/new_visitors.html

I still think about that baby that might have been, even though I wouldn't have my DC3 now if that baby had been born. I had the Mirena put in right after the abortion, and it failed 6 months later. I guess I was just meant to have a 3rd baby...

TheRhubarb · 26/05/2011 16:27

SK, I understand now why the OP might want to say that. But doing it in AIBU with such a thread title was, in my opinion, a mistake. It appears to be treating the subject rather callously and since then the OP has said that was not her intention, however the first thing anyone sees is the title and then the OP. Knowing the OP to be a very helpful poster in other respects, I do think that starting this thread in this way was a mistake.

And there have been posters who have contributed to the thread who have actually applauded abortion and others have recounted stories of women using abortion as their contraception. That attitude is disgusting.

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 26/05/2011 16:27

No one should be ashamed of having an abortion. Nor should she regret it. Accidents happen, contraceptives fail (absolutely NO contraceptive is infallible).
It's up to every individual woman to make the choice that suits her circumstances.
And i agree with whoever is banging on about forcing women to have abortions - that is dreadful, but what I fail to see is how blaming and shaming women who have chosen not to continue a pregnancy helps women who did want to continue their pregnancies.

ShirleyKnot · 26/05/2011 16:31

Yes Rhubarb - you've said that you find the thread title unpleasant several times on this thread - we get it.

I do not agree with you on that, nor on the others things that you have said. I applaud abortion. I am glad it exists. I am glad that women have the choice to terminate an unwanted preganancy and I believe that they should be able to do so without feeling shame or regret or guilt.

Furthermore, I do not agree that the majority of terminations that are carried out are done so because women (silly things!) are using abortions as a contraceptive. Nope, I don't buy it at all.

noddyholder · 26/05/2011 16:35

You can be supportive of abortion and a woman's right to choose and still find the thread title a bit yuck

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar · 26/05/2011 16:37

So yeah, accidents happen even in this day and age and you have to deal with the consequences

Which might mean having an abortion, if you decide to do so.

ShirleyKnot · 26/05/2011 16:39

Of course noddy, and you can be not offended by it too. Like me.

TandB · 26/05/2011 16:40

I smell An Agenda....

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