to have had an abortion and feel ZERO shame or regret

[GetOrfMoiCase]

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.

Fucking hell Michelleseashell, and I though I had a bad time.
I got the general, two in two days was the ways it's done, though the second one, when they remove the foetus, I could see through the gap in the doors to the girl in front of me.
I could see her legs in stirrups, I could hear the vacuum.
Yes, I chose that, I chose it over having a baby, but I didn't deserve that treatment.

That was the second general.
The first they insert rods to dilate you.
You are warned that your waters might break.
The girl in the bed next to me had that, and they were not nice to her, they made her feel like a pain who had messed up the bed.

It was horrific, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

blackcurrants I think you have some good points there - particularly that the foetus cannot be transferred to rely on anyone else and relies on your body alone, which you have dominion over.

Would you say that in some way your living child relys on your body? Not physically of course, but emotionally you are the only mother that child will have. Is there a similar dependance there, albeit much reduced in intensity (no longer life and death but still fundamental to emotional security?)

slavery is almost universally considered to be a bad thing now, but it was not always so. Access to elective abortion in the UK is generally considered to be a good thing now, but it has not always been so and the tide of public opinion may change again in the future. Our society is very liberal and seems to live on a "do what you like so long as you don't hurt anyone and afford me the same advantage" basis. This approach works fairly well for issues of personal sexuality (radical change in public opinion of the acceptability of homosexuality for example) but its harder to implement for situations like abortion where the choice of one human is detrimental to another human.

And the live and let live approach is not universally applied either. Take taxes, for example. Nobody likes paying tax, but we have decided as a society that we want a system of forced financial contribution for the public good, so that we can all benefit from healthcare, education, policing etc. We force the childless employee to slave away only to rob them of some of their income to pay for schooling for children they did not create and did not choose to bear. We deem this fair, in the public interest, although there is always a debate about the details of the tax system. Yet when we think of forcing a reluctantly pregnant woman to incubate a child so that child might stay alive we deem this a horrendous thing to do.

IMHO its all about how you weigh up the options - unfairness of childless people paying for schools vs benefits of a well educated next generation, the life of a potential baby vs the wide ranging physical, emotional and financial impact for a woman of bearing a child she does not want.

Society's views change over time. Depending on whether you believe morality is absolute or relative, you might believe that sometimes society gets the answer wrong, or that by definition society's answer is correct. Was slavery morally wrong when society thought it was ok?

springchickenbrassneck
Anti choice, woman hating whiny arses?
innocent men wrongly accused?
rape laws?
women cracking jokes?
what sort of dribble is this?
Can't make head nor tail.

What choice does the baby sorry, move to latin name, "fetus" get?
Some of them are girl babies too. You know, the special ones.
Anyway, NO ONE I've ever met is truly pro choice, even you brass neck.

Queenmarythegreat not to nitpick, but I wrote "live outside my body" and that's what I meant - not "when the foetus has travelled down the birth canal and experienced a vaginal birth" - but when it can survive outside the body. Hence my point about 23/24 weeks - I was saying that that date of viability seems like the right compromise between the rights of the woman and the rights of the foetus which, once outside the body, is a baby.

So, although I may not have been clear, I was referring to the 'science and reason' which can keep a 24week old preemie alive, and the science and reason behind the decision about abortion before 24 weeks.

I realise that these facts don't support your desire to harrumph and tell me off because you know women who've had stillbirths (so do I! and women who've had miscarriages! and women who've lost babies to SIDS - do I win? sheesh) - but that was what I wrote, and that was what I meant.

Actually MichaelaS, GOOD POINT!
I am FORCED to pay taxes, some of which go to fund abortion.
Forget the sodding war in the middle east, I want to organise a "NOT IN MY NAME" march about taxpayer funded abortion!

erm, SGB, have you realised that half of all foetuses ARE women?

and the are being OPPRESSED by the EVIL SYSTEM of men who are trying to put them in their place by killing them. I'm suprised you're not campaigning for their rights!

blackcuurants
I'm afraid that, logic wise, that doesn't help matters your end.
The pre viability fetus is still objectively alive. Viability is mostly dependant on the condition of the lungs. It's not as though at some arbitrary date the baby wakes up and "becomes" alive.

I shudder to think you are a midwife queenmary. I wonder how you would've treated me in labour after reading my notes. It simply says TOP 23 weeks social reasons. I wanted to write an essay about those particular 'social reasons' and staple it in but I assumed that any midwife would give me the benefit of the doubt without hearing my story. Maybe I was wrong.

I'm so sorry netto. I can imagine how bad it must have been for you. At least this thread has let us know about each other. It makes me feel a little better about it to know I'm not the only one. Not that it's easy for any of us.

This is all sounding a bit ranty to me now.

Thanks again, GetOrf, if you are still reading.

"erm, SGB, have you realised that half of all foetuses ARE women?

and the are being OPPRESSED by the EVIL SYSTEM of men who are trying to put them in their place by killing them. I'm suprised you're not campaigning for their rights! "

That's right. And don't forget the black genocide dreamed up by celebrated racist eugenicists like Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes.
Feminist heroes my arse.

Me too. It has been a really interesting debate, but I fear Godwin's Law is only a few posts away...

michelleseashell and netto i'm really sorry to hear about your poor treatment. Delays of the magnitude of weeks are unacceptable. Medical stall treating patients without respect and a bit of common decency is also unacceptable. I'm sorry you both had such a terrible time.

queenmarythegreat - then we're in agreement, of a sort. I should have written using 'viable' rather than 'alive'.

I am trying (and obviously failing) to explain why I think pre-viability abortion is okay - and that's because discussions of whether a foetus is 'alive' become whose life matters most, and those discussions are nearly impossible to resolve.

What we actually have available to us as a society is viability: and that's when the right of the foetus to live (because it CAN live outside the womb) trumps the right of the woman to abort.

I should point out, also, that I don't think we live in a society which is, objectively speaking, 'pro-life.' Most people don't do a whole bunch to protect life, and do lots of things to destroy it. A real pro-lifer, to my mind, would never ever ever get on a plane, for example. Or own a diamond. Or drive a car. These things are all so anti-life!

But we do live in a society which is very keen on punishing women for having sex, don't we?

I just want to put my penny's worth in.

I am a practicing Roman Catholic but feel very strongly pro-choice. I wouldn't want one becasue it is a horrible procedure and I would feel that I was killing a human being.

However, you have to realise that one in four women have one, and insisting that 25% of women must be in a constant state of shame is unrealistic and oppressive. Why shoud they feel ashamed for doing something they deemed necessary, and something society has decided should be legal?

It's almost the most oppressive part of the whole issue.

michelleseashell
"I shudder to think you are a midwife queenmary. I wonder how you would've treated me in labour after reading my notes. "

Oh for goodness sake seashell. You are not unusual. Women like you are ten a penny.
I see it ALL THE TIME.
I wouldn't give your obstetric history even a passing thought.

There are always knitting needles and gin and poison and dumping babies in dustbins. Sometimes the situation is desperate and an abortion is infinitely preferable to the alternatives. Why feel sorrow when you are looking into the abyss? Suicide is another alternative.

Oh that's good then. I'll go and knock down the street looking for all the women who've had an abortion at 23 weeks. We could make a real club of it.

hannahack
"I am a practicing Roman Catholic but feel very strongly pro-choice"

This is an oxymoron. if you are a pro abortion practising catholic then you are a hypocrite and a catholic in name only.

And when has anyone insisted that 25% of the population live in shame for petes sake?

"It's almost the most oppressive part of the whole issue."

Hardly. At least not from the persective of the babyfetus.

How come there are so many 'pro-life' people out there, but so few people who object to men starting wars and killing all those people who have been born and who have a life of whatever sort? One rule for one sex and one for the other?

silentcatastrophe
"How come there are so many 'pro-life' people out there, but so few people who object to men starting wars and killing all those people who have been born and who have a life of whatever sort?"

Undiluted Bilge.

There are a couple of pro life posters here, one of whom appears not to be opposed to abortion in all circs.
Did you see the numbers on the Stop The War march?

That's only one war. This country is still at war. War makes money. The protestors were not protesting because they disapproved of war or the loss of life, but because of the circumstances under which it was ordered.

"women like you are ten a penny"
shameful queenmarythegreat!
ive reported youre post.

(ignoring the descent into name calling)

SwallowedAFly that's a really good point. That is why I am reluctantly pro choice on balance. But I do think good things to do would be to improve education on the link between sex and pregnancy, and the fact that contraception reduces the probability but does not remove the link entirely. We should allow the teaching of absteinance as an option for people, but not rely on it as a contraceptive choice (i.e. you are not weird if you don't want to, it's ok to not have sex as well as ok to have sex).

I think we should attempt to reduce the stigma of being a birth mother to and adopted baby. Continuing with the pregnancy with adoption should be presented as an option during pre-termination counselling (i dont' actually know if it is or not). Maybe even continuing with the pregnancy to a viable but not full term gestation, e.g. 32 weeks - less physical inconvenience for the pregnant woman perhaps? Would be very costly in healthcare terms for the baby though.

It was mentioned a long way up, but drinking plays a big part - poor or no use of contraception because of being drunk means the MAP is a primary contraceptive rather than an occasional backup.

Hmmm, maybe you should have to take an idiot test before being licensed to have sex - a bit like the driving test - where you have to show you understand a few basic concepts about STDs, pregnancy, respect and mutual enjoyment, and alternatives to PIV!!! NB joke!

there are some horrendous stories on here, and some of double contraceptive failure. But the rising statistics are in the younger age range and the older age range. I seriously doubt the increase in abortions is due to an increase in genuine double failure of contraception (e.g. condom and MAP) by people who have decided to have sex but not to reproduce, and are taking a responsible attitude to that decision. Sometimes responsible people do get caught out, as we've seen by this thread, and the ONLY 100% reliable method of contraception is absteinance.

Instead, I think the rising trend has more to do with an attitude of relying on the availability of the MAP primarily so not protecting with a better primary contraceptive, or just the wish and hope brigade. Just like the knowledge that the aspirin are in the cupboard makes me a bit more likely to have an extra drink or 3, because the negative consequences can be fixed by a pill the next day. I thinik this is evidenced by the climbing rates of STDs as well as abortions.

Is it possible to educate hormonal teenagers that "it'll never happen to me" is not a valid choice? Or are we hard wired to be reckless at that age by nature? I admit it would have been difficult for me to accept this at 14, 15, 16. Because at that age, it'll never happen to me, will it? And when i'm 45 and my periods get irregular, well, it'll never happen to me either will it?