to understand why some people have a problem with abortion?

[LolaRennt]

I am pro choice first of all, just to get that out of the way.

But what confuses me is that on many threads I have seen if someone in a tiny voice dares to admit that they might have a an anti abortion view they get jumped on pretty quickly.

But surely if someone belives from a purely emotion point that abortion is the ending of a life you can't change that view simply by calling them a woman hater or abusing them? I can understand how pro choice people don't see abortion as a feminst issue or a human rights issue at all and can't get past the view that it is just ending a life.

I am a vegan and I don't wear leather or fur. I see it as murder. I know other people do it (even my friends, husband and family) but for me it will always be murder. Its a purely emotional view that go against what the vast majority of the western world see as normal. But there is nothing any of you could ever say that would make me change my mind. So maybe I can empathise better than some?

My belief is that women need safe access to abortion, no one likes the idea of abortion butit needs to be avalaible because the alternatives would be devastating. Wouldn't it make sense to approach it from that point of view to someone who is anti abortion? Accept that the idea maybe abhorent (and that they arent wrong for feeling that way) but it is a basic human right to not be forced to pregnant and that for many reasons it is the best choice for the woman?

no those who are pro choice qm are just that, its allows the choice to be given to the women

no one on here has said that it is ok to force someone to have a termination as it is not at all

hard cases make bad law, Strawberry. Your own personal experience gives you no right to decide for others.

All the women who leave their children? There are some, sure, but a tiny amount in comparison to the men who do it. And if you think a woman who doesn't want a baby should be forced to have it, don't you think there will be more women who would do that, not less? Or should she be forced to keep it for 18 years too? Is there no end to the punishment a woman should have for daring to fall pregnant?

queen mary, you are in a parallel universe, of your own bigotry and skewed morals.

Why are you so obtuse, so unwilling to listen? PROCHOICE means not forcing anyone to do anything. It means letting each person decide for themselves. The only anger is at people like you, you are the ones who would like to force women to have unwanted babies.
We don't want to decide other peoples lives, you do. How are you so blind as to what is being said, over and over and over?

NationalTruss - you ignored my earlier question. I also apply it to QueenMary, StrawberryMewMew and mdowdall...

Do you - or should you - have the right to tell me what to do with my body?

My mother, after being sure that she didn't want me, but being talked into having me & subsequently making my life hell for 18yrs, decided, when she met a new partner & started having sex with him that using no contraception was a great idea!! She couldn't use the pill (due to age) and he hated condoms.

She became pregnant. She didn't want it. She asked me what she should do (I was 18, had been told just months earlier that she should never have had me, didn't love me, I ruined her life, she didn't love me etc) I told her it wasn't my choice to make. It was hers. That was the only time she seemed human to me. She cried & thanked me, obviously not seeing the irony of asking your unwanted/unloved child what you should do about a further unwanted pregnancy.

Would you like her to have repeated history? I know that I wouldn't have. Yes, that potential life inside her had the potential to be my brother/sister. BUT they would have lived my live all over again, I would not wish that on anyone.

She would have had to live the last 18yrs again too. I would have spent my adult life counselling my younger sibling, trying to help it navigate the life it had with her, therefore binding me to her even longer. We stopped talking when I left home. But there is no doubt that the person I was then couldn't have walked away from my sibling, knowing the pain it lived with. Opening me up to more pain as I stayed in her life.

The best thing she did, was to terminate her pregnancy. I don't care how it came about, if she had been using contraception, would that have made her a better parent? NO, it wouldn't have, so contraception/not is a moot point.

She made a choice, she made the best choice. For her, for me, for the potential life inside her.

She thinks she did it for herself. She did it for all of us, she just won't ever see it like that.

" Why are you so obtuse, so unwilling to listen? "

Good grief.
Unlike the other commenters here who are modelling rational, civil discourse?
I think this might be a case of the beam in thine own eye.

No, I've actually paid attention to what you way. I'm sickened and appalled by your stance, but I have actually read it. You on the other hand, have repeatedly ignored questions, told posters what they think, told them they are unwilling to admit your "truth".

Honestly though, you are intentionally trying to insult and belittle, which makes your horrible opinion even worse.

" PROCHOICE means not forcing anyone to do anything. It means letting each person decide for themselves "

It does not.
Many women in a crisis pregnancy are offered no choice but abortion.
Abortion is not something you "do with your own body".
It is something someone else (a doctor) does to someone elses body (the unborn baby)

" Honestly though, you are intentionally trying to insult and belittle, which makes your horrible opinion even worse "

I'm sorry to hear this.
Can you give me an exaample of where i have done this and I will gladly retract it.

WRONG.
Are you now also saying that women can't think for themselves, yet another layer of insult? You think women go to an abortion clinic without having decide for themselves what they want?
You seem to have a picture of women saying" dearie me I'm pregnant, whatever will i do?" and a big bad pro-choice person saying "you will have an abortion, I have decided"

What planet are you on?

"Many women in a crisis pregnancy are offered no choice but abortion."

Which noone here is arguing in favour of.

MsTeak
Do you honestly think that my tone is insulting and yours is not?
I am trying very hard to be civil.
Don't you think that if you demand courtesy you ought to be prepared to extend it too?

Queenmary - no-one who is pro-choice wants to see a woman forced to have an abortion.

As an aside - would you prefer to see women perform their own abortions? Do you understand that, for example, Irish women don't not have abortions? They travel outside their country instead...

I was in 'pregnancy crisis'. No one offered me another choice because I went into every appointment before hand & said

"I am pregnant & don't want to be. Please help me make that happen"

What is the point of offering me advice on alternatives? I had made up my mind & trying to offer me advice on my 'options' would have been a waste of my time & money (you pay to see your dr over here & I had to see three before any appointments could be made), not to mention hugely patronising that they would have been assuming that I, at 36, didn't know my own mind.

Most women who are in 'pregnancy crisis' know long before they walk into a clinic that they don't want it. And don't want to be talked out of it. They just want it to be over ASAP.

So tell me, what good will 'other options' do, except make the pro lifers happy to cause the already vulnerable woman more upset?

" You think women go to an abortion clinic without having decide for themselves what they want? "

Many women go to a clinic for an abortion in a state of panic and fear.
There are plenty of post abortive women who struggle greatly with regret and say that they didn't really know what they were doing.

They just wanted yesterday back again.

I have heard many women say that if someone in the clinic had said "it's going to be OK. This feels like the end of your world, but really it isn't. we will walk through it with you and help and support you in every way we can" they would have reconsidered, and been spared a lifetime of sorrow and regret.
Offering someone an abortion can be quite lazy. It's like saying "I don't want to be bothered with your problems and your needs feel overwhelming to me"

"it's going to be OK. This feels like the end of your world, but really it isn't. we will walk through it with you and help and support you in every way we can"

But really, how long will they 'walk' her through it? They will walk her through her choice, help her come to the choice that she wants it (coercion).Then when she says 'yes, I'll have it' they close the door, job done.

Yeah, very helpful.

" Then when she says 'yes, I'll have it' they close the door, job done "

This isn't true, but I'm repeating myself to the point of insanity.
I need to clean the kitchen.

What practical support is offered then?

Anything she needs.

So what do they do?

Do they take her to her appointments?
Pay for her childcare while she goes to said appointments or babysit her children?
Buy her maternity wear?
Buy her a bigger car?
Buy her a bigger house?
Hold her hair back while she feels sick?
Do her house work when she is incapable of moving due to huge bump/SPD etc
Do they rush to her side when her waters break?
Do they get her to hospital?
Look after her children while she is in labour?
Look after the baby when she has to return to work?
Pay childcare fees?
Buy it's nappies/clothes/formula if necc?
Get up to it in the night?
Find it a school?
Take care of it when it is sick?
Pay for it's wedding?

No? Then they have no right to talk her into having a baby she doesn't want.

Hold her hair back when she is sick?

So you are telling me in all seriousness queenmary that if I found myself in a situation where I was pregnant, and was considering an abortion that someone would come and look after my ds while I spent weeks in hospital?

Sorry not very clear - I meant weeks in hospital continuing with the pregnancy instead of having an abortion.

Most of the above, except the bigger car ( hardly a reason for an abortion?) or paying for it's wedding ( ditto)

Strawberry - of course it is just as bad if you were forced to have an abortion! I would absolutely not argue for that as it removes choice as much as a forced pregnancy. If a child is raped they should be impartially supported to do whatever THEY feel is best for them as they have been through enough. That means no pressure to abort, no pressure to keep the pregnancy and most of all no being told they are murderers and that abortion is ALWAYS wrong if they do make that difficult decision. That is just cruel.