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?

I have mixed views about abortion,but one thing I cannot understand at all.
If someone really does not want a baby why are they not using contraception or availing themselves of the morning after pill?

Sigh.

Pro lifers are idiots.....they just dont seem capable of understanding its not about abortion vs no abortion. Its about safe abortion vs unsafe abortion.

In the 1950s my dads cousin got pregnant. She had an illegal back street abortion and died alone, in agony, on the kitchen floor from peritontis. She was 17.

The father of the child, of course, went on to live a long and happy life.

Safe abortion needs to be available to all women, whatever their circumstances.

And as for the old "have the baby and get it adopted" line - there are thousands of children in care that need a family....perhaps we should care for the children who have actually been born first????

baby No contraceptive is 100% effective.

Yes that's right. We are all idiots for thinking people shouldn't get to 23 weeks and then decide to abort a perfectly healthy baby. Or that people at 30 weeks can abort a baby with downs.

Good example from Morally Bankrupt..." I don't like it so YOU should ALL be stopped from doing it"

and that is why they get jumped on. The audacity that you think you should be able to control what happens in my body! Is it just in this area you have a god complex or do you tell people what they can have for breakfast and what clothes they can wear....?

I never said it should be stopped. Only that I didn't think it was right. I will never, ever understand why someone needs 6 months to decide they can't have a baby. I personally believe that aborting a healthy 24 week baby is barbaric. You have a right to do whatever you so wish with your body. I have the right to believe that a healthy 24 week baby has a right to life, even if it's in another persons body it could at this point survive on it's own. This is I find horrifying.

MB I am pro choice (as you may have guessed)

Therefore, whatever my feelings about later term abortion, I still think it needs to be a legal option for these women.

"the view you support and argue for means that the very poorest and most vulnerable of women are a target for rape as a weapon of war and that their lives will be that little bit more utterly wretched."

Because I am pro-life women become a target? I'm pretty sure their lives are wretched because they are being abused and I would much rather support a cause that provides help and support for those women and tries to remove them from the situation they are in. I would much rather money was spent on that. If you had to choose what money was going to be spent on would you choose funding abortion or funding support/shelter/counselling for those women who are being abused?

sigh...a 24 week old foetus has little chance of surviving outside the womb actually MB If they do live they tend to have serious health problems and/or disability. There are execeptions but they are very, very rare.

My dnephew was a 27 week premmie. He is now 7. We are VERY lucky he (and my dsis) survived and that - aside from congenitial lung disease - he is fine.

Whilst he was in SCBU there were lots of families that werent so lucky

Are you so badly informed you think that every foetus that gets to 24 weeks is viable???

Why? Why does that need to be an option? It's not an option in Germany, Italy or France etc and their societies have not magically combusted...

At some point we need to assess the point at which a womans rights become more important that the destruction of a healthy baby, on what, let's face it, can be pretty flimsy grounds.

At 24 weeks a baby has very little chance of surviving on its own outside the womb, as Becaroooo said.

MsTeak - why do you draw the line at a baby that hasn't been born? Why not also be annoyed that someone would prevent you from committing infanticide if you didn't want your baby or murder if you don't like your husband/cousin/friend/neighnour? Do we have a God complex about those things too because we say they are wrong?

What I think is that a large proportion of 24 weekers would be born as a healthy baby if they were not aborted. All their major development is done. It is not like the abortion of a 4 week old foetus where their is still a decent risk of a natural miscarriage at that point anyway.

A proportion would also survive if they were born, naturally, at that stage. I don't think that is right. That is just my opinion.

All the major development is NOT done at 24 weeks.

MB It needs to be an option because you, nor I, nor anyone else has the right to determine what any person chooses to do with their body

Pretty simple, really.

Yes it is. Things have not 'matured' especially the lungs, but everything is in place. I don't believe even the most ardent pro choicer would look at a 24 weeker and not see a recognisable baby. At that point it's not 'a bunch of cells' it's just not.

Good posts Becarooo.

It's fine, absolutely fine, to not like or be against abortions for yourself. This is not my viewpoint as I am pro-choice but I would not tell anyone that they are not entitled to it as it's a very emotive, personal issue.

What is NOT fine is to impose this on everybody else and say 'I don't like abortions so access must be restricted or taken away'.

However much you (general you) dress it up in fluffy wuffy 'I just care so much ' language, (not that all pro-lifers bother with that of course) at root it's about fear, hatred and control of women.

"because you, nor I, nor anyone else has the right to determine what any person chooses to do with their body"

yes, becaroooo - why doesn't that apply to the baby too? Who has the right to choose what to do to its body - it's alive too you know.

I'm pretty sure the government disagree. That is why tattoos are not legal under 18, you can't buy crack at m&s and you would be hard pressed to fing a doctor who would amputate your healthy arm just because you didn't want it anymore.

"root it's about fear, hatred and control of women."

No, its not.

MB Seriously, you need to take a biology class!!! Your ignorance about foetal development is shocking!!!!

Anyway, off to pack for my hols now

Ta ta!

it's

I'm awfully glad I don't live in NI, reading this thread.

You say no its not. What is it about then bubbleymummy?

bubble Without the mother the baby has no life.

Unless a woman carries a child until is viable outside the womb then the child is not "alive" in any legal sense - and of course wrt abortion we are talking about a legal proceedure after all.

Whether the foetus is "alive" from the point of view of having a "soul" I will leave to others to discuss...I am not really religious and think that alive is alive and dead is dead.

I can respect a persons religious beliefs that all life is sacred etc etc

What I cannot respect is a person who believes that their beliefs are the only ones that matter.

It's about valuing life flippin and not putting a woman's right to choose above the right of a human being to life. Nothing to do with fear, hatred or control.