to think America is a frightening place to be a woman right now?

[BornSicky]

Pregnant women facing murder charges

This is bullying at a nightmarish level.

I find it foul and despicable that women are being villified in such a way. How did the Christian right-wing become so powerful?

Truly, truly scary.

How can these bad laws (including the new "inspections" (read closures) of abortion clinics in Kansas) come to be passed? How can they be stopped?

Any decision? I don't think anyone has the right to make a decision that has such a negative impact on another's life. In these late term abortion examples the foetus is no longer dependent on the mother, it could survive without her - it should not be 'her' life to decide what to do with. She has to give birth to it regardless.

It has to come OUT of the mother regardless. It would survive without her. Why does she still have the choice to kill it when it is no longer dependent on her?

Correction - why should she

We're discussing SGBs post about why a mother should be entitled to have an abortion up to term if that is what she wants. Do you agree or do you have a cut off point?

It's very simple. If you have a cut off point for what should happen to other women who you don't know and never will know, then you are a foetus worshipper who believes that women are selfish bitches who are only stopped from aborting their healthy viable late-term babies by firmly-enforced laws. If you think that the choice whether to continue or end a pregnancy should rest only with the pregnant woman, then you are a rational human being who believes in letting other people make their own decisions about what happens to their own bodies and you are capable of understanding that most women prefer to continue their pregnancies and have live births at the end.

"then you are a foetus worshipper who believes that women are selfish bitches"

See there you go again being extremist and silly. I just can't take you seriously when you talk like that. Would you care to rephrase it because right now you just sound like you're a bit raving tbh.

Off to bed. Will hope for a more sane response from SGB in the morning . Night all.

No, that's not true.

I believe that other women shouldn't kill their born children, even though many do and feel they have reasons for doing so. Does that make me a child-worshipper? There is a point at which a fetus becomes its own life, and for me it is when they could live independently. If it comes down to the mother's life that is a different story, but otherwise no, I don't support it and I would never support a law saying that a woman could choose to abort after six months for other reasons.

I am capable of understanding many things, and I am a rational human being. I am not capable of understanding why some people think that insulting others and saying that everyone who disagrees with them is a fetus-worshipping misogynist who goes about "whining and slobbering" serves any purpose at all.

I believe that women should have the right to terminate their pregnancies right up until the moment of birth because I can live with the idea of a tiny, tiny, possibly even non-existent number of women choosing to terminate healthy pregnancies very late on much more easily than I can live with the idea of lots of women being forced to continue pregnancies that they don't want, that threaten their lives or their happiness purely on the grounds that other people don't like the idea of women choosing to terminate.

I understand that you believe that, and I understand why you do, but I don't. This does not make me hateful or misogynistic or slobbering. It does not mean that I think other women are selfish bitches or stupid.

It means only that I see a fetus who could live independently as a life unto itself.

Every year I participate in a bake sale that gives its profits to the hungry in my country. (It's a nationwide thing; it's kinda cool. :)) We donate money to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa and have for years. I used to volunteer at a home for unwed teenage mothers. We've since moved so I can't anymore, but I make sure to send money at Christmas and pick up packs of diapers for them every few months or so. I walk for the Cure, for the Epilepsy Foundation, and for the March of Dimes. We donate some of our groceries to the food shelf every time we go shopping. I just signed up to start receiving info on how to best combat domestic violence in my area. DH and I have attended the orientation for Foster Carers and filled out some paperwork. We are planning to have a biological child sometime soon, and then yes, I do plan on "adopting some of these unwanted children." I am not special or great for doing any of these things; everyone I know does things like this. I am just pointing out that I do care very much about people who are already born, and I find it extremely insulting that anyone would imply otherwise. This and seeing a viable fetus as a life of its own are not mutually exclusive.

Well, I'm the opposite. I can live with the vanishingly small numbers of women who want late abortions being thwarted more than I can live with the idea of a healthy baby denied a chance. In RL nobody gets to 37 weeks in a healthy pregnancy and decides to have the injection and then go through labour.
It's not because I'm a misogynist fuckwit who hates choice. Obviously.

SS: So even though you accept that noone gets to 37 weeks and chooses to terminate a healthy pregnancy, you still think you're entitled to force women to continue pregnancies that they don't want by setting arbirtrary limits on their choices?

But it's not arbitrary is it? 24 wks is the limit in the UK afaik, it is also the limit of viability, and in rl scenarios most people have reached their decisions long before. It's not ideal, of course not, nothing about unwanted pregnancies is, but it's the best of a bad lot, imo. It's a balancing of rights. And yes, I do believe that a potentially independently viable foetus/baby does have rights.
Even after 20 weeks the amount of people who wish to abort healthy pregnancies is very very small.

It's late and I'm tired and struggling with my phone but I wanted to answer the question a poster asked me about Nicaragua.
As far as I know, abortions are illegal in all circumstances. If your life is danger, I think you might be advised to pray and hope for the best.
I keep harping on about this because I really want the antichoice people who live in places where this kind of thing "would never happen" to see that the Nicaraguan position is what could happen in some US states or anywhere where the extremists among the antichoice movement (and I am not arguing that anyone on this hread is) are allowed to take control. This can only happen if the argunent about "life and rights beginning at conception" is not challenged.
Oh and as an afterthought: it seems that the origin of this legislation or its principal sponsor hashbeen the Catholic Church. People here tell me that it reflects the teaching that babies must be bautised in order to go to heaven. If it died before this it will be eternally in purgatory. The mother on the other hand has been baptised and so if the choice needs to be made the mother's is theeone sacrificied. Apparently in Catholic hospitals in difficult childbirths doctors would also use this logic to prioritise saving the baby's life over the woman's.
I don't think I need to point out the antiwoman stance behind this.

Obviously when talking about the Catholic Church I am refering to the Nicaraguan situation again. Sorry for not making this clear.

I find it very insulting and needlessly inflammatory that anyone who even speaks for the rights of a fetus at any stage of gestation is being called "anti-choice" on this thread. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I've seen anyone banging on about "anti-lifers" etc. It's just rude for the sake of being rude, and unnecessary. It's already clear that you consider anyone pro-life to be unintelligent, uninformed, misogynistic and narrow-minded. Name-calling by way of semantics is gilding the lily, your position is already quite clear.

I wonder do you realize that the way some of you talk to others simply closes communication down? You lose your chance to change minds when people stop listening to you.

It's 0440. I've been up nearly an hour already with a sick toddler.

This thread was doing fairly well with people not calling each other names. Oh, names were called, but not consistently.

Until now.

Anti-choice is a horrid description if being applied to someone, like myself, who thinks termination at 37 weeks is okay. Personally, anyone who does think a termination of a healthy baby is okay past 24 weeks (as babies have survived outside the womb at that point, including a good friend of mines), I would call, to their face, a fucking loon. Any woman who even considers such a thing, due to anything other than their life is in danger, the baby is un-viable, or other such circumstances, i.e. SGB's assertion that people abort so they can go dancing or whatever hyperbolic and idiotic thing she said before, should be carefully examined by a board of certified psychiatrists.

Feel free to call my misogynistic or whatever you want. I am calling you a fucking loon.

Springchicken, Swallowed et al,

People have plenty of choices forced upon them for the good of others (and themselves) in a democratic society. Pregnancy is unique and is both a privilege and a responsibility.

Most women would not swap positions with men with respect to giving birth to new human life (yes, those parasites you speak of). But, with the privilege comes a responsibility to that new life inside you. Again, most believe that a foetus beyond a certain point in pregnancy is a sentient human being with a right to be carried to term. It is a somewhat hypothetical debate as only a tiny tiny minority of women would abort a baby which is kicking and wriggling inside her. However, laws are passed to moderate minority behaviour and I think anyone who argues that a woman has an absolute right to terminate a healthy foetus beyond 37 weeks on a whim is both illogical and heartless.

I meant, beyond 24 weeks.

But the big point is that placing any restrictions on a woman's right to decide what happens to her pregnancy is conceding to those who think that women are other people's property and can only be permitted certain freedoms rather than being entitled to make their own choices.

how amusing (and predictable) that SGB should be calling other people extremists! there you go again dear, ranting and foaming at the mouth and calling people 'foetus worshippers'. You are the extremist here. You are a kind of female talebani in reverse. You hate everyone who disagrees with you, you hate people who do not share your views. You hate religious people. You hate hate hate.

I pity you.

Springchicken,

No-one entirely owns their own bodies, woman or man. You can be committed to a psychiatric hospital if you are mentally ill and incapable of taking care of yourself, you can be conscripted to fight in the army if there is a major war to be fought and you can be imprisoned against your will should you contravene the rules of society.

So, your point is actually not a big one but an incredibly narrow minded one. Should you wish to live in society and take everything that a civilised democratic society has to offer you, you have to live within its laws, which are based upon a debate weighing everyone's rights against their obligations. Society has decided that a pregnant woman has an obligation to her foetus beyond a certain point (24 weeks).

Of course, you would say that this decision was made by the patriarchy and is a way of men imposing themselves on women. However, I do not think a poll amongst only women would go for unlimited abortion. Most women actually see a foetus as a young human being and not a parasite. So, sorry, you are in a minority and, until that changes, luckily, you will be unable to legally terminate viable young babies. I do not know how you can watch people spending 24/7 in neonatal wards desperately worried about their premature babies and skilled and compassionate people trying to save their lives and still make your totally theoretical feminist point. Babies are not a theoretical construct and, late in pregnancy, they are every bit as conscious and pain feeling as babies who are already born.