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?

Well I think you're great - I had assumed for ages that you were either an expat american or someone with a UK background, so was surprised (I don't know why) to deiscover from a thread you were on that you had never been to the UK. Always like to see your posts on mn

I think it's great to have you here, apart from the fact you fit in brilliantly it is good to have some defence to the somewhat shocking anti-americanism on here sometimes (sure you have seen the bullshit re baby showers/halloween on here in the past.

My brother lives in California, he loves the life and has nothing but good to say about america and will never come back to the UK. His girlfriend is hugely successful (and has 2 kids). America is not all bad, far from it, imo. It has shit like anywhere but imo the work ethic is a good thing.

I take that part back then, I was misinformed.

Still, somewhere that prosecutes women for miscarriages.....still doesn't sound like a great place to me.

I would be shocked if any of those women are convicted, and believe me, Cheerful-shaped shitstorm will be on the way if so.

Cheerful is indeed lovely -and cheerful!

These stories are horrific. story about Utah [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/16/utah-miscarriage-bill-abortion?INTCMP=SRCH]] really unnerved me last year when I was pregnant so that I did not want to travel to Utah (I live in Oregon) in case something went badly wrong. Fortunately it didn't and ds2 is 20 weeks old today and I am proud he is American too.

It is very irritating to read people once again condemning the people of an entire nation based on the actions of a few but I think most posters have been debating the article. What scares me most about the most vocal pro-lifers here in the States is that they seem devoid of compassion for anyone experiencing an unwanted pregnancy. It's all about the unborn and not the already living woman, though I would love to be proven wrong. Abortion is not something I would chose for myself unless the pregnancy would result in my death as I feel my 3 living children deserve to have their mother. I have no say in anyone else's womb.

Does anyone know what happens to women in countries where abortion is illegal under any circumstance? Is the rate of backstreet abortions really high?

Sorry, that link did not work very well.

catita it's only called an embryo until 8 weeks after fertilisation. The 'bundle of cells' stage is over before most people even realise they're pregnant so saying that you are aborting a 'bundle of cells' is not accurate and I think most people use it as a cooing mechanism because they can't face the reality of what they're doing.

I think it's a ridiculous idea that someone who is pro-life is considered anti-women. They just consider the foetus' life as well as the mother's. Once she is pregnant it stops being just about one person - there is another life to consider.

The Anti-US sentiment on MN makes my blood boil, GetOrf and I have reported posts for it.

No place is all good or all bad. But, of course, the bad and shocking stuff is what the newspapers print. Good news is boring.

Abortion being legal was a US Supreme Court decision. States can limit it, and have, but cannot make it illegal. Roe vs Wade has also been upheld, although modified, in a further case Planned Parenthood vs Casey.

BTW I live in Belfast. Where abortion is illegal. At in the US you can drive to a state that doesn't have limitations restricting abortion. What are my options?

Just re-reading my posts and realized that my statement "I am not a fan of abortions at any time for any reasons" could be read in a way I didn't intend. What I meant was, many people who are avidly pro-choice say that they want abortions available to any woman, at any time, for any reason. I do not support this particular philosophy. I didn't mean that I never support the choice of abortion.

So...just clearing that up.

I live in NI too and abortion being illegal doesn't bother me at all.

Hi, Tee. :)

Hi Yank!

To be honest, abortion being illegal or not legal in NI isn't even something I think about. At 42 I am not planning any more children but if it happens it happens. Of course first I have to find the energy to have sex... TMI?

The reason I said that about Belfast and abortions is the attitude of how enlightened the UK must be as abortion is legal. Except where it isn't.

Well abortion being illegal in NI SHOULD bother you & imo would bother any woman who believed that her contemporaries had a choice to say why happened to their bodies.

It doesn't matter age you are, how many children you have, whether you have completed your family or not, a woman denied the access to safe clean terminations is a given. And something we should all fight for.

Yes, even if you don't believe in it. Because to take away a woman's choice is making her a second class citizen.

Well, that post wasn't very coherent!

Well abortion being illegal in NI SHOULD bother you & imo would bother any woman who believed that her contemporaries should have a choice to say what happens to their bodies.

It doesn't matter age you are, how many children you have, whether you have completed your family or not, a woman denied the access to safe clean terminations should be something you think about & something you should worry about. What if your daughters needed it? Your sister, your friend?

And it should be something we should all fight for.

Yes, even if you don't believe in it. Because to take away a woman's choice over her body is making her a second class citizen.

I don't need to be told what I should think thank you very much. I most certainly will not be fighting for it to be made legal here. I don't think it should be anyone's 'choice' to end a life. Life trumps choice IMO. If you would feel like a second class citizen living in NI because of the abortion law then don't live in NI. Simple.

At some point, differentnameforthis, the fight is useless. It is useless in NI and I have more important things to spend my time and energy on.

I don't have a daughter. My sisters all live in the US, where abortion is legal across the country, and if a friend needed an abortion I would do what I could to fly her to England to get one.

You aren't doing yourself or your allies any favours by coming across about abortion the way the right wing comes across against abortion.

I believe in a woman's right to choose. I hope many of them do not choose abortion willy nilly.

I absolutely love America and would live there in a heartbeat.

But then I wouldn't take cocaine whilst pregnant either

Does that mean that you agree with the approach of prosecuting this girl alouise?

BTW there have been threads about NI on here, and the situation re abortion. TBH I don't think there's anything I can do about NI so there's fuck all I can do about what's going on in the US IYSWIM. Let alone things happening in the rest of the world.

Neither would I louise still didn't stop me having nightmares after losing my babies feeling it my fault.

I worry people may have misunderstood my earlier post. Although I lay awake for hours trying to work out what I may have done wrong and had nightmares about being arrested for murder I did not take cocaine.

I have never used cocaine, never used any illegal drugs, never used any legal highs, have never smoked, don't drink alcohol and drink no coffee and very little tea so not much caffeine either.

I'm not sure why you would have to worry xstitch. It seems that the danger is when there is intent to cause harm to the baby eg. in the case with the woman taking rat poison.

Bubbleymummy: yes, I am aware of the fact that the cells evolve into an embyro, which is why I said that on my post. I also think that to describe an embryo as a life and frame the argument about abortion such terms is not a coherent argument, unless you are against abortion in all circumstances whatever the manner in which the pregnancy was started or the health of the mother or embryo.
Why? Because once you admit that abortion should be allowed in some circumstances, you are also admitting that a woman has the right to decide whether or not a pregnancy (even if is detrimental to health or was raped for example). Why should she have the right sometimes and not others? And why should other people decide when she has this right or when she doesn't. Either a women has personal physical autonomy or she doesn't.

Sorry I pressed post too soon.
What I wanted to say was that if you are ready to grant that a women is capable of making a moral choice in some circumstances, why not permit her to make such a moral decision in all circumstances?
Unless you think that women can't be trusted to make moral decisions and should be forced to have someone decide for her. And that to my mind is one of the reasons the antichoice lobby is against women. It refuses to accept that a woman is morally capable of making the right moral choice in accordance with her actual circumstances and not some hypothetical case study.
For this reason I am prochoice. Noone should have an abortion if they don't want one, I respect each individual woman's right to make her own choice.
The antichoice lobby on the other side does not respect this.

bubblymummy I take issue with the idea that the woman who took rat poison did so with the 'intent to cause harm to the baby'. My understanding of that case is that she was trying to kill herself, therefore was surely mentally impaired and very distressed at the time? Hardly a premeditated act.

As for the general slide towards prosecuting women for miscarrying, I think it is a terrible thing which must be fought at all costs if anything like that ever happened here.

The reason it seems so shocking coming from the US is because it is supposed to be an enlightened and forward thinking country. Unfortunately, those calling Obama left wing are wrong, because the States doesn't really do left wing as we understand it! Both parties try really hard to pander to the Christian right, so even the so-called left-wing don't tackle these emotive subjects.

It's not entirely a Christian issue. There are agnostics/atheists who are against abortion in most cases. Since they believe that life is all there is, they do not seek to deny it to anything that has the possibility of being human. Orthodox Jews believe in it only to save the life of the mother, which, incidentally, 90% of American Christians also believe. (And yes, honestly I am shocked that that number isn't higher.)

I find it extremely upsetting to be told that because I have some pro-life views, I must hate women. I certainly do not. I know of many women who have thought abortion was their only choice because they would not be supported by their male partners, many of whom pushed for terminations to get out of paying child support or being forced to admit that they were cheating on their wives. To me, this is a feminist issue. I'm also horrified by the fetuses who are terminated in India because of their gender, which to me is also a feminist issue.

I don't think it's fair to tell women who are pro-life that "you can't believe in abortion in some cases but not others", when surely most people do? As in the Indian abortion of girls, I don't think even the most ardently pro-choice person thinks that's a good thing, but as such, they are saying that abortion is okay in some cases but not others.