To think abortion law is a tough nut to crack?

[chandellina]

so the Telegraph has revealed doctors allowing abortion on sex-selection grounds. I see a couple threads on In the News expressing disgust over this, a view shared by many, I'm sure.

But as far as I understand you can have an abortion on demand for just about any reason - not feeling able to cope, not feeling financially secure, too young, too old.

So even if you were terminating for gender, couldn't you just give another reason? And if you believe in a woman's absolute right to choose - why require a stated reason at all?

My point is that the law seems very flimsy, and why be moral about sex selection and not other things - like terminating because a pregnancy interferes with a desired age gap between children, or it otherwise not being "the right time." I know there are cultural issues involved too with gender selection, but those probably are also in play for women coerced by family not to have a child out of wedlock, etc.

thoughts?

Iuse by 'consider' you mean change their minds. You have no respect for the autonomy of women to make their choices and yet you insist we must consider the autonomy of beings awhich are t the point most abortions take place, incapable of independant life?

follow that argument and treating nits and thread worms would be immoral too

Yeah you are quick to back off.

Because you come up with badly, half thought out plans and when questioned you havent got any proper answers.

Bit of counselling, bit of adoption and all will be well.
Except it wont.

When I had dc1, I didnt realise I was pregnant until I was 20 weeks so I missed whatever comes before that. I was young and had irregular periods. Thought I was just getting fat.

When I found out I was pregnant with dc2 I realised at about 8 weeks. I was freaked because I was only just starting to feel vaguely normal again after dc1, and as it was a couple of weeks before Christmas I decided to wait until the new year to go to the docs. I briefly considered abortion.

Both my children were unplanned but are much loved. So no, I didn't have any other tests, just because of circumstance. It wasn't a conscious descison.

Not to mention babies being killed as soon as they are born
And children dying young due to lack of resources and / or will to look after them and feed them and so on
And girls and women being killed by men around them who don't think they should be pregnant
And girls and women dying due to back-street abortions
And girls and women being permanently physically damaged or dying giving birth
And all of the other fabulous things that happen when abortion is illegal

Er, I know what I mean thanks Northern.

In terms of hereditary diseases - this is already possible through IVF, isn't it - of multiple embryos created, doctors will implant the ones not carrying the gene (usually, ironically, the female ones as things like haemophilia occur only in men - although of course the girl could still be a carrier for the gene).

Active selection in advance of conception is much more preferable than terminating a child to avoid a hereditary disease imo. No other justifiable reason for terminating on grounds of gender apart from that.

I believe societies which have tolerated/turned a blind eye to abortion/
abandonment/murder of baby girls are storing up huge problems for the future, like China - if the gender split becomes unbalanced, 3 immediate issues I could foresee (if not already happening) would be plummeting birth rate, and potentially increased sexual violence against women and increased suicide rate among men.

I am firmly pro abortion but I feel we're going down a very dangerous totalitarian route if we start to turn a blind eye to selection by gender. It won't end well.

many of these women who are having a termination because they are carrying a girl (and we cannot pretend it does not happen) the choice is not theirs it is something they have been pushed into or fear that if they do not have a boy they will be divorced. this is what we need to deal with more than changing the abortion laws which i think need to stay as they are

who can say if a women asking for a termination will not suffer mentally if she is not allowed one, that is for a doctor to decide and i am sure a women who fears being left by her husband, left alone in a strange country would emotionally struggle

You briefly considered abortion, eh, Iuse? And what if you had stuck with that idea but your baby's father had insisted that you keep it? What if the law said that he had that right? I don't know if you are/were in a serious relationship or married to that man but lets just say you are/were. What would that have done to your relationship, to your future, to how you felt about yourself and our society? Would you not have felt powerless, subjugated, frightened, angry, trapped? Because that's what you're advocating for all women in this country who for whatever reason wish to have an abortion, no control over their own lives, futures, outcomes or bodies because someone else says you must do as they want you to.

from a 'pro life' view though - that scenario with IVF and selection IS abortion - no difference

that is why pro-life groups are anti IVF (and maybe why they see adoptions are the key to everything)

I take your point though - it has to be preferable for everyone to a termination post 20 weeks

When I gave birth to my eldest daughter nearly five years ago the drugs they used were the same ones they use for late terminations. In my medical notes her birth is referred to as a termination. (which I hate but I can't do a lot about)

She was already dead. Had been for two weeks and I was 22 weeks.

I do believe the law as far as 'disability' should be tightened up. For eg termination can take place for relatively minor issues under the umbrella of 'disability' after 24 weeks.

The door should always be open for terminations for conditions completely incompatible with life - like bilateral renal agenesis in my baby's case. I feel lucky that I never had to make the decision to terminate, nature had already done that for me, but to get past 24 weeks and know she was going to die as soon as she was born? I wouldn't have wanted to be forced to continue with that pregnancy on those terms and would rather the inevitable happened sooner rather than later.

Glitterknickaz, I'm so very sorry for your loss.

Yours is the kind of situation I referred to upthread, where a medical removal of a late term baby is registered as a termination. That's wickedly unkind and unfeeling to a mother in your situation imho and also something which distorts the late abortion figures and gives false power to the pro life argument. I wonder how many more of them were not terminations by choice but through the same circumstances as your own.

I don't know Graham. I was in a serious relationship and my ex knew me well enough to know that I was just panicking. He wouldn't have supported me having an abortion, and I'm glad of that. I think he would have had every right not to support a descison that would end the life of his descison.

For the record, I'm not against IVF.

Oops, you know what I mean

It's not medical removal though, it's labour and it's grim.
I can't see anyone doing this post 15 weeks (when you have to labour, there's no other way) unless for compelling reasons. Maybe some do.

Glitz x

IVF is the creation and destruction of life though Iuse - surely that's wrong?

So you don't know how you would have reacted to someone being allowed by law to stop you from having an abortion, Iuse, but you do know that the rest of us should be prevented from doing so despite us knowing how we would feel about it? And you presume to know how a woman would feel about an unwanted pregnancy enough to advocate that she should be forced to give birth and have the baby adopted with the help of a bit of "counselling"?

Double standards, much?

Your ex did indeed have every right not to support you, but neither he nor anyone else should have the right to stop you.

Well, that's where we disagree.

What if my ex had struggled with MH issues and would have coped worse with me getting rid of his baby than I would have coped with a pregnancy? I dont think my MH is more important than his, and i dont think my MH is more important than someone else's whole life.

Glitter, I have to say it again, I'm so very sorry. :( xx

If your ex had struggled to that extent with MH issues he would have been perhaps in no position to care for a baby, in which case the responsibility falls to you alone. You may have been willing and able to face that and deal with it for the next 18 plus years but not every woman can. You made the right decision for you and I'm glad for that but it isn't going to be the right decision for every woman and no-one has the right to force a woman to live a life of misery.

kitchenroll, you are not alone - the pro-choicers are just very vocal on MN and most pro-lifers just don't bother even engaging with them anymore because they are fed up with being accused of 'woman hating' and accusing women of being 'immoral sluts'.

FWIW I think you have made some very good points on this thread but you really won't get your opinion through to some people.

Glitter, sorry for your loss. :(

the only person using the word sluts in this thread is you bumbley.

people in favour of choice are vocal because it is so important that women be able to make their own decisions about what happens to their bodies.

i havent called anyone a slut nor accused anyone of hating women.

Pro lifers tend to do that passive agressive thing though dont they?

Easier I guess to imagine that most of the women posting on this thread are pro-choice activists than that actually most women on this website simply are pro choice.