AIBU to be shocked by these American views on women's bodily autonomy?

[WhatTheHellJustHappened]

If you have time, please read this thread.

boards.askmen.com/showthread.php?130715-Then-End-of-a-relationship-before-and-after-an-Abortion&p=1311666#post1311666

The OP is a boy who regrets not supporting his girlfriend through her abortion.

The thread turns into an abortion debate around page two. There is one female poster making very valid agreements about a woman's right to make choices about her own body and is being flamed by the others.

One male poster actually says "So fucking what if it's her body?"
The worst part is that the women themselves are not speaking in support of a woman's right to choose:(

There are repeated references to how depressed men feel when their SO aborts, but nobody stops to think about how women feel when they are forced to give birth and endure 37-42 weeks of pregnancy. I completely sympathise with men who may feel helpless in such a scenario but I can't really support the idea of a man being able to prevent a woman from terminating a pregnancy.

I'm all for couples making decisions together, but surely the final decision about an abortion should lie with the woman?

Only a few and it's a rarity. And i have no qualms about it.

...

You are aware that photo is a vastly blown up image of a foetus that is actually only about one pound.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/04/13/arizona-abortion-law-2012-pregnancy-fetus-ultrasound-late-term-abortion-20-weeks-jan-brewer_n_1422853.html

According to the law a woman is pregnant from the last day of her menstrual period, its currently only used to define when abortion can be, but if the other Foetal Rights law was introduced as well then technically, legally every woman would be pregnant until proven otherwise so would have a responsibility to a foetus that may exist as she is pregnant as soon as she finishes her period, thats lots of imaginary babies being used to restrict women's rights.

read the text, look at the numbers. The picture is just a picture.

i thought that in late abortions ie after 20wks they tend to inject something into the baby to stop its heart, so it dies before birth.

its awful for a baby to be born alive and left to die, after a botched abortion, but this what it is a botched abortion as it shouldnt happen.

and no men shouldnt have rights to decide if a woman should have abortion.

this sadly doesnt suprise me as i heard recently about something in america of men being able to press charges againts their partners for having a miscarriage? or the women having to prove that it was just a miscarriage and that they didnt cause the pregnancy to end!

I have I have no qualms about it. Funny enough al those theocrats in the USA who are against abortion seem to have no problems allowing tens of thousands of human foetus to be created solely for genetic experiments.

But if the foetus is in a womans body suddenly they want to control that and then of course once the woman is forced to carry the child to full term they will provide no healthcare housing or finance to that woman or the child.

I think abortion should be avaible on request right up to the moment of birth, because women are people and foetuses are not. End of.

That doesn't mean I can't feel sympathy for a man who grieves if his partner decides to terminate her pregnancy when he would have liked to become a father. It is sad for him and he's not wicked for feeling sad about it. However, he still doesn't have the right to veto her choice. It's her body, not his. End of.

Neonatologist Professor Neil Marlow, president of the association, said: "Parents may be told that the baby will not be viable but may still want to hold it until it dies, and this is probably what we are seeing in these statistics." here these babies are often ones that wouldnt survive even with medical help they have serious problems that cant be treated and often the option is to carry them to term and then allow them to die naturally, or to have the labour induced where they may die before or at birth or else they may then die afterwards, but as this dr says they are generally being held by parents who know this may happen and want to hold them until they die.

also i hate the way it says people terminate for cleft palate and that can be fixed, yes most cases can be ( i know a little boy who has just had his palate operated on and its amazing) BUT in some cases the cleft palate is so severe that it affects the skull and the brain and can be incompatible with life.

people have abortions for many reasons and whilst it is very sad that some babies are born alive, this can be the case that parents know and have made that choice. or it is just accidental but the chances of these babies actually living and having no complications is small and if the mother doesnt want the child then who is going to look after them?

The article in question was a silly little boy wanting some ammo to go back to his ex and make her feel bad. Like the idiot putting up a billboard with him holding an imaginary baby. It says more of their mental state and needed counselling than any need for men to be given any right of consultation for an abortion. They are just looking for a pity party and spreading abuse for the ex partner because they know a large percentage of people in the USA with their superstitions will think bad of a woman having an abortion.

I read the DM link.

Some parents, aborting for abnormality, are choosing to have the baby born alive, and to hold it until it dies.

That seems reasonable enough to me, and surely does not count as a "botched" abortion.

Anything later than 24 weeks is being terminated for abnormality (because of our disablist laws).

I am 100% pro choice. Abortion on demand, for any reason, at any point. I don't believe that changing the law to accommodate that would result in a huge upswing in the numbers of late term abortions. It would, however, reduce the stress and upheaval a woman has to go through currently to get an abortion.

When you consider that waiting times can mean that what could be a very simple procedure becomes a surgical one, and that a foetus that could be aborted before 10 weeks is left to 12 or even later - that's a problem for everyone.

And as a Northern Irish woman, were I to become pregnant and need an abortion, I would need to have the guts of £1000 to access it, and travel to England. NI women are denied even the basic bodily autonomy given to the women of the rest of the UK.

Yes the NI situation is an absolute outrage within the UK.

yes i was wrong with my comment of 'botched' abortion tho i didnt realise that some chose to have the baby born alive and THEN read the article and have quoted that bit about parents choosing to have the baby born alive and then hold it, which is absolutely their right.

i am also 100% pro choice

agree novak

"Have you seen the "continuos pregnancy" law. I can't remember which state it is (probably a redneck one) but they have changed the law to fit with how you work out weeks of pg, so you are pregnant 2 weeks before conception. What that means is they can reduce the legal time for abortion by two weeks sneakily, what it also means is that obviously every woman is pregnant from two weeks into her period surely? (whether she is or isn't in reality) until the next period starts.

Combine that with feotal rights you get a situation where women could technically be prevented from smoking, drinking, dangerous sports anything really that could damage this imaginary baby."

"softly, but it is NOT an imaginary baby, is it?"

Chandon yes it IS an imaginary baby if the woman has not yet had the sex that makes her pregnant.

OK, I think the time frame is of significance. Notice that even medically if you lose a pregnancy prior to 20 weeks it's called a miscarriage, but after that it's called a stillbirth. There is definitely a difference between aborting at say 10 weeks and aborting at 24 weeks.
We aren't certain as to how much a foetus can feel prior to 12 weeks, but we do know without doubt that at around 20-24 weeks it has a developed sensory system that enables it to feel pain.

I'm also a little confused by how someone can possibly take 20-24 weeks to decide whether or not she wants to keep the baby. 12-14 weeks is a decent enough timeframe within which to make that choice. Nowadays you ave pregnancy tests that tell you when you're just five days along! I knew at 2weeks.

It's not to do with taking longer to decide
It's lots of things
Not finding out you are pg til further along
Results of ante-natal tests
Waiting time for procedure
Otehr stuff too

Still the vast majority of abortion in the UK is done before 12 weeks

I think abortion should be avaible on request right up to the moment of birth, because women are people and foetuses are not. End of.

Really sgb? I am completely pro choice and am horrified by the erosion of women's rights of autonomy over their bodies in the us, however there needs to be a reasonable cut off surely?

But how we decide when a feotus / embryo becomes a person? The potential for personhood at least exists from the moment of conception. All major organs are present at twelve weeks and if I recall correctly there is a heartbeat even earlier. On a subjective level women will refer to a wanted pregnancy as a baby pretty much from the moment they get their BFP. We humanise our pregnancies when we want them and dehumanise them when we don't. Arguing for abortion up until the moment of birth is particularly problematic. What humane definition of personhood would make my DS magically become 'a person' the second he exited me, having not been a person the second before? Abortion to the point of birth seems to define personhood largely in terms of non-dependence, which logically puts a question mark over the personhood of anyone who is inherently dependent.

The elephant in the room is that there is a very easy way to avoid becoming pregnant when one isn't ready to become pregnant, and that is (gasp!) to do without PIV sex until one can deal with the possible consequences of PIV sex. But thats pretty much unsayable in our culture.

sardinequeen

That's true. I agree that in rare cases women don't realise they're pregnant till even 4-5 months. There may also be health threats and fetal abnormalities detected in the second trimester which make abortion necessary.

I was just expressing a little surprise at women who know early on, but only get around to terminating by 22 weeks. Don't know how bad waiting times are for this sort of thing, so perhaps I'm judging harshly!

IMO, abortion should be legal on request until about 20 weeks, and it should be allowed at any point to save the mother's life.

most late term abortions are generally done for medical reasons ie the mothers health is at risk or the baby has an abnormality of some kind, these are generally not picked up till 20wks in most cases and then if an amnio etc was needed to confirm a problem t hat can all take time.

the huge majority of abortions are carried out before 12wks.

Yes the NI situation is an absolute outrage within the UK

Not, its how democracy works in a decentralised political entity like the UK. Northern Irish people of both genders are generally less comfortable with abortion than people elsewhere in the UK, so the law in Northern Ireland reflects that.