To think that just because I'm pro-life doesn't mean I hate feminism?

[TinkerSailerSoldierSpy]

Friend and I were having a discussion, I'm 18 weeks pregnant, and it was a bit of an inconvenient surprise, considering I've started a new job just 2 months ago.I mentioned that it wasn't going to look good, me taking maternity leave after not even being there for a year, and she suggested perhaps considering there was no dad on the scene and my new job, I should terminate. I felt a bit uncomfortable but told her that I could never do that as I'm pro life and view it as killing a child. She then proceeded to stare at me like I had an extra head and ask me why in a shocked voice. I explained my reasons and views and we got into an arguement about it, the usual stuff, what about in cases of rape and if the woman's not financially able to support the child, to which I countered but is it right for a woman to get an abortion just because she wants to continue a party lifestyle? And she stormed out the house shouting that I was misogynistic and women have the right to their own bodies. Let me be clear, I certainly would never stop anyone from making their decision about an abortion, I just can't seem to get over the idea of it, it repulses me. But I wouldn't judge a woman who got one. I understand the other viewpoint but I can't agree with it myself, and in all other respects I would say i was very liberal about womans rights. When I mentioned it to other friend she said it was my views but they were quite outdated and misogynistic. Are they? I need advice, should I apologize to friend A?

Look, supporting a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy up until the moment of birth is about supporting women's right to terminate a pregnancy as early as possible, safely. Because this endless, endless bullshit about wicked selfish bitches killing their full-term foetuses is deliberate propaganda put about by people who want women to be legally designated as incubators rather than people. It's no accident that the noisiest pro-lifers are opposed to contraception and also peddle rape myths. Women are dying because they are being refused access to abortion. THere is NO EVIDENCE AT ALL of viable late term foetuses dying because the women pregnant with them are frivolous and selfish, or too disorganized or 'lazy' to get an early termination. Constantly whining about HYPOTHETICAL late term foetuses is basically peddling and reinforcing the propaganda of people who want to control women. I would much rather a tiny number of women did terminate at 39 weeks for 'trivial' reasons than a much, much larger number of women suffer and die due to abortion being restricted because ooh, waah, some people think it's a bit icky.

SGB But early abortion (in the UK) is NOT restricted. Not really, not in any practical way. it's a different story in Ireland and in some US states.

In practice women in the UK can get an abortion up to 24 weeks, if they want one, fairly quickly and easily.

Forcing people to choose between "every sperm is sacred" and "it's ok to kill 7lb, full term babies" is not going to improve the lot of women who need to abort unwanted pregnancies. If anythnig, it's going to force people to take up extreme positions and give the "pro lifers" a louder voice. Because, to be honest, the idea of killing babies at 39 weeks gestation IS revolting, repugnant and wrong. Terminating pregnancies at 6 weeks, heartbeat or no heartbeat, is not.

I support women's rights to abortion and contraception. I do not want to be associated with people who think this means it's ok to terminate babies who are 'older' than my daughter when she was born (at 37 weeks). Neither do I want to be associated with people who seek to deny women access to abortion at an earlier stage when it's safer, less traumatic, and less painful (in every sense). I really hate this attempt to force people to take up one of two wrong and extremist positions, when the vast majority of people hold a more nuanced and intelligent position somewhere in between.

In practice women in the UK can get an abortion up to 24 weeks, if they want one, fairly quickly and easily.

I don't agree with this. Not in all areas of the country.

Not unless the girl or woman has access to money to pay for private treatment.

"Constantly whining about HYPOTHETICAL late term foetuses is basically peddling and reinforcing the propaganda of people who want to control women."

Yes, so why the continued emphasis on it in this thread? If there's no such thing as voluntary late-term abortion for 'frivolous' reasons (which I agree with) then why insist that it must be allowed? It just weakens the argument and loses potential supporters who are revolted by the suggestion that if you don't support that, you are opposing women's rights. If you keep insisting on that you are going to create a lot more "pro lifers" and unnecessarily jeopardise our reproductive rights as they stand.

We're not the USA, we don't need everything to be totally polarised with no middle ground and no understanding of grey areas.

LineRunner do you have any references for that? Everything I've read on late abortions (post 13 weeks) suggests that the reasons for delay are not to do with restricted access but more to do with uncertainty and pressure from family.

It certainly should be the case that a woman finding out she's pregnant (usually between 4-6 weeks of pregnancy though sometimes later) should be able to get an abortion on the NHS within a reasonable time frame.

in cases where this doesn't happen, we should be pushing to make sure that these delays are removed and that access to abortion is quicker and easier, NOT pushing to have the limit made later.

eccentrica, I do appreciate what you're saying.

Just thinking, why do you reckon so many early terminations, and the not-quite-so-early ones, are NOT carried out on the NHS?

Why do the private clinics exist and do so many terminations?

In my case I went to a private clinic because I could have the termination carried out immediately at 5 weeks, or I would have to wait till God Knows When - 8 weeks, 10 weeks? - for that 2nd signature.

The difference? Three hundred quid. And my sanity.

I do not agree with this forced birth, oh you can have the abortion but we'll keep the baby crap. If I ever had an abortion it would be for three reasons:

1. I do not want to go through pregnancy
2. I do not want to go through childbirth
3. I do not want to be a parent or have a child

What you're offering is not abortion. It is early delivery. I would not want that.

And I fully agree that these hypothetical 38 week pregnant party girls are detracting from the issue. The fact is that late abortions are rare. 91% of abortions are carried out before 13 weeks. 78% of those were before 10 weeks. Only 0.1% of abortions were carried out past 24 weeks, and of those I suspect the number close to term is astonishingly small.

Chunderella, at the moment the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guideline for abortion in the third trimester includes injecting the foetus before removal (or injecting saline solution into the amniotic fluid) so that the foetus will not be born alive and the doctor will not be charged with any crime related to failure to do his or her utmost for the delivered baby if it dies soon after delivery. The prospect of essentially inducing a very premature birth with the aim of ensuring survival after delivery is not what abortion entails after a foetus becomes viable. The Orr idea will not fly under current conditions.

Eccentrica, Nowhere have I (for one) alleged that late term abortions are performed for frivolous reasons. Late term abortion is permitted under the present law for reasons that are completely logical and all to do with tacit acknowledgement of the right of the mother to complete bodily autonomy. I have tried to show that abortion up to the time of natural birth is legal and available and that no other legal provision can possibly be countenanced if abortion based in the untrammeled autonomy of the mother is what you support. I have also tried to show that limited autonomy is an oxymoron.

I am not interested in whether you are pro choice or pro life. I am interested in the various completely contradictory opinions about women's rights that you seem to be trying to hold all at the same time. My comment reflected that interest. (Nor am I concerned with who is or who isn't a proper feminist.)

Legislation wrt the treatment of animals does not include language on animal rights because it is not commonly accepted that animals have rights. There is an active lobby seeking to enshrine the concept of animal rights in law but at the moment animals do not have rights. Instead, people have duties or responsibilities towards their property or towards animals in the wild. The reason legislation is directed at people is that people are the only ones who actually care about legislation and are in a position to carry out their responsibilities and duties towards their property or towards other animals. And we are the ones who can be held legally responsible for the actions of our property (in the case of dog bites, etc). Again, limitations on what adults with legal personhood may do to each other and ways society has decided to safeguard everyone's rights that end up limiting what we may do (drinking and driving, etc) are irrelevant to the discussion of what one may do to a foetus that does not have legal personhood any more than my cat does.

When it comes to automony over a woman's body either it is absolute or it does not exist. If legislation were to be introduced tomorrow giving a foetus the same right to life that the mother enjoys (i.e. the Eighth Amendment to Bunreacht na h-Eireann) you might understand the concept of women's claim to autonomy over their bodies a bit better. In the context of the question of abortion, autonomy is either absolute and limitless or it does not exist at all and the right to abortion can be rolled back or extended at legislators' whim. This is because pregnancy involves one entity (the foetus) living inside the body of an individual with legal personhood and all that legal personhood entails where the rights of the woman to make decisions about her own body are concerned.

The alternative to complete autonomy and all that that entails in terms of abortion is limited right to abortion based either on time frame/viability or circumstances surrounding conception, or health, physical or mental of mother or baby, or personhood of the foetus after a certain point. None of these limitations allows a woman to be completely autonomous over her own body. All of them involve a woman seeking the permission of another party to the procedure and/or the absence of the concept of real autonomy or complete control over her own body. None of the limitations is really consistent or logical in the face of the claim to bodily autonomy. The reality is that the right to abortion means the right to abortion up to natural birth and if you flinch from that then you should think about the reason to flinch. Try to avoid sentimentality (which includes characterisation of a late term abortion as disgusting or horrible, etc.)

"Abortion after 24 weeks is only allowed if:

• if it is necessary to save the woman's life
• to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman
• if there is substantial risk that if the child were born, s/he would have physical or mental abnormalities and be seriously handicapped"

The de facto situation is that once you get the agreement of two doctors that grave permanent injury to the mother will be result of continuing the pregnancy you can abort any time up to natural birth. The potential for 'grave permanent injury' is very much in the eye of the beholder and it is the reason for the vast majority of abortions performed at any stage of pregnancy.

I support the right of termination up to the moment of birth because to do otherwise is to gamble women's autonomy. Because there are so many fuckwits and woman-haters who are forever trying to push the time limit further and further back, and appealing to the gullible and the sentimental with all this whining and wailing about 'selfishness' and 'killing fully-formed babies' despite the fact that it hardly ever happens - because their goal is to remove women's autonomy.
But the most important point is: what happens in the uterus of another woman is none of your fucking business.

LineRunner
"Just thinking, why do you reckon so many early terminations, and the not-quite-so-early ones, are NOT carried out on the NHS? Why do the private clinics exist and do so many terminations?"

You know it's an interesting question, I also went private when I had a termination at age 16. That was basically because my parents paid for it, and I was in a bit of a daze. At age 29, pregnant a second time, I decided in the end to go ahead with the pregnancy (and am very happy I did!) but before deciding that I went quite a few steps along the NHS termination route (more than one appointment at Marie Stopes, etc.)

I have to say I found pretty much no difference between the two in terms of time frame, the way I was treated, quality of care, etc. Interestingly in the years following my termination (paid privately) age 16, I talked to a number of friends who had had abortions on the NHS and found absolutely no differences in our experiences. Some of us had had obstructive GPs but that's a hurdle that faces everyone equally regardless of whether you pay for the termination in the end.

I was treated fairly badly when I had my termination, there was very little care and I woke up to a packet of paracetamol, some paper knickers and a form saying "fetal parts seen" with a tick :-/ And that was private.

On the other hand, when I was agonising about whether or not to go ahead with my pregnancy age 29, I had a fantastic woman at the Marie Stopes clinic who sat and talked to me for hours (this was on the day of the scheduled termination) and was so sympathetic, patient and understanding.

So I wonder if it's more a perception that you'll be treated better privately, rather than a reality?

SolidGoldBrass
"But the most important point is: what happens in the uterus of another woman is none of your fucking business."

Not sure why you have to swear in a discussion like this, it doesn't get your point across any better. I don't mind swearing at all in general, but it feels oddly out of place here. Anyway...

You're begging the question. We are allowed to feel uncomfortable and to question whether or not we as a society are morally OK with things, even if they are things that have no direct bearing on ourselves.

You could equally say it's "none of your fucking business" if a 40-year-old man is having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Indeed, why is that your business? It's not your penis or your vagina, why don't you butt out?

And it's none of your business if a man or woman who's HIV+ chooses to go around having unprotected sex with people without telling them, it's not happening in your body is it? And yet we seem to be ok with making that illegal and punishable.

We intervene when anorexics are starving themselves to death, or when people are self-harming, and those are actions which have no effect on anyone else, yet we choose to take it upon ourselves to stop them.

No nutters have succeeded in pushing back the time limit for abortion. It was 28 weeks in 1967, and since 1990 it's been 24 weeks. For the past 23 years there has been no change in the law and there is no prospect of any change. However, if people keep shouting about how it's obviously fine to kill foetuses even at full term because they are within a woman's body then that is only going to give strength to the "pro life" movement, by making its opponents appear bloodthirsty, cruel and immoral.

No, eccentrica, it was reality. The (very good) GP I saw told me the actual timelines for the private clinic and for the NHS. The timelines were very different.

I couldn't have cared less about paper knickers.

If you have decided to terminate, there is a massive difference between 5 weeks and up to 10 weeks.

LineRunner I'm really sorry to hear that. I think that's awful, and of course I understand the difference between 5 and 10 weeks. My abortion was at around 9-10 weeks but that was (mostly) due to me not making my mind up.

My point about the paper knickers was just to say that it was a pretty grim experience and it's not like you get "better" treatment going private.

To be honest, at 5 weeks I think you should just get the pills for the asking and shouldn't need any signatures. It's barely any different from the morning after pill and you can buy that in Boots.

I think all of the efforts should be focused on making sure that all women can have a quick abortion as early as possible if that's what they want.

I think all of the efforts should be focused on making sure that all women can have a quick abortion as early as possible if that's what they want.

Absolutely.

I didn't like having to jump through hoops, having to prove on the one hand that I wasn't lying about my circumstances, but on the other hand having to pretend I was Going A Bit Mad in order to get both doctors' signatures.

What other legal medical procedure simultaneously demands scrupulous proof of honesty and dishonest collusion? Just the one involving women.

Possibly not that important but could we switch from forced-birth to forced-pregnancy?

After all if you have a 12-40 week foetus in you, you are going to have to birth it one way or the other...isn't it the keeping a woman pregnant when she doesn't want to be that is the problem?

Also I think forced pregnancy sounds much much more invasive than forced birth...but then I had a fecking awful pregnancy...

Just wanted to add a bit more about timelines for abortion- private vs NHS.

I discovered I was pregnant at 4+3 weeks. I knew I couldn't keep the baby and made my decision very quickly. It took me four days to get an appointment with the GP. I live in a big town with a big hospital but they only did abortions three days a week. He said they would send me an appointment for an initial consultation within seven days, but there might be a wait for the actual abortion for up to four weeks. If I wanted counselling there was a waiting list for that too of up to a week. So I could have been 9 weeks pregnant at least by the time I went for the abortion.

If I had assumed I had missed one or two periods through the stress I was going through, I would have been as far along as 14/15 weeks when it came to the actual abortion. I might have had to go to another GP as there are several in my practice who don't refer for abortion after 12 weeks, so I would have to wait for yet another appointment. Abortions over 9 weeks can no longer be done with the pills, they require more staff/pain relief/anaesthetist etc so they are only done once a week at the local hospital. In addition I had two small children and only had childcare for certain days, I would have had to cross my fingers that the appointments worked with my child care.

Instead I paid Marie Stopes, travelled 60 miles and had the abortion at 5+4.

FWIW my aftercare treatment in the private system was excellent.

I had to wait 1 week for a Drs appointment and 6 weeks for an abortion whilst two NHS trusts argued over who was responsible for doing it.

"No nutters have succeeded in pushing back the time limit for abortion. It was 28 weeks in 1967, and since 1990 it's been 24 weeks. For the past 23 years there has been no change in the law and there is no prospect of any change. "

What? So the time limit has indeed already been pushed back once, as you clearly state yourself.

And there was a lot of political talk only recently about pushing it back even further.

I wouldn't call that no prospect.

But megs, in reality that doesn't happen.

We currently have until 24 weeks to have abortions. 91% of women have one performed before 13 weeks, and 78% of those are before 10 weeks. People do not choose to wait until the end of the time limit, they frequently have them done as early as possible.

If you are judging a whole cause simply by the most extreme views Megs then:

The pro-life extremists who make the lives of abortion clinic staff a misery, send them abuse, bombs and death threats and occasionally kill them:

see here

makes me pro-choice.

Bit overly simplistic though and doesn't take into account any of the reading, thinking, discussing and experiencing that I actually used to make my decision.

There is no such thing as a pro-life feminist.

Usually I am very non-judgemental and I think most people can be feminists but this is unacceptable.

Pro choice= pro women.

If you can't respect a woman's autonomy over her body, you can't call yourself a feminist.

My body, my choice.

Do people honestly think that a heartbeat equals a person?

A fetus doesn't have a properly developed brain, spinal cord, nerves and other organs well into the second trimester.

Even if hypothetically it did it is still in the woman's body. It is essentially a parasite and she has the right to free her body of that if she so desires.

There is no right to life- it is a privilege given to us by our mother's after a great deal of sacrifice and we should all be bloody grateful.

a collection of heart cells cultured on plastic will start to beat....just sayin.

So what would you suggest megsmouse for the woman/parents who find out after 24 weeks that their child has a horrible life limiting illness that will result in a short and brutal life?

Or something happens to one of the parents that suddenly changes everything?

And are you suggesting that abortion should be abolished period? If you are, I do hope you're willing to put your money where your mouth is when unwanted children are in need of things that will come from the state purse?

People are entitled to their personal opinions on abortion - they are not entitled to take those opinions and try to force what they would personally choose onto other women.