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 When I mentioned it to other friend she said it was my views but they were quite outdated and misogynistic.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?

This is one of the most coherent and sensitively argued debates on abortion that I have ever seen/taken part in.Despite the very wide range of opinion from 'abortion is murder' to 'termination to term' everyone seems mindful of the potential for causing distress.
I remain my woolly mined self in that I can cope with abortion up to 12 weeks,can accept it in extreme cases up to about 18/20 weeks and find it totally abhorrent after that.
For me [only me I guess] motherhood or mothering is a big part of being a woman.It's why we have a womb and breasts and even though many appear to reject that aspect of femininity for themselves it is an indisputable fact which is why I suppose I find the idea of any woman sanctioning the killing of a viable baby so difficult.I would,however, fight for anyone's right to her own opinion just as I have the right to mine.

Will it really ICBINEG. That's bloody amazing

check this out here

Slightly creepy and not the one I was looking for but still how awesome eh?

Really creepy!

I agree with thegreylady.

That said, please, über feminists, spare a thought for those of us who have endured stillbirths and prematurity. Some of the language is very unnecessarily confronting and harsh.

God I love being English.

I read abortion debates on American websites and it shocks the fuck out of me. Most of them are so bloody anti-woman that it's painful.

I think there will come a day when abortion will be outlawed in the USA
:(

Do you really think that feminist5? I haven't read much on US sites, as they normally enrage me too much!

America's debate has deep roots in religion, which obviously dicatates the discussion to an extent.

I really think that the US's debate in some states has its roots in misogyny.

There is more intelligence shown about termination in European countries with centuries of Catholicism than in some US states.

VisualiseAHorse I have many American friends and some family members are now living there (bless them) and I've discussed this with them often. I've also closely followed the American media on their coverage of these issues. Based on all this I do think that it isn't entirely impossible for Roe v/s Wade to be overturned. All it requires is one extreme-right Christian Republican like Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. :(

Paul Ryan actually proposed a law that would allow even rapists to stop women from having abortions.

I agree with the above posters that American has a much stronger culture of misogyny than Europe.

My sister who lives in Denver is a full time working mother and the kind of judgement that comes her way is shocking. Obviously there is nothing wrong with being a SAHM, but women should certainly have a choice in the matter! Many Americans don't seem to think so and firmly believe that working mothers are responnsible for everything wrong in society.

My niece's best friend (who is only 17) fell pregnant recently. She confessed to my niece that she really didn't want to have the baby and wanted to continue with her education and enjoy being young. She would cry herself to sleep and was severely depressed. She was quite desperate for an abortion. Unfortunately, her parents are firmly Christian pro-lifers and she didn't even have the courage to bring this up with them. When she did, she was reprimanded by not only her parents but also her boyfriend's parents. She had to have the baby and has presently dropped out of school :(

Also true linerunner

I used to hang out on an abortion rights discussion a few years ago (when I was PG, in fact.) The other posters were mainly American and nearly all of them were utterly vile and utterly mad. The depth of their misogyny was beyond scary - to the point it almost became funny in a really sick way. I used to quite enjoy my daily dose of stress-relief, seeing how much I could wind them up. Two or three a week would end up threatening to drive over and burn my Commie Faggot N*r Lover house to the ground, only to explode when I pointed out happily that they probably didn't earn enough for air tickets and wouldn't get visas...

SGB it wasn't prochoicetalk, was it?

Haha!

I have seen a similar opposition to epidurals and elective cesareans on American pregnancy boards, whereas the opinions here seem to be more balanced.

if u cant care for a child dont have sex

What if you like sex? Do I have to abstain from sex because I don't want anymore children? If I did that, I would be no more than an incubator for babies.

and having an abortion is easy You really think that? barebranches, I am not going to pile on about that, but if you like, pm me & I will tell exactly how it feels being raised by a mother who wished she was able to terminate you (family wouldn't let her). It won't change your mind, because when you are as dyed in the wool as you are, with your opinions, nothing will. But perhaps you will have a little more empathy with women who find themselves in a situation where they cannot continue with the pregnancy. Perhaps

(Oh & in case it wasn't obvious, that child is me - and no, I wasn't adopted out, she kept me)

I am talking about "easy" emotionally obviously in that they felt it was the right choice for then and have had no regrets over it I had one. I have/had no regrets. But it wasn't easy emotionally. Far from it. I tried to prevent it. Asked my surgeon at DD2's section to sterilise me, she wouldn't. Asked my GP at 3 weeks post birth & at the 6 week check to refer me, he wouldn't & pushed the mini pill at me. That & condoms = pregnant only a few months after dd2 was born. I had had sex once since her birth.

I didn't have sex with my dh for almost a year after that. We almost lost our 20yr marriage because of the whole situation (he was fully supportive re the termination). I had to do something that I never thought I would do. And it almost killed me, emotionally. The emotions of doing it were overwhelming! The emotions over being let down by people who could have helped me prevent it floored me & made me angry all at once. The emotions of having to go through it while dh went through his days like nothing was happen was almost a death blow to me!

So don't EVER tell me it was easy, emotionally. Because unless you have been there, you have no idea.

Abortion may not be easy, but it a lot of cases, it will be a lot [my line out, because it wasn't a lot easier, just easier] easier than bringing a child into the world that was never wanted This I agree with. 3 years down, I am pleased I made the choice I did.

Being 'pro-choice' means saying that its ok to have a termination at 39 weeks because you've changed your mind You really think a 39 week termination is because of a "change of mind"? REALLY?

I do hate the casual tossing away of a little life So abortion is casual now, is it?

But I really find comparing a foetus to a parasite and describing it as the property of a host unecessary and upsetting Find it upsetting all you like, that is exactly how it felt to me! Like something foreign growing inside me that I just had to get out of me.

but if I did get pregnant again, I can't imagine killing my own child, just to fit in with my lifestyle I wouldn't kill one of my children either, but I may consider terminating an unwanted pregnancy.

I don't see why a baby can't be adopted by someone desperate to have a baby My brother & his wife tried to adopt once. Because he had a vasectomy with his previous partner, they refused him. On grounds that he obviously didn't want anymore children (when actually, it was his ex who didn't want anymore - he just did what he thought was right as he wasn't expecting - at the time - for his relationship to fail). So yeah, lots of babies gets adopted really really easily, don't they!

I am also pro-life, and for me it is not the woman's choice to make, to end another person's life Who gets this choice then? In my case, when I know I just really could not do it all again for various reasons, who should have been able to decide my future?

"I don't see why a baby can't be adopted by someone desperate to have a baby "

Because women aren't convenient baby-incubators who are there to provide babies for other people.

Ideally, we would match unwanted babies to families wanting babies, obviously.

But since that can currently only happen after a term (or thereabouts) pregnancy, we can't ignore the effect of said pregnancy.

Many, perhaps most, women breeze through pregnancy. Many have easy births. But that is neither universal nor predictable.

This pgy, for example, I am already experiencing symptoms sufficiently bad as to restrict how I care for my existing DC. Plenty of jobs are unsuitable for pg women - off the top of my head, cabin crew are grounded throughout, anyone working with heavy machinery or hazardous chemicals has to sit it out, and actors/models struggle to get anything but very specific jobs.

Should employers and family members suffer just to increase the adoption stock? Because obviously there's a shortage of children waiting for adoption and an oversupply of potential adopters

I heard today of a woman who has died suddenly of an unforeseen pgy complication. Her DH has her and the 8m gestation baby to bury. Is that fair?

As for your disagreement with woman as chattel, I don't know how many people would agree or disagree with either of us. However, if you think there ought to be a period of pregnancy (a large percentage of it, in fact) when a woman is to be prevented by law from exercising dominion over her own body, then I'm afraid woman as chattel is what you're advocating. Disgusting. Her body effectively becomes a possession of someone else in that the state is exercising certain rights of ownership over it. That is, she is being forced by law to use her body in a way in which she does not wish. Better some disability than deprivation of rights of ownership of one's own body, or death. Your solution is no such thing.

First of all it is nature not the state or any state who made women the ones capable of carrying children so this idea that this is being foisted on women by the 'state' is ludacrious. If it were men who carried children I think most people who had the opinion that late term abortions were simply wrong would continue to have the same opinion so then at least they could call themselves feminists in some posters eyes. Also it is medically riskier to have a late term abortion so medical ethics come into play. Whereas having a baby need not necessarily be in any way a medical procedure having an abortion is one and as such medics may not be happy to carry out such a risky procedure. Many medical professionals even those who would support abortion would be be likely to see late term abortion as an issue. I am surprised but interested to see how many posters here support late term abortions because I would have thought very few people do. I think it completely weakens the pro choice argument in the same will way that so many grey areas weaken the pro life campaign. Thankfully I doubt we will ever see an abortion regime which fully endorses this view and interestingly enough wikipedia the fountain of accurate knowledge that it is defines abortion as an act carried out before a feotus is viable which seems to be the view shared by most even if other more radical views are presented here.

The statistics say there are approx. 191,000 abortions a year. If you stop abortion thats another 191,000 children looking for adoption every year.

Here are some government statistics on adoption:

The latest figures available - for the year to March 2011 - show that just over 3,000 children were adopted in England last year. That number has been falling in recent years, while the number in care has been rising.

Adoption is a devolved issue - where rules are not set by Westminster - and other parts of the UK have their own policies and ways of collecting data. Adoption data is not directly comparable, but the latest figures, collected by the charity Adoption UK, are:

Children in care: Wales - 5,165 on 31 March 2010; Northern Ireland - 2,606 at the end of March 2010; Scotland - 15,288 at the end of March 2009.

Adoptions of children in care: Wales - 230 in the year to March 2010; Northern Ireland - 64 in year to March 2008; Scotland - 455 in year to March 2009.

The government says last year there were roughly 6,800 children who had been identified for adoption but had not been adopted. ' (from this source).

Adoption is also not an easy choice to make - Here is an interesting blog post from the birth mother's perspective.

And another birth mother perspective

neu I think most people who support late term abortion consider it necessary to protect the rights of women in the round.

They support it in the knowledge that it is highly unusual.

They don't actively encourage it.

In the same way that most people accept that there are necessary exceptions to the murder laws, that in certain extreme circumstances it is okay to kill someone...but that doesn't mean they think it's a jolly good thing!!!

Word: Yes, that's exactly how I see it. The vanishingly small number (so small as to be quite possibly non-existent) of women who terminate late in pregnancy for 'social' reasons set against the number of documented, proven cases of women dying because they have been refused abortions (either from pregnancy complications, suicide or from illegal abortion) - no contest.
Unless, of course, you hate women and consider them important only as incubators, their whole lives worthless apart from their function as breeding stock...

Yes where are all these women who have late abortions because they've just up and changed their mind really late in the day and decide they'd rather go through a labour that produces a dead baby rather than a live one just so they can carry on partying?

I still haven't seen any evidence that such women exist.

In the face of that lack of evidence I still maintain that they are a figment of the patriarchy's imagination and that continually going on and on and on about those women, is tapping into the traditional view of women as weaker vessel and morally incompetent and in need of male guidance because they cannot be trusted to make their own decisions over their own bodies because they simply have not reached the level of morality needed to do that - hence needing men to make laws to protect them from their own lack of moral competence.

Once you've established that women aren't morally competent to make decisions about their own bodies, the rest is academic - you can argue about gestation periods, viability, what time limit to apply - but basically, you're accepting the essential premise of the time limits - that women can't be trusted to decide, because we don't have the moral capacity to make a reasonable decision.

The "frivolous late abortion" trope is always brought out by the "forced birthers" because it is so troubling for everyone, regardless of point of view. Or it would be, if it happened.

It usually acts as a very good derailing technique- and takes everyone's minds off the real issue, which is that good, swift, impartial, non judgemental confidential gynaecological advice and treatment should be available to all women regardless of age, ability to pay or geographical location.