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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be hurt by 'best friends' Facebook post?

324 replies

MrsDrRanj · 19/02/2014 19:51

I know I know, it's just Facebook, please don't stone me!

I have been close with my best friends for over 10 years, we have both supported eachother through some very tough times. Including an abortion I had when I was 15. I didn't get much professional support and struggled with the decision for a long time, in fact it's something I still struggle with today and still think about.

Being my best friend she knows all this, she knows it is a sensitive subject and the torment I went through afterwards.

Last night she posted a picture on Facebook, that had a picture of a pregnant woman with an arrow pointing to her saying 'your body' and an arrow pointing to her pregnant belly saying 'somebody else's body' and the headline 'it's not your decision - abortion is murder'

I texted her saying 'ouch, that pic hurt' and she messaged saying 'I'm not trying to offend anyone but I agree with it'

I know everybody is entitled to their views, but aibu to think this was really insensitive and unnecessary? She is not just a random person who knows I have had an abortion, she is my best friend who knows how much it hurt me and supported me through it.

I almost feel betrayed and confused about our whole friendship.

OP posts:
ateddybearfromdelaware1 · 20/02/2014 06:29

Totally agree Fast, good post

ateddybearfromdelaware1 · 20/02/2014 06:34

Also, she could have posted it but hidden it from you, I do this regularly when I don't want certain people to see things my mother

ben5 · 20/02/2014 06:37

Is it a video ? If so the post is a scam and she is probably unaware that it has been put up. Theres quite a few going around at the moment and all with different status with it. My friend had it on her wall the other day and her paged had been hacked

MrsKent · 20/02/2014 06:44

I think abortion is one of those issues where it is very easy to have a "theoretical" opinion I.e. to think it should not exist in an ideal world but when faced with individual situations such as pregnancy after rape, teenage pregnancy, pregnancy in difficult circumstances it all becomes very different and it becomes a whole different decision.
You have been in that situation and had to make a difficult decision. No one can judge you, not her, not your current self. You decided with your circumstances at the time.
She sounds naive and insensitive.

hazchem · 20/02/2014 06:55

Possibly not helpful but I have unfriended someone on facebook for putting up something similar. we were once close but I don't want to have people full of hate in my life.

Perhaps she needs to read this The only Moral abortion is My abortion

I am really sorry your friend has behaved like such a dickhead.

IsitwrongtofancyHarryStyles · 20/02/2014 08:00

I couldn't be friends with someone that a) holds that view and b) posts that kind of SHIT on Facebook.

If you really are pro-life (rather than knowing fuck all about it really and thinking of it terms of 'every bubba is precious on this earth/I love being a mummy') ok fair enough, your opinion. Then do volunteer work and spread your 'message' in some positive way...not by cutting and pasting this kind of pointless, hurtful stuff.

And I really mean I couldn't be friends with her - she doesn't care that she has deeply hurt you and she judges you for a terribly difficult and emotional life even you have been through. Fuck her.

IsitwrongtofancyHarryStyles · 20/02/2014 08:01

life event, not life even. Sorry.

struggling100 · 20/02/2014 08:04

What?! Why on earth would anyone post that on Facebook? It's BOUND to hurt someone's feelings - and in this case, she be 100% sure that it would hurt yours.

This is not a matter of her being 'entitled' to her opinions. Of course she is, and you don't have to agree to be friends. But to deliberately post something in a public place that was bound to cause you pain... that's not the action of a friend.

JapaneseMargaret · 20/02/2014 08:11

Cannot believe this thread started out with people defending the OP's friend. Confused

This is nothing to do with being anti abortion (I'm not going to say 'pro life' because that's the because biggest horse-shit misnomer ever). This is to do with a person calling their best friend a murderer for something they did when they were 15 and terrified.

Please do excuse my French, but there's a special place in hell reserved for cunts just like her. What a total waste of space she is.

YANBU. Defriend her, literally and metaphorically. Immediately, if not sooner.

IsitwrongtofancyHarryStyles · 20/02/2014 08:13

Exactly.

hackmum · 20/02/2014 08:43

The friend sounds pretty horrible. What a nasty thing to post on FB. It's also somehow underhand in a passive-aggressive way - she doesn't have the guts to say to the OP, "Although I supported you when you had your abortion, you should know I have strong ethical objections to abortion". Instead she appears to support the OP and then posts her real views on FB. What a hurtful thing to do.

differentnameforthis · 20/02/2014 08:55

OP, I have had a termination & I have friends who are very pro life. They post on facebook, but because I know how they feel I don't get offended.

I did what I did, and I moved on. I don't let stuff like that offend me. You have to put the past behind you & like others said, the main point DESPITE her views, she supported you. THAT is friendship.

I don't think there is a need to be betrayed or confused.

usuallyright · 20/02/2014 09:08

op, she's not your friend.
Friends don't behave like this.
Distance yourself from her in real life and defriend on Facebook. She sounds horrible.
But then I've no patience for ill educated numpties who post this offensive drivel on Facebook.

SomethingkindaOod · 20/02/2014 09:09

I defriend people who post shite like this on FB, I've had an abortion but very few people know (those that do have had one themselves). It's not necessarily because of their opinion, they're perfectly entitled to that but the actual thought process behind posting things like it in the first place.
It's the equivalent of the mouthy obnoxious arses in the playground or the pub shooting their mouths off in a "I tell it like it is" type of way, completely unaware of anybody but themselves and their oh so important opinions.
YANBU at all.

SinisterBuggyMonth · 20/02/2014 09:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

whossauhnafuffafwayay · 20/02/2014 09:46

You have to be careful of oversimplifying other people's standpoints too much.

I am damned sure shooting someone in the head is murder, but I might support a good friend who was in the army in their preparation to do that, and support them through their trauma afterwards, and not think of them as a bad person for doing it.

The world is a complicated place, and we rarely deal absolutes so harshly on the people we care about and love, even if it is something we strongly believe to be the case.

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit · 20/02/2014 09:50

If you fundamentally believe abortion is murder, then there are no exceptions. You believe it because you think the fetus is a person with rights, applying caveats to that shows you have no consistency or ability to apply logic.

Joysmum · 20/02/2014 09:50

If course people are entitled to their own views, but to my mind the hurt from your situation wouldn't just be from the original pic (which I would be accepting if despite disagreeing) but the fact that she knew she'd hurt you and had the opportunity to say she understood your pain and that it wasn't a decision you took lightly. She didn't go that and that's what I'd struggle to deal with going forwards.

SinisterBuggyMonth · 20/02/2014 10:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

whossauhnafuffafwayay · 20/02/2014 10:05

"If you fundamentally believe abortion is murder, then there are no exceptions. You believe it because you think the fetus is a person with rights, applying caveats to that shows you have no consistency or ability to apply logic"

Respectfully, what unmitigated nonsense. There are so many reasons why killing a person can be complicated or even justified by the context that your "black and white" maxim should have been obviously broken to you before you even pressed Post.

What about medically necessary abortion? What about conjoined twins? What about mercy killings? What about serving in the military? What about protecting your children during a house invasion? What about resisting a robbery?

All of the killings associated with these things would be considered murder by some people until complicated by reality - this is why we actually say shooting people in the head is murder, but then can "downgrade" it from murder, because murder can be mitigated by other facts.

Of course it is not unreasonable to suppose this person's blanket statement was unwise and simplified in itself and could usefully be challenged by her friend, but to suggest some other ethical standpoint would "lack logic" if it held the universally accepted principle that murder can be mitigated to some degree by the facts, is not really sensible.

tethersend · 20/02/2014 10:17

This would mean the end of a close friendship for me, whether or not I'd had an abortion.

The fact that she knows your history makes her behaviour all the more disappointing.

Wishyouwould · 20/02/2014 11:08

YANBU. I'm not surprised your hurt OP. Absolutely appalling thing to post on Facebook, especially knowing that you would see it, how cruel.

musicismylife · 20/02/2014 11:18

'somebody else's body' and the headline 'it's not your decision - abortion is murder'

So if the decision isn't the mother's, who does the decision lie with?

Nobody 'wants' to have an abortion, do they? Nobody fucking enjoys having an abortion. But sometimes they have to do what is right for them. I have no business taking the moral high ground on what somebody choses to do for them.

And I don't believe for one minute that your friend 'forgot' what you have been through OP. It was a deliberate dig.

Carsandtrucks · 20/02/2014 11:32

She is entitled to have her view and your abortion shouldn't change that. However she does not have to shout about her view and was incredibly insensitive to post that. What on earth was she thinking

SoonToBeSix · 20/02/2014 11:34

Yabu she doesn't have to share your beliefs.