To really want to say something to these abortion protestors?

[Crocodileclip]

Firstly, I know I will probably never say anything as I appreciate that the protestors have the right to protest but it really pisses me off.

A small group of people have been protesting outside the Marie Stoppes clinic in Belfast since it opened in 2012. They stand outside the door on the days it is open holding anti abortion posters and trying to gather signatures for a petition. I pass them on my way to get to the station at home time and every time it annoys me. I can't imagine how offputting they would be if you were young and scared and just wanting some advice. Lots of pics of aborted foetuses etc. I find it intimidating enough myself and I am just walking past. I actually put my head down and walk quicker so that nobody asks me to sign the petition.

I'm currently pregnant with my second and am lucky never to have been in a position where abortion was an option but am of the opinion that there are situations in which it may be the best option available.

The clinic itself operates within NI law so only offers abortions up to 9 weeks and as far as I know is the only such clinic in Northern Ireland. I think I would be ok with the protestors doing their stuff elsewhere in the city centre it is the fact that it is just outside the only entrance to the clinc that makes me irrationally angry. Does this happen at other Marie Stoppes clinics elsewhere in the UK?

The thing about abortion is that unless its happening in your uterus, its none of your business. It just isn't.

Mad, you are entitled to think that they are doing it to control women or make them suffer because they are 'slutty'. Can you consider the possibility that they may actually be doing it because they don't agree with the destruction of the foetus/the ending of a life.

But without any realistic idea of what really needs to happen to stop this happening - like effective sex education and access to contraception.
It's just so.....unrealistic. People do have sex, accidents do happen, adoption isn't the solution to everything.
It's all short term black and white absolutist thinking. Just really unintelligent and narrow.

I don't know what they all think. I know what some of them think.

Bumbley - we know you're talking about your own views. It's getting a bit strange now pretending you're on this thread to discuss what those protesters outside the clinic think.

different, I did say that you can call it that if you like - it's just biologically incorrect.

HopAlong - should we take that approach to everything? Why have laws at all?

OFGS. We accept women are competent to get make their own decisions in all aspects of their life. Except their reproductive health.

Yes, because another life is involved. That is recognised at 24 weeks ATM (although according to surveys, the majority want to see the limit reduced) for some people, that life is recognised much earlier.

Bumbleymummy in the UK abortion can by carried out until term for medical reasons

Yes, Gordy, I know that. I wasn't talking about abortions for medical reasons. That's a whole other can of worms!

Abortion is legal to term under certain conditions.

I'm not having an argument with someone who insists on presenting 'other people's opinions' like this. It's childish.

No one is forcing you to HopAlong.

bumbley They're using falsified images of stillborn, full-term babies, many of them photoshopped, to try and tell women that that is what they are aborting. They are completely wrong in that.

So do your protestor friends always take the time to ask a woman if she's terminating for medical reasons, before they start calling her a murderer?

I think the encouraging thing we can take from this thread is that the anti-choice contingent, while squawky and recalcitrant, is plainly the minority.

jusdepamplemousse

Good point.

bumblemummy late-term abortions are rare and for extreme reasons.

In early pregnancy the foetus doesn't have a functioning brain, consciousness or nervous system. At the end of a life, if someone is "brain dead" they're not alive and are not a person. So it makes sense to use the words "person" and "life" only when these things are active, which in early pregnancy they aren't.

bumbleymummy are you pretending now not to know who youth defence are? I was on a v v long thread with you about the Savita case where you professed to know all there was to know about the ins and outs of abortion law and all about that particular debate in Ireland? Give over. Your disingenuousness is rather pathetic.

I cannot call myself pro choice because I do recognise that a point in a pregnancy exists where you are dealing with 2 people not 1 and that happens well before 40 weeks of gestation.

However I also recognise an absolute need for abortion in society and a need for people to express their views.

I think there are ways of doing this that show some semblance of empathy and humanity and protesting as women enter a clinic is not one, neither is showing horrific images of foetuses to children in the hope that the images are so ingrained that they won't consider abortion as adults is nasty and vile.

manicinsomniac I think you may have misunderstood.

All these comments of 'these people expect women to carry their rapist's child' etc are very cruel and unthinking. I have a 6 year old little girl who was conceived as a result of rape.It's horrendous for me to know that there are so many people out there who think my daughter should never have been born.

We are not advocating compulsory abortion in the case of rape, a child born because of rape has done nothing wrong, The main point imo is that abortions are not simply "women who decided to get pregnant and then changed their mind". An image often put forward by Anti-choice activists.

Yes backonly thank you for making that point.

What anti abortionists seem determined not to understand is that pro choice means exactly that. There would be circumstances where I wouldn't consider an abortion. I wouldn't inflict that opinion on someone else. One size does not fit all. Just because we all have wombs does not mean we respond to life events in the same way.

Been said before - if you don't want an abortion don't have one.

But if you're anti abortion you've got no business telling a other woman what to do with her fertility, her womb, her pregnancy.

I've known of women, often happily married with other children, who have aborted planned and wanted pregnancies due to severe anxieties. Pregnancy can really mess with a woman's feelings and emotions and that shouldn't be estimated. There are women who deeply regret their abortions but it was the only solution at that time. All this talk of two bodies, a person with a soul etc is really helpful.

If an emotionally unstable women were to be hounded into not having an abortion that would be a success for the baby but i would fear for the woman's mental health. Would the protesters do anything to help with all the underlying issues? I doubt it.

Shouldn't be underestimated

Maniac insomniac I would never ever envisage a situation where I would offer advice to anyone ever to have an abortion. I would have been as supportive of my friend keeping her baby as I am if her decision to have an abortion. Abortion is the individual woman's personal choice and that is it for me. I am sorry your friends were so forceful with their opinions.

Moomin, not all of them do that.

MrsDV, I'm not sure what facts about abortion you think I'm denying on this thread.

Janine, if that's the same thread I remember then I believe I was accused if belonging to some group or other without me actually knowing who they were. I don't know anything about the youth defends. Do you think you have to belong to an organisation in order to be pro-life?

"a child born because of rape has done nothing wrong"

Nice to see someone recognising that.

Sauce, being pro choice means supporting a woman's right to choose- no conditions attached. Genuine pro-choices who think that a woman should be able to choose to have an abortion for any reason to term are few and far between. As anothernumberone has pointed out, most people recognise that at a certain point there are two lives to consider. People just don't all agree on when that point is.

I am totally pro choice. It's more logical than emotional or judgemental.

Why should I rank in any way women's reasons and timing for wanting to terminate a pregnancy? As someone said above, her uterus, her business.

Certainly not the business of shitheads outside clinics protesting about their opinions.