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?

That asking someone a question is suggesting something to them - or dictating something to them as you accused me of earlier.

Would you like fish for tea? A suggestion no?

Is that dictating that they have to have fish for tea?

Just a few more steps back Bumbley and you can admit your motivation for what we now both agree was a suggestion.

Step back from where? I've already told you that I was asking the question so I know what was behind it. You can think something else if you want.. It doesn't make it true though.

I'm still wondering how you think asking someone a question is dictating what they should do. If you asked someone if they would like fish for dinner would you really be dictating that they must have fish for dinner? Or are you going to step back on that one? :)

bumbleymummy Sat 08-Mar-14 20:12:11
No, I know women who protest but they don't shout abuse at women.

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From the point of innocent commentary you suggest you are at. Not one person who commented believes you asked grey had she considered sterilisation out of concern for herself, maybe for future pregnancies but not for grey.

I know, I know you keep using your mantra when the comments get tough we are all entitled to our opinions.......

That may be a valid observation but it is not a useful way of developing your position.

grey sorry for your loss, and yours too, bumbly. no one should go through any kind of pregnancy trauma, regardless of the situation surrounding that trauma.

bumbly, your refusal to sympathise with grey over her loss (and the way you keep going back to it) because she was relieved is crass at best, down right offensive at worse. Getting sterilised isn't always the answer, that fails too. I asked to be sterilised at dd2's section because I knew the physical toll of another pregnancy would be too much to cope with for my body, it was refused. I asked twice before my daughter was a yr old, again refused as I was "a new mom reacting to a traumatic birth" the truth is, I had a wonderful elective section.

I got pregnant the first (and only) time I had sex after that section. I was breastfeeding, using a condom and, at my drs insistence, the mini pill. I terminated. So you see, I tried bloody hard to prevent another pregnancy and it still happened. There was no way I was going to put my body through pregnancy again and no way I was going to bring an unwanted child into this world. I wouldn't change a thing, and if I got pregnant again, a termination would result.

My dr and my medical team at the hospital put me in a position I didnt want, or ask to be in. My dr is partly responsible for my having a termination and I see it in his face everytime I see him. And his practice policy is still to say no mums with babies under 1.

Getting sterilised is a battle. It was a choice I had taken away from me no less than three times. So it isn't the answer you seem to think it is.

And before you ask, the wait list for a vasectomy here, on public health was 7 yrs when I was pregnant with dd2, so we would still be waiting. A private one gets you little change from 10k in my state.

Different I'm so sorry you were put in that position by your docs.

Permanent measures of contraception are equally hard to arrange here too and it is a horrible situation to be in.

GreyWind to you too.

I realised that I had read your thread a while ago. I am glad things turned out for you. Don't worry what others think about feeling relief, that was my overriding emotion as soon as I woke from the GA after my termination.

Some people just don't understand that we don't have to bring every baby we conceive into this world.

YABU, they are there to be a voice to the voiceless, though, at the same time, I don't think they should be harassing anyone or hurling abuse at them. But I think they have a point and we have become too used to, normalised and accepting of abortion.

Bumbley- your reply to grey wind is breath- takingly cruel and unnecessary. You should be ashamed.

Why should we not accept abortion? The minute we start not accepting it, the minute 100s of women's lives change, not for the better!!

+YABU, they are there to be a voice to the voiceless, though, at the same time, I don't think they should be harassing anyone or hurling abuse at them. But I think they have a point and we have become too used to, normalised and accepting of abortion*

That is a bit of a generalisation. For example take the posters on this thread from Ireland of which there have been many are not used to abortion as a matter of course. Women generally across the country in Ireland (outside the cities) do not have foetal anomaly scans during pregnancy and when they do in cities and babies have conditions incompatible with life they are told, you can go to England or continue the pregnancy. When young girls are raped like the x case the state tried to prevent them from travelling to the UK for an abortion and 20 years later that woman who was raped still gets to listen all the time to herself being referred as the x case. That of course ignores the other actual women, real human persons who get to hear their experiences touted as A, B and C cases all the time on the news, real people. Then there is Savita Hallapanavar who has the misfortune to have an actual name based on the fact that beautiful woman is dead.

Be careful what you wish for.

We should absolutely be accepting abortion. I don't see how anyone can call themselves a feminist and then express anti-choice views.

In fact, it shouldn't be a case of 'accepting' abortion. It should be a case of it is available to anyone who wants/needs it, on the NHS, with good support and counselling for those who require it, and whatever my view, your view or the Queen's view on abortion is, is absolutely irrelevant, because it doesn't pertain to our bodies or our baby/blob of cells/embryo/whatever it is considered.

It could be made into an extension of the "no uterus, no opinion" saying - when it comes to abortion, if it's not in your uterus, it's none of your business.

Different, "bumbly, your refusal to sympathise with grey over her loss ". I did sympathise, I said I couldn't empathise and explained why. I also disnt say sterilisation was the answer or a guanteed solution. Someone else who needs to read things a bit more carefully!

Moomin, some people don't put their feminist principles ahead of everything else.

Tricky. The 'information' they're peddling may well be inaccurate and deliberately misleading and manipulative, but yes they do have the right to protest. Imagine living in a country where they did not have the right. That's the hard thing about democracy and free speech: if you want it for yourself you have to want it for everyone else, no matter what you think of their views.

But on a personal level (I am pro-choice), my heart breaks for the women who have already presumably been through quite enough and then have to face that when they arrive at the clinic. And the staff. And passers-by like you, Crocodile, who find it upsetting.

Rather than putting your head down, have you thought about engaging one of them in debate if they did ask you to sign their petition?

bumbley But being pro-choice doesn't necessarily make someone feminist either, so it isn't a case of 'feminist principles coming before everything else'.

I consider myself many things, and I identify much more strongly as being pro-choice than I do as being a feminist. I just don't understand how anyone can advocate taking away a woman's right to autonomy over her own body, and anything residing inside it, and at the same time consider themselves a feminist. The two are a complete contrast.

As for a doctor refusing to sterilise you. Not sure why people aren't kicking up more of a fuss about that. So you have the right to terminate a pregnancy but jut the right to be sterilised? If that was one doctor's policy I would have found another doctor and had string words with anyone who would listen about that one.

I don't even understand what being too accepting of abortion even means.

Women have always sought out abortions be them illegal, dangerous or expensive. We're just, thankfully, less accepting of women literally dying to have them.

Make abortions harder to get and you'll see a rise in later abortions and more dangerous procedures performed.

Sterilisation is very hard to get.

I was 24/25 when I asked my doctors for one, it was a point blank no and was made to feel like I wasted his time with the booked appointment.

To him I was to young to make that decision. 4 years on and I still don't want any more children.

DH got sick and tired of us never having sex because every contraception I have ever used made me bleed for months on end, I even had the copper coil that went missing.

He didn't want any more children either so the same doctor referred him for a vacetomy, he had it done and no my periods are regular like clock work.

Moomin "being pro-choice doesn't necessarily make someone feminist either"

I didn't say it did. You asked how anyone could call themselves a feminist and then express anti-choice views. Those people ( ie. the ones calling themselves feminists) may not put their feminist principles above everything else.

We don't have complete free speech in this country though. If I was holding up biological information in public about people of a different ethnic group that was false and created negative feeling towards that group, I think that would be very likely to be viewed as a criminal offence. I think there should be some scope for protesting with false information about abortion to be a criminal offence. But that would require hate crimes against women, or at least pregnant women (who are a protected group) to be a criminal offence.

I was brought up in a pro-life family, and it was only when I saw a documentary about abortion and saw footage of one being carried out, on tv as an adult, that I realised I'd been given false information growing up.

But that's what I said; it ISN'T about putting feminist principles above everything else, it's the fact that the two views are in absolute, complete conflict - it's like calling yourself anti-facism and then fondly remembering what a great guy Hitler was.

Nothing to do with principles, or prioritising those principles - just that you can't be a feminist and advocate for women having no rights over their own body.

That wasn't even the main point of my post.

Moomin, so iyo only people who support abortion to term for any reason can actually call themselves feminists?