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?

Bumbleymummy - you seem quite ignorant in many areas. Not least feminism.

almondcake, yes, that's an interesting point. I wonder if hate crimes against (pregnant) women WILL ever become a criminal offence.

Makes me think of all the other false information various groups try to give us: politicians on the campaign trail spring to mind, with their specious statements about benefits scroungers, immigrants and other social bogeymen. Could that sort of thing ever become classified as a hate crime? Or does it require the group targeted to be a protected one?

my sister ended up with a perforated bowel after being steralised and another friend almost died due to an ectopic following a steralisation - it's not so straight forward anyway

In a perfect world there would be no need to abortion because contraception would work, women would have support so that emotional damage wouldn;t lead to behaviour that led to multiple terminations, children with life limiting illness or disabilities and their families would have all the support they needed, people would earn a living wage and b able to support their kids, men wouldn;t leave, no one would be violent to their pregnant partners etc

women have terminations because they need to - not because they want to

Federation, ignorant in some, well informed in others. Just like everyone else here :)

OL, as disability and race are protected characteristics, I think some of the comments of government officials should at least be grounds for dismissal under the equality act. But the rules that apply to everyone else don't seem to be applied to the powerful.

m.xojane.com/issues/i-survived-but-many-dont-my-illegal-abortion

Found this women heart breaking story of her back street abortion.

I wouldn't want any one to go through that. But having protesters outside clinics it could push women underground to have them.

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, but will come back to it later. OP, YANBU. I personally know one of these protestors. HE (of course it's a he!) is an evangelical Christian who has set up what he calls an 'educational charity' and spends the bulk of his time demonstrating outside clinics and parading around our local high street with his placards. It is impossible to engage him in any kind of conversation about the fact that women have always (from centuries BC) sought ways to end unwanted pregnancies and that this has, and still does, often end with the woman's death or serious injury in countries where access to safe, legal abortion is denied. He simply doesn't care about this. He doesn't care either about what happens to the baby once its born, is unconcerned about how it will be supported (or indeed loved). He doesn't care about maternal mortality or a woman's mental health. He is basically a misogynist of the worst kind and his wife is little better.
The fact that his nasty little group has got charitable status is a disgrace IMO and the fact that he tries to persuade local schools to allow him in to 'deliver his message' is an outrage.

Completely agree with Gordy, sterilisation isn't some magical answer that guarantees you won't get pregnant again, nor is it without risk.

Anyone who believes that a woman shouldn't have autonomy over her own body can not call them selves a feminist.

Anyone who believes that a woman shouldn't have autonomy over her own body can not call them selves a feminist.
This is the bottom line for me, too.

28 years ago I had a miscarriage at 14 weeks. It was traumatic but I felt very emotionally vulnerable for several months later.
During this time some "kind" soul pushed some anti abortion leaflets through my door with a 13 week aborted foetus on the front page.

When I 'phoned the organisation up to say how inappropriate their leaflet campaign was (for so many reasons) there was no apology for my distress.

Two fingers that is the reality for a lot of people who make it their business to protest regularly about abortion. If they cared enough about the society we lived in to genuinely make it a better place for the people who were already born then you could say fair enough. The fact that they are consumed by the evils of pregnant women who can't or won't continue a pregnancy so much that they see abusing them as not just their right but their responsibility means they have no sense of justice.

I remember in school one of the nuns telling us how wonderful a mother was because she was not going to accept chemotherapy as a treatment as it would kill her foetus and would be basically an abortion. The fact that this woman had many older children and there was absolutely no chance that foetus was expected to survive meant nothing so long as she did not kill the baby in utero. She, the nun, was also the woman who spent her life pedaling anti abortion agenda to teenage girls at every opportunity. This woman had joined the convert aged 17 and had absolutely zero outside life experience and was incapable of empathy or sympathy but spent all her days on and on about the evils of abortion. Brainwashing pure and simple her and everyone she could inflict her beliefs on.

Scum like this came to my non-religious school and showed us all the aborted foetuses. We were 14.

One girl at least in my year had been raped (by her step dad), maybe she'd had an abortion, these fuckers didn't care.

Still boils my piss they were allowed in school. They have a right to protest but women having a medical procedure have a right not to be harassed. Someone should counter protest illustrating what cunts they are.

women have terminations because they need to - not because they want to

I would agree with that. No-one goes out and gets pregnant because they want to have an abortion.

Abortions are a necessary procedure and should NOT be demonised in the way they are. They are no less needed than a tooth extraction, or apendectomy or any other operation.

Until women are able to have children in happiness, safety, security and contentment EVERY SINGLE TIME, then a way of ending a pregnacy that will cause harm - physically or mentally - to the carrier, needs to be an option. Protestors have no right to decide what someone else does with their own body, they may have the 'right' to peacefully demonstrate, but that does NOT make their actions correct or acceptable. I would cut off ANY member of my family or ANY friend that thought they had the right to protest or demonstrate in this way. It disgusts me.

My body, my life, my choice. Her body, her right, her choice.

Having an abortion does not mean that you want to be sterilised though! Two very different things.

I hate them.

I had to run the gauntlet of them outside the place in High St/Waring St where you used to have to get the MAP years ago.

I think the protest is fair (though I disagree with them) but the literature is way out of line.

I agree LtEveDallas - I could not countenance being in the same room as people who protest like this let alone friendly.

I agree LtEveDallas - I could not countenance being in the same room as people who protest like this let alone friendly

I am the same. I know so many people who are anti abortion from my parents generation but they do not walk up and down the road with pictures of fully developed dead babies claiming they are 9 week foetuses. It is not the anti abortion view I mind, it is not the protesting about your view I mind, it is the specific targeting if vulnerable women with inaccurate exaggerated information that is morally objectionable.

The other wonderful one we have in Ireland is organisations that claim to help young women access abortion services and then take them in for 'counseling' beforehand and traumatise them with inaccurate information in a bud to save them from themselves. I would not be friends with them either.

almond, that is sadly true.

bumbleymummy You suggested sterilization as if it were the answer. Otherwise why even go there at all?

Stop saying that everyone is twisting your words, because the only one doing that is you!

Imagine living in a country where they did not have the right

Is that right more important than the right to safe access to terminations?

Imagine living in a country where women do not have the right. I have No idea what I would have done if I was pregnant in a country that didn't allow me to terminate. Well, actually, I probably do...I said it below...

The whole premise of a protest is that it is factual, is it not? What they are, as you said yourself, is not.

That right to protest doesn't mean that they can bully vulnerable women either.

"Anyone who believes that a woman shouldn't have autonomy over her own body can not call them selves a feminist."

There may be fewer feminists on MN than people think if that's the case...

different - I asked if she had considered sterilisation - it could be a possible solution (it has been for many people). It was not a recommendation or anything else.

bumbleymummy I asked one consultant & one dr. My dr said it was practice policy, so I didn't see another dr in that practice as they would have told me the same.

Why didn't I think of asking another dr...silly me! Aren't I stupid.

Perhaps it had something to do with having to pay $60 each time I see a dr & that I couldn't justify it.

And remember, the CONSULTANT (that my dr would have referred me to) said no, so why would that consultant then say yes if I was referred?

The very fact they protest outside clinics not parliament shows them up as bullies and not people really campaigning for legal changes and their believes.

As above, shitheads and cunts.

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

Not to mention unwanted babies.

I work in a food bank. One woman we help regularly is on her 8th pregnancy. She would be disowned if she considered termination. Her dh won't let her use contraceptives. All in the name of religion. Perhaps it is the same religion that your friend belong to?

So she keeps getting pregnant & she keeps having babies. Babies that need nappies, formula, clothes etc. She can't afford the kids she has, yet she is forced to have more. She can't get sterilised, her dh would never allow it.

She isn't even 30. She is worn out, she is unable to feed her family.

That is what lack of choice is. Using up a woman's resources until she is on her knees.

She can't access the drs for contraceptives, she can't afford the prescriptions. Her dh wouldn't allow it.