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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask those of you who are pro life?

999 replies

Anonynony · 21/04/2014 14:49

How do you feel about friends who have had abortions? Can you maintain friendships with people who have had an abortion and no regrets?

One of my friends has stunned me, talking about another friend of ours who had considered an abortion and my friend said I'm so glad she didn't because I wouldn't have been able to stay friends with her
I'm really surprised, I'm extremely pro choice and vocal about it but this doesn't bother my friend.
But what my friend doesn't know is that I also had an abortion and although I have no regrets I feel a bit strange around my friend now?

OP posts:

GrassIsSinging · 21/04/2014 17:38

I cannot believe people think its acceptable to 'judge' a friend's abortion 'depending on circumstances'. How awful. And for the Christians among you....how very un-Christian.

GarlicAprilShowers · 21/04/2014 17:41

Eh, Birds?? If someone chooses a late abortion, nobody forced the birth/miscarriage.

If she's prevented from having the abortion/miscarriage, then the people who prevented it forced her to give birth. Irish medics force women to go full-term and birth dead babies. That's 'forcing', the alternative is 'choosing'.

Custardo · 21/04/2014 17:41

statements like " i wouldn't be friends with someone who was anti - choice"

or i wouldn't be friends with someone pro-choice" really astound me

what you do with your body within the law is up to you

what i o with mine is up to me - the only moral code that should be considered by me, is mine.

I have friends who are tories

can you imagine not being friends with someone becuase they vehemently disagree with a principle or politic that is important to you?

what bloody boring circles of friends they must be

5feralloinfruits · 21/04/2014 17:45

I am not 100 per cent pro life,or pro choice,i think its the womans choice while the baby could not survive outside of her body,and i think its good that the choice is there for those who need it.

Saying that,i couldnt be friends with someone who had repeated abortions because they couldnt be bothered to use anything,and didnt show any remorse,in fact im not sure i could support anyone through an abortion in any case,unless they had been raped or they round out the baby would never have any quality of life.

GarlicAprilShowers · 21/04/2014 17:46

But anti-choicers want the law changed, Custy. "What you do with your body within the law is up to you" is a pro-choice statement in itself.

I don't want to be friends with people who campaign for the return of laws governing women's reproductive choices, no.

LtEveDallas · 21/04/2014 17:48

I don't want to be friends with people who campaign for the return of laws governing women's reproductive choices, no.

Nor me.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 21/04/2014 17:48

Just to add that abortion is legal to term in the UK under specific circumstances - the 24 week limit governs most terminations but not all.

But we are discussing late abortions,
Speak for yourself - I'm not.

so a birth will still happen, whether the baby will be allowed to survive or not.
No it won't. The pregnancy is terminated in utero. It's not a birth.

99% of UK abortions take place prior to 20 weeks - but somehow it's the 1% that don't that always are discussed when the topic of abortion gets raised.

GrassIsSinging · 21/04/2014 17:48

I have friends (although not close friends) who are anti-choice, despite the fact that I am stridently pro-choice. I come from a Catholic family, too. I try not to raise the issue unless they do (in which case I argue my points!) and if I were ever to have an abortion, I would not choose to confide in them. If I am honest, I do tend to keep anti-choice friends at arms length a bit, because I do see peoples attitudes to choice as a real benchmark of their feminist credentials...and I like being around men and women that are pro equalrights for women. Thats important to me.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 21/04/2014 17:51

can you imagine not being friends with someone becuase they vehemently disagree with a principle or politic that is important to you?

Um yeah, I couldn't be friends with a racist, a UKIP voter, a homophobe or someone who thinks that women are less than full citizens with full rights over their own bodies. Quite easy - my life is no less richer.

GarlicAprilShowers · 21/04/2014 17:52

5fer - Please accept my questions as non-aggressive; I'm curious.

1] I've had loads of miscarriages, some of them mid-term. Miscarriages are abortions (look it up if you want) - the only difference is that no third party was involved.

2] My friend had a multiple pregnancy. At around 6 months, it was found that some of the foetuses were squashing the others. She had to choose whether to abort some to give the rest a certain chance, or leave it to their development and hope they wouldn't be born heavily disabled/dead/some of each. She aborted and the remaining children are now at uni.

Do you censure either of us? If you don't, why are we different from those you would restrict?

GrassIsSinging · 21/04/2014 17:53

What Tondelayo said!

Birdsgottafly · 21/04/2014 17:55

"Eh, Birds?? If someone chooses a late abortion, nobody forced the birth/miscarriage."

But if someone ends their pregnancy passed a certain stage, they have to give birth, or have a EC, so anyone who wants a cap on late abortions isn't a pro "forced birther", because the women will go through that anyway.

This thread has lost it's purpose, the question was, on a personal level, would you remain close friends with someone who chose this.

That is different than wanting laws changed etc.

We all have the right to chose who our friends are, or not.

Individual circumstances to any "moral dilemma" make a difference.

For example, I have a friend who left her rabbit to die of dehydration. She was trully scared for the safety if her children (violent ex). In any other circumstances I wouldn't be friends with someone who left a caged animal to die.

FrigginRexManningDay · 21/04/2014 17:55

Tondelayo I wonder if we dissect that 1% a little to find out which abortions were because of irish women terminating for medical reasons and delayed discovery of pregnancy how many late social abortions would be left?

Dawndonnaagain · 21/04/2014 17:56

But we are discussing late abortions, so a birth will still happen, whether the baby will be allowed to survive or not.
I'm discussing abortion.

GarlicAprilShowers · 21/04/2014 17:56

Good point.

Birdsgottafly · 21/04/2014 17:57

"But we are discussing late abortions,
Speak for yourself - I'm not. "

Tond, the OP is.

The thread was about ending a friendship because of a unneccasary (medically speaking) late abortion.

Not all abortions.

basgetti · 21/04/2014 17:58

I'm pro choice and would have no interest in having a friendship with anyone who is anti-choice or judges the reproductive decisions of others. It is just too far removed from my own principles and I wouldn't be able to get past it.

AnyaKnowIt · 21/04/2014 17:58

So if the baby is a product of rape or is disabled then its not worthy of life then? Or is it a case of punishment for woman who have consented to sex?

Birdsgottafly · 21/04/2014 17:58

Dawn, as said, this thread was about late abortions.

FrigginRexManningDay · 21/04/2014 18:00

Birds the woman chooses to have a miscarriage/unviable birth. No one is going to hold her down and force her to have an abortion.

Birdsgottafly · 21/04/2014 18:00

Do any of you that are totally pro choice have friends who use abortions as birth control?

bumbleymummy · 21/04/2014 18:00

the body, no I didn't say that.

Yes, well considering that men and women are biologically different and that men can't grow a foetus inside them that gains a right to life at a certain point, it's kind of obvious that different laws have to apply. If men were able to grow foetuses I'm sure that they wouldn't be allowed abortions after 24 weeks either.

Garlic, if you say so. Does that mean that you don't have a problem with someone calling themselves 'pro-life'/'anti-abortion' if they think it is ok under certain circumstances?

Line - I actually thought it was you playing games when 'law abiding citizen' was the answer you came back with but I guess not. Oh, well. Would that have been an acceptable answer from one of your students? It's all subjective I suppose.

Garlic, the point she is making is that late term abortions still require the woman to give birth. The foetus doesn't just magically disappear.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 21/04/2014 18:00

Read the OP Birds

Mintyy · 21/04/2014 18:01

This really isn't a thread for AIBU.

Birdsgottafly · 21/04/2014 18:02

Friggin, sorry I don't understand that point.

You might of taken a quote I used, from someone else, as mine.

My point was late aborters (for whatever reasons) have to give birth/EC, so wanting time limits doesn't mean that the woman will be forced to give birth, that is happening already.

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