To want autonomy over my body.

[thebodydoestricks]

Aibu here. I am 50 but apparently still fertile.

I have 4 children already and do not want any more.

According to some posters if I fell pregnant but hadn't used at least 2 methods of contraception I should be denied the abortion I would most definatly want.

I would have to go before a panel of judges in a court to plead my case. They would judge whether I should have an abortion or not.

Of course if there was a back log of cases then I would have to wait and if it reached 24 weeks it would be too late anyway.

I would be forced to give birth.

Aibu to be absolutely stunned at this posters view in Britain 2014?

[thebodydoestricks]

baby pleased as a always to hear you but please be careful to protect yourself. You have so much support on here so sending you waves and waves of it.

If you apply limits you accept you don't trust a pregnant woman to act in her best interests or in the best interests if her life/mental health.

You can't have a half way house. Obviously the law is the law but the point is full autonomy or not.

[thebodydoestricks]

Hi ikeaismylocal yes as other thread i do.

Don't think there will be queues of heavily pregnant women choosing this do you really? Or maybe you do?

[MyrtleDove]

Hello, I'm a long time MN lurker/reader (pom bears, neighbour cutting keys for house in Mexico, lemon drizzle bitch etc) but had to delurk to comment.

Last week during Holy Week, I stayed with the nuns of the Community of St John the Divine, the real-life nuns from Call The Midwife. Some of the stories they have about the lack of reproductive rights women in the 50s and early 60s in the UK had would turn your hair white - Call The Midwife only showed the tip of the iceberg. Access to abortion lifted women out of poverty and drudgery, and these nuns were so grateful for the reduction in infant mortality and abandonment (not to mention women dying from backstreet abortions) - one of the reasons Jennifer Worth (née Lee, the author of Call The Midwife) wrote the book was due to a lack of understanding of how things were before abortion was widely accessible. The portrayal of abortion in Vera Drake was high inaccurate - the method used in the film was usually fatal to women, and since illegal abortion providers had women over a barrel they often bled women dry financially too, and blackmail was not uncommon. Abortion being legal, safe and easily accessible is so important.

(The nuns are really incredible women by the way - after NHS midwifery changes meant that they were no longer needed as midwives, they were some of the first to provide hospice care for HIV/AIDS sufferers, and handed condoms out at AIDS awareness events!)

[TheBabyFacedAssassin]

Thanks thebody and thank you to all the other posters who have shown their support to me. I don't mean to be masochistic, I am genuinely interested in hearing both sides of the debate. I really, really would like to try to understand why anti-abortioners feel the way they do. Here in Northern Ireland those people are behind the law, if I want to have a go at changing that I need to understand why they think the way they do.
Also, I want to remind posters that here in Northern Ireland we are living in the past and I can be that voice of someone who is being forced to continue with a pregnancy against my wishes.

Also - totally agree with expat re euthanasia.

[Tevin]

I wanted to post on the other thread but wasn't sure what to write (or brave enough!). I had an early termination last year of an unplanned third pregnancy. I suffered from hyperemesis gravidarium which worsened with each pregnancy, to the point that when I terminated at 6 weeks I was fast approaching the point of my life being at risk as none of the medication was controlling or stopping the vomiting.

The reality of making abortion illegal is that women like me, who suffer pregnancy complications, would die.

The idea of a woman aborting a healthy, almost full term foetus makes me uncomfortable but that is herchoice to make not mine. If the world was run for my comfort there would be no children born only to starve to death, no women judged for wanting to control their own body, no women judged for taking life saving anti emetics during pregnancy.

I was judged as selfish by family for considering trying to continue my pregnancy and then as unfeeling once I had had the termination. Damned if I did and damned if I didn't.

[ikeaismylocal]

Just because a woman has a fetus in her uterus it doesn't make her ultimately sensible, rational and capable of making good decisions.

How would you suggest we differentiate between women who have just gone off the idea of having a baby and women who have pre-natal depression or who are overwhelmed by the hormones and they see the only way out to have a very late abortion? Or should women be allowed to make that decision, a decision that with better mental health, less crazy hormones they might come to deeply regret.

[tibbysmum]

TheBabyFacedAssassin - I've seen your posts on the other thread. Can I just say I am in complete agreement and send my very best wishes and support to you.

[5madthings]

We already have mental health laws regarding health care for those circumstances Ikea

[TheBabyFacedAssassin]

Thanks tibbys.

[ikeaismylocal]

Don't think there will be queues of heavily pregnant women choosing this do you really? Or maybe you do?

No I don't believe very late abortion would be a commonly used option. Neither do I think that there is any chance that your right to an early abortion will be removed, it is theoretical, someone has posted an opinion that you should not be able to have an abortion and despite it not being a real life issue as I believe that particular poster has no political powers but it is still enough for you to start a thread.

You believe a extremely late abortion for any reason ( holiday, don't fancy a newborn after all, don't like the idea of giving birth) is a woman's right.

It is as appropriate to discuss your opinion on late term abortion as it is to discuss someone elses opinion on banning abortions. Thankfully neither is going to happen.

[javotte]

Thank you MaidofStars for trying to understand the pro-life POW.

I was raped. I was a virgin. I refused to take the MAP, because I didn't want to stop an embryo from implanting itelf. Had I got pregnant, I wouldn't even have considered an abortion. The options would have been bringing up the child myself or giving it up for adoption.

If you consider that human life starts with conception, the pro-life stance makes perfect sense. If killing your (born) children "because you cannot cope any more" or "because they damage your career", or because you have MH problems was made legal tomorrow, would you not say a word? Well, this is how I feel about abortion. Because it is legal does not make it moral.

About backstreets abortions : I don't like the "it happens anyway so let's legalise it" argument. What about murder then? There have always been murders, shall we provide people with murdering facilities so that they do it in a cleaner way?

I understand the pro-choice side. What I don't understand is why they use such strong language with people who have a different opinion.

[MyrtleDove]

The point is that it's not for people who believe life starts at conception to have a say on the reproductive rights of others. Women are free not to have an abortion if they don't want one - they are not free to decide that others should not have them. Those of us who are pro-choice use strong language because having our reproductive rights infringed (or having others wanting to infringe them) is serious, and it is wrong.

Re backstreet abortions, the main argument for legalising them is so that they become safe - backstreet abortions are dangerous for the women having them. Even for anti-choice people, surely the loss of two lives is worse than the loss of one?

[javotte]

MyrtleDove for me it is not about the "reproductive rights of others", it is about the life of a child. Once again, if other people were free to kill their children, would you say it is OK, whatever they want, even if you wouldn't personally kill yours?

This is why I believe the pro-life / pro-choice debate cannot end on a sort of medium ground. Either you believe that a foetus is a person or you don't.

[AnyaKnowIt]

You if don't want an abortion, fine don't have one.

Forcing other women to carry on with a pregnncy she doesn't want is vile!

[Tevin]

But then what about women like me then javot? If I hadn't had a termination then the most likely outcome was that I wouldn't have survived. I knew that when the doctors caring for me strongly recommended a termination.

Does that mean that my foetus would have murdered me? Am I not important enough to have a life? Or would it have been my own fault for having a pregnancy related condition completely out of my control?

[AnyaKnowIt]

I don't believe that the fetus has equal rights as the mother.

The woman comes first.

[ikeaismylocal]

Is abortion ok before it becomes a fetus?

[basgetti]

About backstreets abortions : I don't like the "it happens anyway so let's legalise it" argument. What about murder then? There have always been murders, shall we provide people with murdering facilities so that they do it in a cleaner way?

68,000 women die each year due to unsafe abortions. Anyone who would rather see that situation continue than compromise a moral ideal has no business calling themselves pro life.

[javotte]

Tevin I don't know your story and I am very sorry for you.
I believe that if the pregnancy would kill the mother (such as an ectopic pregnancy) then it can be terminated, because both people would die if it wasn't.
I have never heard of such a condition. Once again, I am sorry.

[javotte]

ikea an embryo, a foetus and a baby are just different stages in the life of a person. So an abortion is never OK.
basgetti 68,000 babies also died in these unsafe abortions. And women die every year after legal abortions too.

[Dawndonnaagain]

javotte
In law the embryo is not a child. Many of us believe in science, that science dictates that a group of cells is, in the main, not viable before 24 weeks. New research, which I posted on the other thread, does seem to indicate that there is a possibility that "It is only after birth, with the separation of the baby from the uterus and the umbilical cord, that wakefulness truly begins."
As for if other people were free to kill their children it's a non starter, we are not talking about sentient beings when discussing abortion.

[SoonToBeSix]

Anya why should a woman come first, why should her desire to further her career or maintain her current lifestyle be more important than a fetus's life?
I know there are many more reasons why women have abortions however the above are two reasons I have read on mumsnet.

[MyrtleDove]

Javotte you can't reasonably talk about the foetus having an equal value as the mother - what happens in cases where the foetus is literally killing the mother? Or in twin-to-twin transfusion where one foetus is killing the other? Would you have the foetus on trial?

There is a difference between something being a living creature and something having full personhood. Clearly, foetuses are living in the sense of being a biologically alive thing, but don't have personhood. There have been cases in the US where states have tried to grant personhood to foetuses, with chilling consequences - the potential to jail women who have miscarriages and can't prove they weren't trying to get their bodies to miscarry (a miscarriage, by the way, is medically called a 'spontaneous abortion' - abortion is just manually doing what the body does naturally to many women). The potential to jail women who drank or smoked before they knew they were pregnant. Keeping a vegetative woman on life support to preserve the foetus, literally using the mother as an incubator. And so it goes on. Living is not the same as personhood and a foetus does not come before its mother.

[flippinada]

Baby, I salute you, for your resilience and strength, I really do (sorry if that sounds inappropriate given the situation).

I tend to keep off threads like this for a variety of reasons but just want to wish you all the best.

[basgetti]

Well if they had been allowed access to safe legal abortions at least the women would likely have survived. Surely it is better to save one life than kill two, especially as the woman may have children who need her, a spouse who loves her, an otherwise fulfilling and happy life?