to be completely confused - pro/anti choice

[ScarletFever]

I have ALWAYS considered myself pro-choice

and then this - remember that person Josie who is on the daily mail a lot, with her nhs boob job etc who has made a career of annoying people... who said

"i would have aborted my baby if it meant i could go on Big Brother"

Right - so I was like "oh you evil cow" etc......, but then it was pointed out somewhere, if you are pro-choice, then what difference does it mean if her reason is crap?

So, how do i get my head around it being 'ok to abort a disabled child, or if you are not ready for children, or even it is the wrong time (re career) to have a child' but not ok to abort a child for a 'celebrity' reason??

I just can't get my head around the idea that a fully developed, term baby could be terminated in utero because their mother doesn't want them. It very rarely happens this way! Most late (1%) terminations are not going to be because the mother just suddenly changed her mind.

I can't get my head around the fact that people really think feckless women are demanding 39/40 week terminations because they changed their fucking mind.

Freudian I just don't accept your narrow definition of prochoice. Pregnancy is a unique state, the woman doesn't have bodily autonomy as she has another human life inside her. I'm pro freedom of speech but not without limits, I'm pro religious freedoms but not to the extent that this facilitates discrimination, I see this issue very much in terms of a balance of rights. I guess I just have a different view about the personhood of the foetus/baby from people who support unlimited choice.

in my perfect world,abortion would not happen,unless the woman's life was genuinely in danger,particularly after 12 weeks gestation

I think THAT is barbaric.

Genuine questions, please answer them...
1] do you really want to FORCE a woman to continue a pregnancy she doesn't want
2] do you want to force her to give birth to a baby she doesn't want
3] do you think she will love the baby after you have FORCED that on her?
4] who will pay for its needs
5] who will look after it if she can't cope/doesn't want it?

several cross posts there.
re forcing a woman to labour late term,I understand that from 20 weeks an abortion would generally involve induced labour so I think the question raised about whether the father/other family member agreed to raise the child,would it still be right to end the babies life based on the mothers wishes is a very interesting one.
My friends pregnancy was genuinely unwanted and she was very low during her pregnancy.She believed it was not right for her to have an abortion.She has been genuinely surprised by how much she has been able to enjoy her new baby. I know it is anecdotal though. For what its worth,my husband and I were both unplanned babies (both born within 13 months of our older sibling) and he probably suffered more than me in that my mother 'got over it' and his mother never really did and made his childhood fairly miserable, but he is happy now and would never wish he had not been born.
In the days before the abortion act,many women would continue their pregnancies and have their babies adopted. Many of those women are now being reunited with their children and having a relationship with them after years.Some of course were forced to give up their babies. There are long waiting lists of childless couples longing for babies, so no-one is asking anyone to bring up a child they do not want and pay for their food and education.We are just saying,give them a chance of life,with a couple who desperately do want them. There are even couples who specifically request a child with Downs Syndrome,or severe disability because they feel they are in a position to care for such a child.
I am not minimising how difficult it would be to carry a child to term with the intention of having it adopted, but abortion has become so mainstream that often that is not considered as an option.

Differentnameforthis, late term abortions are in the main illegal so quoting the 1% figure makes no sense, I understand it's rare and if abortion on demand to term were to be legalised there would likely not be a huge demand. As it's not legal we are discussing this hypothetically, you're completely misrepresenting what I've said when you talk about 'feckless women' 'changing their fucking mind' I've never said anything like this.

the is fine Pud but you know what the word choice means

unlimited choice, choice with restrictions is taking away choice that a woman may feel she needs to take

people make a choice based on their interpretation of their religion to discriminate - the choice is theirs

Late term abortions are legal if done for medical reasons.

I haven't misrepresented you at all, perhaps you are not saying what you think you are saying, because all over your posts you are anti abortion, anti choice & happy to force woman into pregnancies & births they do not want.

I am sorry, but I can't continue to discuss this with you. You have no idea what an unwanted pregnancy is like, and I hope that you continue to be able to live in that bubble.

Because it isn't all about struggling through til that baby comes out & then falling in love with & living happily ever after, or giving it up & living happily ever after...thankfully the people who make the laws realise that, because most people don't seem to.

queenceleste

I am reay confused about what you are asking. You talk about damage to women, then your sister's ability to refuse to assist with abortions and how i am a moral dictator. Is there anywhere where i have said your sister or anyone else should have to assist with abortions against their will? Does a woman having several abortions have any bearing at all on someone who has chosen not to assist with abortions?

You dont seem clear yourself on what exactly is your issue. Maybe take some time to pinpoint and separate the issues you have with abortion and try again with this thread?

I agree with vd about the idea of abortion being mainstream and I say that as someone who unfortunately has had 2.

One when I was 16 helping to care for my terminally ill grandmother and couldn't fathom the idea of motherhood and one when I was 23 for medical reasons.

But now I hate myself for it, I wish I hadn't done it once let alone twice. Had it not been so easy for me at 16 to have a termination completely secretly I would have had the baby and in hindsight that would have been better for both of us.

That said I know there are other women in different situations who need to end their pregnancy for a huge number of reasons who are at peace with their decision, and I agree abortion needs to be accessible to every woman that needs it.

vbd I accept the current legislation but think it should be reviewed regularly to reflect advances in medical practice so that if the survival rates of 22 week babies improves,the cut off point for abortion should be adjusted accordingly

So the value of right to life is dependent on scientific capability?

Can we keep baby alive? Yes? Well, it has a right to life. No? Well, it has no right to life.

Do you not feel that a right to life should be accorded based on factors intrinsic to the being in question?

I expect to get flamed for this but I cannot understand how people can say that a woman has the right to terminate to term. I understand that this is the logical progression from being pro-choice but then by the same logic, why impose birth as a time limit. Why not legalise infanticide?

You've been extremely patronising to me differentnameforthis. We clearly have some different views on late term abortions but don't try and tell me I don't know what I'm saying or that I live in a bubble. You don't know me, you don't know anything about my life and you have no idea whether I have had an unwanted pregnancy. You are constructing a complete fabrication of my views about living happily ever after and about feckless women - either you're just trying to goad or you think your arguments are too weak without this kind of elaboration. I haven't got a clue what your point about people who make the laws realising this, we do not have a abortion on demand to term in the UK.

I hate all this comparing deck chairs with cheese crap - wanted babies born very prem V unwanted pregnancies/'babies' with conditions incomparable with life

also babies born at 22,23,27 weeks don't just magically survive - they require intensive, invasive, painful intervention and will often suffer from a range of issues for life due to their prematurity - of course parents want everything possible done to save these much wanted babies - it is completely different for those who don't want to be pregnant or - more usual for 20+ weeks - those who would give anything to be able to save their baby but can't because of the multiple problems that unborn baby is facing.

Choice is just that - choice - free choice - and 'morals' - well YOUR morals don't have any right to influence or deny choice to anyone but you.

For me I decided that women's body autonomy was more important. Always.

Why would you be flamed? Because once the cord is cut the baby is living an independent life. Before that it isn't.

Late term abortions are vanishingly rare and are overwhelmingly for medical reasons. However, they often take up a disproportionate amount of debating time because,understandably, the are very troubling to practically everyone on all sides.

Maidofstars, I have clearly stated that I am not in favour of abortion but accept that current law prevents back street abortions etc and that is a good thing. It is not contradictory to then argue that having got a law in place (that in my view is totally abused to the point of almost being pointless) it should be reviewed regularly and if a foetus is viable (ie can survive with care outside the womb) it should not be legal to end it's life. It does not make sense to me that in rooms side by side in a hospital,one 23week old baby has all the care in the world thrown at it because its parents want it to live and the baby next door has its life extinguished because its mother does not want it. I think the reason that we mention late term abortion in our arguments,despite the fact that most abortions are probably before 12 weeks is that for those who are truly pro-choice, the argument is 'any stage for any reason' and to me that cannot be right,as if you carry that to its logical conclusion,and some people do,then if a baby is born and not wanted the best thing for that baby would be to give it a lethal injection once born. There really is no difference.

we there is a difference since one is illegal and the other is legal

you never ever have to have an abortion at any stage vdb - and that really is all you should be concerning yourself with - what I or any other woman chooses has no impact on you and is not your concern

Those suggesting a woman should be made to labour and give birth if the child's father wants to raise it- how exactly do you see that working out? mary's husband wants to raise her baby so does this mean mary coming home from giving birth to a baby she doesnt want to find that baby now living in her home? Or are you suggesting her husband leaves her and their existing children to raise the baby?

Any talk of abortion needs to be approached carefully so as not to trivialise the issue. Firstly, I don't believe the woman who claimed to want one for big brother was actually being serious and only after publicity.

Secondly, I find the attitude that we need to lower the timescale of abortion implies that women have abortions on a whim and that they treat it as a casual thing. Make no mistake it is a traumatic experience for the women involved and actually the number of abortions after the 12 week mark are very slim and almost exclusively for medical reasons. Nobody takes that decision lightly and it's for that reason that no woman should feel judged for determining what happens to her body.

Many of those women are now being reunited with their children and having a relationship with them after years

And many are living in fear of the day a stranger knocks their door and they have to explain why they did what they did, for some a memory so painful they wish never to have to revisit it. Many also fearing the day they have to tell their family who the adult on the doorstep is. Many never having forgiven themselves for having to bring a life into the world that they couldnt care for and wondering all that time if that child was well cared for knowing that they were responsible for everything that child went through yet unable to protect it themselves.

Adoption isnt a fucking fairytale

Hakluyt - so it's ok to smother a baby at birth so long as the cord hasn't been cut yet?

yeah I am sure Hakluyt thinks that's fine

are people incapable of debate without all the hyperbole ffs

oh and you realise once born the cord no longer acts as life support - even when still attached right?

vbd It is not contradictory to then argue that having got a law in place (that in my view is totally abused to the point of almost being pointless) it should be reviewed regularly and if a foetus is viable (ie can survive with care outside the womb) it should not be legal to end it's life

I agree that laws should be reviewed. I do not agree that abortion law should be reviewed based on viability. I'd rather have laws that weren't predicated on logical fallacy.

If I had to categorise my objections,it is the 'it's not convenient at this time' reason that I find most difficult.

This is why moral opinions are taken out of the process for obtaining an abortion.

One persons "convenience" is another persons "we're going to be skint forever, we might lose the house".

Judging this 'convenience' factor is nothing more than a moral judgement on the mother/parents (though normally the mother, let's be honest). It is judging if they would like to have a comfortable household income rather than being on the breadline every month. It is judging if they want to keep their 3-bed house near some reasonable schools rather than selling up and moving to a 2-bed flat. It is judging a woman for wanting to keep working rather than giving it up because they can't afford two sets of childcare fees.

I'm curious, vdbfamily and others posters who think that abortions are too easily available for too light reasons, what you see as 'convenience'?

It wasn't me who suggested cord cutting as the point at which "termination" should no longer be allowed. When is the point in your view ghosty?

I'm not sure why interrogating the idea of late term abortion is hyperbole. I actually chose the least emotive scenario I could think of to illustrate the point.