In not being all humble and respectful and all that.(abortion related)

[IdontusuallyNC]

I have had the contraceptive injection twice now obviously I had it done on time and followed all instructions given to me I also usually use condoms I have 3 occasions where condom use has not been optimum all in the same weekend.

I have recently to my horror discovered that I am pregnant, POAS because I feel like crap and it felt like HG not expecting it to be the case but these things happen. Due to the amount of children I have one being tiny the nature of the relationship with my sexual partner and a quite serious history of HG and SPD(all but 1 previous pregnancy) I have booked in to have a TOP on Tuesday.

I'm quite comfortable with my decision and in general tend to be quite matter of fact about things.

My closest friend has gone very weird on me I declined an invitation for Tuesday from her and disclosed why. Ever since she has been upset because I'm not being sad enough she feels I'm being flippant about human life and not respectful.

I'm not entirely sure what she means by this and she has tried to be sympathetic not that it is needed but has mentioned this on a few occasions.

So am I meant to be sad and stuff or is it acceptable to feel positive towards the decision?

Bravo, Brillo and Pacific! I have had miscarriages, lost a child, have another child who has autism. Cannot imagine for one minute being anything other than for anyone's autonomy over his or her own body, be it in reproductive choices or right to die. Free, legal and safe.

'I love women and I feel that they should have better options than an abortion, should be properly supported through unplanned pregnancy and if they do choose to have an abortion to have better aftercare.'

Like what? What options? What are they? The old 'you could give it up for adoption' and all that goes with that, for real, we have decades of that, women forced to give away babies they couldn't keep and the children that followed? The Tory/UKIP version of single motherhood?

When you try in any way to take away a person's right to: medical treatment, including when to stop it or forgo it, reproduce, die, then you don't love those people, you love your views on how they should act.

And that's well wrong and fucked up.

I support a women choice to have an abortion.

I am glad if the women is happy with the choice she has made because to me it indicates it was the right decision to make. Not that 1 size fits all and those who guilt over the choice should be supported.

I'm glad it's not the 1920 where abortion was illegal in the uk, because back street abortions was extremely risky and many women died as a result.

Yes QueenTilley, your description of the contradictory abortion narratives resonate with me. A woman "should be" certain and confident in a decision to terminate, but and and, she "ought" to feel sadness and expect regret, where if there is an absence of the latter group of emotions this can be taken as evidence that the woman is not a responsible adult who is properly deserving of this medical treatment. Having conversations like this thread is useful as women, people, can first discuss the pressures they feel and the attitudes they've experienced along with their origins, discussion as the precursor for change.

OP, I hope things go well for you. As for the friendship, you know what you can gloss over in order to continue the friendship, or whether you can or want to have a discussion about how your feelings differ on the topics of termination. I think I would probably go for the glossing over/make appropriate soothing noises approach with my friends, but to discuss things might be the more emotionally intelligent route, as long as the before of the friendship outweigh the potential for pain and hurt from a conversation where opinions strongly differ.

I love women and I feel that they should have better options than an abortion

Yes, so do I: this is why I think that vaginal penetration by penis until the point of ejaculation should not be the definition of "sex." We should be able to have fulfilling sex lives WITHOUT worrying about unwanted pregnancy, and that means that heterosexual sex needs to be defined more broadly than PIV. That being said, if a woman has PIV for recreational purposes I still think she has an absolute right to choose to terminate a pregnancy that results from it. Because I don't "love" women in some weird, abstract, patronising and meaningless sense, but instead regard them as autonomous adults with the drive for self-determination, and therefore think they should have better options than forced pregnancy.

QueenTilly
That said, it's a controversy that always confused me, ever since the moment I first encountered it. It always felt to me, as a younger 'un, that the consensus was: "termination is a very serious decision. You should only have one if you are utterly certain that this is the right decision, as otherwise you will regret it, and live a wretched life of misery and remorse, etc". Does this ring a bell with anyone else? I remember accepting that narrative completely as a young teen.

And yet, if a woman says, "yep, I'm completely sure about this, and completely sure I won't regret it", people react badly?

Hang on, wait, what?

How come the same people who say that termination is always the wrong choice if a woman has even slightly mixed feelings about it then turn around and criticise women for being too sure about not wanting to continue a pregnancy? And yes, often it is the exact same people.

Rather than having to do with the idea that women get pregnant on purpose so that they can have an abortion (which I agree, makes sense to no-one), I suspect this particular phenomenon has an awful lot to do with that other utterly harmful concept - the concept that women are born and destined for motherhood and that there must be something wrong with a woman if she chooses not to have children.

Every woman's destiny and duty is first and foremost to procreate and raise her offspring, so any woman choosing to opt out of that at any time is clearly defective. It can't be the 'right' decision for her (and thus acceptable to the previously ostensibly concerned masses) if she's rejecting her sacred and blessed role as a mother - no, no, there's simply something wrong with her. Quick, shut down the sympathy generator - we need not waste our efforts on this 'woman'. Why waste any more semblances of compassion on women who refuse to be talked round into carrying their foetus to term?

IME it is important for future outcomes that the woman makes the decision to terminate for the right reasons: because it's right for her. Not for her partner or her mum or because she's embarrassed, but because the decision is right for her.
Just like nobody should have to have a baby 'for' somebody, nobody should have to decide NOT to continue a pregnancy because of somebody else's feelings on the subject.

I have seen women with regrets years and sometimes decades after termination but unfailingly they were coerced in to it by somebody close to them
I have also one had the misfortune of being involved in the care of a woman who was coerced in to carrying the baby to term to then give it up for adoption - this course of action had not been her choice. People very close to her did not support termination or helping her keep the baby. She is still struggling with this 10 years later and I cannot see her 'getting over' these events.

It is all about choice and control over what an individual may need to do in their situation.

Don't get me started on 'it's women's purpose in life to have children'! [facepalm]

When you try in any way to take away a person's right to: medical treatment, including when to stop it or forgo it, reproduce, die, then you don't love those people, you love your views on how they should act.

Some really excellent posts here that sum up how the issue isn't just that people want to control how a woman acts, they also want to control how she feels.

That is, abortion is only acceptable if a woman feels about it in a way that is deemed acceptable to others.

My mum gave me the best bit of advice when I found out I was pregnant when I was at Uni.

I already knew she had had a miscarriage between my brother and me and then a termination after my brother - the baby would've been due at the time we were due to leave South Africa (a politically motivated emigration). She told me that some people will try make you feel guilty but that it was up to me how I felt and what I decided. She'd always known it was the right decision for her and had never had any emotion about it.

I felt the same: It was never a difficult decision - the worst thing had been telling mum and dad (who were great). Never had any regrets. At a different time in my life, I may well have felt differently - but at the time it was absolutely the right decision for me.

About 7 years later, I was on a "Woman as Leaders" course and they tried to get me to talk about what it would have been called and to "let out" what I really felt . The facilitator and some of the women had great difficulty understanding that I genuinely didn't feel anything. I'd been "ill" and made better - but even that was too strong a description. Afterwards one of the other women said to me how she'd admired how I wouldn't be bullied into "admitting" something just to fit with what the others believed I should feel.

As it happens, I had two miscarriages after having ds (10 years later) and wasn't able to have another child but still have no regrets. It was a younger sibling I wanted for ds - the termination all those years before wouldn't have changed that.

Gallic I'm not sure 40 week abortions are the solution though.

I've read all the posts and it's been a real eye opener for me. I really had no idea that people think like that. I'm still not convinced that it's the right thing though. I don't think feminism has to mean that it's only about the woman and nothing else has any importance, even a fully developed healthy baby at 40 weeks. It just seems too simplistic to think like that and if it was that easy then it wouldn't stir up so much emotion in people. I don't think think that emotion makes people weak or soppy or irrational or woman haters. It does seem like there are a few extremists here (as I suppose there are with everything) but most people seem to fall in the middle. I'm not sure the extremists are actually doing feminism or the pro-choice movement any favours. It certainly made me rethink wanting to call myself either. I don't think that you have to just accept and support what someone wants to do just because it's their right to do it. People have the right to take drugs but I don't have to agree with them or support them doing it and I certainly don't have to campaign for heroin to be made legal so they can have that choice. I suppose that technically, saying that you are pro-choice would mean that so maybe there needs to be a different term if you don't think that way? Pro-abortion-law?

Sorry, that was a bit rambley. It was playing on my mind.

You don't have to support what they want, you just have to keep your beak out and stop trying to control what other women do with their bodies.

I mean, knock yourself out pontificating about how you feel about it, what you would do in any situtation, blah blah blah, but in the end get a hold of yourself and accept that no-one else cares what you think, and rightly so. What do any of your feelings have to do with goes on inside MY body? How dare you imagine for a moment that they should?

grockle, you are being rude. I do not support the suggested idea of legalising abortion at 40 weeks for any reason. By your logic, I should 'keep my beak out' and allow people to campaign to legalise heroin because I don't have control over what they do with their body either. Now go away and grow up and learn how to express an opinion like an adult. You do not have to agree with me but you do not need to be rude. People don't necessarily care about your opinion and feelings either you know. You are no more important than me.

Oops if you think people have a right to take drugs, however unwise it is for them, then you shouldn't support a law that criminalizes them for doing so. It doesn't mean you have to agree with their choice to do so, or to campaign for the removal of the law. But if you think a law against doing something is OK then that is at odds with thinking people have a right to do that thing. A right is a legal entitlement, if you agree with a law against it, it isn't a right.

BoomBoomI probably phrased it badly because I wasn't talking legal rights. By saying that they have the right to take them I mean that technically, it is their body and their choice to take drugs but I don't have to approve of it, support it or stand back and allow people to legalise it when I don't agree with it just because it's their body and they want to do what they like with it. I don't think heroin should be legalised and I don't think 40 week abortions for any reasons should be legalised and I don't care how unpopular that opinion makes me with the extremists on this thread who seem to think that their opinion is the only right one.

Taking heroin is not really a good comparison, bring something that is bad for the individuals taking it and also damaging for society as a whole. Whereas abortion is actually good for women who don't have to continue with unwanted pregnancy, and also good for society, as mentioned further up the thread.

My friend had an abortion. Saw the scan of the baby. I was trying to get pregnant at the time and thought I may have problems conceiving. I didn't agree with the abortion. I didn't tell her. I supported her. Your friend should have kept her feelings to herself.

I supported a friend through a TOP while DH and I were TTC. It was entirely the right decision for her at the time. I didn't for a moment equate the pregnancy she was terminating with the pregnancy I so badly wanted.

It turns out DH and I can't have children. Funnily enough, our struggles to conceive have made me more strongly pro-choice.

I wonder what pro forced birthers think about their daughters and their fertility. If their daughter came to them in floods of tears with an unwanted pregnancy would they force their own daughter to birth and look after/give up the unwanted baby?

I'm thinking of you today OP. I hope all goes smoothly and that you and your friend come to some sort of resolution

I agree it's a personal decision, and that abortion is better (safer etc) when it's legal. But if someone I knew had one, I would see them in a different light, and would struggle to be close to them again

In that case, the woman in question would definitely be better off without you as a "friend", wickedlazy.

Sunshine, you sound a lovely friend

moomin but aside from rape victims and in a society where there is free access to a wide range of free contraception, how can any women be forced to be pregnant. And to be blunt a termination of a late term baby ( over 24 weeks) is going to involve labour anyhow as there is mo sway to surgically 'remove' it.

Contraception fails. Did you really not know that?