To think there are a lot of misconceptions about terminating a pregnancy

[fiveacres]

Obviously, about abortion, which is a contentious issue for some.

I am approaching the third due date of the pregnancy I terminated in the autumn of 2011 at 9 weeks.

I was a very pious sort once, who believed that abortions were morally wrong. i admit that freely. I still do feel that the best option is not to be in that position in the first place.

However, although I do sometimes think about it, I don't regret it. I've been pregnant twice since so it hasn't affected my fertility.

I paid privately. I did not have any counselling - I was undecided when I went for the initial appointment but I have to say it was very much 'assumed' that I wanted to terminate. The record of the abortion is not in my medical file.

You don't have to give a reason, although they did press me to have the implant, which I refused. They did do a scan, which was a bit upsetting.

It did not hurt. I was warned I would bleed a lot but I didn't. My periods came back in 6 weeks.

You are in a room with a LOT of other women after the procedure, which is upsetting.

Other than that, I felt good after having it done, relieved, happy, mainly relieved.

I do have the odd flash of guilt. I wouldn't do it again.

But, I was reading another thread and it crossed my mind a lot of people do not really seem to know what having a termination is like. My experience may be typical or it may not be, I don't know, but it would be interesting to see what the experiences of others are to try to dispel or to address some of the myths that surround this difficult but sometimes necessary issue.

Exactly, personal experience vs public narrative. I don't believe I could have stated my position any more clearly or consistently, so attempts to misrepresent that position are clearly motivated by something else entirely.

Card on table - I am pro choice. I believe in access to legal, safe abortion because the alternative is inhuman. But on a personal level I believe that it should be a decision that is taken seriously, because I believe it is a human life.

I personally know two people who have had repeated abortions because, in their own words, they don't like condoms. While I am glad to live in a society where they have the RIGHT to do this safely and legally, I find this behaviour - the conscious, repeated choice to end a life because you can't be arsed to use freely available contraception - morally repugnant and I am not going to apologize for that.

Well, I won't use the pill so i understand that.

Nobody asks you to knit, you can feel about it however you like. If you decide to state that feeling to others, they are allowed to feel about you and your opinion however they like, and so on and so on ad infinitum.
Privately held opinions are our own affair, publicly stated ones are open to scrutiny and debate, and opinions used to try and affect the lives of others are a whole other level.

I find abortion issues very similar to any other personal choice and reaction. Everyone has views. No ones view trumps the view and subsequent action of the pregnant person.

I think it's a woman's absolute right to access free, safe abortions on demand for any reason up until birth.

Anything less says a woman looses her bodily autonomy while pregnant and that's repugnant.

"I personally know two people who have had repeated abortions because, in their own words, they don't like condoms"

I have heard this often. But I have been around a very long time and I have never met anyone like this. I have met people who have taken the morning after pill more often than is probably good for them because they arecrap at contraception- but I have never met anyone who used abortion as their main means of contraception. And they don't seem to appear in the statistics, either.

I didn't believe it either until I met them.

Knit - but would those repeated abortions have been better had they been repeated live births?

I think sometimes people forget that people who are lackadaisical about contraception aren't necessarily going to make great parents to a large family.

I have never been on the pill, or used any other type of contraception other than condoms despite being married for 11 years and having sex with him before that, and it is possible for rhythm based contraception to be as effective as hormonal based.

The thing is, in all those cases, you end up being caught out - so what do you do then?

For over 50% of wome having an abortion, it is their first one. Another nearly 30% are having a second. That leaves 20something % having 2 or more. Which considering that most women are fertile for 30 years or more doesn't seem too bad to me. Particularly considering that the alternative is many more unwanted children.

The feckless woman with her multiple abortions is another anti choice trope.

No - I have had to report one of them to social services regarding her living child.

I judge people who are feckless about contraception when we live in a country where it is free and easily accessible.

So do you think I'm making these two women up?

I'm not saying it's common - but it happens

Being pro choice is a legal position, not a moral one, as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, but it isn't being 'feckless' to decide not to use one particular form of contraception.

You say they won't use condo so - will they use anything?

I won't go on the Pill, have a coil or use anything that I feel interferes with my body.

I will use condo s and do when I am having sex which will probably never happen again

Condoms, obviously.

Of course it's fine not to use a particular form of contraceptive - but to not bother at all (as in the case of these two women and their partners) is not

I dunno though. I mean, I hate condoms and that was partly why I had an abortion, but if I was genuinely using abortion as contraception... I'd have had really a lot of abortions, presumably. I mean really a lot, given that the only time (it was about a week, if anyone's counting) I've had unprotected sex I got pregnant.

There absolutely are people who are lax about contraception and end up having abortions as a result. But it's their body, and presumably the other option would've been that they'd used contraception and not been pregnant in the first place.

Also 'multiple' abortions - are we talking three, or fifteen? Cos my mum's had three, and over a course of a lifetime it's higher than average but it's not a sign of some deep moral failing.

And if we're talking fifteen, then tbh I'd hope someone would flag it as a woman in need of some sort of help, rather than judgement.

I think it's possible to make mistakes.

Making a mistake doesn't mean you should be 'punished' by having to go through pregnancy and birth and parenthood, does it?

I have never met serial abortion offenders either and have been a nurse and around many pregnant women for a good few years.

However if these people exist then surely they are making a sensible choice not a feckless one faced with pregnancy?

If a baby is not wanted it's not wanted.

Seems to he to be a far more sensible choice than giving birth to am unwanted baby.

Why does it matter how many abortions a woman has?

I have zero concerns about someone having 1 or 100 abortions, because I don't think a foetus is a baby. I think it's a deeply impractical form of birth control, but that's none of my business.

So hang on- you are saying that these women do not use any contraceptives at all, but have abortions every time they get pregnant? So, one every, oh, I don't know, 4 months or so? Does that really sound likely??

Thank you for starting this thread, fiveacres. As someone who hasn't had an abortion but who if necessary would, it's been a really enlightening read.
I am married and very adamantly don't want children. Should my DH and I have contraceptive failure, I will terminate.
It won't even be something I wrestle with, I will just do it as soon as possible. I don't foresee having any guilt but I have sometimes wondered if it might take me by surprise, if some vestigial trace of being brought up in a religious country would come to the fore.
So it's reassuring to read about the experiences of women whose reaction to the procedure has been mostly relief.

If someone has the kind of chaotic and irresponsible lifestyle that means they use abortion as contraception, they aren't likely to make good parents, so it's probably the best option to take in the circumstances.

Abortion isn't contraception. People are not using abortion as contraception. They might be using it instead of contraception.

Bertrand, all I can go on is what they have told me, which is what I've said upthread.

I''ll say it again, I didn't believe that people did this until I met them. I used to be pro-abortion on demand up to term, because I didn't believe people used abortion in this way. They changed my mind.