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.

I struggle with this. My head feels that woman should have the right to abort at any stage. However, I think I am against late stage abortion for any reason other than severe medical ones. Once the foetus could survive without the host it is a life. So viability I guess.

My cut off would be much earlier, first tri only I suppose.

I think the limit we have at the moment is about right. Beyond that, I can see that if the life can survive independently from the mother then there is a strong argument in favour our of not terminating it.

I also feel that if abortion is necessary then it's better done sooner rather than later.

As shown in the information I posted earlier from a Department of Health report, only 0.1% of all abortions in the UK are carried out after 24 weeks and for the vast majority of these it is due to serious problems with the foetus.

Imagine you go for your foetal anomaly scan, you're 21 weeks pregnant (this scan is usually done between 18 and 22 weeks of pregnancy). They can't get a good view, it happens if the foetus is in an awkward position, so you're sent away with a follow up scan booked for a fortnight's time. You go back at 23 weeks. The scan shows potential issues. You meet with a consultant. You have further tests and await results. By this point you are 26 weeks pregnant. The news is not good, the outlook is poor, there are serious health issues with the pregnancy. You need to.make a decision. By this point you are 27 weeks. You cling to every shred of hope and decide to take a 'watch and wait' approach. You have regular scans and check ups to monitor the situation. It does not improve and you take the heartbreaking decision to terminate at 32 weeks rather than continue the pregnancy. Should that termination not be allowed then?

Reducing the limit to 12 weeks or even 20 weeks totally disregards the fact that most abnormalities cannot be detected until the foetal anomaly scan. It also disregards the fact that some women go into denial, especially if the pregnancy is unwanted, and that this denial can be so complete that it can border on mental illness. There are women who do not know they're pregnant - in my last pregnancy I bled every four weeks, exactly when my period would have been due for the first four months, if I hadn't had a positive pregnancy test and multiple scans I wouldn't have realised I was pregnant until it eventually stopped at four months.

Abortion should be as early as possible, as late as necessary.

I have a personal cut off of 0 weeks, unless I was going to die or the baby could not live.

I have no right at all to impose this on anyone else.

With the limit thing. I would be interested in how many women would opt to terminate at a point where the baby could survive outside the womb - so lets say post 28 weeks or so - if there were no health problems for mother or baby. Because that's what the limit is about, right? It's about fear that people would do that? That there would be a situation where something that is widely regarded as 'a baby' rather than a foetus would have to be euthanised.

I don't think anyone would. I really don't. Maybe 1 in a million. If that.

To clarify, I was talking about the general limit, not saying no abortions at all afterwards for medical reasons.

Would mental health be classed as a medical reason?

At say 30 weeks with a generally healthy baby (including those with Down's syndrome) I cannot think it at all reasonable to abort rather than deliver the baby whatever the state of health of the mother. The difference is surely just whether you kill the baby before you deliver it?

shaska

I will be totally honest there are some circumstances in which I would.

Off the top of my head say I hadn't had sex with my partner for months but I had been raped had no idea that I was pregnant found out at 29 weeks

If I was in an abusive relationship was taking the pill but unknown to me my pills had been tampered with and I was really taking sweeteners and didn't know until post 25 weeks

If I devoloped a medical condition that was incompatible with caring for a child (don't know if any actually exist just musing) post 25 weeks

If I became aware that the father of the unborn child was dangerous but had a lack of faith that the child would not be used as a guinnea pig to see what happened by the courts

If I was a drug addict and had been unaware of the pregnancy earlier.

I know they are quite extreme circumstances but they are ones under which I would have a post 25 week termination

I usually avoid abortion threads, not in a bad way, but it brings back the old feelings of when I was pregnant with DS at 16 and I just remember sitting in the abortion clinic contemplating whether I should continue with the pregnancy or not.

In the past, I was very much against abortion. Until I became pregnant myself. It was and still is the most agonising decision I ever had to make.
I am very much pro-choice now and do not judge a woman if she decided to end a pregnancy.

I can't really recall the reasons why I decided to keep DS. I know I just kept asking myself "..could I really bring up this child, even though his dad may leave at any point, not having any money..etc". I did contemplate adoption at one point...

After all the judgemental comments I faced. I finished my education and I'm graduating from university this year at the age of 21 . I have come a long way!

You wouldn't have the baby at the point you were at and if it survived delivery hand it over to the state?

Fair enough. I'm guilty of thinking of what I would do being what anyone would. I suppose my assumption was that in the situations you describe, the issue is not wanting the child, and not wanting to be pregnant anymore - so if the baby comes out and you're not expected to keep it, then if it's capable of surviving outside the womb then why not let it be adopted.

I'm not really sure what I think the laws should be around limits, to be honest. Glad I don't have to decide, is I think how I mostly feel.

No, meerka, it's true.

"Your entire stance is about getting everyone in the world to agree with you. "

Says who? You?

Oh dear Pomerania. A foetus isn't 'part of a woman's womb'

I think the limit in the UK will probably be lowered.

Shaska, why do you think that? I find it hard to think that women can harm their born babies/children but it happens. The fact that it doesn't happen that often doesn't mean we can ignore that it might happen so we have laws against it - same with abortion. There comes s point where people do think, "no, this is wrong."

Exactly bilberry. I have asked why people support termination specifically at the later stages.

I had a late termination. 21+5. My beautiful baby girl had severe anomalies. At worst, incompatible with life. At best, profound disabilities. I will never know how bad and if I did the right thing. The guilt crushed me. It changed my whole outlook. Losing my baby changed who i am. It's not far off 6 years now and I still have days where I torture myself. Other days I know I did what I believed was the right thing to do with the information that I had. What was right for her, so she didn't suffer.

I had to take a tablet two days beforehand to stop the pregnancy hormones and make my body release the pregnancy. I was induced and she died while I laboured. It was the similar to giving birth to a term baby, although the labour progressed quicker, not so far to dilate. She weighed just under a pound. I was treated with the utmost respect by staff, I stayed overnight with her and I dressed her and held her, sang to her, loved her.

I don't tell people much, I know they judge me, I can see it in their eyes. To me she absolutely was a baby. I have her photos on my walls and visit her grave with my other children.

I advocate the right to choose. I agonised over my decision, and still do, yet I'm glad I had the right to choose what I believed is right for my child. There are people who will believe I made the wrong choice but they are not me. I may believe that others should make a different choice in their situation, but their situation is their own and not mine to judge. Everyone should have that choice, for whatever reason.

Clucking so sorry for your loss.

Great post clucking so very sorry for your loss x

Thank you for sharing that clucking,I'm so very sorry for your loss

I haven't told anyone this IRL (other than DP of course) but not because I am ashamed, rather because I am a very private person and do not normally discuss the intimacies of my life... Anyway... Here goes...

I have had 2 abortions in the past 3 years. I am not careless about contraception or feckless or irresponsible but I am ridiculously fertile. I already have 4 wonderful DC and definitely do not want any more. The first time, I became pregnant after a condom split - I rushed to Boots and took the MAP the very next morning - and still became pregnant. The second time, DP & I did not even have penetrative sex, just "fooling around". I mean, how utterly ridiculous!!! I can remember reading about the tiny chances of that happening on the problem pages of teen magazines in my youth. I am bloody 41 not some nubile young thing!!! I think that's what I found most upsetting the second time - the unfairness, the "what are the fucking chances of that" -ness of the whole situation.

Both terminations were carried out before 9 weeks and were very straightforward procedures. The staff were extremely kind and professional. I did not even have sedation for the first one as I wanted to be fully present and in control. I may be rather unusual but both times I took the opportunity to lock myself in the loo with my file and have a look at the scan photos that had been taken for dating purposes. I just wanted to acknowledge existence I think. This does sound completely bonkers but I said goodbye to them and sorry things weren't different but I really didn't want another baby.

I felt no guilt or sadness, just selfishly sad for me that I had to go through that twice in such a short space of time through no real fault of my own. Physically, the after effects were no worse than a period. No need for counselling, I am at peace that I made the right decision for myself and my family.

It has put me right off intimacy with my DP though as I can't bear the thought of it happening again ! I can't use hormonal contraception and live in fear of another condom failure. I now usually get DP to withdraw in addition to wearing a condom or I just pleasure him in other ways and keep my pyjama bottoms firmly between us!!!!! Not ideal He will probably get the snip in the next year or so when he plucks up courage...

I am convinced that if men were the ones who got pregnant then a) there would be far better and more reliable contraceptives available and b) abortion would be viewed no different to having a tooth extracted or a mole removed.
I hope that doesn't offend anyone - just my personal thoughts which are becoming more rampantly feminist in my old age

Clucking - I'm so sorry for the loss of your daughter and have found your post very powerful and moving

You wouldn't have the baby at the point you were at and if it survived delivery hand it over to the state

No, because having worked in the system for long enough I have little faith in it, and no desire to intentionally abandon a living child, also many of my potential reasons would be to protect a child from harm, the second I instigated that process with a born live child I cease to be able to do that and another parent with potential rights would exist,if that parent is the person I am trying to prevent being able to harm the child my chances of that working are slim to none.

Adoption these days is not the same as it was years ago you can't just drop a baby off at delivery with decent God fearing folk who wear hats like you used to.

We all do what we think is right. Even if we stand alone with those beliefs, I believe it is right to do as much as you can to prevent suffering of live children and living mothers. It's also why I wouldn't leave it up to nature to decide

Sorry to hear about your daughter clucking

littleHorse

Have you considered a combo of a cap and persona machine?

sorry to read about your baby clucking, and thank you so much for sharing your story. and you too, littlehorse.

The thing about the on demand to term opinion is about allowing women to self regulate. Do people really think that if we removed the limits on abortion that people would suddenly be rushing to have late stage abortions, just because they can?
I find that so insulting to women. Like we're just feckless fools who need to be controlled with laws as we can't be trusted to make sensible decisions.

Abortion is legal to term in Canada: there are no legal restrictions whatsoever. Yet only 2% are carried out past 20 weeks, and less than half a percent after 24 weeks, and these are almost exclusively for medical reasons such as incompatibility with life/severe disability. If women in Canada can self regulate and make their own decisions, and do it so well, why can't the rest of us?