To think men have no right to stand outside abortion clinics and do this.

[QuestioningStuff]

Posted before about my pregnancy. I am having a termination today. This is not a decision I've made lightly.

I've arrived at the clinic and there is a middle aged man and his young teen son standing outside with camp chairs and flasks. Putting up awful pictures and signs. Trying to hand out leaflets.

I think women who do this are also scum but how on earth could a man think he has any right to do this? Turn up at a place where women are at their most scared and vulnerable and try to bully them?

It's really really upset me. I hate them so much right now.

I want to go and tell them exactly what I think of them but don't think that would be helpful at this time.

men should put up and shut up

Yes of course unless we are saying men can compel a woman to give birth?

Bring your sons up better. I did.

max

Yes op hope you are ok and feeling the support on here.

^You're off the deep end at me there.

I'm sorry you had to go through that maxxytoe. There is no justification for it.

Sorry, that was at denim. I didn't mean that at all. Not at all.

max so sorry you had to go through that.

Scum, absolute scum.

Maxx how disgusting and hideous for you. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Azran not sure what you mean?

Protesting outside an abortion clinic is not going to change the law or government policy - the ONLY reason for doing it, imo, is to bully women into changing their minds.

And the people doing it have zero care or regard for the health and wellbeing of the women they are bullying.

azran re read your post and still can't see any response to a pregnant woman accessing abortion should be anything other other than a non judgmental 'of course.'

Unless the woman asks for opinions or alternatives.

I am sorry to hear what happened to you OP. I hope you are ok.

If abortion was made illegal we would return to the days of backstreet abortions resulting in many deaths. Babies would be regularly abandoned (which still happens when young girls are too scared to seek abortions). Thousands more children would be put into care because of neglect and abuse.Is that really preferable to having a well regulated and safe abortion service available? I don't understand what the protestors hope to achieve and they are extremely cruel to protest outside a clinic.

Except, of course, that a man will never, ever be faced with the decision to go through with a pregnancy they did not want.

Neither will a post-menopausal woman, but she has the same right or lack of it to protest as a man or a younger woman.

To have an abortion or not is the decision of the woman concerned and nobody else, male or female.

Where you draw the line against the right to protest is another and difficult issue. My own view is that no protest or demonstration should stop people going in peace and unmolested about their lawful private occasions, but some would find that unduly restrictive.

OP A thousand apologies for hitting Post too soon before I said and I hope all goes well with you.

It's not a protest. Who are they protesting to? If they want the law changed, they need to take it to the government. What they are doing is trying to harass women on their way into the clinic in an effort to change their minds. That is bullying and harassment.

And I do think that the fact they are men matters. Because it is not their bodies they are wanting to control. They have not had to experience years of fears of getting pregnant; they simply have no idea what that feels like. They won't ever have to make that awful final decision.

So, sitting there on their deck chairs is doing nothing but upsetting the women going in. It won't change their minds. It might intimidate women to stay away, but that is a result of harassment and not a 'peaceful protest'.

I think everyone has the right to feel the way they do about an issue, but that they have no right to 'force' (for want of a better word) those views onto someone else.

It's fine to have opposing views, it's fine to discuss if you both feel the need too. But not ok to try and do that to someone.

Hope everything goes well for you today OP.

Take your point popalot but Ii they want the law changed, they need to take it to the government could be applied to any protest, couldn't it?

Was it right to allow the demonstrations against austerity on Saturday? It was not "taking it to the government" either, was it?

I wish these bloody people, male or female, would stay away from clinics, but I see an exclusion clause as a difficult precedent.

sadly protests are often not just outside clinics

when I had a termination at 19 in the private clinic there were a few magazines with articles about abortions that had gone wrong, women feeling terrible guilt i sneaked one in my bag and planned to do the same with the others but was too groggy to remember later on

for myself it had no impact, I felt no guilt I simply did not want to be pregnant it was a very straightforward and simple decision to make but for others it may not have been. I believe that was the intention behind those magazines being there was to make women feel terrible for the choice they had made

I have heard of other similar incidents

and that is the intention of those pretending to protest outside clinics, it is not to change a woman's mind it is to make them feel guilt and hatred towards themselves

op I support your right to choose, I have no need to hear your reasoning it does not matter its that you have that choice. take care

Looking at the legal definition, if it would be illegal to park yourself outside a gay bar and cause upset and distress, then doing the same outside a clinic would surely be just as illegal.

I think the police should move them on, out of sight of the clinic.

During the austerity demos noone was shouting in David Cameron's face or spitting at him

There moat definatly should be exclusion zones.

Exactly boffin

Scientifically and legally there is only one person involved in an abortion mymmyusertime.

As has been said many times of this thread, in the UK at the moment, a foetus doesn't have any scientific or legal rights.

The woman whose body it is in does.

We live in a democracy.

You have the right to an abortion. They have the right to protest. As long as they are not violent, I don't see the problem.

Intimidation is the problem.

"Men commenly feel deep love for their unborn, but are often completly powerless in the final decision.......

Would any of you like to be in that position?"

No. But that's the position the forced birth campaigners want me to be in.

"You have the right to an abortion. They have the right to protest. As long as they are not violent, I don't see the problem."

Presumably because you have no imagination?