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.

Not sure what is so controversial or peculiar about that tbh.

It's just that it's utter bollocks.

So your curiosity was piqued after you saw a pro choice campaigner shouting into the face of an anti choice campaigner so you want to talk to her. But not so piqued that you asked what organization it was picked up the tab for her rent and child care? And even though she was handing out leaflets on their behalf she didn't tell you and you didn't read the leaflet?

Oh come on everyone k ow s we have a benefit system, tax credits , council housing, free dental and health care in pregnancy and a yr after baby is born. what on earth could the leaflet have said that made a difference to someone who already had decided that they didn't want that?

That story is clearly rubbish. I mean, doe eyed babies named after the woman who 'saved' them. Give me strength.

What I will say, is that, if those leaflets outside the clinic said

"We respect your right to choose. But if financial pressures are your reason and you don't feel you have a choice, we will support you by [X, Y , Z concrete packages]. Thank you for reading"

I don't think many people would have quite the same issue with them.

Have you seen any like that? Nope. Funny that.

Oh come on, there's no way that story is for real! It reminds me of the story you inevitably hear on threads about TMFRs - someone always knows of a friend of a friend who had an amnio or CVS, was given a diagnosis of Downs or another trisomy, went ahead with the pregnancy anyway and it turned out there was nothing wrong with the baby after all! They're untrue, overly emotive stories, and serve no purpose beyond making people like the OP feel bad.

Also, Marie Stopes are quite open about what they do re abortion and birth control. They may even be a charity, I'm not entirely sure, but there's no way they could afford to pay the household bills for a pregnant woman for over a year. So I highly doubt SPUC could either.

I actually think those people with the stories and leaflets are worse. If that's possible. promising people something you just can't deliver and leaving them.alone with a baby they are ill equipped to look after, once they have realised it's all cultish nonsense. reasons don't change. besides those women who just don't want a baby for no other reason than they don't want it ( which of course is absolutely their right) money is usually just one of many factors isn't it? not the only deciding one. There is nothing anyone can do to take away the reasons behind many abortions.

what happens when people realise these reasons are all still there and what they were told was complete crap.?

As someone that's been to Marie Stopes in London for an abortion, that wasn't my experience at all.

I have never heard of people standing outside clinics offering financial support to single mothers either - the people outside are all haranguing the patients :hmm:

shock..

So a medical clinic was not able to provide information regarding housing costs, benefits, crisis loans, or tax credits.

But it is able to provide medical information with regards to carrying on a pregnancy or medical and emotional support if choosing to abort.

Funny that....

I don't believe that it this day and age where all you have to do is type in 'what benefit am i entitled to' or ' support for pregnant women in my area' into google.

They offer emotional and medical support. They are not the money advice service.

I don't want to pop up like a poster child in these threads as it isn't a big aspect of my life, but re the "bollocks" thing, I just wanted to interject:

I was saved from abortion by someone not unlike the protestors mentioned, except there was no organized protest, and no accosting hundreds of women at the doors of the clinic.

I was saved from termination because a traditionally-minded person dared to step up and confront the issue head-on, do what they felt was right, even though there would be upset, and even though people might think them a bad person for it. I suffered the kind of childhood that people forecast here, but I would still rather have been starving and abused and alive, than not alive. I have managed to live a happy life past that, I have a wonderful partner and DCs.

Every word above is the truth (as related to me, I don't remember the earlier part).

So. Don't judge the mothers in these cases facing a decision you will never, ever have to make about their baby and their circumstances - I would be cross if people randomly judged my mum - life is hard and does not go according to plan and all ANY of us can do is try our best to cope with it. On the other hand, it can happen and a person's life can be quote "saved", really, in a sense that is neither abstract or bollocks.

Yes, I cycle past the Marie Stope centre just off Tottenham Court Road at least once weekly.

Lots of rosary bead clutching. Lots of images of Mary. Lots of handing leaflets about 'killing your baby' to any woman who goes near the clinic.

Never seen someone with an open cheque book suggesting that they support the woman for the next 18 years.

You don't suppose that 'Jane' was employed by SPUC as another attempt to manipulate, do you?

Beeswax - No one is saying that people can't change their minds about termination and be glad to have done so. We are saying that it is bollocks to suggest that aggressive protestors outside clinics are in fact wonderfully supportive kind hearted people giving out financial and emotional support. As you say, it wasn't a protestor outside a clinic that changed things for your own mother.

I am sorry if these threads are upsetting for you.

Why can't men object to abortion? Half of the babies being terminated are male, are they not allowed stand up for them at least?

I'm coming to this a bit late but I just wanted to add to others in saying that I'm so sorry you had to go through this at an already painful and vulnerable time questioning and that you're incredibly brave. Look after yourself.

I've never encountered any of these people, but if I do I will be telling them exactly what despicable, disgusting bullies they really are.

irish instead of objecting how about supporting your partner in the first place and helping create solutions to the problems you and your partner are facing that mean abortion is being considered. you can have whatever opinion you want just don't inflict it on people who need support and understanding not bombarding.

but bullying vulnerable people when you have no clue about their lives or their feelings or circumstances is not standing up for the babies. It's being a dick.

IrishDad79 We (I assume you are male) don't get pregnant so it's not our choice. It's not even the choice of any woman except the one who is pregnant. It's not rocket science.

I am sorry for a father who would have been supportive and whose wife or partner prefers to have an abortion; so I hope is everyone here, and yes it happens. But it's not his call.

Why can't men object to abortion? Half of the babies being terminated are male, are they not allowed stand up for them at least?

Nope. Until it's growing inside of you you don't get a say.

IrishDad79 that's an absurd argumet. Are you saying the aren't bothered about female foetuses then? This isn't the war of the sexes you know? It's a moral point of view as to whether you agree with abortion and the sex of the baby to be is not relevant.

As for 'standing up' for the foetus. It's hardly that. It's about harrassing and intimidating women and is not a constructive way to protest. It doesn't bring the topic into the open it just allows someone to intimidate others and as a tactic clearly has little effect as we still have 2000000 abortions happen per year. Abortion is necessary. If it was illegal it would still happen.

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/24/we-christened-your-dead-baby-belfast-clinics-anti-abortion-marie-stopes

I wish it were the gentle, please-we-have-other-options-we-can-rationally-discuss types outside MSI.

I meant 200000

I'm going to quote Rachel from friends: no uterus, no opinion.

To the person who said: "i would still rather have been starving and abused and alive, than not alive." I'm glad you feel that way. I don't. I'd rather have not been born.

So women who've had a hysterectomy don't get an opinion, Peppermint?

I think everyone is entitled to an opinion on this subject, just as they are on any subject, but I do NOT think anyone is entitled to force their opinion onto another person, or to use their opinion to bully or harass someone else.

What's that saying - opinions are like arseholes - everyone has one.

Why can't men object to abortion? Half of the babies being terminated are male, are they not allowed stand up for them at least?
Nope.
You may have planted it, but you ain't growing it.