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.

Yes, isn't a disgrace that Irish woman couldn't access abortion in her own country?

Sadly people die from medical negligence far more often than they should, obviously I'm talking of the wider medical world here rather than just abortion.

Didn't an irish women die because drs refused to abort a baby that wasn't going to live anyway?

what's your point?

its a medical procedure there are risks involved. As with any clinic or hospital there are good and bad staff. and it's truly truly awful.if that happened. I hope the drs involved are disciplined as necessary.

that however shouldn't put women off the decision if it's right fir them..more women have died due to botched unsafe abortions or living somewhere it's illegal than have died from a a safe abortion in the UK done by trained staff. women also die In pregnancy childbirth. let's not forget that

Given the case of Savita Halappanavar, the miscarrying woman who died in Ireland because doctors refused to operate to remove the foetus, I don't think it's a great idea to cite one case of a woman who died after an abortion. And it's not as if childbirth is exactly risk-free, is it?

"But if they are unwanted it could well strip them of the ability to actually be fed or loved or housed. beaches so engines the parents just can't.

"saving" on life bases in lies just destroys lives already here. Don't you see that."

That's a whole set of assumptions being made. It could, doesn't mean that it will happen, just because a baby is unwanted. Similarly being a wanted baby doesn't mean that your parents are not going to spectacularly mess up. I know teen mothers who have really risen to the challenge.

I had an abortion because I genuinely believed that I had no choice and that I'd have hated the baby because of how they were conceived and that I hated their father. I also knew that I would lose my job as a result of my pregnancy and I knew that I would have no support from my parents who would have been ashamed. I was made to feel that no-one would ever want a relationship with me and that my life would be over. No job, no home, no one to help me with the baby.

I realise now how wrong I was. I would have loved that baby regardless, I realised that when I had a second unplanned pregnancy in similar circumstances. My parents would have got over it, they wouldn't have chucked me out, they would have come around and I would have been able to get a different job, but at the time I couldn't see the wood for the trees. I could only see panic and a nightmare future.

In certain circumstances, adoption can be a great thing, it isn't an unmitigated disaster for the child and it's an amazing thing if a mother can bring herself to have her baby adopted instead of being aborted, though I appreciate it's no easy call. There are so many women wanting to have babies who can't and so few babies up for adoption these days.

An friend of mine adopted two babies aged 7 weeks and 12 weeks respectively and the children are now in their thirties and forties, happy and successful. Adoption is a least worst option, it's better for mothers to be able to keep and raise their babies, but failing that, if one accepts the humanity of the unborn child, then adoption is better than abortion.

But just because a baby isn't wanted doesn't mean it's life is going to be terrible. I was convinced throughout one of my pregnancies that I didn't want the baby, but I knew that abortion, would be wrong. It turned out I had ante-natal depression. I had really good reason to abort as far as they go, at that point my husband had just lost his job, I already had 2 children, one of whom was only 8 months old and I couldn't stop throwing up and also lost my brand new job as a result (on probation period). We lost our home as well. My unwanted baby starts school in September and couldn't be happier.

I clean my own kitchen thanks and as a mature woman with half a brain and 4 kids already i would without dought abort any further pregnancies as I don't want sent more babies.

I don't need advice or councelling. I don't need sympathy or help. Anyone shouting at me outside a clinic may well be punched or slapped.
I would just want an end to an unwanted pregnancy as that would he the best outcome for me and my existing family.

There see women can actually make decisions about their lives for themselves.

Anyone else?

So what if things worked for you or others who changed their minds last minute. sometimes things do work out. People get lucky or they manage to turn things around

but that doesn't can be the fact that at the time.they made the decision. It felt like the right thing to do at that time. All anyone can do is make the decision they feel best.

I am truly grateful to.live somewhere, that should an accident happen I have a choice. Our children will have a choice.

Doesn't change the fact

my phone can't keep up tonight

I have experienced an unplanned pregnancy. I chose, in the end, to continue.

However, the availability of termination, legally, in this country was vital to my mental health. I felt stressed, and scared. But I had a choice to make.

Had I had no choice, I'd have felt like an animal in a trap. It ahs been tough at times (much as I adore DC3) and I think I would have really struggled with my emotions had I been forced, not chosen, to do that.

Fizzy with the greatest respect just because you feel you made a mistake doesn't give you or anyone else the right to challenge or second guess any other woman.

You did what you did. Others do what they do. It's called individual choice.

adoption is t better than abortion either.

not if you loose your job through pregnancy complications and can't afford to eat. not if your child is born sick and no own wants to take him.or her and the baby has to stay in care.

It's not better of a person is so fragile that giving their baby away is enough to tip them.over the edge.

It's not better if they have to stop taking vital medication to deliver a healthy enough baby to adopt

irishDad

The disgraceful thing is Irish women denied abortions and having to travel to England to access them.

That really is a fucking disgrace. A blight on your country.

Why would you assume anyone would carry a baby full term and choose to have it adopted rather than aborted?

I would want an abortion ASAP while this so called baby is a bunch of cells and move on with my life supporting the kids I already have.

On the 'adoption is better' point.

It is also worth pointing out that a high number of women seeking abortions have other children. They aren't seeking to terminate because they don't know what motherhood involves, but because they do.

And to suggest to those women that adoption is a viable alternative. You really, really think it's viable for a woman with, say, a 7 and a 5 year old to carry a pregnancy to term and then give the baby up for adoption if she can't or doesn't want to cope herself?

Denim - we haven't established that any shouting goes on. If it did then that is wrong and contrary to the Public Order Act.

No-one is claiming that women can't make decisions or are incapable of them. For me, the existence of liberal abortion in this country has put me under unbearable pressure every time I've had an unplanned pregnancy. Women are made to feel irresponsible if they continue and this wanted child schtick puts a lot of pressure or expectation that the set-up has to be just perfect before a child can come along. If these cuts to child tax credit or limiting child benefit to just 2 kids happen, then this pressure is going to get worse for women. The government will be sending out a signal that there is only a certain number of children which is acceptable or desirable.

Individual choice is rarely made in a vacuum. Mine certainly wasn't. There are always other factors. I just think it's really sad that so many women have to go through abortion which does cause a lot of hurt and that it's a huge waste of human life.

I think we could all do with being a bit more honest about the issue and not get into the big polarised culture wars. I think society would be better with fewer abortions but you don't achieve that by slapping an outright ban on it, without the support of the population.

Abortion arguably better for the mother.

Adoption almost always a better option for the unborn child, if you believe that they are a human life which deserves equal protection.

It's about balancing needs of the woman with the right to life of a baby. Always tricky, never easy. It all depends on what your philosophical position is re the status of the unborn child.

I know that many women who are already mothers have abortions. It's precisely why it's so heart-breaking for most of them.

No-one is claiming that women can't make decisions or are incapable of them.

But the Good Counsel are. They say that 'over 70% of women say that their decision to have an abortion was instigated by somebody else'.

That's exactly their stance - that women need them to wade in and help them see the light.

"Fizzy* no they don't HAVE to go through abortion they CHOOSE to go through with an abortion.
You weren't forced to have an abortion it unfortunately turned out to be not the right CHOICE for you.

Regarding the protesters outside clinics, I'm in Dublin and was attending the Marie stopes Dublin clinic. I was warned beforehand that their resident protester would be at the front door as I arrived.
I brushed it off, she was an older woman and just handed me a leaflet telling me "God loves all sinners
Anyway I spoke with the nurse at the clinic she told me about a young girl who didn't turn up for an appointment the week before, the girl had been convinced by the resident protester that morning outside the clinic to attend a different clinic free of charge. She had a scan at this clinic where she was told she was 22 weeks pregnant. The girl decided to return to Marie stopes where they did a scan and she was actually 7 weeks pregnant. I'm sure they hoped she'd decide to not end her pregnancy because she was so far along!

Christ. I wish I hasn't started this thread at all.

I really wish some people would remember why I did actually start it.

But fuzzy, remember: The law is in favour of the mother. The mother has rights, the unborn foetus does not.

And thus will the mother's wellbeing ways trump the rights of the foetus.

Why risk ruining one existing life to 'save' another which doesn't fully exist yet?

I'm sorry you regret your abortion, but your experience is one of many different experiences. You did what you thought was right at the time, and that should not be something regret. It appears that for you, personally, it was a lesson. For others it's not.

lucybabes, I completely believe you.

My friend worked in a family planning clinic in the States in the 1990s and these were exactly the type of tactics SPUC and the like used.

Along with letter bombs and death threats.

I get that some of the 'vigils' outside clinics don't involve these tactics, but given that some do, then having buffer zones seems the only effective way to prevent women from being subjected to them.

BPAS have asked the churches involved in funding these 'vigils' to ask their members to stop, and they've refused.

If there's no ground of co-operation, then using the law seems the only way to safeguard's women's rights to have as much autonomy and choice as an unwanted situation can afford.

I'm glad that you started it, questioningstuff though appreciate that it must be a very distressing read.

Hope that you're recovering well.

I'm glad you started the thread questioning I know it wasn't your intention for it to be become an abortion debate though. Hope you're feeling OK this evening

You know what, Questioning, I think you were right to start this thread. You were right to stand up and say "I felt intimidated and bullied, and here's why".

I hope you are ok.

I just wish some people would remember why I started this and that I'm a real human being going through an awful time and it's already fucking happened so making me feel even worse than I do is just really unhelpful.