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.

Sorry for swearing

Swear away Questioning

ive been hoping you're ok today. This must be incredibly hard.

If anyone is interested in action on this matter, there is a meeting at Goldsmith's University on Thursday evening in room 140 at 7.30pm

Abortion 73, a Republican funded group are targeting a medical centre that offers abortion services in Lewisham and a coalition of feminist and women's groups, as well as anti-austerity groups will be meeting to decide on actions to be taken against this.

Questioning you have every reason to swear.

I'm sorry people are making you feel worse. You've done nothing wrong.

I was thinking of you today but didn't want to make you feel you had to reply to any messages if you weren't up to it.

I hope you're okay.

questioning I am so grateful to you for starting this thread. You were outraged at these men and quite rightly. It is outrageous that women are targeted like this for accessing a legal and medical proceedure. Outrageous.

You sound tired now, naturally, I do hope you have someone with you? The vast majority of posters utterly support you and although this is the internet so we are all strangers I hope you can accept our love and empathy.

You take care of yourself love.

Questioning I hope you're ok and I want you to know I support your /any woman's choice here. It so happens that I have read your threads on here, and I understand, I support you. But that makes no difference - because it is your choice, your circumstances, nothing else is relevant.

I'm so saddened, and angry, that you had to encounter people/men campaigning against you - especially when we know that those men will never face the issue you have face just now. I support exclusion zones for this reason.

I support the exclusion zone too absolutely.

Please could someone post the page number to the link to sign the petition? Thank you.

Petition for exclusion zones

ethelb, could you let us know what is decided at that meeting? I can't go but would be interested in supporting lawful action against Abortion 73.

Nobody has a right to tell anyone what they choose to do with their body.

Given the case of Savita Halappanavar, the miscarrying woman who died in Ireland because doctors refused to operate to remove the foetus
No she didn't . She died of septic shock. Abortion isn't a cure for septicaemia. She needed careful observation, lab tests followed up and prompt, appropriate antibiotics.
Jessie-Maye Barlow died of septicaemia the year before Savita. Following a "safe and legal" abortion in the UK.
I don't recall any candle lit vigils or international outrage for her.
Another invisible woman.

If Savita had been given a termination of pregnancy when she asked for it, ie. when when was told she her much wanted baby was not going to survive, would be highly likely to be alive today, as the sepsis would not have taken a hold.

Perhaps, just perhaps, their own child has been aborted despite them not wanting it to be. It's not just women who feel strongly about abortion. Men also have every right to their feelings on the subject and protest is allowed. Fwiw I think abortion is absolutely the right decision in some pregnancies but I do think it's not just the woman's decision which I think some people overlook.

Do you mean you think a man should be able to veto a woman's decision to have an abortion?

OP I am genuinely sorry that you are hurting. For this reason I won't comment further. Take care.

OP please don't let twats on here upset you further. You've done nothing to feel bad for.

Fwiw I think abortion is absolutely the right decision in some pregnancies but I do think it's not just the woman's decision which I think some people overlook.

Totally disagree. It is only the woman's decision. It's not overlooked, because nobody else chooses for her, nor should they be able to.

Do you think anyone should be able to stop a woman having a termination and force her to go through the pregnancy?

If Savita had been given a termination of pregnancy when she asked for it, ie. when when was told she her much wanted baby was not going to survive, would be highly likely to be alive today, as the sepsis would not have taken a hold
That's not what the inquest found.
Without the proper follow up of microbiology results, interdisciplinary communication, prompt diagnosis & administration of appropriate antibiotics, Savita would still have died had she been given an abortion at an earlier stage. Abortion is not a cure for infection. Surgery, where there is untreated infection present, risks flooding the body with sepsis.
Jessie-Maye Barlow is not the only victim of lethal post abortion septicaemia
Timely, appropriate antibiotics are the treatment for sepsis, not abortion.

Op you made the right decision for you.
Hope you are feeling ok tonight.
Iv signed xx

I don't think they should be outside either, some are intimidating.
For some women, they are fine, others it is a difficult choice.
I know if i get pregnant right now i would have to abort as some of my medication is severely harmful to a foetus ( make it incompatible with life)and i take copious amounts of painkillers a day.
I would already be upset at having to make this decision though i know it would be the right one. i would lose it if someone tried to show me pictures, give me a leaflet or guide me to the right decision, ie their decision. That is unless my bf got there first!
I dont think adoption is necessary the better option. Some people can get over the pain of abortion but i don't think i ever would if i gave up a child for adoption. Those people are amazing.

I start to get twitchy when people feel they need to start justifying their terminations. There seems to be this continuum of..... what is completely understandable, what is ok, sort of justified, not really justified....and so on. You know, from the person who was raped, to the person who simply did not want to have a baby and everything in between.

It is your body. You own it. You have agency over it. That right was hard fought. Sure, talk about it if you want. But not because there is an underlying desire to justify your decision to anyone. You don't have to.

And to the people outside these clinics...you're not there protesting. You're there bullying and intimidating and generally being arseholes. Protest outside government agencies, not outside establishments where people are doing something perfectly legal and necessary.

Questioning

for you.

Savita Halappanavar feared that her baby had died and requested an abortion precisely because she feared sepsis, and was refused it. The inquest findings were those of a lay Irish jury and the evidence given by one of the country's leading obstetricians was that she was highly likely to have survived if she had been given a termination when requested.

Marie, when we're talking of invisible women, you seem strangely silent about all the women who die in or as a result of childbirth.

As for the "let them use google" to find our entitlements

But that's just what you are doing.

And you do not know anyone with 'half a heart', it is just not possible, I don't mean not possible to live but just not possible, the human heart starts as a tube and then undergoes modifications and twists in to a 4 chamber heart, you can't have half of one.

MarieofRomania

How come a woman who died from an infection who didn't have an abortion was 'killed by an infection' and another who did have an abortion then didn't follow the medical advice given, developed an infection and died was 'killed by an abortion'?

Both women had retained elements of an abortion (one clinical one natural) that caused infection. Both may well still be alive had the infection been treated sooner, or the complete contents of the uterus been expelled.

You cannot claim infection killed one and not the other.

There is a risk with any medical procedure, that doesn't make it unsafe.

Pregnancy and birth are much riskier than any medical procedure.