To be frustrated that it's impossible to have a discussion on abortion ethics....

[coconuttella]

On one side there's those who believe an embryo has fully human rights from conception, and on the other those who believe the foetus has no rights at all until birth.

Both sides seem to put forward their position forcefully and dogmatically as though they're stating the obvious, and anyone who thinks the ethics surrounding it may be a more complex is shouted down, especially by some on the pro-chioice side who seem to view anyone who doesn't agree with their stance as a misogynistic slave of the patriarchy.

Personally, I'm not in either camp and find the ethical questions complex, with this being brought home the other evening when I was reading that Incas didn't regard babies and toddler as having human status until the age of 3-4 (where they had a ceremony to mark this rite of passage) and no longer totally dependent on their mothers and past the most perilous time wrt child mortality. It made me question again my thoughts on when we should a human should acquire rights, and frustrated me that any discussion on this immediately degenerates into a slanging match.

Adviceplease360

How exactly do men suffer in any of this

What stitchglitched said

What will their quality of life be?

They don't give a shit.

There is no child. Just a foetus and the mothers choice, advice.

But that is not objective, it's personal opinion and semantics around terminology.

I'm playing devils advocate a bit there because I do (logically, not emotionally) agree that a mother's choice is paramount, but this is the problem around both sides of the argument. Logically/scientifically, the child has been conceived. The fact that is is a ball of cells is objectively, no different from saying a 3 year old has no right to life but a 5 year old does. We know this is illogical but for some reason it becomes debatable while the child is in the womb, and this is really interesting to me.

The only difference for me that makes abortion acceptable when necessary (unless for medical reasons but only because of the different time scales involved) is that it will take time to discover you are pregnant - if that makes sense?

"How exactly do men suffer in any of this"

Well, actually, sometimes I think men do suffer. And I feel very sorry for those that do. But sadly, it is absolutely nothing to do with them

I agree it's complicated and educated intelligent debate is as important here as it is in other areas.
For me I don't believe in abortion, I did not have one even when advised as my life was at risk, and my son was born 24 weeks to the day which obviously gives me an issue with the current 24 week limit (though I do know it's more complicated than the guidelines make out) I believe life begins at conception. However I also think this is my opinion and if someone else disagrees then that is their decision to make, I supported my closest friend through an abortion, it was the right decision for her, I have no right to judge or decide for her.
Incidentally for whoever mentioned animals up thread, I am vegan.

I don't support abortion after 32 weeks, unless it can be shown to be in the foetus' interest at that point. I believe that, at or after 32 weeks a woman who no longer wishes to be pregnant should be allowed to induce labour (or choose a c section) but without the foetus being killed.

I think there are a huge number of people whose beliefs fall between the extremes of the argument.

In highschool i knew a girl who had 3 abortions by the time she was barely turned 14, because she refused to practice safe sex. Her mum forced her to get the depo shot in response, and she was actually proud of it.
Earlier this year, my friends sister was rushed to A+E with suspected appendicitis, and was actually found to be in labour with a baby she had no idea she was carrying. She gave birth to a healthy little girl, who was maybe a month premature, small, but perfect.
I remember standing in a school corridor at 14, with a complete stranger sobbing in my arms convinced she was having a miscarriage. She'd had unprotected sex, missed 2 periods, and was now bleeding, much heavier than was normal for her (she was regular pretty much from her first period) it had been going on for 2 weeks and there was a lot more clotting than was normal for her too. She hadn't done a test so didn't know for sure, and we became friends as a result and it has always haunted her not knowing if she lost a baby as she is adamantly against abortion for herself.

All of these incidents stick in my mind, and i do think actually knowing someone personally who has been in a specific situation does change how you think and feel. I can't support the first girl who was so dismissive of getting pregnant as she could just abort it, and it has coloured my judgement of her as a person. I feel badly for my now friend who will never know if she was pregnant and miscarried or not, i can't imagine the turmoil of not being 100% certain if you've just had an irregular period or lost a foetus. And seeing how the family rallied around the surprise baby was absolutely wonderful. For a child nobody knew existed, she was wholeheartedly unconditionally loved from the second she was discovered just a few short hours before her birth, as any baby who has been known about for the 9 months of pregnancy.

@AlmostAJillSandwich your first friend(due to her age) was pregnant several times as a result of abuse. Isn't she awful?

I really actually find it very hard to have a conversation with someone who is "pro choice" which is a polite way of saying pro abortion
Except it's not.

I am personally pro life. I am also pro choice because I'm not a total moron who believes that my personal view should be enforced on others.

If you honestly believe that a woman shouldn't have the right to choose then stop hiding behind 'pro life' and be up front about being ANTI CHOICE.

I'll say what I said earlier, I have never met a pro choice person who has ridiculed my pro life views.
I have met/spoken to lots of apparently pro life people who are just anti-choice activists who seek to suggest I'm a hideous baby murderer because I believe that a woman should be able to choose.

When have I said men suffer? What have men got to do with it?

"In highschool i knew a girl who had 3 abortions by the time she was barely turned 14, because she refused to practice safe sex"

Would you rather she had 3 unwanted babies,

there are lots of complex ethical issues involved in abortion, and saying so doesn't make you a reactionary pro-life monster

Thank you Niminy for one of the few sensible posts on this issue.

Personally I believe that unless there is a strong medical reason or other mitigating circumstances (e.g. rape, being underage, abusive relationship, mental health probs etc.) abortion IS murder. There are thousands of infertile couples who would love the chance to adopt a baby, it's awful to kill a foetus because it's inconvenient to carry it to term.

HOWEVER. I would NEVER advocate making abortion illegal. That leads to back street procedures and desperate, damaged women. It should always be down to the individual's conscience.

The issue I have is A, with the age limit and B, the lack of equality.

People argue that the age limit shouldn't be lowered because late term abortion is so vanishingly rare. But it happens. Anyone who argues that it doesn't is naive.

At 24 weeks it isn't simply a foetus, it's a baby. If you gave birth to it naturally steps would be taken to secure its survival. If it died in utero you would tell people you'd had a stillbirth. If a woman has chosen to maintain a pregnancy beyond twelve weeks then she should lose the right to choose to terminate that pregnancy in the same way she wouldn't have the right to terminate if she'd discovered the pregnancy at 25 weeks.

The other issue I have is termination for disability. We talk about equality yet everyone has the right to terminate for any kind of disability at any time of the pregnancy. Conditions incompatible with life such as anencephaly I can absolutely comprehend how a woman might choose to terminate. Because in reality the baby isn't alive, it is being kept alive by being in utero and will die as soon as it's born. There is no chance of survival.

But any other disability? At the moment people argue for the right to terminate a pregnancy for downs, or other conditions detectable by amnio or by physical detection on a scan such as a cleft pallet or club foot. But do we really want to live in a society which declares a nt baby a baby after 24 weeks and a disabled baby a baby only once it's born?

For the people arguing that a woman should have the right to choose not to have a baby with downs, how many would uphold that right if e.g. Autism could be detected in pregnancy? ADHD? OCD? What about if depression was pre-detectable? Or other MH conditions? How about simpler conditions, skin conditions for instance? Would people feel comfortable with terminations to term being available for all of those? And if not, why not? Autism can be debilitating after all as can depression. So the argument that e.g. Downs is a spectrum where the effects can have degrees doesn't hold here.

My personal view is that termination should be available until twelve weeks, and that more needs to be done to improve the quality of testing prior to that stage. We already offer pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for certain conditions, so it must be possible to improve things. Except things will never improve while the choice is simply to terminate anyway. If that choice were removed beyond a certain point then people would be more supportive of earlier testing, because let's face it, nobody wants a baby with Downs, the fact that 94% of pregnancies with Down's syndrome are terminated.

I really actually find it very hard to have a conversation with someone who is "pro choice" which is a polite way of saying pro abortion

I am pro choice,which means a woman has the choice of keeping a baby,having an abortion, putting the baby up for adoption. I don't particularly care what a woman chooses,as long as she has the right to choose.

Can I just say abortion in the UK is allowed up to 24 weeks.

Are some of pro choice people saying abortion post this date is still ok? So 39 weeks? For social reasons or medical?

What's your reason for this?

I may have changed my view during the course of this debate - I'm pro choice up to 24 weeks. After that, unless proven medical reasons, mothers health & life, no. There has to be a cut off somewhere.

Although I'm 38 weeks pregnant ATM so I accept my judgement is not impartial. Ask me in a few weeks maybe.

Bertrand to me the ideal would be her giving up those babies to a couple who would love to raise them as their own, assuming her mental health wouldn't be irreversibly damaged by carrying them to term.

"I really actually find it very hard to have a conversation with someone who is "pro choice" which is a polite way of saying pro abortion"

I'm not pro abortion. Well, unless the pro life people would be happy to be called forced birthers........

I am pro choice. Personally, I have never chosen a termination. I believe life begins at conception but I have no problem with a woman deciding to end that life for any reason before around 20 weeks. After this time I believe that a woman should have the right to have the foetus removed but shouldn't necessarily have the right to decide whether it has the right to life outside of her.

I struggle with the idea that a woman would have the right to request an abortion at 23 weeks but wouldn't have the right to request an induction of labour at 34 weeks for example if she wanted her baby to be born early (and to live) for some reason. Is her body any less her own at 34 weeks?

A family member had a termination at 23+5. (Non-medical reasons) She delivered her 'baby'. It was obviously not alive when it was born but it possibly could have lived without the 'intervention' before labour was induced.

A family friend had a premature baby born at 23+6. She lived for 6 weeks with medical intervention and then sadly died.

I struggle with the idea that these babies didn't have the same right to life, although I support my family member's choice to not continue the pregnancy.

I don't know if I'm making any sense but I do know that I just can't shift from the position that it can never be right to force a woman (or child) to continue to carry a foetus in their body against their will at any gestation. The grey area to me is if a woman wanted to terminate her pregnancy at 32 weeks, does that baby, once removed from the woman's body, have a right to life?

Littlecaf 0.1% of abortions happen after 24 weeks. I am pro choice and considering the statistics I don't spend time concerning myself with what must be very distressing circumstances for those that are included in that 0.1%

Personally I believe that unless there is a strong medical reason or other mitigating circumstances (e.g. rape, being underage, abusive relationship, mental health probs etc.) abortion IS murder.

This makes no sense. It either is or isn't. The circumstances don't change anything.

Agree Maisy, I actually think its the opposite way around.

People who say they are "pro life" - are you pro life when the heroin addicted mother pops out her 7th child that's born with no prospects, or when the young woman give birth to yet another child conceived with an abusive partner who spends all the family's money on himself and beats the child's mother in front of them? Let's be honest, you are anti choice, not pro life, because how can you honestly proclaim to give shit about actual human lives when you refuse to acknowledge what a ball and chain a child is to a mother in an awful situation (for example abusive relationship), how often throwing a child into the mix of the live's of people like that is an awful sentence for the mother and the child, and you refuse to acknowledge or even consider what kind of life that woman and child will now have.

Yes, it;s true that having access to abortion doesn't cure the shit lives of women like this, I'm pointing out how overly simplistic the "pro choice" stance is when the only focus is literally around preventing women from accessing abortions, and nothing else.

It seems to some that abortion is or isn't murder, depending on if the mother is 'worthy' enough. If she is ill or raped then she is 'good' and is allowed to abort but if she isn't then she should be forced to gestate an unwanted pregnancy... for what reason exactly? As punishment for having sex? To be an enforced surrogate to give the baby up for adoption to poor childless couples? It seems less about right to life and more about judging and controlling women. I have more sympathy for the no abortion at any cost argument, at least it's consistent.

Can I just say abortion in the UK is allowed up to 24 weeks
Abortion is allowed to term for extreme medical reasons in the UK whereby the life of the child or the mother would be at risk.

Are some of pro choice people saying abortion post this date is still ok? So 39 weeks? For social reasons or medical?What's your reason for this?
Personally, I believe it is ok yes. for any reason, because i'd rather see a pregnancy terminated than a child born into a world where it is unwanted and unloved from the get go. the law isn't in agreement with me however. which is fine.

Jillsandwich I think any girl of 14 who is repeatedly getting pregnant because she won't use contraception probably has social and/or mental health issues that aren't being addressed. I knew girls like that and they deep down wanted love and attention and found this was an easy way to get it. I feel desperately sad for them, not angry.

completely agree stitched