I don't know how I feel about abortion anymore

[sirlee66]

I've always been very pro-choice. A woman's body. A woman's right to choose.

I'm currently 34 weeks pregnant with my first and now I think my thoughts are changing.

I believe the cut off is 24 weeks? There was a lovely lady on here the other day whose waters broke and she gave birth to a baby girl at 25 weeks! If a baby can survive that early... It just seems...wrong!

Maybe the cut off could be lowered. I started feeling flutters at about 15 weeks so maybe before then.

I don't know what the answer is. I still feel really strongly that ultimately, the mother should decide but I just can't get past babies surviving outside the womb at the same age as a baby that could be aborted.

Maybe it's just pregnancy hormones. I also can't stop think about the poor women who have to make that decision. It must be so awful and I just want to give them a big hug.

I guess my question is, AIBU to not really know how I feel about it?

i'm hardly stating I've talked to everyone who has had a child with Edwards but I've yet to meet anyone who wasn't given an absolute bleak review of how utterly awful the impact of that child on their and their loved ones lives. If a child can survive, can live and laugh and love how are they incompatible with life

You have yet to meet 99.99% of people in that situation though, so stop talking about entire countries and what EVERYONE is told, because you do not know.
Of course with a diagnosis of Edwards you are going to get a bleak outlook, because the FACTS are bleak. The median lifespan of children born with Edwards is 5 to 15 days. Why one earth are you complaining about people being given objective facts?

tinky you seem to have real difficulty accepting other people's views. Debate is just that, standing your point and considering others. You just have an aggressive thing going on where you swear at anyone who points out things differently.
Aggression doesn't mean you're right. You have criticised and shot down most posters for the last two pages. Yours isn't the only opinion and nobody is always right

tinky you seem to have real difficulty accepting other people's views

I have difficulty accepting other peoples views when they present them as facts, yes. I haven't sworn at anyone other than the gom who said that children having babies is a good thing, which I think is fair enough.

Sleeping, obviously you need to stop talking about entire countries. Tinky's views are the only ones which are right so little point in adding your significant personal experiences to a thread where nobody's points are valid except one.
FWIW I agree with you.

And actually I didn;t even swear AT that person, just about them. Which I think was remarkably restrained given the utter stupidity of the post!

What's a gorm?
And you also present your views as facts. Do you have an up to date world health organisation report on worldwide termination data next to you? Thought not.

out of interest I wonder how many of the pro choice people on this thread would be able to be the HCPs carrying out the procedures, out of interest. Because if it is a human right someone has to

Lack of staffing is a different issue though.

I wouldn't want to put people's catheters in them either, but it doesn't mean people shouldn't be catheterised.

Gom.
And no, I haven't done that at all, so why would I need such a report?

The pp posted that the entire country of Iceland was given unfair and biased views and pressurised into aborting all babies with Downs, and then extended that to all countries wirh abotion. If you have a problem with me objecting to such sweeping statements, its your problem, not mine.

starlightafar
Why's it not a good idea? Women do it around the world, the age of consent is 12 in some countries. Giving birth young increases your chance of being around for your baby. So saying it's a bad idea isn't a fact at all.
Having a severely disabled baby is hard. But some will find it easier than others. And for someone who desperately wants and loves that child inside them, having the baby is better than not keeping it.
It isn't black and white.
And everyone has biased views

Bloody hell, educate yourself. It is fact it is bad for 12yr olds. A 12yr old rarely consents, its more abuse of power, being sold by family, coercion by the male or flat out rape

www.livescience.com/19584-10-year-birth.html

www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/publications-a-z/467-pregnancy-and-childbearing-among-younger-teens

www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs364/en/

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3560765

Raisimg a disabled child is a choice, not an obligation. Thre is nothing wrong with a woman aborting based on that fact

I've had 11 pregnancies - 5 surviving children. Some of the arguments are red herrings. I do think it is your hormones speaking OP, but you have a right to think whatever you damn well choose YANBU.

Despite my pregnancies and many spiralling hormones however, I support women's right to choose to end their pregnancies at whatever gestation they bloody well choose.

No law or public body or other person should have a say in what one healthy woman chooses to do with her body.

Having a severely disabled baby is hard. But some will find it easier than others

OK just because you can legally rape a child, doesn't make it not rape. So let's not talk about a child "consenting" to be married to a man old enough to be her dad.

Secondly, a twelve year old is much more likely to have a child with birth defects or that's born premature, but at least they'll be around to look after it in to old age I guess The baby has higher risk of death after birth..

Oh and birth is the number one killer of girls aged 15-19 around the world

Re the HCP thing I wasn't referring to staffing. I was referring to the clinical procedures and wondering who would be prepared to do these, for the cause?
You are shooting down anyone's facts as wrong and putting forward your views as standard.
I never said 12 as a birth age. I said it was an age for consent in some countries. It is. Not my fault. I didn't say it was right. I didn't say giving birth at 14 is brilliant. I said it wasn't all bad, the one benefit being that the younger you are the more likely you are to be around for your baby. That is the only point I made. I also referred to the social judgement of teen mums and the underpinning views that they should not keep their babies. Some do, and it works out ok. Others don't.
What I am trying to say, if you will stop picking on things I haven't said and taking out the context of my posts, is that there are different ways of thinking for everything. I am far from utterly stupid. No need to be rude.
No idea what Gom means.

Starlightafar, a girl who gives birth is at higher risk of death than a woman who is in her 20s in pregnancy and birth, so your theory of they will be around is utter bull shit

Why one earth are you complaining about people being given objective facts?
What part of your child WILL only ever know pain, WILL ruin yours and your children's lives, WILL never smile or laugh or interact, etc are objective?

objective
əbˈdʒɛktɪv/Submit
adjective
1.
(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
"historians try to be objective and impartial"
synonyms: impartial, unbiased, unprejudiced,

Stating as fact that a child will be a burden, will ruin lives etc is not frigging objective, its designed to pressure women into abortion

Giving birth young increases your chance of being around for your baby. So saying it's a bad idea isn't a fact at all.

It really severely risks your chance of getting to adulthood.

Fuckin' hell, cannot believe someone is supportive of underage girls giving birth because they'll 'be around longer'.

Pregnancy is hard on a woman's body, it limits her activities and can cause lifelong medical problems.

Birth is hard on a woman's body, it can be traumatic and cause lifelong medical problems.

Having a child is expensive. It is restricting.

No one should be forced to remain pregnant if they don't want to be. For any reason. The only person who can decide if they want to continue with any pregnancy is the pregnant woman.

I support abortion to term for any reason. Anything else is not pro-choice.

SleepingStandingUp The thing is, what you are saying is entirely subjective. You know people, your experience. Statistics are by definition objective - they are mathematical fact.

Doctors have a responsibility in situations like these to ensure that parents have the facts. They can’t talk about some children they know who smile and go to school, they have to present the facts to enable the parents to make their own decision. As part of that decision making process, the doctor has to make it clear just how bad it could be, because that, based purely on statistics, is the reality most of them will face. That’s not propaganda or pushing an agenda. It’s simply being a good doctor based on the purely factual information available.

What part of your child WILL only ever know pain, WILL ruin yours and your children's lives, WILL never smile or laugh or interact, etc are objective?

And I don't beleive for one second that that is the standard advice given to anyone. We have already established how much you exaggerate after all.

You are shooting down anyone's facts as wrong and putting forward your views as standard

No, I;m shooting down their opinions when they present them as facts. They are not facts. Your ridiculous opinions on why children having babies is good are not facts.
My views are just my own. As are yours. Mine are not as offensive as yours though.

People or children are not aborted. Pregnancies are ended. It is a medical procedure. I doubt anyone looks at your child and thinks I would have aborted her/him. They may feel they would have struggled with a disabled child, with limited life expectancy. Different thing.

Abortion is a medical procedure that women are entitled to. If (and when) it is not carried out by a medical professional then sadly women will often risk their lives/end their lives attempting to do it illegally.

tinkywinky2018 you can believe that all doctors are just gently guiding parents into the best decision for them, I know the people I,have talked to where doctors have said those things. I really don't give a,damn whether you think I'm making it up, I simply hope you or your loved ones never find yourself in the situation of doctors repeatedly advocating abortion, telling you how shit your life will be etc.

I'm not the only person on this thread who has started these conversations happen.

Fenells I own that my opinion is subjective. Stats are generally objective but they need to be up to date. The earlier starts on number of early babies with severe disabilities was nearly 2 decades out of date. And doctors don't just present mathematical fact. Ask those comments I and others have made are routinely trotted out to parents who need unbiased access to information. I know a woman who was repeatedly offered an abortion at every scan. In the end they said they'd stop asking if she had a counselling session. She agreed. Walked in and the guy said "so you're here to talk about your planned abortion then". Her little boy's condition wasn't life limiting although it was life affecting.

Anyway, i'm out.

Women should have fair access to abortion and abortion for medical issues should be available alongside fair and objective information.
I have issues with abortion for any reason u to 40+ weeks, "medical" abortions for things like cleft palate but I never have to make the laws and I can only affect the decisions made about my body.

I didn't say you were making it up, I said you need to acknowldge that you cannot possibly speak for entire countries (that you haven;t even been to!) and every person in them. You know that, so why are you arguing?

You want objective info, you say, but it seems what you really want is people not to be told the truth.

But the truth isn't that these kids are a terrible burden who will ruin your life and that IS what people are being told. Have an abortion and just have another go. That isn't fact. It simply isn't. And if you think having a disabled baby IS a burden that well ruin your life then ask you need are the child facts anyway.
No issue with baby COULD have these medical issues, MAY not learn to walk or talk, is LIKELY to have physical disabilities, will MOST LIKELY have significant learning delays. That is fact, asking with stats on survival.

But making out that the baby will die as a neonate bringing nothing but pain and misery isn't.

MsP I meant on paper. Mosaic trisomy on two different chromsomes seems to be sufficient reason for many. He's blooming beautiful, funny and lovely in real life