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 can remember one rather vocal pro lifer on these pages who was happy with a woman going completely permanently blind as a result of pregnancy if the alternative was even an early abortion.

It’s astounding.

I have two children. I had a very difficult pregnancy with my second child, which has left me with permanent health issues. Were I to get pregnant again, my chance of surviving it is lower than average, and my chance of fat more disabling health impacts is high.

It chills me how many women would happily see my boys left motherless, and me dead, if I had a contraception failure because they think the foetus I am growing and sustaining has an equal right to life as me.

a fetus is a person so has personhood

The law says you are wrong about that.

I think really really deep down most people do not think its right to end a human life

please don't speak for anyone else. You can only state what you think, not for the rest of us.

I love when the "just give birth and give it up for adoption" argument gets trotted out. Yes, just put your body through nine months of hell, just potentially risk your life, just go through hours of excruciating labour... it's just that simple.

Im in agreement with you op, but you'll find if your not in support of termination right up until the actual birth of a baby then you are the scum of the earth/not a real feminist/not a real woman/forced birther here on mn. Id like to see abortion limits lowered to 20 weeks, but for incompatible with life (unborn child) scenarios kept as it is. I always laugh when someone comes on mn spouting how low the rate is for 24+ abortions. Well yes it will be, because unless for medical reasons, its illegal. However certain states in USA its not and the levels are not quite as low.

as early as possible as late as necessary

Yes yes yes

Yes there are hundreds of pregnant women up and down the country who would choose to abort a foetus at 30 weeks plus just for shits and giggles!

Utter bollocks

^and even if there were, then so what? How does someone having an abortion at that time affect anyone other than those involved in any way whatsoever??

The law says you are wrong about that.

it dosnt the child destruction law specifically says a fetus is a child and laws do not define words dictionaries do www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/19-20/34/section/1

'and even if there were, then so what? How does someone having an abortion at that time affect anyone other than those involved in any way whatsoever??'
apart from at least one person every time losing their life?

I made the very difficult choice at 15 to have an abortion, very early on. It has tortured me since then 7 years ago, hit me hardest during pregnancy. My son being a preemie I just can't believe the cut off date is so late on

I always laugh when someone comes on mn spouting how low the rate is for 24+ abortions

Do you also laugh at the 20+ or 22+ statistics? Or do they not fit your argument, so you ignore them?

Can you share the US stats? The CDC doesn’t collect them.

@bluepears

I think the life of the person who is actually here is more important than someone who hasn't even been born yet and has no concept of their own existence.

it dosnt the child destruction law specifically says a fetus is a child and laws do not define words dictionaries do

Laws define what words mean under that particular law, and any uncertainty resolved by courts, not dictionaries.

As you are fixated on that particular Act, I assume you’re ok with abortion up to 28 weeks gestation?

it dosnt the child destruction law specifically says a fetus is a child and laws do not define words dictionaries

You've read it wrong. It specifically says it is not a person. If you kill a person, you get charged with murder. You cannot be charged with murder if you destroy a foetus. It even calls is destroy, not kill, because you can;t kill something that is not alive.
You have fundamentally misunderstood.

bluepears but abortion is legal in the uk, so how do you square that? The 'destruction of the person' law exists only because a foetus does not have personhood. Therefore anyone who attacks a pregnant woman and causes her to miscarry, cannot be charged with murder. They have however caused serious harm, hence this law. It only applies to this one very, very specific instance.

Because, as I have said upthread, foetal personhood leads to women being imprisoned for having natural miscarriages, as has happened in El Salvador. If that is what you want to happen, then you are without conscience.

“Im in agreement with you op, but you'll find if your not in support of termination right up until the actual birth of a baby then you are the scum of the earth/not a real feminist/not a real woman/forced birther here on mn“ No, I don’t think people who oppose abortion are scum of the earth or not real women. They have a perfect right to their views, and I quite understand why they hold them. But I do think that they are not feminists. And to call them forced birthers is simply a statement of fact.

'I think the life of the person who is actually here is more important than someone who hasn't even been born yet and has no concept of their own existence.' so people in comas have no rights? as they don't have a concept of there own existence

^eh??

'You've read it wrong. It specifically says it is not a person. If you kill a person, you get charged with murder. You cannot be charged with murder if you destroy a foetus. It even calls is destroy, not kill, because you can;t kill something that is not alive.
You have fundamentally misunderstood.' where does it say that quote it to me it does not it says this 'any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive' child capable of being born alive ,means it has not been born so means its in the womb yet the law says child not fetus

where does it say that quote it to me it does not it says this 'any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive' child capable of being born alive ,means it has not been born so means its in the womb yet the law says child not fetus

This particular law defines ‘child capable of being born alive’ as being over 28 weeks gestation. It defines that for the purposes of this Act only. It does not have any applicability to other laws, except in its interaction with the Abortion Act 1967, as amended 1990, which makes clear the offence under the 1929 Act does not apply to those made legal by the 1967 Act.

It’s also worth noting the Act in question was drafted in 1929. Terminology has moved on.

Having my own DC and two miscarriages has made me more pro-choice than ever tbh.

After knowing what I went through during the pregnancies, labours, first years of their lives not sleeping, breastfeeding etc and just child rearing generally I definitely wouldn’t wish that upon someone categorically not ready for it.

The thought of being pregnant and desperately not wanting to be pregnant yet having no option but to ‘deal with it’ is utterly abysmal.

Also late term abortions are extremely rare and almost always because of something discovered during the 20 week scan. I mirror other people saying the abortion limit can’t be reduced unless the scans become more high-tech and can pick up abnormalities sooner.

a fetus is a person so has personhood

Not in the eyes of the law. And even if it did, nobody has the right to use another's body to sustain their own existence.

And still I ask: you seem to hang your entire contention on this Act. Do you agree with the 28 week limit?

Do you think that, if my contraception were to fail and I became pregnant, I should risk death and permanent disablement because the foetus has an equal right, and therefore should have a right to use and harm my body against my will?

At the same time, should I have an equal right to someone else’s body to help me stay alive, even if it puts them at risk? Forced blood donation? Forced live organ donation?

Equal rights and all. If that means someone else has a right to use my body to stay alive, even if I’m not willing, surely I have the same rights?

Just shows how important it is for women to stick up for their abortion rights and not budge one inch..