That many people believe they are pro choice but are not

[winterstail]

My understanding of pro choice is that you support a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy.

Many people claim to be pro choice but then express shock at the reason a woman chooses to terminate.

This isn't pro choice then, is it?

fcekinghell

So you think access to abortion should be based on your moral judgement of the circumstances? Women who are pregnant and don't want to be should justify their behaviour before abortion is considered acceptable. Unacceptable reasons would include daring to choose and enjoy unprotected sex and therefore a forced pregnancy and birth are actually just a punishment women deserve.

It’s a bit of a straw man to use pre-term babies who can survive with medical intervention as an excuse to lower the limit. What if technological advances mean that they survive from 20 weeks? 18 weeks? 12 weeks? Then what?

Not as much of a straw man as that argument. Babies who haven’t developed the organs and systems essential to human life aren’t going to survive independently regardless of intervention and there is no way we are going to develop the medical technology which would allow us to intervene until the very distant future if ever.

If my DD got pregnant at say 16, when still at school, not got a job, living at home etc, then I'd prefer for her to have an abortion. People will say its her choice but I'm sorry, I'd drag her there by the hair if I had to and my mother would have done the same. My mum installed the fear of god in me and I was on the pill within a week of getting my first boyfriend (now DH).

But what about your daughters choice fcekinghell?
I know what you’ve said is probably not how you’d really act, as a loving mother. But that kind of attitude is still damaging to women’s choices and rights over their bodies.

I think that if babies can survive at 12 weeks the whole nature of pregnancy changes. We are getting into artificial womb territory.

I’m absolutely pro choice, especially after experiencing hg myself, no one should have to go through a pregnancy if they don’t want to.

After having DD I know I could never have an abortion myself because I know how strong my maternal feelings are and I know that it’s extremely unlikely that I’d be in a position where I couldn’t look after and provide for a child, but I know there are other people in different situations where an abortion is absolutely the right choice.

what a silly question. I'm sure I've got friends who have had abortions and haven't told me about it. I mean, why would they tell me something so very intimate like that? They could if they wanted to but abortion is most often something kept between the woman and the father, or by just the woman.

@pandamonium88
It's not a silly question at all. You made an assertion and were questioned about that assertion. Perfectly reasonable.

I am 100% Pro choice - my belief is that every woman has the right to safe, free, legal termination - that is it - why she needs one, how many she has, how many weeks is absolutely not an issue

I'm pro-choice because life is complicated and there are so many good reasons why a woman would choose not to go ahead with a pregnancy. But more than anything I think every child deserves to have a willing mother.

SoyDora
It was her third abortion. She was in her 30’s so not a kid. Perhaps she didn’t feel ready to have a child when she got pregnant for the third time. But having fallen pregnant twice before, she should have been a little more aware of how easily she fell pregnant and sought out the MAP before it got to that stage. It is bloody irresponsible to use abortion as birth control.

No healthy / healthy-minded woman willingly makes a sudden decision to terminate post 24 / 28 weeks.

Really? And how do you define ‘healthy minded? Some women who are just plain nasty might abort at 35 weeks if their boyfriend left them, especially if they had used it as a threat to make them stay.

As far as ‘healthy minded goes. Some women are psychopaths and sociopaths and don’t give a shit about others or suffer from various personality disorders. If you’re going to say that gives them a right to terminate at 35 weeks because they’re not ‘healthy minded’ then we’d better let all those serial killers with the same disorders out of jail because they’re just ‘unhealthy’.

There are lots of examples of conditions where a person’s personality or mind does not function normally, but they’re completely capable of doing things they know are morally wrong because it makes them callous and selfish. But they do it anyway because they want to, despite knowing right from wrong. Which is why we send criminals with the same conditions to jail instead of hospitals.

Making blanket generalisations of ‘no woman would do this’ is naive in the extreme and labours under the illusion that all women are nice and caring and never selfish or callous or nasty.

Even a quick flick through the stately homes thread on here would tell you that. And plenty of mothers have been involved in horrendous child abuse cases. Why would those mothers suddenly be responsible caring mothers up to the moment of birth?

I am very pro choice, although I would never have an abortion myself, for any reason. However, it's another woman's body, not mine, so it's up to her.

I used to consider myself pro-choice. Then I had a baby with Downs now I'm not so sure...

Trooperlane2 I cannot believe your post, what you wrote made my blood boil. I don't think any women that goes through abortion uses it as the "easy way out". I'm sorry for the loss of your baby, but to tell a campaign that fights for the rights of women to decide what happens to their own bodies to fuck off, is really quite awful.

@Mummyoflittledragon

So considering how ‘irresponsible’ your friend is (and we’ll ignore the fact that you are not her so don’t actually know the reasons for her abortion), would you suggest this irresponsible woman be forced to care for a baby?

@TammyWhyNot

Trsut women and allow 28 week abortions?

At some point a fetus becomes a baby and that's where the child's right to live is more important than the mother's to not want a baby. That point is beyond my ability to judge.

@AngeloMysterioso

There's a point where a baby needs to be considered.

@YayImALlamaAgain

We already have caveats

@SemperIdem

I agree with you about Irish laws being wrong and I think the UK pretty much has it right.

I also agree that my judgement doesn't or shouldn't have an effect on their right to act within the law.

The argument about women dying is facetious. It's so rare as to be a different discussion.

I think we agree on pretty much every aspect of the law and of the debate. My only query is why you brought the law into it. You say that the law is wrong in one country but correct in another but also say that the law should be the guide for late term abortions.

As technology and medicine improves, I personally wouldn't have an issue with a MAP that women take at the end of any month they don't want to have a baby, for example.

For me, the only area for debate is where in term an abortion should be offered without question and where it needs consideration for the unborn child.

I absolutely can't stand those who describe themselves as 'pro life except in instances rape/incest'. Surely if you believe life begins at conception then the circumstances of that conception are irrelevant. I have more respect for those people who are pro life in all circumstances.

This. If you believe that a zygote is a child (which I emphatically don't), then a child that has been conceived as a result of rape or incest should be exactly the same as any other child.

I'm absolutely pro-life, with the caveat that late-term abortions should be for medical reasons. Which they are, in any case.

And I'm much more judgey of people who tell pregnant women in difficult situations to have the child anyway without any thought as to their feelings and problems than of women who have abortions for whatever reason.

IHaveBrilloHair

The older I get the more unsure I am of my position. I remember well abortion becoming legal in 1967 and how it was hailed as a huge advance for women and of course it was - no more need for women to subject themselves to the mercy of back street abortionists.

Some of my friends have had them. I don't know one who hasn't regretted it, one because she was subsequently infertile and feels to this day that she was punished. I'm grateful beyond belief that it's a choice I've never had to make.

I can completely agree when the pregnancy results from rape, where there are clinical reasons affecting mother or child or where the quality of life for either would be poor.

Where I struggle is aborting a healthy child when those reasons don't apply. I was horrified when I read about Caitlin Maran aborting her third child with her husband crying in the waiting room. It just seemed unbearably sad and unnecessary.

I wouldn't condemn or judge a woman for making that choice but it doesn't sit easy with me.

I certainly don't think it's a black & white situation and wouldn't describe myself as strictly pro-choice or pro-life

Personally I believe:

• Unrestricted access before 12 weeks

• 13-24 weeks I think it should be restricted to only TFMR whether that is danger to the mothers health or the fetus being either incompatible with life or having a severely impaired quality of life. This gives enough time after the 20 week scan for the procedure if serious anomalies are found

• Over 24 weeks, no abortion. If the mother's life is in danger, deliver the baby and hope modern medicine can save it

I used to consider myself pro-choice. Then I had a baby with Downs now I'm not so sure

Can you explain your reasoning here. Not trying to be goady, genuinely interested. I have two children...having them didn't make my stance on abortion change so I'm wondering why having your child made your stance change? Was the fact your child had downs syndrome that changed your mind? But most abortions that are carried out aren't done for that reason. As I said, not being goady, just interested in why?

Over 24 weeks, no abortion. If the mother's life is in danger, deliver the baby and hope modern medicine can save it

Fuck me.

@Mightymucks the stately homes threads are so full because those evil,twisted,sociopathic whatever women did not have an abortion or put the baby up for adoption.

I don't see how terminating is worse than being raised by people like that.

@YayImALlamaAgain

a) she was never my friend
b) I refer you back to my first post when I said I wouldn’t want to live in a society, where she was forced to have her child.
c) She aborted because she didn’t want a child at that time. Not for medical reasons.

Just because I am happy for her to have the choice to abort for the 3rd time, doesn’t mean I should be 100% ok with her choices.

There was a thread this morning where someone suggested abortion to the OP, apparently purely because 2 DC would have to share a bedroom. No suggestions this was forever, or even that the family would be financially in dire straits, just that 2 would have to share.

I am pro choice and really don’t care about some people’s bizarre, limitless definition of what pro choice means. If you make a choice you presumably have a reason. And sharing a bedroom is a pretty stupid reason to advise someone else to have an abortion.

I can completely agree when the pregnancy results from rape

You do realise when you say this that the hidden message is basically women who willingly have sex are slags who deserve all they get.