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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To assume if you are anti-abortion, you are...

431 replies

Hamandcheesebaguette · 26/05/2018 20:24

...pro a full, complete and comprehensive government benefits system to fund mothers for at least the first 5 years of her child's life?

I'll tell my story, it's not particularly interesting or traumatic, but had I not had access to a safe abortion at 6 weeks then I honest to god don't know how i would have not have ended up homeless or starving.

When I was 21, I met a man. Same age as me. I was working in an airport, leaving for work at 2.45am and usually not getting home until after 4pm. My take home pay was around £980 per month. After rent in my 1 bedroom flat in the cheapest (and also not particularly pleasant) area in my expensive city, council tax, topped up my gas and electricity meters and phone bill (I didn't even have a TV!) I had £35 left to eat and pay for buses to work for the rest of the month. After only knowing this man for 6 weeks, I found out I was pregnant. I was on the pill, maybe it failed, maybe I had missed a couple, I don't know.

Should I have had that baby... how in the hell would I have been able to provide anything for it on that wage? Oh wait, I wouldn't have had a wage at all bevause I wouldn't have had anybody to care for my baby whilst I was working full time and leaving for work in the middle of the night.

So I assume, if you are anti abortion, and I had had that baby, you also agree I should have been entitled to a reasonable council property (not covered in damp or mould or other H&S issues), my rent paid, my council tax paid, plus money provided for gas, electricity, food etc. Plus some furniture (as I always rented fully furnished and didn't have any furniture of my own at 21), a TV, broadband (or maybe I should have sat in with my baby with absolutely nothing except the walls to stare at...)

Plus possible full training paid for by the government when I could have gone back to work once this baby reached school age, as I wouldn't have been a very attractive job applicant by this point.

AIBU to assume this is tour stance if you insist I should have been forced to have been a mother when I didn't want to be one, couldn't afford to be one?

OP posts:
WittyJack · 26/05/2018 21:05

cushion53 - and yet having an unwanted child that you are not equipped to raise or support; a child that could end up being born with a drug addiction or bounced around various foster homes; a child that you could end up resenting - would that not destroy more than one life?

Original poster
Hamandcheesebaguette · 26/05/2018 21:05

Somewhat stupidly, I didn't mean this to be a debate on the whether abortion is right or wrong... there is another thread running in here for that. People have different opinions and will never agree, especially on such an emotive subject.

It was meant to be a question of if you feel like I was wrong to abort, what were my other options.

I'm not in Ireland actually, Scotland Smile

OP posts:
freezerfoodyum · 26/05/2018 21:06

If anything my experience could make me more entrenched in my views that abortion is wrong

Wrong for you.

LighthouseSouth · 26/05/2018 21:06

I hate anti abortionists but thus never occurred to me

I think they want to punish the woman as much as they can

I wonder why they don't think a woman will just butcher herself or commit suicide. Funny how their concern for the foetus vanishes at that point.

NakedBrainStrollingInManhatten · 26/05/2018 21:06

@cushion53 but when you deny a woman a legal abortion you can end up ending an actual life by forcing her into a back alley abortion or an unsafe home method. You could end her life by forcing her to take a pregnancy to term which destroys her mental or physical health. You can end her life by forcing her to have a child she can not look after, you then can ruin the life of the actual (not potential) child she was forced to give birth to knowing she couldn't look after it.

LighthouseSouth · 26/05/2018 21:07

Sorry op mega tangent
I suppose their answer is give the baby up for adoption.

BananaToffo · 26/05/2018 21:07

Hamandcheese (I miss them too).

The thing is, your point is more valid in countries where abortion is not legal AND there's no adequate benefits system in place. That is not the case here, thankfully...so you are asking the wrong people.

Wasn't there some religious groups offering women money not to have abortions? Not that I approve of that, they should get the fecking noses out...but I seem to recall that there were.

Original poster
Hamandcheesebaguette · 26/05/2018 21:10

If all the women who have had abortions (for a huge range if reasons) could not have had one... woukd our system be able to cope with what what would presumably be a massive increase in benefit claims to support the mother and child (and this is of course, ignoring the mental and physical issues surrounding the issue, focusing purely on financial).

OP posts:
Gwenhwyfar · 26/05/2018 21:10

I'm pro choice, however being pro life doesn't necessarily equate with being right wing on economic matters.

Rachie1973 · 26/05/2018 21:11

I've never had an abortion. I'm not sure I ever could have.

However, that doesn't stop me fiercely defending the right to make the choice for myself, and for my daughters to choose for themselves.

John4703 · 26/05/2018 21:12

I think you should have had all the choices
Have an abortion
Have the baby adopted without anyone judging you
Have the baby and get enough in benefits to have a decent life in a suitable house and help to get back to work when the child us at school.

NormskiNamechange · 26/05/2018 21:13

I don’t think I would personally have an abortion (I could never categorically say I wouldn’t) but I am fully in support of other people’s choices.

I don’t think anyone has an abortion lightly. It’s not something a person does for fun.

Perhaps if there was more support for women, then some women wouldn’t have to make such an awful choice.

Original poster
Hamandcheesebaguette · 26/05/2018 21:14

John - couldn't agree more.

OP posts:
AskAuntLydia · 26/05/2018 21:14

Also, the father would have 50% of the responsibility to support the baby.

Yeah, that's going well isn't it.

3/5 of all non resident parents pay not one single penny in maintenance. Of those who do, it's poverty levels, nothing like 50% of the cost of a child.

Sprinklesinmyelbow · 26/05/2018 21:14

crescentmooned I don’t want to shoot you down, I appreciate you sharing your story. But the point of it was that you would still be pro life if you hadn’t gone through HGV- which was my point.

patsythepol · 26/05/2018 21:15

I love you OP. You've told mine and so many other stories eloquently- choice isn't selfish. It's about making the right decision, not the only decision.

AskAuntLydia · 26/05/2018 21:15

And as for the benefits system- that's going really well too, isn't it. Those food banks are just an extra luxury, I suppose.

Hmm
Fink · 26/05/2018 21:15

I am pro-life and as it happens, yes, I am also pro a comprehensive benefits system to support all those in need, including mothers of young children. Does that answer your question?

EustaciaPieface · 26/05/2018 21:17

I got pregnant when I was 18, had been with my boyfriend for three years. He freaked out at the first mention of pregnancy and left me. If I hadn’t had an abortion I would have killed myself. Sounds dramatic, but I would have. I couldn’t cope. I am 46 now and and access to a safe and easy abortion saved my life.

Emma198 · 26/05/2018 21:18

@LockedOutOfMN are you really suggesting that unless you want a baby you shouldn't have sex?

AskAuntLydia · 26/05/2018 21:19

Crescentmoon, I have never experienced what you did.

But I still managed to develop empathy for other women without experiencing that.

I get what you're saying about being shot down. But I think it's more an expression of frustration, that people are socialised to have absolutely no empathy for women, that they don't develop it until they themselves or someone they love, experiences the thing that teaches them empathy.

It's a shame people have to experience something, to be able to understand that it's a bad thing. I wonder why that is.

callmemaybe8 · 26/05/2018 21:20

I am pro choice 100% and believe women have the right to decide what's best for them, but that aside, I think your argument is a little ridiculous. It's easy to NOT get pregnant, and if you got pregnant in six weeks I am willing to bet you weren't using any contraception. Maybe you were very unlucky and missed a pill, but even if that's the case the chances of that happening are very small.

Every time you have sex you have to consider the possibility you MAY get pregnant and take all precautions (contraception). Even if you have completely unprotected sex, the chances of getting pregnant are only high if it's within your fertile period. Even then, it's not guaranteed either.

While I'm pro choice, I don't think abortion should be seen as a back up plan if you can't be bothered with contraception. The point is to prevent pregnancies occurring in the first place, and abortion is used as a last resort if that fails.

angryburd · 26/05/2018 21:20

You can't ban abortion, you can only ban safe abortion. Women have been ending pregnancies since the beginning of time. Whether you agree with it or not, it will happen, but at the very least it can be made safe.

Teateaandmoretea · 26/05/2018 21:21

The Catholic church's position on this just makes no sense. You can't use contraception but you have to honour your husband.... okay so 10 kids and incontinence here we all come. It's about control of women, albiet increasingly ineffectively as people take no notice (but to me the principle is so wrong I don't understand how intelligent women can be Catholic)

I am a middle-aged but pre menopausal married woman, I have sex. I do not want a baby and would terminate if I got pregnant. I could financially keep a baby but have no intention of having one. Very Hmm about the 'keep your legs crossed' brigade - they are the same ones who world denigrate me if I did so and my DH left for not taking care of him. And I actually enjoy it and see sex as a part of healthy life .... shock horror

I think yabu op, the anti abortionists are the same ones ranting in the DM about breastfeeding in public and how everyone should support their own children without support from the 'taxpayer'. In other words they are turds.

I think the other interesting thing is that you can be anti abortion (ie wouldn't have one yourself) but be pro choice.

Original poster
Hamandcheesebaguette · 26/05/2018 21:21

patsy Flowers thank you.

fink - yes it does, thank you.

Eustacia - thank heavens that the option was there for you Flowers

OP posts:
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