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

[Hamandcheesebaguette]

...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?

I know a doctor who qualified before the Abortion Act. He told me that at regular intervals there'd be a flurry of gynae patients with incomplete miscarriages or something more serious. These were the women and girls who'd done badly after seeing the traveling abortionist. He assumed that far more women never came to the hospital's attention, as most abortionists were fairly competent.

The police would come round sometimes but they got no help from the staff on the ward. Their duty was to their patients, and to medical confidentiality. Besides which, as he said, incomplete miscarriages can happen to anyone. They don't prove anything.

Wealthy women never had a problem with the law. A Harley Street consultant would order a D&Ç for "menstrual irregularities" and their little problem would be solved.

No one uses abortion as contraception. That’s a myth

@IsMyUserNameRubbish such little understanding of reality yet such strong opinions. The vast majority of women don't know they're pregnant until 4 weeks - that's when they miss their period.

Tea

silly me!! It’s all a bit complicated for my ditsy lady brain! Thanks fuck there are men around who’ll take time out of their important work to splain it to us! 🤷🏻‍♀️

And even better smile a majority of men who actually care about the rights of women..... the result has warmed my heart tbh.

Yeah, me too Tea - although it just serves to highlight how far we have to go to ensure women internationally are kept safe - and are treated as equals.

But I’m one of those humourless harridan feminists, so don’t listen to me!! 😂

Well it basically boils down to one simple thing.

You either believe a woman/man has bodily autonomy or you don’t.

So if a woman is pregnant bodily autonomy means abortion choice on demand.

isMyUderNameRubbish

Yes it is

and you need to learn to spell properly. Whether and weather

Tragic mate

Abortion should be performed no later than four weeks, if you can't decide by then wether you want a baby or not, you shouldn't be having it anyway.

Seriously? A lot of women don't even know they're pregnant at four weeks.

Baby's have been born breathing after abortions and thrown in buckets, this is absolutely true

Links to a reputable source, please. Reputable meaning one that isn't a biased pro-life site.

because you're able to have an abortion so late, so when a baby is born breathing, it should be called murder not abortion.

The legal definition of murder is [the] "unlawful killing of a reasonable person with malice aforethought express or implied." Abortion does not fit the legal definition of murder.

In this day and age there's no reason to get pregnant with all the contraception in offer

None of which is infallible.

some women use abortion as contraception which is totally unacceptable.

Bull. Fucking. Shit. Like hell they do. Stop parroting old myths.

I think that should be "none of which *are infallible.." Oops.

I couldn't agree with you more OP

I didn't think anybody should have been allowed to vote NO unless they were also voting to implement childcare for all (like school places and public hospitals).

We need a society where a single woman can stare at two lines on the stick and think, this won't fuck up my life.

This isn’ meant to sound as snarky as it probably will, but: to those of you who think that the benefits system will provide, have you ever actually been reliant on benefits?

having an abortion is a dreadful thing for a woman to go through

Not always. Myth upon ridiculous myth.

Lots of women feel one emotion. Relief

We do not have mothers and babies living on the streets. We do not.

But we do have them living in inadequate hostels.

What do people think about (hypothetically) if the woman didn't realise she was pregnant until labour? Rare, but not unheard of. Would it be OK to smother the infant because the alternatives are all so hard? I appreciate that some of the difficulties around adoption wouldn't be there for that case because no one would have known about the pregnancy, but not all of them.
I find it hard to appreciate much difference morally between the two scenarios, particularly when the justifications for abortion are not about the dangers of pregnancy, birth etc but instead about life going forward. Clearly smothering the surprise newborn would do nothing to reduce the mother's danger in pregnancy / birth but would have pretty much the same effect on her quality of life going forward in practical terms.

babies thrown breathing into buckets

I am a nurse and worked intheatres witnessing and assisting abortions.

Never have I seen this. Ever it’s utter bollocks.

And even if it were true the mother’s wishes for her body trump anything else so what??

Clearly smothering the surprise newborn would do nothing to reduce the mother's danger in pregnancy / birth but would have pretty much the same effect on her quality of life going forward in practical terms.

You really don't see the difference between smothering a full term baby and the termination of a pregnancy at 5 weeks?

Abortion should be performed no later than four weeks, if you can't decide by then wether you want a baby or not, you shouldn't be having it anyway.

Hang on, so if you're undecided at 4 weeks, you think the woman should have a forced abortion?
Is that what you mean by 'you shouldn't be having it anyway'?

That's a bit... extreme, no?

Smothering a newborn is completely different. Mainly, you’d find yourself in prison for most of the rest of your life. The consequences are totally different

Ada

Yes because that happens all the time so let’s base the 99.99999% reality of women’s lives and experiences on you 0.00001% of your reality shall we

We may not have babies on the streets but people (men and women) are apparently content for women to bear the cost of maintaining the population. The ''respectable'' path is to have children in a family but women are always going to get pregnant and they're not getting pregnant on their own. If you're pro-life anti-choice and yet you're not fully behind a system that supports a single woman on a low income or no income to continue with her work or her studies then you've internalised the patriarchy.

I'm Irish so obviously I shouldn't be bothering to argue this after today, momentous day, but if you're simultaneously pro-life and NOT in favour of govt funded childcare from infancy (like school places) then you are basically perfectly happy for women to bear the sacrifices of maintaining the population and parenthood. ie, children are a cost women must pay. Children are essential. We need new people. And yet we penalise women for bringing them in to the world.

IsMyUserNameRubbish are you high?
4 weeks? You mean your first day of a missed period when you when may not even know your pregnant?
In this day and age there's no reason to get pregnant with all the contraception in offer
Well in this day and age no contraception is 100% reliable so actually that is a reason people fall pregnant when they didn't intend to.
So much more I could say but no doubt this will be a huge cross post as I'm sure I'm not the only person agog at your clear stupidity and astounding lack of knowledge

@AdasTwist well, a full-term, viable baby is no longer reliant on a woman’s body to survive. Her body may be forever altered by pregnancy, but chances are that if she didn’t know she was pregnant she suffered no noticeable ill effects from it.

This is why there is a time limit of abortion of 24 weeks, or at any point if the fetus has a serious disability or fatal fetab abnormailty, or the life of the woman carrying it is at risk.

Abortion should be performed no later than four weeks, if you can't decide by then wether you want a baby or not, you shouldn't be having it anyway

Are you always this stupid?

For some women pregnancy doesn’t register at that point. I didn’t get a positive test until I was 7 weeks pregnant.

Some women don’t have 28 day cycles. Some women don’t miss periods.

A fun activity is to ask people who say “just carry the pregnancy and have the baby adopted” how many children they have adopted.