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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:
Ohmydayslove · 26/05/2018 22:22

Oh peope don’t bother to bite!

CardinalCat · 26/05/2018 22:25

Imagine that men were the ones who had to bear, carry, birth and feed their young, with all of the attendant effects on life, career, body, etc.

There is no way that abortion laws would be what they are in many/ most jurisdictions.

My personal views on abortion and what I would do to my body are irrelevant. The point is that you cannot impose those views on another (living, breathing and BORN) person and deny their bodily autonomy. As women, we are so conditioned to a dynamic that broadly speaking men would never, ever, accept.

tictoc76 · 26/05/2018 22:26

Well if you have sex there is a chance of pregnancy - surely you know that before hand?

Celebelly · 26/05/2018 22:26

Pro-lifers are happy to harp on about abortion being wrong but seem less willing to stick their hands in their pockets and cough up to pay for all the unwanted children who would be born as a result. Nice to have ideals when it's something that doesn't affect you and that requires nothing of you, isn't it?

freezerfoodyum · 26/05/2018 22:27

Well if you have sex there is a chance of pregnancy - surely you know that before hand?

Say what now?!?! I had no idea.

Jeez.

Jaxhog · 26/05/2018 22:28

I'm pro-choice, but do worry that abortions are being used by some people as an excuse not to take other precautions.

lamerde · 26/05/2018 22:29

I am very much pro choice (and catholic if that makes any difference) but I do understand that some people don’t support causes I believe in.

SmileEachDay · 26/05/2018 22:29

Well if you have sex there is a chance of pregnancy - surely you know that before hand?

Same applies to men, right?

AdaTwist · 26/05/2018 22:29

You're right that it's not common, and is I guess a thought experiment to help explain my thoughts about abortion. If you can understand my emotional response to a smothered newborn, you can appreciate that one could have a similar feeling for a late aborted foetus.

Yes, you could go to prison for smothering a newborn because we agree that babies have a right to life. I don't see much difference morally between that newborn and the one about to be born - it's all a continuum - but plenty on this thread would support the right of a woman to have a full term abortion in the unlikely event she wanted one.

We wouldn't allow that surprised mother to smother her baby no matter how sympathetic we were to her plight and how difficult it would be to look after it - that's the same as some people feel about abortion.

I can agree there is a big difference practically between smothering a newborn and a very early abortion, but I don't agree that this makes much moral difference, even less so in a late abortion.

Fruitcorner123 · 26/05/2018 22:29

Ohmydayslove

Ok then having an unwanted pregnancy is a dreadful thing to have to go through. They only feel the relief because they felt the panic when they found out.

Celebelly · 26/05/2018 22:30

Oh and yes, the 'you could have your baby adopted' argument is my favourite. Because the asker always has five or six adopted children back home. Right? Riiiight?

Who's going to adopt all these children? Maybe every pro-lifer could be assigned a child from an unwanted pregnancy. That ought to help.

Fruitcorner123 · 26/05/2018 22:31

abortions are being used by some people as an excuse not to take other precautions.

who are these people and why would they choose an abortion in preference to contraception?

Ohmydayslove · 26/05/2018 22:32

Jesus tictoc thought you had long left mumsnet. Sadly not.

Ok biting! Couldn’t give a rats ass whether you are pro life/anti choice/blah blah blah!

Just bectrue to your own beliefs but accept other people have their beliefs too and mine is I want me and my dds and all women to have access to free safe abortions on demand at any stage of pregnancy for any reason and if you disagree that’s fine then don’t.

But let me and my dds have bodily autonomy.

AdaTwist · 26/05/2018 22:33

I'm not trying to be goady.

Abortion is not a straightforward issue, and people do have genuine, deep concerns about it. You are of course free to disagree with my views, but I'm not just stating them to antagonise.

SmileEachDay · 26/05/2018 22:34

Ada do you also think the morning after pill and the coil - which work by creating a hostile environment so a fertilised egg cannot implant are immoral?

Fruitcorner123 · 26/05/2018 22:34

but plenty on this thread would support the right of a woman to have a full term abortion

That is not what repeal the 8th is about. Full term abortions just aren't a thing.

Ohmydayslove · 26/05/2018 22:35

Fruit

I have no idea I don’t speak for every other woman? Do you?

Why do you think you or I have the right? The only right here is for the pregnant woman to choose what’s right for her.

Keep your beak out.

freezerfoodyum · 26/05/2018 22:36

You can't have a full term abortion unless it's in exceptional circumstances. Most abortions take place before the 12 week mark.

Fruitcorner123 · 26/05/2018 22:36

SmileEachDay as I understand it all hormonal contraception has the potential to do this.

AdaTwist · 26/05/2018 22:36

Helicobactercopter - I do agree that whether the foetus could survive without the mother is a big distinction. I can see the case much more clearly for abortion before that point. I'm not completely sure how I would vote in a referendum on allowing just abortion before that point (wherever it might be currently).

But that doesn't seem to be enough for many of the posters on this thread.

SmileEachDay · 26/05/2018 22:38

Fruit yeah - although I think the pill mainly stops ovulation. I think it makes your womb inhospitable as a second line of defence.

Ohmydayslove · 26/05/2018 22:39

fruit

I do apologise I have mixed you up I think!! We agree Flowers

SilverySurfer · 26/05/2018 22:39

Although I am pro abortion I would like to see the ceiling of 24 weeks lowered. I believe abortions due to serious medical issues can be carried out to term and agree with that.

I also think if women don't want to get pregnant it doesn't mean not having sex but surely they should be rigorously ensuring that they are using the very best method of contraception. You say in your OP that you were on the pill, which may have failed or you may have missed taking a couple. Doesn't sound very rigorous to me.

Fruitcorner123 · 26/05/2018 22:40

Fruit

I have no idea I don’t speak for every other woman? Do you?

Why do you think you or I have the right? The only right here is for the pregnant woman to choose what’s right for her.

Keep your beak out.

I literally have no idea what you are talking about. I said having an unwanted pregnancy is a horrible thing to happen to somebody. This is a thread about abortions and unwanted pregnancies Telling someone to keep their beak out on AIBU is ridiculous. We are all commenting on the same thing and I don't even think I have expressed a particularly contentious opinion. (I actually dont see where I have expressed my opinion at all)

freezerfoodyum · 26/05/2018 22:40

A lot of "I'm pro choice but" here.

You're either pro choice or you're not.