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AIBU?

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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 22:41

abortion is not a straightforward issue

Yes it can be very much so. Why do you think it can’t be?

SmileEachDay · 26/05/2018 22:41

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

Shouldn’t everyone involved in the sex be doing this?

Fruitcorner123 · 26/05/2018 22:41

Ohmydayslove
cross post with you 😂

freezerfoodyum · 26/05/2018 22:42

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.

It's irrelevant. No contraception is 100%.

Ohmydayslove · 26/05/2018 22:43

Fruit again apologise profusely Smile in my defence I had to sit through Britain’s got talent with my 3 year old grand child so my mind is boggled. Grin

Dancingtothebeat · 26/05/2018 22:43

I did actually know somebody who campaigned for the introduction of the 8th amendment in the first place. I do know that she did also believe very much that women who found themselves pregnant in difficult circumstances should be helped financially and practically. She was an incredibly compassionate person and one who was very much prepared to speak out about other issues surrounding women in those circumstances like removing the stigma of illegitimacy and practical ways to help mothers work and so on. She really wasn’t the sort of horrible spittle flecked extremist the OP seems to imagine.

She’s long dead. I do know all her children voted ‘Yes’ yesterday though. Although I know it was done with a bit of a heavy heart because it is something they feel is necessary rather than something that they actively want to happen.

AdaTwist · 26/05/2018 22:44

Smile, personally, yes I would refuse either of those contraceptives. And I worry about discarded embryos during IVF. But I don't think any of these scenarios are in the same league as abortion (perhaps that does make me very inconsistent).

I do struggle to know what to think overall with this issue - I know I don't have all the answers - but I do think that an unborn baby should have rights too. That killing babies before or after birth is wrong.

ragdoll700 · 26/05/2018 22:52

I am 100% anti abortion but that is my choice so I am pro choice and voted yes in the referendum.

LeeValley2 · 26/05/2018 22:53

It's irrelevant. No contraception is 100%.

It essentially is if you double up, i.e. use two methods. That’s what most people who really don’t want a pregnancy do.

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 26/05/2018 22:55

Adoption is not the solution to unwanted pregnancy. Anyone who thinks it could be is stupid or hasn't thought much.

There are nigh on 200,000 abortions each year in the UK. We don't have 200,000 adoptive parents hanging around, ready and waiting. Even if you think making abortion illegal would lead to fewer such pregnancies, which you'll struggle to prove but let's say the rate halved, where are these 100,000 going to come from? And what of the older children who need adopting now and struggle? The practicalities do not stack up, whatever anyone's feelings on the morality of the issue. If you want women to carry every pregnancy to term, understand that the outcome of this isn't going to be babies being happily placed with waiting, grateful adoptive parents.

endofagain · 26/05/2018 22:57

Anyone suggesting abortion should be limited to fetal abnormality or cases of rape, needs to consider how easy it is to prove rape and that is just the cases that get to court.

Helicobactercopter · 26/05/2018 22:57

@LeeValley2
Hormonal contraception is just not an option for some people - hideous side effects, expulsion of IUDs etc

freezerfoodyum · 26/05/2018 23:02

It essentially is if you double up, i.e. use two methods. That’s what most people who really don’t want a pregnancy do.

So you think only women who have doubled up on contraception are worthy of receiving an abortion.

You are not pro choice.

Birdsgottafly · 26/05/2018 23:05

LockedOutOfMN, what if the father is your newly disabled husband?

People always think, young girls, single Mums. When i had my procedure, the other women were married, or in a partnership, but in financial difficulty, as we were.

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

Yes, i did, but then it's quite usual to have sex with your Husband/Partner. as well as it just being a nice activity, that is.

isMyUderNameRubbish, my Dd got pregnant on the coil, she had to have it removed. It wasn't until she was six weeks pregnant that her pregnancy was confirmed by a internal scan. she was happy to go ahead with the pregnancy. I tested as soon as i missed my period and went the GP that evening. it took until i was fourteen weeks before i got an appointment.

i had a relative who gave her baby up, she was judged by everyone. Likewise I worked in children's services and women who self refered
to services and then felt they couldn't do it, were condemned and could never tell people the truth.

Our benefit system doesn't work. People are being put into real hardship. I lived through the 80's, the answer to Single Mums, living in poverty was to get an abortion.

Adatwist, re smothering a New Born. Women who kill their babies in panic/out of desperation, are often viewed sympathetically and if possible aren't given a custodial sentence. do you also campaign against doctors refusing to intervene in prem births/ or cases like the Alfie Evens one?

If men had the babies, not only would there be abortions on demand, but it would be a criminal offence to not give maintenance and try to build a bond.

Abortion is just another circumstance were women are in the wrong no matter what they do.

IHaveBrilloHair · 26/05/2018 23:07

Whoever said upthread that babies are aborted breathing and thrown into buckets is wrong.
And that's the best thing I could say.
It just doesn't happen in this country, it's not remotely possible.
It's just more emotive language to punish women.

Birdsgottafly · 26/05/2018 23:20

LeeValley2, it boils down to whether you consider an early fetus truly a baby. if you don't then there is no reason to risk your health, or enjoy sex less on the off chance that one method will fail, when in a secure relationship.

What i don't like about the argument is that the person who is pregnant is supposed to respect what she is carrying, from day one, but if you miscarry the doctors call it "products of conception", if you give birth early, it "isn't viable". If someone attacks you and you miscarry, they aren't convicted of murder. we need to correct those discrepancies, before they hold individuals accountable.

Pastaforlunch · 26/05/2018 23:20

I'd say I am pro choice. I was adopted, and when I was a student nurse on a gynae unit that did abortions I must admit it did feel a bit weird to be handling 7 week foetuses and not have "this could of been me" cross my mind.

However, I do think it's a woman's body and therefore utlimately her choice. Abortion is such a complex issue, and access to safe and legal abortions is essential in my view. So is better sex/relationship/contraceptive advice for young girls so that they can be more assertive in relationships and take control of their bodies and fertility (and yes I know no method is 100% effective, but some girls still believe myths like you can't get pregnant on your period etc).

thegreatbeyond · 26/05/2018 23:25

I don't support abortion and would not have one. I would not judge another woman. I do wholeheartedly support and want there to be situations that enable a woman to decide to have her baby and I would like politicians such as Mr. Rees-Mogg and Mr Pence to give very serious thought to how they could assist women to keep their children, given that they are of the same opinion.

CopONNotLinkedIn · 26/05/2018 23:26

it's a miracle any of us is here though.

a million sperm in any one ejaculation? is that about right? We could all be at least half different. Or the blastocast could not have implanted.

anybody who is here could easily not be here.

Pastaforlunch · 26/05/2018 23:34

True @CopONNotLinkedIn, but I do find it a bit weird when I think why did my birth mother choose to continue with her pregnancy? She'd already had five children (all adopted). If I was in her shoes I don't think I'd want to go through with another pregnancy and labour, but for some reason she did.

HerMajestysSecret · 26/05/2018 23:40

I am pro-choice. It's not my place to tell women what to do with their bodies.

190,000 abortions were carried out in the UK last year. I find this horrific, tragic and utterly immoral.

Sex education is where it begins. A lot of the yes vote campaigning was founded on rare cases of rape or incest or extreme disabilities or medical care being denied to very sick pregnant women. The truth is that the vast majority of abortions do not fall into these categories. Most are done to women who have become pregnant through theirs and their partner's careless contraception.

Boys and girls, men and women need to better understand how pregnancy occurs and do everything in their power to prevent it if they don't want a child.

Auntieaunt · 26/05/2018 23:45

I was in a bar recently in the US when we saw a pregnant lady taking shots.

A friend of a friend took her aside to see if she was alright (and to advice her for drinking).

The lady was booked in for an abortion the day after as she had it found out a month beforehand that she was pregnant.

I think she was around 5-6 months- had the real round pregnancy belly and I felt sick the idea of that baby being killed. I was honestly really prechoice until that point as I really believe that no woman does an abortion on a whim.

Seeing that belly made it so real that there was a life in there with limbs, organs and features.

Growing up in a semi religious house id take a pregnancy test a day after a predicted period as I was so paranoid at the idea of becoming pregnant. I'm sure if we lowered the abortion cut off point to 12 weeks (except in medical situations) people would be more careful to make that cut off?

GreenTulips · 26/05/2018 23:45

190,000 abortions were carried out in the UK last year.

How many of those werent British? How many traveled from other nations because it's illegal to have an abortion in their own country?

How many countries are off loading their responsibily to their people onto the privately run abortion clinics in England?

Glovesick · 26/05/2018 23:57

@vampirethtiller FlowersFlowers so glad your life has got better

Am pro choice.

I have known a few people who were adopted. Some were utterly screwed up by it based in terrible foster and care experiences. But even those with very happy adoptive family life have issues around being rejected by their birth parents etc. So the idea of "well just have it adopted is at best going to cause a few issues for the child, but quite possibly going to be a hard and stony path for the child to tread. Not saying this justifies abortion, just that there are lots of factors to consider and it is never easy.

Each must make the right decision in their own set of circumstances.

Yeah, no sex unless for procreation. Easy. Until you get raped.

Pastaforlunch · 27/05/2018 00:03

@greentulips in 2016 there were 190,406 abortions in England and Wales. 185,596 were for residents of England and Wales, 4810 were for 'none residents'.