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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What on earth is going on in America??

878 replies

Nanny0gg · 15/05/2019 10:27

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48275795

How can a supposedly 'civilised' society pass such a retrograde law?

And other states following suit?

OP posts:
DoomOnTheBroom · 15/05/2019 21:08

"Pro-lifers" always seize onto examples of 24wk babies being aborted and what-if's where women will be aborting 24wk pregnancies willy-nilly given half the chance, completely glossing over the fact that the vast majority of abortions due to maternal choice take place prior to 13wks gestation. Late abortions are overwhelmingly carried out for medical reasons.

agnurse · 15/05/2019 21:09

There is no moral imperative to provide extraordinary care. There IS a moral imperative to provide ORDINARY care. In the case of a newborn infant past the age of viability, it is a legal obligation to provide resuscitation and ongoing care for the baby.

isabellerossignol · 15/05/2019 21:10

Please tell me, did anyone ever die because they did not have sex? Is sex essential for life? Do you have a right to have sex?

Well, having had a religious upbringing I have certainly been told in no uncertain terms that my husband has a right to have sex with me. He doesn't behave that way, but if he was the sort of man who does (and it seems a much more popular school of thought in America than it does here) how exactly would I be solely responsible for any ensuing pregnancy?

bliminy · 15/05/2019 21:10

So, because pregnancy is 14 times more likely to result in death than abortion (in the U.S. where the maternal mortality rate is unacceptably high), we should allow abortion?

So you're no longer claiming that pregnancy and abortion are equally risky?

agnurse · 15/05/2019 21:11

Did I ever say that men should not be made to take responsibility for their children? I never said that. In fact, I agree that men SHOULD and MUST take responsibility for any children they create.

roseyposeypuddingandpie · 15/05/2019 21:12

The handmaids take is becoming reality.

roseyposeypuddingandpie · 15/05/2019 21:12

Tale not take

agnurse · 15/05/2019 21:12

I think the U.S. is a poor example of the risks of abortion vs. birth, simply because the U.S. has a very high maternal mortality rate for a developed country.

Even so, that does not give you the right to kill someone just because your life MAY be at risk. I don't have the right to take out a gun and shoot someone just because I think he LOOKS scary and there is no imminent threat to my life.

AngeloMysterioso · 15/05/2019 21:13

I think we’ve all realised that agnurse is a) almost certainly not a nurse or any kind of HCP and b) more full of shit than a Glastonbury long drop.

Not sure it does any of us any favours to keep rising to his/her bait.

agnurse · 15/05/2019 21:14

What I find ironic here is that you claim that I am so incredibly brainwashed and clearly have no ability to think for myself, yet at the same time you claim to be incredibly "enlightened".

Is it not possible that we pro-lifers actually DO have brains and are able to think for ourselves? Or does any discourse that is not "politically correct" automatically deemed to be the result of "brainwashing"?

If this is the case, then your "tolerance" isn't really tolerant, is it?

bliminy · 15/05/2019 21:15

I think the U.S. is a poor example of the risks of abortion vs. birth, simply because the U.S. has a very high maternal mortality rate for a developed country.

Interesting - perhaps you can find us an example of a country that has legalised abortion where it is more risky than pregnancy. I look forward to seeing links to peer-reviewed studies.

Till then your statement above that "Abortion is not safer than childbirth" is not really standing up is it?

agnurse · 15/05/2019 21:15

By definition abortion is not safer than childbirth because someone is always going to die.

SaskiaRembrandt · 15/05/2019 21:15

agnurse: there is no moral imperative to provide extraordinary care. There IS a moral imperative to provide ORDINARY care. In the case of a newborn infant past the age of viability, it is a legal obligation to provide resuscitation and ongoing care for the baby.

That isn't what I asked. As you seem to be struggling with the question, I'll rephrase it. Why do foetuses have more legal rights than newborn babies? Don't you think newborn babies have a right to life?

SentientPotato · 15/05/2019 21:15

The handmaids take is becoming reality

With our very own poisonous Aunt Lydia on this thread spouting utter lies and scaremongering bullSHIT.

agnurse · 15/05/2019 21:16

An unborn baby has the right to life and the right to the ordinary care required to sustain that life. That's the same as any newborn requires.

RosaWaiting · 15/05/2019 21:17

I've always hated the term "pro-life"

I hate it even more now because measures like this are going to lead to a huge increase in suicides

no doubt the US will decide to try and target immediate family, sue them or something, for not protecting the fucking heartbeat.

I could see this coming, but there is nothing I can do.

FermatsTheorem · 15/05/2019 21:17

Okay, you claim you've got a brain. Look at the link to the Guttmacher statistics worldwide, and tell me how you square your desire to reduce the number of abortions with the fact that the lowest abortion rates in the world are in western Europe, where abortion is legal, but equally importantly, contraception is easily available and generally free.

Making abortion illegal doesn't reduce the abortion rate.

Telling women not to have sex doesn't reduce the abortion rate (and certainly doesn't help women who've been raped, women in countries where marital rape is legal, incest victims...)

Giving women access to contraception with safe, legal abortion as a back up does reduce the abortion rate.

Dottierichardson · 15/05/2019 21:18

If this is the case, then your "tolerance" isn't really tolerant, is it?

Who the fuck said I was tolerant, I'm certainly not tolerant of your skewed, unreliable statistics; your ridiculously contrived examples and your poor reasoning. If by political correctness you mean support for the rights of women not to be forced into continuing with pregnancies they don't want then by all means call me politically correct.

Oswin · 15/05/2019 21:18

Agnurse if you aren't a brainwashed fool blindly repeating facts spouted by other fools then please back your arguments with actual facts. Provide proof for the claims you have made on this thread.

bliminy · 15/05/2019 21:19

By definition abortion is not safer than childbirth because someone is always going to die.

So is abortion safer than childbirth for the mother or not? You can't seem to decide, yet previously you seemed so sure.

SaskiaRembrandt · 15/05/2019 21:22

agnurse An unborn baby has the right to life and the right to the ordinary care required to sustain that life. That's the same as any newborn requires.

No, it's not at all. In your philosophy, a foetus has the legal right to extraordinary care, to compel someone to utilise their own body to sustain the life of the foetus. That goes far beyond the legal rights of a newborn baby. It would be equivalent if a newborn baby had the legal right to blood or organs, but they don't .

Do you hate newborn babies? Why do you want them to die?

AngeloMysterioso · 15/05/2019 21:23

Is it not possible that we pro-lifers actually DO have brains and are able to think for ourselves?

You’re throwing out statistics that are known to be fabricated, and using arguments so fallacious they border on absurd. I see no evidence of intelligence or critical thinking in anything you’ve posted.

An unborn baby has the right to life and the right to the ordinary care required to sustain that life.

Using somebody else’s body to stay alive is not ordinary care.

agnurse · 15/05/2019 21:24

Actually, it IS ordinary care. A newborn, by definition, is going to need to use someone else's body to stay alive. A sick person in hospital is going to need to use someone else's body to stay alive.

You're actually just splitting hairs.

FermatsTheorem · 15/05/2019 21:27

Basically what you're telling us Ag is that you want women to die from botched back-street abortions for the sake of a tiny blob of cells. Because that's what will happen as a direct result of laws like the ones in Alabama and Georgia.

Young women with their whole lives ahead of them will die.

Women with families who don't want a 3rd or 4th or 5th baby will die leaving their existing children motherless.

That's what you want. All because you hate the idea of women having sex.

What a screwed up way to view the world.