To be annoyed by anti-Alabama posts?

[Bere111]

For context, I’m not prolife or pro choice...i wouldn’t have an abortion myself but I know that largely because I’ve never been in those desperate circumstances, so equally would never judge someone who had.
But all the anti-Alabama posts I’ve seen this week by women in the UK I find pretty ill informed.
For example, most not knowing it is still banned in Northern Ireland- part of the UK.
Also, people saying it’s ‘healthcare’ - I don’t believe this is true. I think it should be a crisis service, and making it sound routine trivialises it for me.
People saying it’s a women choice...again I don’t really think this is right. It’s a women choice to get pregnant or not get pregnant of course, but unless that girl or women fell pregnant through no choice of their own (in which can of course she should have access to abortion) I’m not sure once she’s actually pregnant she should then just be free to opt in or opt out.
I fell pregnant by accident with ds1, I was very newly married, had a well paid job and owned a house but was younger then I’d planned to be (27)- yet I had 3 people ask ‘god, what are you going to do???’ Which I found bizarre.
Most people’s opinion of abortion (including mine!) is formed on the fact that for those that are victims of rape or incest, or the health of the mother or baby is in question, or for example the mother is under 18 or even under 21, the time they need to have a safe solution to deal with an unplanned pregnancy.
However, I know that only about 3% of abortion happen for the reason above. The rest the nhs classify as lifestyle factors.
I’m sure many women may be masking issues by telling the motivating reason for the termination is just a lifestyle factor, but even so I still think many, many abortion take place because of poor planning and poor timing.
I’ve had 2 close friends have terminations in our late 20s, both of which went on to have children with the same partner a few years later. Although I supported their choice, I didn’t really understand it. They were both preoccupied with the idea that the timing wasn’t right- even though they wanted children and wanted children with the current partners.
I think we put far to much pressure of ourselves that we have to do things in the right order- so then when a pregnancy comes along that wasn’t on the timeline, we freak out- even if we are perfectly capable of parenting at that time.
I also think something most be going wrong with how we are approaching contraception, especially as the fastest growing segment of women needing abortion are 30+ and have ahead previous abortions. Can women not access contraception easily or could giving more education around ovulation cycles help this (this is pretty common place in countries like Germany from secondary school age, and women generally avoid sex when they’re ovulating- even when using another form of contraception)
I guess all in all I think it’s a really complex matter- and I don’t think we have it totally right in this country, and I find it a trivialisation to see my friends sharing handmaid tale’s pictures with ‘my body my choice’ tag lines...surely when a matter really is life or death, we shouldn’t simplify it as a women’s prerogative?
Or AIBU?

The orphanages in Romania were full of children damaged by botched abortion or attempts at abortions.

Is that acceptable?

Should you minimise it? Yes

Some methods of minimising abortion might be better sex education for children and adults. It might be easier access and greater choice of contraception. It might be allowing women to control their own fertility in terms of sterelisation being more widely available.

You wont minimise abortion by restricting it. Youll just push it underground resulting in more death of vulnerable women and probably more regret if anything. An abortion in a clinic is a lot less traumatic than on the kitchen table of a woman you know.

Surely being pro choice means that you have to consider this in the entirety. Is everything being done to ensure that as few women as possible are harmed by this?

How would restricting access to abortion give women more time / opportunities to make the right decision?

How? At the expense of many women who are certain of their choice? By risking lives and suffering because of unsafe backstreet abortions?

All it is is choice. Do it, don't do it, up to you.

Why are you risking lives or putting people off?

I can't just rock up at my GP and demand a surgery and then get it, no questions asked.

It is a big deal, regardless of how sure you are. A system needs to be in place whereby everyone has a decent session if counselling. If necessary they can have as many as they need to make a decision.

I've read lots of posts where women describe only talking to someone on the phone, or having just an appointment with a nurse to book the procedure and no real counselling around it.

Are you not concerned that women being forced into it won't be identified? Are they not important?

PlantPotParrot

By minimising it I meant minimising the number of women who regret their decision.

It is a big deal, regardless of how sure you are.

It might be to you, but to many women it's not. Why should they live their lives according to your moral compass?

Also, In my experience, women are turned away if the HCP thinks they aren't ready for it.

I would put money on some women’s tearful reaction after an abortion being informed to a great extent by what they see as the expected, appropriate, societally approved response.

Quite. The idea that terminations could be a simple life-event that women don't regret was a fairly new one to me even a few years ago, as my opinions on the topic had been formed by media and tv's depiction of really sad women crying their eyes out over their 'secret shame'. Bollocks the lot of it. There's no reason for a perfectly legal medical procedure to be a source of shame and regret.

That's not to say that sometimes women do make the decision to terminate because they're in the wrong circumstances for them - of course I can see why a woman who terminates because she's in an abusive relationship may regret the circumstances around her choice, but she should still be free to make the best choice for her, at that moment.

Feminists can and do campaign for abortion rights AND for better circumstances for women in general - we can believe two things at the same time, ffs.

How would restricting access to abortion give women more time / opportunities to make the right decision?

I don't advocate restricting access to abortion.

I think the process should give women some time to consider their decision alongside some decent counselling with an impartial counsellor. I just don't believe that this process should be done as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

Doing that risks vulnerable women being pushed into doing something that they don't want to do.

In that situation, DecomposingComposers, I would like to think that the counselling would be optional on the decision of the woman.

My termination for me was not a big deal at all. I would have HATED to have to sit and chat about it with an outside agency who had nothing to do with my life, in order to justify some societal expectation that I should “feel bad” for making my own decisions as a grown woman.

Plus, my pregnancy made me so horrendously sick, I just wanted out as soon as possible.

Most people’s opinion of abortion (including mine!) is formed on the fact that for those that are victims of rape or incest, or the health of the mother or baby is in question, or for example the mother is under 18 or even under 21, the time they need to have a safe solution to deal with an unplanned pregnancy.

YABU You don’t speak for me here, I believe in a woman’s body, a women’s choice; I don’t seek to, nor do I think I have the right to question why someone wants/needs/has to have an abortion…nor would I judge someone’s choices. If you don’t agree then that’s fine for you but I don’t see why your opinion gives you the right to decide for others.

AS for Gilead the only problem with that comparison, as someone recently noted, is that unlike far too many of the pregnant women in the US and elsewhere, the pregnant women of Gilead were provided with free healthcare, food, clothes and lodging…

Also you later mention IVF, you do realise that a lot of those who oppose abortion, also oppose IVF? many also oppose various forms of contraception, MAP and so on…support teaching abstinence rather than sex education and so on…perhaps you need to do more research on exactly who and what you are supporting.

As for NI if you’ve read through the recent AIBU thread on Alabama you will find that people also discussed NI and supporting women there…The US does have relevance however as many US groups are acting and/or training anti-abortion groups in the UK, and many UK anti-abortion groups are offshoots of US groups.

The adoption system isn’t overwhelmed it’s underwhelmed- there’s a huge shortage of children, particularly babies, needing adoptive homes.

Not according to adoption statistics:

“There are more than twice as many children waiting for families than there are adopters, new figures show.
The statistics reveal there are 1,135 children waiting to be adopted but just 407 families approved to adopt.
Almost a third (29%) are Black and Minority Ethnic children
57% are boys
55% are in sibling groups of two or more
www.adoptionuk.org/news/children-awaiting-adoption-outnumber-adopters-by-more-than-2-to-1
 

Re "what if your ancestors had aborted"... back in my line there is an incestuous abusive relationship. I'd happily not exist (well, I wouldn't know about it, would I...) for my great great grandma to have been able to abort her fathers child.

Why should they live their lives according to your moral compass?

I don't want them to. Why do you want women to live by your moral compass?

You might not consider abortion to be a big deal but other women will feel like that. Why are they less deserving of proper care?

But that should be optional, not forced upon them.

This is what happens when a country bans abortion, women die. You can't ban abortion, it goes underground, the wealthy get around the ban, those less fortunate suffer:

In 1966, the leader of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, outlawed access to abortion and contraception in a bid to boost the country’s population. In the short term, it worked, and the year after it was enacted the average number of children born to Romanian women jumped from 1.9 to 3.7. But birthrates quickly fell again as women found ways around the ban. Wealthy, urban women were sometimes able to bribe doctors to perform abortions, or they had contraceptive IUDs smuggled in from Germany.

Yet Romania’s prohibition of the procedure was disproportionately felt by low-income women and disadvantaged groups, which abortion-rights advocates in the United States fear would happen if the Alabama law came into force. As a last resort, many Romanian women turned to home and back-alley abortions, and by 1989, an estimated 10,000 women had died as a result of unsafe procedures. The real number of deaths might have been much higher, as women who sought abortions and those who helped them faced years of imprisonment if caught. Maternal mortality skyrocketed, doubling between 1965 and 1989.

foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama/

Under his eye OP - have a biscuit to chew on whilst you sit in judgement of the rest of some kind

If a woman doesn’t want a cooling off period, or to speak to a counselor beyond the initial consultation, why should she have to?

SachaStark

I understand what you are saying. There must be a middle ground.

Many systems are arranged in order to protect the most vulnerable and I can't see any difference here.

Making it as easy as going to the dentist will help women who don't see it as a big deal and who are certain about their decision. Conversely, it makes it easier for vulnerable women to be pushed into it by abusive partners or family because "it's no big deal" and there are no safeguards to identify these women. That doesn't sit right with me.

I am one of 13 children born to a woman who couldn't (because of her family's faith) access abortion. 13 children, all removed and placed into foster care. 13 children desperately in need of love, kindness and family.

How many of us survived to live healthy, happy, functional adult lives? How many of us have children who are living the perfect lives we didn't have? Two of us. Two, out of thirteen. The others are variously in prison, dead from suicide, repeating exactly the same pattern with social services removing their own children, drug addicts and close to death from alcohol addiction. I maintain that my birth mother should have aborted the many, many unwanted children she had and been given the right support to enable her to make choices which would have ensured no more pregnancies because the odds were against every single one of us from the moment we were conceived.

It seems that being pro-life is different to being pro-child because it's all well and good removing a woman's right to access abortion but who'll look after the children born to those women who can't, won't and don't care for the children they don't want? Certainly not the pro-lifers. They're busy campaigning for women's rights to be removed whilst conveniently forgetting the children left behind by such archaic legislation.

I agree that women considering abortion need support to ensure they make the absolute right choice for them. I agree that there's probably a percentage who do regret that choice afterwards. But I also think that it is still fundamentally nobody's business legislating over a woman's body when the woman is the one left with the life-long commitment of a child.

I don't want them to. Why do you want women to live by your moral compass?

I don't. I want them to have a choice. Keep a prelacy, don't keep it, up to them.

For some women it's big deal and I respect that, but so should you respect the view of a someone for whom this is just an inconvenience.

I'm going to say it again, legislation against abortion or making it difficult and delaying it only pushes women towards solutions unsafe for them and for the foetus, should it survive.

OP, in 2004 I had an NHS sterilisation a couple of months before my 29th birthday. It certainly could be done at 28 back then if you were patient and determined enough to jump through the required hoops (I had to write quite an arsey letter to the Primary Care Trust at one point). I hear it's a lot less easy now though. One of the best decisions I ever made.

For some women it's big deal and I respect that, but so should you respect the view of a someone for whom this is just an inconvenience.

But I do respect that. I don't agree that the system should be set up assuming that every women thinks like this. I'm not saying that anyone who does think like this is wrong.

AS for those making ridiculous comparisons between an embryo/foetus and a child, you might want to think about this, Sally Rooney, when supporting the right for abortion, commented on the pro-lifers claim that a foetus is a person as part of their pro-life argument:

“If the fetus is a person, it is a person who possesses, as Sally Rooney put it in the London Review of Books, “a vastly expanded set of legal rights, rights available to no other class of citizen”—the right to “make free, non-consensual use of another living person’s uterus and blood supply, and cause permanent, unwanted changes to another person’s body.” In the relationship between woman and fetus, she wrote, the woman is “granted fewer rights than a corpse.”

www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-messiness-of-reproduction-and-the-dishonesty-of-anti-abortion-propaganda

To those of you answering my question about why is a born baby entitled to life, despite its total dependence, versus an unborn, I understand your answer, yes the difference is about the dependency on the mother’s body. Ok, true. But this is the nature of a female body, of pregnancy. Babies are dependent on their mother’s body, and they don’t ask to be there. Other than in cases of force, the mother has had a part in bringing them there. I just can’t understand why it is ok for some to end their life because they are unwelcome, when it’s not ok to end a newborn’s life.

I understand because people feel the unborn baby is not yet a real person, it is felt misogynistic to direct what women can do with their bodies. But try to understand those who feel it is a person, this a subjective matter, there is no science that dictates this conclusively or accurately. Itis fine to do what we like with the bodies of unborn people?

You know what, Decomposing Composers? I don’t believe you. And if I get deleted I don’t care.

I don't agree that the system should be set up assuming that every women thinks like this

And it's not.