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?

You are hugely ill-informed yourself, and you should urgently remedy this.

You need to learn about how lack of access to abortion traps women and children in cycles of poverty from which there is no escape - and that poverty is intrinsically linked with the prison industrial complex, from which a huge number of the wealthy people making these laws financially benefit.

You need to learn about how in Alabama, sex education isn’t taught effectively in schools, because of laws made by the same people criminalising abortion.

You need to learn about how for many people, contraception is specifically excluded from their healthcare plans. You need to learn about how condoms aren’t available in schools. You need to learn about how employers are entitled to refuse to pay for their female employee’s birth control through company health insurance.

You need to learn that 700+ children age out of foster care in Alabama every year without ever being adopted, and that 40% of those children end up homeless or in prison.

You need to learn that when abortion is criminalised, it doesn’t stop women from having abortions. It stops them from having safe abortions.

You need to realise it’s not ‘a matter of life or death’ to abort a foetus, because it is not a person. Using emotional and unscientific language to appeal to people is a cheap trick used by the religious right to warp the debate. And you need to realise that lack of access to abortions can be a matter of life and death for women - actual, real people who need to be able to safely terminate pregnancies they don’t want.

@noblegiraffe
“The majority of Alabama residents are female.

Women voted for the legislators, and the woman governor who passed the bill.

Anyone suggesting that men are “imposing“ laws on women today either don’t understand representative democracy, or hope to destroy it. “

A quote from Grant Stobl but explains why it isn’t a women vs men issue.

YABU

Banning abortions does not stop abortions from happening, it just stops them from being safe.

People who would be in favour of abortion only in cases of rape or incest - how would you decide if a woman is actually legally entitled to an abortion? Would I as a victim have to relive my ordeal to a doctor/nurse etc to convince them? Does a doctor have the legal expertise to determine that the 'father' is a rapist before the case will have gone to trial? Could someone who wasn't raped but doesn't want to be pregnant tell the doctor she was raped and that she therefore wants an abortion?

No rape victim should be forced to relive their ordeal to access health care and risk not being believed. No woman should be forced to lie to a doctor and no doctor should have to risk jail for carrying out what may in fact be an illegal procedure if the woman felt forced to lie about being a victim. Abortion should be a legal procedure to protect the health and freedom of all involved.

This isn’t a men v women issue because a woman presented that bill and a woman signed it into law and 62% of non-college educated white women voted for trump. So let’s not pretend white women in America aren’t partly responsible for this, and let’s not turn a blind eye to the fact that in Alabama, the women who will be worst affected by this bill (i.e. women living in poverty) are mostly not white.

If you're not disturbed by Alabama's attitude to abortion, how does their attitude to capital punishment sit with you? Is it possible that that makes their purported attitude to personhood and the right to life a complete lie?

As early as possible, as late as necessary

How late would you go.

In the delivery room?

the people who are demanding and helping make these lawn changes... also said these statements

I’d rather it be considered routine, and for some women to “abuse” the service, than deny others the choice.

Same as I’m ok with disability benefits being fraudulently claimed, than genuinely disabled people suffering.

The proportion of people abusing either system is minuscule.

How can you claim it’s unfair to be accused of being judgemental because you wouldn’t say this shit to your friends, but only because you don’t want to be seen as judgemental. YOU ARE JUDGEMENTAL. Even if you are also two faced.

YABVU

Pretty sure the claim that abortion is treated as late-stage contraception for those who couldn't be arsed getting it sooner is bollocks, so the forced birthers trying to say that abortion is still so easy in this country can fuck off. I admit I'm going on my own experience of having an abortion (something I know was right for me in my circumstances), but how can the wait for an appointment and subsequent discussion with a doctor, followed by a long physical examination and discussion at a hospital, followed days or weeks later by a long trek to a clinic in the middle of fuckoffsville, be such a simple alternative to say, using the Pill or condoms? And I know the abortion process for me was still far easier than most women worldwide have it. I'm so lucky I had a kind and understanding GP and support from my family, and that I didn't have to go overseas for my procedure. Stop trying to portray women having abortions as being feckless, it's fucking pathetic.

Abortions aren't just positive for women though, men can and do also benefit. Safe and available abortions have allowed millions of people, male and female to go on and have a positive life.

twitter.com/3vanSutton/status/1129019110447341569

My life would be very different without access to abortion. When I was 22, a woman I was seeing got pregnant. She was almost 20. I was still in college. We worked together at a bar and had been sleeping together for maybe 5 or 6 weeks.
‏
I came of sex-consciousness in the height of the AIDS years, and protection is something I take very seriously. She couldn't take the pill for health reasons, but we used condoms every time and never had one break. Most of the time, we used condoms with spermicide.

After 5 or 6 weeks, things got weird and I broke up with her. About 10 days later, she asked if we could talk after our shift. I knew before she told me that she was pregnant. She had already had the decision to have an abortion by the time she told me.

The night before the procedure I spent the night (no sex!) at her request and tried to be present for her. I felt a lot of emotions, a lot of sadness, but also clarity that this was the right thing for everyone.

Her family was from a small town and very Evangelical. She grew up going to anti-abortion protests. She made her choiceand yes, it's her choice and no one else'sknowing if her parents found out they'd likely disown her.

She and I tried to be friends. I tried to support her. Things got very weird and very toxic in ways neither of us had the tools to deal with effectively. I can only imagine how bad it would have been with the stress of a baby.

Other than having sex out of wedlock, we did what you're supposed to do. We used protection, we were careful, but she got pregnant anyway. Having a child would have been terrible for everyone. Thankfully, we weren't forced into that situation.

We're both parents now, with kids who benefit from parents with emotional capacity (and financial stability) to care for them. At 22, I had none of the tools, and the two of us were definitely not going to be a couple that worked.

I'm glad she made that choice. I'm glad the choice was available, safe, affordable, and easy to access. I'm horrified that there are (mostly white male) Republicans trying to deny that choice to millions of women.

Abortion is healthcare. Abortion is economic and social choice. More than anything else, abortion is a right to self determination. Pregnancy and parenthood shouldn't be forced on anyone, whether they were "responsibly" having sex or being careless.

There are a lot of good places to give money to help fight this nonsense that's going on. I gave to the yellowhammer fund, and I encourage you to find a fund to support. For some reason my phone won't paste the damn link here, but it's easy to find a place to give.

(Since several folks have raised it, "sex out of wedlock" was intended to convey an at the notion, but I didn't land the tone. Sex is something two or more people have, mostly for pleasure, and I'm all for everyone having whatever sex they want to as long as it's consensual)

We know this is an incredibly difficult subject, but please do avoid PAs - we've just deleted quite a few.

Thanks

YABU and you are clearly not “pro choice”.

Maybe watch the last series of Call the Midwife - that night educate you around what happens when abortion is illegal.

YABU and as a PP said - you want abortion to be more unpleasant than it already is emotionally - why?

What a load of goady bollocks OP. I’d try to educate you on the real world but I’m fairly certain you aren’t worth my time

@Oliversmummy, spare us the ProLife propaganda on this thread. Your friend does not have a teenager who was born at 21 weeks without lungs and survived 24 hours without medical intervention while she begged for help from uncaring HVPs.

It’s a good question though!

How far can you go before pro choicers see abortion as murder ?

5 months ? 6 months ? 8 months ? Delivery room ?

“Abortion for lifestyle reasons I really can't understand”

Tell me what you think a lifestyle reason is and I’ll try to explain.

@LennyBelardo

I can assure you it’s not “easy” to move on from - 25 years later it is never far from my mind.

YABU and are definitely not pro-choice

The irony is that , in Alabama and elsewhere in the US, they really don't NEED to do this. The abortion rate is in decline from its all time high and is low anyway in the southern states. There are large numbers of Mexican Catholic Americans in Alabama who would not choose abortion anyway. It is not like there is some kind of abortion epidemic which they want to curtail. It is just policy to show the strong arm of the Republican right whilst they are given free licence by Trump ( who, naturally, changed his won views on abortion circa 2011)

You are aware late stage abortions are desperately wanted pregnancies where an abnormality has been found at the 20 week scan?

Nobody is strolling in to their GP and requesting an abortion at 23 weeks FFS!