Pro-Lifers told to keep their distance

[longwayoff]

A court has ruled that anti-abortionists should keep 100 meters away from women attending the Ealing clinic. AIBU to say quite right too?

@Everanewbie, I also don’t think it’s helpful to call anti-choice people ‘pro-life’. People who harass women going about their own legal business are scum, as far as I’m concerned.

Totally agree with PPs. Call them what they are - they are anti-choice protesters.

As for all the bollocks about the benign charity ‘Life’ - their first mission statement is “justice for the unborn” so I’d be highly sceptical about approaching them for a balanced and compassionate view. They are an anti-choice charity.

YANBU at all. I live around the corner from that clinic and saw first hand the harassment women were undergoing. Unfortunately they are still able to stand near by on a grassy verge which I take great relish in letting my dog shit on voluminously.

Glasscrab I think you can be pro-life without harassing individual women at clinics and that they make some points about rights to life that resonate with me. I agree completely that people who stand outside an abortion clinic with the purpose of shouting and screaming are particularly despicable.

I don't however want to lump people with a belief in the sanctity of human life in as one homogeneous group, with people with that intimidate and harass vulnerable women at their lowest ebb.

From my perspective, their is a separation between ones beliefs, and their actions. Often these people have religious motivations. I'm not religious, but I thought their religion taught understanding and forgiveness. Have your views, express your views, campaign if you must, but the clinic is not the place.

Regards the self-decsribed "Pro-Life" lobby, we have had it stated here that where there is another life involved, the mother cannot make decisions and must be prevented from so doing to protect the said unborn life.

These are the same people who massed at Alder Hey Hospital, at one point storming the reception, in the name of a mother who they said had every right to decide what was appropriate for her child regardless of medical opinion that it would kill him.

While agreeing with many of your points, @Ever, I must point out again that people who oppose abortion, on whatever grounds, are not ‘pro-life’ but ‘anti-choice’.

Glasscrab the other side may identify the pro-choice movement as the pro-abortion movement, or worse. Both sides use euphemisms.

They don't, @Ever.

'Pro-choice' means precisely that -- that they believe women should have a choice about whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy.

'Pro-abortion' is a term I have only ever heard used by Christian fundamentalists who appear to think that people who are in favour of legal abortion being available are wildly enthusiastic about the procedure, and have not grasped the basic principle that many pro-choice women would not have an abortion themselves, but regardless of their own individual opinion, want the choice to be available to other women who may think differently.

That is the essence of the pro-choice position -- that it is irrelevant what you personally think of abortion, whether because of your religious views or some other conviction, because the choice should be available.

This is why the referendum legalising abortion passed in Ireland last year. Large numbers of people who did not themselves approve of abortion, including devoutly Catholic older people who had believed since the cradle that abortion was a serious sin, acknowledged that the choice should nonetheless be available to those who felt differently.

'Pro-life', on the other hand, is a vaguely and nastily euphemistic term suggesting that those with these views are fuzzy, gentle huggy types, rather than those who actively oppose other people exercising choice over what happens in their own bodies.

'Pro-abortion' is a term I have only ever heard used by Christian fundamentalists who appear to think that people who are in favour of legal abortion being available are wildly enthusiastic about the procedure, and have not grasped the basic principle that many pro-choice women would not have an abortion themselves, but regardless of their own individual opinion, want the choice to be available to other women who may think differently.

Ok, but some people really are pro-abortion and think some women e.g. young parents, poor women are selfish for not having abortions.

It's also true some people are anti-choice and just want to blame women, even if they took every precaution to avoid pregnancy in the first place.

Essentially, it goes both ways.

The Pro-Choice Lobby would like nothing more than to reduce the number of terminations, especially late ones. They would wish for this to be a consequence of the wider availability and awareness about effective contraception, and the provision of more and better sex and relationships education.

As a direct consequence of their hositility to the policies mentioned above, the Pro-Life lobby makes it inevitable there will be more abortions.

Ok, but some people really are pro-abortion and think some women e.g. young parents, poor women are selfish for not having abortions.

It's also true some people are anti-choice and just want to blame women, even if they took every precaution to avoid pregnancy in the first place.

But both these positions (which are essentially a version of ideas about the 'feckless benefit-reliant' versus the 'deserving poor') are completely irrelevant to whether abortion should be safely and legally available, and whether women seeking them should be able to access a clinic without being harassed and intimidated.

Women should have the right to this whether they're endemically careless about contraception and on their fourth termination, or whether they're reluctantly terminating a much-wanted pregnancy because of foetal abormalities incompatible with life, or anywhere in between.

Whether an individual thinks any woman ending a pregnancy is 'deserving' or not is irrelevant.

I have no time for so called ‘pro-lifers’. Many years ago I was working with a consultant gynaecologist. A woman who was very active and high profile in the ‘pro-life’ movement brought her teenage daughter to him for a termination. When he asked why she would be doing this considering her well publicised activism she replied that her daughter was a special case as she was ‘sensitive’. So trying to deny other people’s daughters the course of action that she chose for her own.

Mark me down as ‘pro-abortion’ and ‘wildly enthusiastic about the procedure’. It saved my life when I was 22 and it was like fucking Christmas and my birthday rolled into one when I walked out of that clinic no longer pregnant. Spare me the fucking po-faced platitudes about how it’s ‘sad but necessary’. That’s true sometimes, for example when the fetus is wanted but has abnormalities or the health of the mother is at risk and the termination is the only solution. Sometimes it’s a tedious but otherwise neutral procedure, like dental work or a minor op, but the relief felt afterwards can be a reason to celebrate.

Spare me the fucking po-faced platitudes about how it’s ‘sad but necessary’ ...

... but the relief felt afterwards can be a reason to celebrate ...

Amen to all of that. I was sobbing and laughing with relief after mine. Never known a feeling like it.

Just to add to the feckless and undeserving theme.

If your point is that abortion is wrong, how is your judgement of the mother even relevant?

It’s the thrill of those fallen women isn’t it?

When he asked why she would be doing this considering her well publicised activism she replied that her daughter was a special case as she was ‘sensitive’.

And they were probably both with the daughter outside the clinic protesting the next day..

Pro Life or Anti Abortion, they are all misogynistic hypocrites. Vile people attempting to twist women into their own perverse image of what a woman should be. 100 metres isn't far enough away.

in many cases these "pro life" cunts also disagree with contraception. in their view the woman shouldnt have sex at all if she doesnt want a child. it is sad that there are so many brainwashed women out there that cant see that if we give up any rights it is a downward spiral and i really do fear Gilead type life in the future, where we have gone so far backwards and have no rights at all

Some are honest people trying to save what they believe are babies' lives. However I don't support their standing by clinics protesting. I bet they wouldn't like me outside their hospital when they were having cancer surgery protesting were I to be a Christian Scientist eg who does not approve of medical intervention and think it interfreres with the law of god. I bet they would not like that. People at a vulnerable time whether having surgery or even in the anti abortiontionsts' language killing a baby deserve privacy.

just for interest, in the USA, these are the types who make the laws on abortion

isnt it a case of

Pro life - life begins at conception, indifference begins at birth

YNBU! I saw this on TV yesterday with my 19 year old and we both unanimously said - good, not far enough and then the presenter spoke to a pro-life, anti-choice representative - of course it's a holier than thou fucking man!

Some are honest people trying to save what they believe are babies' lives.

Then they should get their science disentangled from their theology sharpish.

This will come as no surprise to anyone;

''According to their own survey responses, anti-abortion voters are hostile to gender equality in practically every aspect''
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/22/a-new-poll-shows-what-really-interests-pro-lifers-controlling-women

I don't think it helps to villify either side. English law struggles with when life starts eg you can abort a down's baby up to any time up to birth even 40 weeks but not a "healthy" baby for example when the limit is 23 weeks or whatever it is and only where 2 doctors certify whatever they have to certify. It's all pretty arbitrary and hard to justify. I would probably just change it to abortion on demand at any time up to birth.