To be totally gutted for American women?

[Anothernamechangeplease]

The US Supreme Court has reversed the Roe v Wade ruling. Millions of American women have lost their right to make decisions about what happens to their own bodies.

I have never had an abortion and personally, I'm not sure if I ever could, but I have always been passionately of the view that individual women should be able to make that choice for themselves. It's awful that this right has been removed for so many.

an abortion is an abortion

saying you agree to them in cases of rape just proves you think all other women should be banned from having them as punishment for enjoying sex.

No I don’t, they should be able to have abortions in those cases. My issue is that those cases are so rare, a tiny percentage of the total number taking place. Same for ectopic pregnancies, severe disabilities, etc.

Welcome.

I would be in favour of a time limit, say, 8 weeks.

Some women, particularly women who aren't actively trying to conceive, or who have dodgy menstrual cycles, don't know they are pregnant at 8 weeks. Is it just tough shit then? Should women do pregnancy tests every month just to check?

You would be happy to watch your daughter bleed out from a ruptured ectopic? Rather than have a procedure to save her life?

I take it very seriously, but spelled it that way in case the word triggered the MN ban hammer 🤷🏽‍♀️

@AnybodyAnywhere 🌹I'm so sorry you had to live through that

Everyone on this thread saying 'rape is a red herring' go fuck yourselves, seriously

You think ectopic pregnancies are 'so rare'?

You think pregnancy by rape is 'so rare'?

You are really making it sound like you don't know what you are talking about.

You’re also being very selective about the posts you answer Freya 🧐

@FreyaStorm No I don’t, they should be able to have abortions in those cases. My issue is that those cases are so rare, a tiny percentage of the total number taking place. Same for ectopic pregnancies, severe disabilities, etc.

Where are you getting your stats? Can you link please?

But if we’re honest with ourselves, the vast majority of abortions are the result of sloppy contraceptive use. I find those hard to justify

i disagree. I think very few are “sloppy contraception”. Maybe amongst teenagers who aren’t educated on correct use, but older women tend to be contraceptive failure.

neither is the fault of the woman as you imply.

How far along the pregnancy is also comes into it for me. How can you have babies aborted at 20 weeks + on one side of a hospital, left to die on a stainless steel kidney dish, whilst on the other side in the NICU, a 20 week baby will have everything at modern medicine’s disposal to keep it alive. I find that hard to reconcile

to start late term TOP aren’t “left to die in a steel kidney dish”. The heart is stopped before the procedure.

secondly in most cases babies born prior to 24 weeks generally do not survive, so heroic and extreme measures aren’t taken. They are more likely to have a prolonged and painful life and death.
You have to ask yourself, which is better, painless death in utero, surrounded by all the comfort you have known, or being dragged into the world to have tubes forced down your throat, air into your lungs, injections, painful procedures, drugs with side effects so severe they may leave you blind and deaf- to exist for a few painful weeks until your bowel necrotises and you die.

Absolutely horrifying. It feels very much like the beginning of The Handmaid's Tale...

@FreyaStorm

The word you are looking for is raped. Not r@ped. Raped. A man ,or men, either a stranger, , acquaintance or family member, has forced their penis inside them and ejaculated. Putting the woman, or girl, or child, at risk not just of pregnancy but of disease, physical trauma such as vaginal ( or anal) tearing, complex and longterm mental health issues , social exclusion and a host of other physical, emotional ,social and economic consequences.

If you can’t even bring yourself to type it then you are ,I think , totally lacking in empathy for those women, or children, who find themselves pregnant after violent assault on their bodies. Those are not “red herrings” , they are human beings who have had their bodies violated and, according to you, are so insignificant statistically that their situation doesn’t count.

Shame on you.

No, again in my opinion people who knowingly risk pregnancy should be willing to care for the product (baby) of that risk

It’s a real shame that we don’t have a wide array of contraceptives available

Well, as no contraception is 100% effective, I guess the answer to both of these is vast swathes of women start refusing to have sexual intercourse. Though amongst this kind of forced birther demographic that would probably lead to rape being legalised because women shouldn’t be allowed to withhold sex from good decent god fearing men……….

My DSis did t realise she was pregnant until 16 weeks

Eight weeks is ludicrous.

You’re thinking of a chemical abortion if it’s in the early weeks. Decidedly not brutal, agreed.
But it gets brutal later, say around 20 weeks.
Brutal for the baby, perhaps the mother too, but she made her choices.

@FreyaStorm also seems ignorant about how a discussion forum where women are allowed to discuss issues affecting women works.

I don’t get the ‘except rape’ argument surely if you believe there is an innocent life worth saving then it doesn’t make a difference how it was made? Why is an ‘innocent life’ conceived via consensual sex worthy of ‘saving’ but one conceived under different circumstances is okay to be aborted?

that just shows it is about the consequences of punishing the woman on whether or not it is deemed to be her ‘fault’ or not rather than ‘all life is sacred’

@FreyaStorm How can you accurately record the reasons why girls/women get abortions? Do you think each and every one admits to rape/incest vs contraception failure?

You think people can't talk about rape on mumsnet? Are you new here? A religious fundie or an MRA registering to post anti-choice spiel.

Yes, I wanted to ask this. Properly sourced stats please FreyaStorm.

If I get pregnant again, I could die. That's not exaggeration, that's from the consultant who delivered my last child and advised me in no uncertain terms that he would very strongly recommend I do not get pregnant again due to the risk to my life. Hormone based contraception is not effective for me as it causes issues with my EDS, the pill makes me sick, I have too much internal scar tissue for a coil/IUD to be safe, I cannot be sterilised for the same reason as it would create more scar tissue. Thankfully my husband stepped up and had a vasectomy but this was back when there wasn't a huge NHS backlog with a waiting list several years long and even then it sas difficult to access, it must be nigh on impossible now. If he hadn't had the vasectomy, should I just never have sex with him again? What if we broke up or he died and I met a new partner? What of I was raped? What if his tubes spontaneously reconnected? My life should not be forfeit for the "crime" of having sex.

Don't want an abortion? Champion. I will defend your right to continue your pregnancy should anyone try to force you into having one. I will march. I will campaign. I will support measures that ensure you do not have to have an abortion if you don't want one. On the other hand if you do want an abortion? That's fine too. I will defend your right to access a safe, legal abortion. I will March. I will campaign. I will support measures that ensure you have access to an abortion. That's what being pro-choice is. It's about protecting and supporting the right of all woman to choose for themselves, whether that choice is to end their pregnancy or continue it, its about making sure they get to make that choice. Pro-life is about removing choice, restricting women's sexual freedom and bodily autonomy, and punishing women for wanting equality with men. Pro-life is not worthy of respect or consideration, it is abhorrent and it can fuck right off.

And before @'s me about personal opinion, if you hold the person opinion that abortion is wrong that is fine. You have your opinion a d that opinion is that abortion is wrong. Great. Simple answer there - don't have one. But don't go forcing that opinion on other people and don't go trying to restrict their choice over what they do with their body.

It did.
You’ve stirred up distant memories of an awkward Welsh science teacher rolling a condom onto a banana 😂

But making abortion illegal does not stop abortions from happening. It means that abortion is driven underground, and women will get unsafe and illegal abortions instead of legal and safe ones. In fact, there is some evidence (will link later if I can find it again) that making abortion illegal actually results in more abortions.

Also, red states that are banning abortion are also likely to limit access to some effective contraceptives, like IUDs. This is likely to further increase the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

@FreyaStorm could you give the numbers of abortions performed at 20 weeks that were due to maternal choice rather than due to medical necessity due to severe foetal anomalies or risk to the mothers health? Thanks.