The Abortion Overton window

[MrsTerryPratchett]

There's already been a few and there will be more.

Following the American decision regarding abortion, campaigners and trolls will be trying to move abortion provision in other counties, including the UK, into a 'debate'. Our right to safe, accessible, free healthcare isn't a debate. As soon as people start behaving as though essential healthcare for women is debatable, we are in a dangerous place.

Please consider, when opening threads about abortion at the moment, that the aim is to move the Overton window. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window#:~:text=The%20Overton%20window%20is%20the,as%20the%20window%20of%20discourse

I'm not enabling voting because that would rather feed into my point.

Pippin, you had a fair few posts deleted yesterday for this behaviour. Pack it in.

You cannot be serious.

Abortion absolutely should be available to anyone, and please don't compare me to pro lifers!! How offensive

Because it's the woman's decision to make.

I would far rather a woman has an abortion that a child is a) stuck wiht a parent who didnt want them b) is in care.

It's bad enough for care children, now you want to have children who have been removed from a mother who wanted to have an abortion.

I've heard it all now.

They may as well outlaw sex outside of marriage and start hiding unwed pregnant women in mother and baby homes again.

These are the CDC stats for abortions in the USA

GESTATION
Within 6 weeks: 43%
7 to 9 weeks: 36%
10 to 13 weeks: 13%
14 to 15 weeks: 3%
16 weeks or more: 4%
Source: C.D.C.

I think we can safely say that that 4% of abortions in the USA that happen after 16 weeks are exceptional - TFMR or a child realising late she is pregnant by rape or incest etc. This whole aborting in the birth canal mythology is fiction. Look at those stats - women deal early with unwanted pregnancies (the other stats are also worth looking at - most are already mothers and are poor). They don't viciously keep a pregnancy and abort at 35 weeks. honestly I think it is only men can imagine that scenario as a thing a person would do. I trust women.

They may as well outlaw sex outside of marriage and start hiding unwed pregnant women in mother and baby homes again.

I was born in a mother and baby home. My dd is a privileged, middle class, college educated american woman. I pointed out to her today that she is one degree/generation removed from a mother and baby home. it can happen very very quickly.

This is an interesting thread. However OP I think what you are actually doing is polarising the issue with quite an extreme position which in turn will push people who are broadly supportive into being less supportive. Just look at what’s happened in the states. The ‘no debate’ type of approach simply isn’t a good strategy.

However OP I think what you are actually doing is polarising the issue with quite an extreme position which in turn will push people who are broadly supportive into being less supportive. Just look at what’s happened in the states.

That IS NOT what has happened in the states. The majority of americans agree with the provisions for abortion set out by Roe v Wade. A radical, anxiously conservative supreme court decided to remove the Roe protections for abortion. They are not "people broadly supportive pushed into being less supportive" Read what happened before stating untrue things like this.

By the way this supreme court also allowed an incursion of religion into schools and expanded gun laws out of the control of states in the same session.

what you just said is complete garbage.

Yeah there is nothing broadly supportive about the US surpeme court.

Abortion is basic healthcare.

Supporting women's rights to abortion is in no way extreme. The ability to control whether or not she has a child is one of the most important things a woman needs.

No they aren’t, and they aren’t extremists. They’re arguing in favour of the status quo in the UK. Abortions are available up to 24 weeks for any reason at all and after 24 weeks if necessary (and they’re vanishingly rare after that point anyway).

The status quo is slap bang in the middle of the Overton Window. That’s the point of it.

The UK position is different to that of the US and represents a middle way compromise of the competing rights of the woman and the baby/foetus.

It means that most UK women who “needs an abortion can get one without allowing a “right to choose” up to and including birth.

UK law starts from the perspective that abortion is a crime.

The 1967 Act decriminalises it in certain circumstances, both social and medical and imposed a 24 week limit in most circumstances.

There is an offence of “Child Destruction” where a person causes the death of a child that is capable of being born alive.

UK law therefore does afford the foetus some rights as the pregnancy progresses.

Whether it should or not is a matter of debate, which is why we have Parliament rather than rule by decree.

Most people in the UK seem to support this position, that has (with a bit of modification) been the position since 1967.

As some other posters have said, insisting that there is some absolute right to abortion until birth and that this is beyond debate simply cannot be correct, either as a matter of law, morals or majority opinion.

If you want the law to change to reflect that view, how is that to be done without debate? Also, in advocating a position that many in the UK find extreme, you would also be opening up a forum for those who believe the other extreme (eg the El Salvador option).

The other issue is the biology. A foetus has a central nervous system that is operating from about 13 weeks gestation.

Before that, it can’t feel pain as it isn’t conscious. After that, it can.

That might be an uncomfortable truth, but does that mean it shouldn’t be referenced as part of a reasoned debate?

Showing how rattled the anti abortionist movement becomes when they are ignored.

All I wrote was ‘ignore’

Posters, these people don’t care about rational arguments. They just want to occupy this safe space for women to import their anti abortion ideas.

Hang on, who decreed this a “safe space” in which only pro-choice views are allowed?

The clue is in the phrase “Am I Being Unreasonable?” It’s a forum that invites different points of view.

To post your own views and then invite others to ignore opposing views seems to be outwith the spirit of the forum, doesn’t it?

And also, most of the views that are derided as “anti abortion” aren’t actually- they’re differing views in what gestation period or circumstances abortion should be facilitated.

The UK position is different to that of the US and represents a middle way compromise of the competing rights of the woman and the baby/foetus.

It means that most UK women who “needs an abortion can get one without allowing a “right to choose” up to and including birth.

Is this really a compromise though?

How many countries allow abortion on demand past 24 weeks?

Despite what some people have said on this thread, I don't think there are many people who support late term abortions - past 24 weeks - other than in circumstances where the mother is at risk or the baby is severely impaired. And I don't think there are many countries where that is legal.

In France the legal limit is 12 weeks.

Rattled

Wow, the intolerance toward other opinions has reached truly magnificent levels. Good to know that debate on abortion is now prohibited on MN. I shall leave you delightful ladies alone in your echo chamber of false information and self-righteousness, then.

Please link any false information that has been shared on this thread around abortion? @Greencushion6

Feel free to report it too, as MN is normally pretty good with health disinformation.

Sorry, to correct my earlier post.

In France the legal limit for abortion on demand was 12 weeks and has recently been changed to 14 weeks.

Later stage abortions are still permitted for medical reasons - affecting either the baby or the mother.

It is worth noting some of the posts on this thread, OP, to see how the issue is likely to be played.

We will get various accusations. Here we have 'intolerant' etc, attempts to paint abortion/choice support as 'extremism', etc, various methods to try and pretend there's a 'debate' on abortion in the UK.

Think this needs reposting.

Later term abortions are incredibly rare and occur in specific circumstances that most reasonable people would agree was ethical (child pregnancy, risk to mother's life, foetus having unsurvivable anomalies).

Improving access to abortion services is going to reduce the chance of this needing to happen, not increase it.

Indeed...

All the restrictions in the US are going to do is make impossible for women to access abortion early on.

They are then going to have to be forced to have a later stage abortion if they are able to travel or prove it is necessary based on whatever criteria their state uses. In extreme cases women may be forced into undergoing unsafe abortions, or attempting to induce a termination themselves (or be beaten by an abusive partner to cause a miscarriage.) This will lead to the same result, but with huge amounts of trauma, medical complications, and maternal death. How is anyone benefitting from this? @Smileyaxolotl1 et al.

For all these posters supporting it - you undertstand that this legislation will cause exactly what you are arguing against?

The post is misleading because it implies that MN is now an exclusive space for the pro-choice argument which prohibits all other opinions. I see nowhere in the Talk Guidelines to suggest that only those who are in favour of abortion are allowed to post on MN, and that all other views will not be tolerated. Even more so, you are suggesting that ANY nuance in the abortion argument is now unwelcome on AIBU, and that only one very narrow opinion may be expressed here. I don't see anything in the Talk Guidelines to back this up.

You can open as many threads as you want that are anti-choice and pro forced birth @Greencushion6

There are many debating this

This thread is specifically pointing out how specific arguments are used to derail and detract.

Still interested in the disinformation about abortion that you have claimed is on the thread?