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.

Read the original post. The OP literally says that abortion isn't up for debate.

You mean execute?

@SexyLittleNosferatu You are exhorting murder and infanticide.

@Greencushion6

You understand that restricting access to abortion increases the risk of literal murder and infanticide?

SexyLittleNosferatu

Are you feeling ok ?

Well good luck with that.

'Notably, rates have diverged between countries with fewer restrictions and those with more: Between 1990–94 and 2015–19, the average abortion rate in countries with generally legal abortion (excluding China and India) declined by 43 percent. By contrast, in countries with severe restrictions on abortion, the average abortion rate increased by around 12 percent.

www.cfr.org/article/abortion-law-global-comparisons

What abortion bans do categorically result in are:
An increase in maternal mortality, both from desperate women – and let’s not forget, children – who will seek unsafe abortions when there are no legal abortions available, and women who develop complications in their pregnancy but cannot access the healthcare they need because anti-abortion laws mean doctors won’t treat them.'

From Caroline Criado Perez' recent newsletter.

I’ve read this thread with horror.

I’ve realised that I hold a view of abortion that is unacceptable.

The trouble is, that I cannot stop holding that view.

Who should I contact for re-education or brain removal?

My view is this:

Abortion is wrong unless it’s to save the life of the mother.

If it’s got a heartbeat, it’s alive.

If it can feel pain, it’s got rights.

A late abortion of a baby where efforts would be made to save it if it was a wanted child that was born prematurely is murder.

That having heard the sound of a “foetus making a noise” during a late abortion, it sounded an awful lot to me like a newborn baby crying.

That the upsetting details of late terminations are often removed from forums precisely because they are upsetting. That doesn’t make them any less real.

Now, feel free to:

1. Insist that my view is wrong and must change.
2. Insist that I must be a troll or religious fanatic.
3. Have this post removed in case it upsets someone.
4. Insist that I am thrown off Mumsnet for holding and expressing this view.

This is getting very polarised.

OP, can you not see the irony?

By professing that a certain absolutist view of a woman’s right to choose is the only acceptable viewpoint, you have opened up the very debate that you think is unacceptable.

The UK and European context is very different from the USA.

In most European countries there is a provision for abortion on demand up to 12 weeks and on medical grounds after that.

In the UK there is no abortion on demand but permissible for social reasons up to 24 reasons and medical grounds beyond that.

The position hasn’t changed much in most of them since the mid 20th century as there is a broad consensus.

Your absolutist view (which you are entitled to hold even if others disagree with you) opens up the very debate that you think is wrong.

What was it you hoped/ expected to get here? Just responses that said “I agree”?

*24 weeks

@EllieFAnt82

Your views are your views. They mean you would never get an abortion unless your life was at risk.

But they're irrelevant to what another woman would choose, and I don't understand why your opinion should mean that no-one else is able to freely choose.

Again with the "late abortion" comments. It has been discussed to death. They are rarity which occur within a very specific set of conditions.

All restrictions do are to force more women to have later and unsafe abortions.

@EllieFAnt82

Hello again.

Whilst I appreciate the circumstances of what you heard/witnessed must have been upsetting, if it was in the UK it can only have happened late for medical reasons, not just because someone didn’t want a baby anymore.

In those circumstances the whole
thing was no doubt a tragedy but may well have been medically necessary.

We already do that in over here but only showing up to 24w or only TFMR past that. This system is not remotely extreme, and I also agree that making it all or nothing does create resistance, because it's pretty unreasonable to say 'abortion til birth for any reason, else you're pro-forced birth'. Well, no. It's not.

Erm, my comment was deleted for calling out the heinous laws introduced by Saint Jacinda of New Zealand?

So it's fine to exhort people to violence, but not to suggest that a head of state who is responsible for such violence be held to account?

I think it's the fact you can't seem to post factually on the topic.

What specifically do you disagree with regarding NZ and their abortion laws? Links to specific legislation you disagree with? Just terming something "heinous" and saying the PM should be tried for "crimes against humanity" isn't particularly helpful.

That having heard the sound of a “foetus making a noise” during a late abortion, it sounded an awful lot to me like a newborn baby crying.

"Heard"? Yourself, in person? Or from a video on a website called something like abortionismurder dot com?

I have resusscitatwd 24 weekers. They do not cry like a newborn. A 7-10 (vast majoroty of terminations) week embyro can make no noise because the vocal cords have not formed. You are talking nonsense.

Resuscitated.

Are you quite well? I'm as pro choice as they come, you absolute fool. I just don't want more of your posts to be deleted and our discussion to be chopped up by your behaviour which has already been deleted.

Is there are a reason you are being utterly flippant?

I don't think you shouldn't be allowed an opinion, but I object to your flippancy.

Maybe be careful when flippantly accusing people off being murderers.

I honestly have no idea what PP's are talking about re trans. This is not a university debate and we lost the relevance a long time ago.

Oh ffs @EllieFAnt82 , you had me up until now.

A) this isn't possible, B) in what kind of clinic would a HCP say something like that

It's your choice to not have an abortion, stop trying to coerce other women out of their freedom of choice.

Take a long hard look at yourelf and what you're trying to achieve.

Bullshit.