That most people don't realise quite how awful the impact of overturning Roe v Wade is in the US?

[Echobelly]

Obviously, most people know that forced birth in itself is an awful thing, but the more I learn about effects, the more horrifying it is. On top of the individual impact there is:

• A lot of anti abortion states also put miscarriages under investigation with the possibility of prosecution https://www.npr.org/2022/07/03/1109015302/abortion-prosecuting-pregnancy-loss
• This means this Ob-Gyns are walking out of forced birth states as they are open to prosecution if anything goes wrong with a pregnancy, and if remaining are reluctant to be involved at all in the first 12 weeks (and mums are reluctant to get care in case they miscarry and are prosecuted), and so there is less cover for any births, endangering all mums https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/07/health/maternity-units-closing/index.html
• Doctors can't provide care to mothers who are experiencing pregnancy complications that are endangering her life, or are forced to wait until the mother is guaranteed to die imminently if they don't intervene https://www.ft.com/content/68dd2cc2-828d-4d00-8ccf-176dbb56d25f
• Adoption and fostering agencies are already overwhelmed
• Most children in US are taking into care for neglect which often translates as 'poor parents' (especially if black or indigenous) - so if a mum is forced to give birth even though she can't afford a child/another child, there is a strong chance she'll have the child taken from her later https://twitter.com/womensmediacntr/status/1649414182998089732

And it goes on...

There needs to be a new word other than forced birth.
Birthing is the natural consequence of being pregnant, its like saying forced shitting because you ate food or forced obesity because the drs won't give me lipo.
There's no one forcing anything.

Not really, no. It's a representative democracy in which gerrymandering is totally legal and largely run by the GOP - because any redrawing of the political map kicked off by the Democrats ends up at the Supreme Court, who always seem to rubber-stamp Republican efforts along those lines.

That's how you end up in a situation where some 65% of the population support abortion rights, but the religious zealots in the GOP get to take those rights away regardless.

The US makes a big noise about bringing democracy to the world, but their system is even more broken and less representative of the population's wishes than our FPTP system.

We still have child marriage in Scotland and Northern Ireland and we only outlawed it England and Wales in 2022.

@Whatt

Forced birth is the consequence of removing abortion rights /contraception

I know and many of my relatives live in America. One lives in a Southern state and is of child bearing years, if an issue she has the money to fly to a different state. It affects the poor far more.

@HolyMolyGuacamole222 that will happen.
Crime rates will rise in years to come, the direct outcome of Roe vs Wade had a fall in crime rates and a lot of research is available on just this matter. Estimates vary but it’s deemed as much as a 20% fall.

Of course there is also ethnicity data available regarding this, I’m an ethnic minority. It makes for difficult reading. This was not my area but due to my old job and also voluntary work I have been involved with policy writing and research regarding ethnic minorities.

There is a network in America of women who are assisting women with money and places to stay to access abortions. It is called the Auntie Network. When I read about this some months ago it reminded me of the Underground Railway that used to help escaped slaves and I cried at how totally bloody awful America has become.

Huh? Given these women cannot access any other option than birth, in law, then how is it not forced?

I’ve lived in New York, Florida and the UK- previous posters are right the USA is very different. I was shocked how ‘European’ I felt when I lived there, and how in the UK we’re still FAR more aligned to France, Sweden, Netherlands etc than we are the US.
I found it hard to settle there, people would openly tell me they didn’t agree with gay people, abortion, Muslims, free healthcare (even for kids), free schools meals. I had one guy SHOUTING at me that there were no dinosaurs and no big bang.

So this hasn’t surprised me, it’s bloody shocking in 2023 this is where we are. I would pick my state very carefully if I lived out there again. (For balance there are some BRILLIANT things about the states, this thread isn’t about that).

I think 'forced birth' is right on the nose and emphasises the violence of denying women bodily autonomy. It's also all these people seem to be after, a birth - they don't care about the quality of life the child will have after birth.

This is a long, very sad article about how a 17 year old who has obviously had a very difficult life is put in the catch 22 of having to 'prove' she isn't mature enough to be a mother in order to get an abortion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/magazine/teen-pregnancy-abortion-judge.html

But because she is getting her life back on track, trying to get qualifications, the judge thinks this proves she is mature enough to be a mother, so rules to throw a bomb into her life by insisting she sees the pregnancy through and has twins, making it impossible for her to put herself in a position to be able to provide for them. I imagine if the judge is against abortion anyway, he'll never allow it regardless of what a girl says.

There is a bittersweet ending in that at least this girl has friends with enough resources to take the twins in, but essentially it's not likely she will be able to be a mother to them fully and the friends will end up raising them. And I suspect her chances of getting her life back together after this are small.

Watch crime rates rocket as these unwanted babies become teenagers, it's so sad.

You are implying here that everyone who gets pregnant does so out of choice. What a naive world you must live in.

This decision was made in the Supreme Court, so I don't think it can be changed, not for a long time anyway.

Which states are the most similar to the UK?

It’s only forced birth if the conception was due to rape (or similar coercive control situations, or medical emergencies arising). If you don’t know that sex = potential pregnancy, you shouldn’t be having sex in the first place. Either fully abstain until you’re with a partner who would be fully committed to being a co-parent with you to your offspring. Or at least take a belt and braces and abstinence approach to contraception… ie male contraception + female contraception + abstinence during fertile days. Abortion destroys the unborn and traumatises women; abortion bans traumatises women and creates orphans or childhood deprivation and misery. Either way, women bear the brunt of male reckless sexuality. Both channels could be completely avoided if men took responsibility for keeping their emissions to themselves.

If you don’t want to be pregnant, it is forced birth, no matter what the circumstances

Consensual sex = consensual pregnancy

Forced sex = forced pregnancy

Sex and life creation is profoundy, profoundly consequential. Modern medicine & technology only slightly flattens those consequences, eg contraceptives, abortificants and anti-biotics. Life shouldn’t be recklessly ctreated only to be destroyed shortly after, for a meaningless “oopsie!”

That is absolute madness - do they not realise that an embryo cannot develop past a certain stage out of the uterus ??!!

No

Religion has no place in politics or medical decisions. Its absolutely disgraceful

They want the doctors to remove the foetus and then implant in the uterus. It’s been going on for years. https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/29/ohio-extreme-abortion-bill-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy

I do know how awful it is.

@DogandMog

Life is cheap.

Until we start valuing and caring for the actuliving humans we already have, I'm not going to care if an oopsie is aborted

Utter bollocks.

You are, of course, free to feel however you like about the sanctity of life (although only when it comes to certain lives the 10s of thousands of women who die each year due to not having access to safe abortion are always, always forgotten by anti-choicers) but you can fuck right off if you think you have the right to enforce those views on anyone else.

“Life is cheap”

^ And therein lies so many of our social ills.

If you read my posts upthread, I’m pro-life at the level of anti-fornication & ejaculating into women’s bodies, rather than flat outright anti-abortion, which I do believe is necessary for medical emergencies and post-rape/domestic violence crisis support. Not a cheap disposal mechanism for a forseeable situation that could easily have been prevented - through an ethic of deeply valuing committed relationship sex, and the emotional, psychological and life giving dimensions that it engenders.

So you’re pro-forced birth ?

So, someone who doesn't ever want to have children, should never have sex?
Sex is a big part of a relationship, both for physical and emotional bonding, and retaining that bond. People crave sex for the feelings of pleasure it gives, its is biologically wired in the majority of humans to want sex, and frequently. Do you think there are many people (especially men) out there who only ever have sex to create the children they want, then never have sex again? Consenting to have sex is not consenting to becoming pregnant and having a baby. A couple can take every reasonable measure possible with contraception to prevent a pregnancy, but it is never going to be 100% effective. There is always a chance, even if a woman tracks her cycle, there is no day a woman can absolutely not get pregnant. Even if on top of that she uses hormonal contraception, a male or female condom as a barrier method, and spermicide, and the male withdraws his penis before ejaculation, the risk of pregnancy is never zero, and a few women will still fall pregnant, with a baby they have done everything to not conceive bar not engaging in sex.