To think that people like anti-abortionist Kristan Hawkins are the enemy of women and feminism everywhere

[Purplefoxes]

Maybe extreme but..I was just reading this BBC article (link below) on Kristan Hawkins and it made my blood boil as I am pro choice. She is the woman from the US organisation Students for Life of America and has been instrumental in over turning Roe v Wade. She is now on the back of this 'success' campaigning for total abortion ban across America . The overturning of Roe V Wade is a decision which will likely result in the death or debilitation of many pregnant women who either cannot access much needed abortions for health reasons or try to access back street illegal abortions or could even commit suicide as a result. Not to mention there could be many unwanted children dumped into the care system or brought up in abusive environments. I just cannot fathom why anyone, let alone a woman would do this. I'm sure if it was one of her kids who was pregnant and needed a medical abortion to save their life she'd change her tune! How blinkered does a person have to be to not think of the impact of banning abortion on both women and children! And how has such medieval policy been allowed to happen in modern day America..could this happen in the UK?! Are we losing our rights as women? When did the life of a fetus become more important than the life of its mother?

BBC article

I just think words matter! I do think abortion, with the exception of rape, is very much a heterosexual lifestyle issue. This kind of sexual activity is very likely to produce babies. Some people see abortion as necessary to their heterosexual lifestyle and some don't. I certainly wish the straight sexually active people had better contraception choices available. But as they don't, sadly safe abortions are the best option for now, though I think these should be within certain limits.

I'm not sure why you think my arguments are self righteous. Is it just because I directed them at you? They're pretty standard arguments on favour of abortion, all of which are already present on this thread multiple times. Is this the first time you've heard them?

I would have more respect for your position if you just acknowledged that you view the potential for life as trumping the potential consequences of an unwanted baby (on both the mother and the baby). At least the Christian fundamentalists are OPENLY irrational and woman hating.

The maternal death rate per 100,00 in the US in 2020 is 21, that is an increase of 175% since 2000. That is appalling, almost third world standard. Except third world countries are improving and the US is deteriorating. Will be interesting to look at the stats in 2025 or so. Well not interesting, fecking macabre.

Most pro life people dont adopt babies though. I have more respect for pro life people who do adopt, although I dont agree with their beliefs.

I have no respect for pro life people who blithely say that the children can be put up for adoption without ever actually adoping a child or dealing with the trauma that comes with that for children.

What they normally mean is childless women like me can adopt. Would I love to adopt a baby - sure. Would I love for a woman to be forced to go through pregnancy, pregnancy complications, bith, birth complications and then the trauma of giving a child up for adoption just for the sake of me getting easy access to a cute healthy baby to adopt? Absolutely fucking not. My needs cannot be catered for by other womens trauma.

The thing is no one is forced to go through a pregnancy. Pregnancy is a natural consequence of sex.

Its like saying I'm being forced to grow old and fat and I should have control over my body and not be forced to carry this unwanted fat. Hands off my body. ??

Abortion is a medical procedure, it is an intervention.

Spectacularly disingenuous.

By preventing someone access to legal abortion the intention is to force them to remain pregnant regardless of their own wishes.

Women and girls are often raped

They need abortions if required

Forcing a child to go through a pregnancy is barbaric and cruel

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/22/health/abortion-dobbs-one-year-later-families/index.html

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/tennessee-woman-gets-emergency-hysterectomy-after-doctors-deny/story?id=99457461

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/19/diary-woman-fled-texas-for-abortion

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/06/abortion-dobbs-health-care-doctors/

So much wrong with this...

1. women get raped
2. contraception fails
3. sex is part of a relationship. Are you really saying women should just have as many children as bad luck and contraception failure dictates? Even if their partner refuses a vasectomy? Even if healthcare professionals deny her a sterilisation because 'she might change her mind'? Or should she deny her partner sex, risk the end of the relationship and everything that comes with that?

Abortion is a way to take responsibility when things go wrong. Until we have perfect, side effect free contraception it has to be. To think otherwise is to control and punish women for having sex.

Also your analogy is rubbish. Nobody is forcing you to get old. Banning abortion is forcing people to remain pregnant and give birth. I call that reproductive slavery.

Yes this.

Adoption isn't a simple solution, for any of the people involved. In the UK, adoption is only legal if there is no other option for that child, because we recognise that removal from birth family causes trauma. A lot of people don't seem to know that - the legal standard for adoption is 'nothing else will do'(for the best interests of the child).

Humans aren't mix and match, you can't just go - 'woman who is pregnant but doesn't want to be' + 'woman who isn't but wants a baby'= all good. It's not all good. Women aren't walking incubators.and babies aren't stock to be redistributed like fucking Tesco cornflakes.

I mean, obviously contraception is better than abortion (in terms of unwanted pregnancies, rather than termination for medical reasons). I imagine a large number of women who have abortions would much rather their contraception had just worked - I know I did.

The fact that preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place is better doesn't mean abortion isn't necessary.

The problem I have with the so called 'Pro lifers' is that they set up this straw man by suggesting that those of us who are pro choice are gleefully pro abortion and that we want as many as possible. Nothing could be farther from the truth; we would love for there to be no need for abortion at all. We just happen to live in the real world and we acknowledge that legal abortion is the least worst option.

Absolutely

Your analogy is a very strange one and being fat is nothing like pregnancy and having a child.

That said there are many medical interventions that can mean people arent forced to carry unwanted fat

From diet and exercise to liposuction, gastric band surgery and medication to remove fat/cause fat loss.

So actually in your analogy of you should be forced to carry and unwanted pregnancy like you are forced to carry unwanted fat, I counter that with you should be able to choose to not carry an unwanted pregnancy in the same way you can choose to not carry unwanted fat.

What a ridiculous analogy you chose though!

That's not an either or though, is it? And the kind of people who are anti abortion are often anti contraception, anti sex education etc as well

The people who try to restrict abortion often have an entire staunchly conservative agenda - with no abortion and reduced/no access to contraception (and these people often see morning after pill and coil as abortifacients as an egg could be fertilized but prevented from implantation) women could get pregnant and do nothing about it. They become much less employable. Which makes them dependent on men's earnings. Which reduces their power. Fewer women become business leaders, lawmakers etc - everything becomes less woman-friendly.

It starts with abortion and ends with women being disempowered and stuck at home.

if YOU don’t want one. Don’t have one. its not for me to judge or condone another’s decision or situation

it’s as simple as that for me.

Fetuses don't have a developed nervous system until the third trimester, @Newnamenewname109870 . It is not even possible for a fetus to feel pain until then. Doctors and OBGYNs have said this. What she was shown is the typical anti-choice deceitful mock up videos full of lies. No ebryo or fetus has the brain stem or nervous system to feel pain. It is not possible.

The big deal, is that she is actively seeking to make something banned. It's fine to be against abortion, but to dictate that no one else should have access to it, is wrong. She is dictating and enforcing her views on other women. Who may end up taking their own lives, or getting killed again in back alley abortions. The very reason abortion was made legal in America in the first place, because too many women were dying en mass in the 'Sepsis Wards' of American hospitals, as they were called. As a meme goes, if you think abortion should be illegal, you have no idea why it was made legal in the first place.

Being against abortion -fine.
Campaigning to deny that choice to other women - not fine.

Anti-abortion people aren't automatically enemies of feminism. For a start, roughly half of the aborted lives would have been female. So anti-choice people by definition are protecting more female lives than they destroy.

What about the lives of the reluctant mothers? They might die through pregnancy or have the trauma of having to carry a rapist's baby, that's true, but surely cases where a woman's life is genuinely at significantly higher risk than normal and cases of rape and incest are a relatively small proportion of pregnant women who seek an abortion. Therefore banning ALL abortion protects more female life than it destroys.

I'm pro-abortion, I think we should be much more liberal in terms of a cut-off point (offensively more liberal some would say) and access to abortion should be on demand, no questions asked, but I think the anti-feminism point isn't valid.

Women are not incubators to perform Gestational Slavery for someone else, @cantab94 .

No, I don't think that holds logically. Feminism isn't about how many females don't die (although obviously it does involve identifying and trying to prevent inequalities that can mean women do die - e.g. VAWG, maternal mortality).

A benevolent world-dictator could keep every woman in the planet in captivity, not allowed to work or travel or form unauthorised relationships, but given the best healthcare, cossetted and protected to prevent them from harm. That man would not be a feminist, even if the female death rate decreased.

"We don't think abortions should be allowed and it's for your own good" is not a feminist position.

It's not a baby.

According to Kristan Hawkins:

“Surprisingly people tend to think that every woman who is a survivor of sexual assault gets pregnant, which is not true. About 5% of women who survive sexual assault get pregnant, and actually the horror of the sexual assault actually helps prevent a lot of pregnancies itself because your body’s natural response to this atrocity that’s happened.”

Sounds like an enemy of women to me.

Christ on a bike are there still peddling that insidious far right wing religious bollocks

it’s so fucking wrong - it’s basically saying that if the “horror of the assault” didn’t prevent pregnancy then you must have enjoyed it otherwise you wouldn’t be pregnant

Of course it's anti-feminism.

Anti-choicers seek to restrict the rights of women to often life-saving medical procedures based on ignorant ideology. It's as simple as that.