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

@Lexie365 in cases of incest or rape ?

@Lexie365 if so please explain your rationale as I am genuinely curious

Let's not forget that there are women serving 30 year prison sentences for having natural miscarriages in El Salvador. That's what banning abortion also does to women.

@cantab94 Are you really suggesting that having GD (I assume gestational diabetes - happy to be corrected) and losing a parent whilst pregnant gives you an insight into how difficult and stressful adoption can be on all the parties involved?

I am very sorry for your loss, losing a parent is very difficult. It does not qualify you to speak about something you actually know nothing about as if it is the easy and obvious solution.

I am very glad for you that when you found yourself unexpectedly pregnant you were able to assess ALL your options and decide that abortion was not the right path for you. I simply ask that others who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant have the same chioces.

Crikey tt9, you better get on to ACOG and RCOG and set them right. Or are you being a wee bit disingenious with your phrase "quite early on" and reference to D&C procedures that happen usually (but not commonly since the vast majority of abortions take place really very early) in the 2nd trimester. Because as you know, late term abortions in the UK are by induction.

https://www.acog.org/advocacy/facts-are-important/gestational-development-capacity-for-pain

https://www.rcog.org.uk/guidance/browse-all-guidance/other-guidelines-and-reports/fetal-awareness-updated-review-of-research-and-recommendations-for-practice/

The amount of people who discuss adoption without realising how traumatic it is for the mother and baby, who then may go on to struggle to form attachment and have a horrible life, is a fucking joke.

Funnily enough, no adopters I know adopt because they're pro choice, they've adopted because they wanted a child and that's the most important reason to do so, not to show the world what a kind angel you are.

Pro lifers would rather see my dead and my living children go through their lives motherless.

It's illogical and it proves you hate women and don't understand science.

Dont like abortions, don't have one, but stay the fuck away from other womens choices. You absolutely disgusting vultures, circling drama and grief you've no right to involve yourselves in.

Since lockdown 2020 17 children have been reported in the media as being murdered by their care givers. Including one adopted child. The statistics I was informed of yesterday from NSPCC was 1 child a week dies.

Go worry about their lives as opposed to creating more children who will undoubtedly be born into chaos and die much much worse deaths.

Shame on anyone supporting such a backward society. I'm embarrassed for you and total lack of genuine compassion for the living, both women and children.

please feel free to laugh at 6 years in medical school and then the last 13 years working significant hours in gynae/obstetrics including in termination lists where like it or not after a certain gestation period babies do have to be cut to pieces. I'm fully aware the even in newborns pain pathways are not matured. this is not to say they don't feel pain. I felt it was important to mention my background to highlight that my point of view is based on extensive training and countless hours studying embryology. if you think that is funny or irrelevant, you are completely entitled to do so.

I'm not anti abortion. I'm anti people saying things without scientific knowledge. I feel like it's a decision that needs to be based on facts and taken with great care. it is a complex social issue and it doesn't help to have such a black and white stance on it.

If you are a doctor then you will understand the need to be precise in your communications.

So: In the UK, the vast majority of abortions are performed in the first and early second trimester, either medically or through D&C. No cutting up of foetuses happens. You need to acknowledge this or rightly be accused of anti abortion scaremongering.

In the UK, late term abortions (after 20 weeks) are 1 to 2% of the total, and of these the absolutely vast majority are TFMR. In the UK, these pregnancies are ended by giving the foetus a lethal injection and then inducing labour. Again, no dismemberment occurs.

So you are either in the US or you are not telling the truth. Which is it?

No I wasn't saying that at all, I was saying I understand what it is like being pregnant and stressed! People always accuse people against (any) abortion of being a) a man and b) not knowing what it's like to be pregnant and afraid. I was 49 when I had the baby, breastfeeding at 50.

To be fair, D&C absolutely does involve dismemberment but at a gestation where there's not credible source that would claim that the fetus is developed enough to feel pain.

@Lexie365 or what about in cases where the mother is at risk of death by carrying on with the pregnancy? Interested to see where the line is.

You accuse me of lacking critical thinking and yet you keep spouting the same tired pro abortion slogans over and over again.

I wasn't raised on a pro life household, also I wouldn't say that I'm Prolife, in the sense that I do think that abortions should be available in some circumstances.
I do believe though that they should be severely limited, not hiding that. I acknowledge that regardless the circumstances, when an abortion is procured that's an innocent human life being ended, and that's always wrong. So to a certain extent I do battle with a degree of cognitive dissonance regarding all of this. But I am aware of that. It does grate on me how blasé a lot of you sound when taking about this.
I understand it's an immensely complicated topic, but at the end of the day what's true is true, and what you are doing when having an abortion is killing a baby. Is it necessary in exceptional circumstances? Maybe. Is it still killing a baby? Absolutely.

“please feel free to laugh at 6 years in medical school and then the last 13 years working significant hours in gynae/obstetrics including in termination lists where like it or not after a certain gestation period babies do have to be cut to pieces.”

Don’t worry, I am.

D&E is one procedure, yes, but not the only one. Feticide is also routinely carried out prior to later term abortion.

no one is saying things without scientific knowledge, but frankly the status of the baby/fetus is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what it is or isn’t, or what it can or cannot feel, because abortion will happen anyway. It isn’t a choice between legal abortion and no abortion, it’s a choice between legal abortion and illegal abortion. The latter being a leading cause of maternal death and injury worldwide, causing far more harm than the former.

@Lexie365 So for you there are absolutely no exceptions to the rule?

For example what if the Mother is found to have cancer and would die if she did not get treatment before the baby is carried to term?

Or what if the foetus/baby is found to have an awful condition that means when they are born they will only live for a very brief time (in some cases just hours) and be in extreme pain?

You can't murder a clump of cells that isn't a sentient being.

Just ridiculous.

Yes, I am fairly blasé about it. I’m quite aware and comfortable with the fact it’s ending a life, but I don’t think it’s wrong and I won’t pretend to in order to spare anyone else’s sensibilities.

I'm deadly serious. Your empathy skills are lacking and your worldview is pretty limited if you believe unquestionably that life is always better, no matter how desperate, full of suffering and devoid of love. As a pp says, you must have no knowledge of the lasting trauma adoption and/or an upbringing in care can engender.

Your suggestion that a mother is always better off having not killed her 'child' is naive in the extreme.

It must be blissful to be so ignorant.

I'm also quite blase about abortion. Ultimately it is a choice we would all rather not have to make, but if the choice is between the woman who is already living, any children she might have, her welfare and her future. and on the other hand a child who hasn't been born yet, then I choose the life that is already here. Everything else - rape, incest, serious abnormality incompatible with life, very young girls pregnant by violence, potential maternal death - that's just icing on the cake. The woman who is already here is at the heart of it, and I will always, always, always choose her.

@MrsLully hi, I killed my baby.
I went for my first scan to be told the baby I'd spent 2 years trying for had attached outside the womb, very closely outside the womb and within 3 hours my fallopian tube along with my 12 week foetus was removed. I woke up to be told that if my tube had ruptured that I'd have bled out into my womb and died.
Not only would I have left 3 children motherless, I also care for my mother.
I came home from hosptial to all the kindly donated baby things friends had given us. Things I'd washed excitedly, or comforters I'd bought to match my other children's.
I have massive scars on my stomach my children are genuinely upset when they see, because they just one day appeared.
I felt as though not only had I allowed my baby to die, even though it wasn't ever going to be a baby/compatible with life, but I'd let the rest of my family down also.

I could have chose to die with my baby instead of simply murder it but I decided that was quite a cruel thing to do to my living actual children.

What would you have done? Would you have chosen to die? I'm genuinely curious because I did, for whatever reason I had, kill a baby by your words.

Beautifully said

@Lwrenagain thank you, and I am so sorry that you had to go through all that and now be exposed to the utterly tone deaf rhetoric of the so-called 'pro life' brigade on here.

I ask again: In the event of an abortion ban in the UK, how many women dead from backstreet abortions would be an acceptable number to you? My number is 0.

not sure where all the unnecessary aggression is coming from? this is mumsnet, not the Spanish inquisition.
you don't have to agree with me, you know that right?

also please read my post again... I clearly said I am not anti abortion and neither do I judge women who have abortions multiple times. I have cared for many women undergoing terminations. I won't be responding to any more of your posts because I think you might be a little to far up in your high horse to have a nuanced debate.

I wonder how pro-lifers feel about turning off life support on brain-dead patients? How do they feel about organ donation? Certain organs have to be harvested while the heart is still beating.

also please read my post again... I clearly said I am not anti abortion and neither do I judge women who have abortions multiple times.

What you say and what you post are not the same thing. You completely fail to point out that early stage abortions occur before a foetus is able to feel pain, as has been pointed out to you. That is a dishonest argument. As a doctor, you should know better.

do feel free to carry on laughing up to and including when you have to entrust you or or your families health in the hands of medical professionals. make sure to really laugh hard in their faces and at their expertise at that point. we really appreciate being made to feel worthless.

so every one posting on here studied embryology in depth did they? or are most people just saying things they have been told or read on the Internet?

I didn't say all terminations are carried out in this manner (please read my actual post) and I am fully aware of the stats regarding various methods. and I repeated multiple times I am not anti abortion. I certainly would not be in favour of criminalising it as it will only kill and maime women. I am horrified by what is happening in certain US states.

I feel there is a need for nuanced debate based on hard scientific facts rather than knee jerk responses from either camp. there is a lot of vitriol on this thread. that helps no one.