to think they would feel differently if they had children?

[Violetbeauregardesgum]

Just reflecting that the three most vehemently pro-abortion, abortion on demand up till 40 weeks women I know are all child free. Was talking to one the other day and was taken aback by how uncompromising she was. The 32 week old baby that the woman was imprisoned for aborting was not a baby, all women have the right to end a pregnancy at any point.

I am pro choice but think the 24 week cut off is about right. AIBU to think they would feel differently if they had gone through a pregnancy to term themselves?

My understanding of that article was that the issue was a disagreement over when the regulations apply, rather than disagreeing with all late term abortions on principle. It says they consulted the guidelines which say abortion after 23 weeks is reserved for “serious congenital anomalies” or “exceptional clinical situations.”
That's always going to be a subjective decision to a degree - even if you had Drs who had previously performed a late term abortion they agreed with, they may not have felt this woman's baby's medical condition qualified.

The ask to speak to your exes now in adoption. It puts many off. My ex hates me and was abusive, it ruled me out completely on first look.

Completely agree.

When a baby is born, they can open their eyes, they can see, some of them can lift their heads and roll over, they can snuggle, they can suckle, they can hear, they can smell, they can feel hot and cold, etc etc etc… they did not learn all of those things in the birth canal on the way out! There is a period of time leading up to delivery where an inside baby is indistinguishable from an outside baby, apart from living in someone’s belly.

They also have to get out somehow, even if you have “aborted” them.

I think 6 out of 9 months is enough time to make a decision, perhaps we should give more support to people to decide, but after 6 months… “but they’re dependent” is not good enough imo. Lots of people are dependent on others.

I also don’t agree with the idea of pre-planned adoptions, I think they’re very exploitative.

If the father doesn't want to know, or if he is genuinely unknown, she could.

In the cases of women in refuges where the violence started in pregnancy, she couldn't, the father would know about the pregnancy and probably be able to get custody of the child, if born, and it doesn't take much to imagine what could happen in that instance.

When I was in a refuge the vast majority of women in there were pregnant, many of us coerced, many of us weren't aware our partners were violent until we were pregnant.

There's no way that any woman should be forced to have a lifelong tie to a violent man.

Yes I agree with this.

I mentioned something along those lines when I talked about my experience working in an orphanage. Being surrounded by unwanted babies living in miserable conditions really brought it home to me how talk of adoption rather than abortion is unrealistic. Many of the children there were actually adopted by local families, and I can only hope that they were adopted by families who will genuinely love them rather than people wanting to raise them as, say, unpaid servants. But for children born with a disability and put in a place like that, forget it. There was a little blind baby who I doubt ever got adopted. Ans, more horrifyingly (in a centre for newborns to two year olds) an extremely disabled boy of around 11 or 12 who was in there because he needed his nappy changing like a baby. What life awaits children like that? I found it deeply harrowing.

I don't think there are many people out there who actually want to adopt babies, especially in developed countries like the UK where most infertile couples can eventually succeed in having a biological child of their own or at least their own pregnancy using a donated egg or embryo, and prefer to try that rather than adopting a baby who is already out there and in need of a loving family.

So the reality is that in countries where abortion is inaccessible, there are a lot of unwanted babies living in appalling circumstances. Without wanting to say I think it would have been better for this specific baby or that specific child not to have been born, I think it's reasonable to say it's better not to have a situation which results in large numbers of unwanted babies being born.

I am a mum and pro choice. You are pretending to be pro choice.

I work in veterinary. On many an occasion we have been forced to abort full term or almost term animals- predominantly cats and dogs. The ethics and reasons behind it are beyond my pay grade but I will say it has affected many of the staff to the point many of us refuse to be involved at all. It’s something I will remember for a long time and absolutely hate.

I can’t imagine how someone could do that to a human or expect someone else to do it and then live with themselves. It’s all well and good shouting for abortions late term but someone somewhere has to euthanise a baby. An animal is horrendous enough but a full term healthy baby must be the worse thing imaginable.

I suppose then @Retrain12345 the choice is between late term abortions which no one wants to do, and having lots of unwanted babies in orphanages? Neither choice is great.

I don’t think it’s a choice at all: we don’t have legalised late term abortions without a medical reason and we don’t have lots of children in “orphanages”

A lot of posters are saying that 24 weeks is plenty long enough. That article highlights some of the issues that women are facing trying to procure abortions before the limit. I note no one who says that up to 24 weeks is gone is advocating better funding/ resources to guarantee that any woman who presents before 24 weeks is able to procure an abortion before the legal deadline. What’s the difference between a foetus at 23+6 and 24+1 except in law?

Exactly.

Adoption isn’t the magical solution people think it is.

Especially when the woman wants an abortion.

It's already been discussed on this thread but I don't think it's fair to say people are pretending. It's ok for there to be limits to what you consider ethical, it isn't all or nothing. Pro choice up to a certain point is a valid position.

@tigger2022 quite - we don’t have late term abortion now, neither do we have newborns flooding the adoption service who would otherwise have been aborted. So, what’s the issue?

In fact many newborns removed at birth are born to parents who actually want to keep them but are unfit to do so, due to drug addiction for example.

I don’t think that anyone is suggesting that doctors are forced to abort foetuses that are approaching full term. I’d suggest that changing the law would only make a difference at the 24-28 week point (28 weeks was the original limit I think) when women in vulnerable situations may have not been able to present in time as described in the BPAS article I shared. Past that point most requests in reality would be because of threat to life to either the mother or baby and that is already legal and vanishingly rare.

Agree.

But the woman has to give birth anyway!

How else do you think the baby is coming out?

Nobody is ‘forcing’ birth on her.

The term “forced pregnancy” I can understand, but “forced birth” is just silly because birth is something that has to take place whether a woman aborts or not.

There is no difference, and in both cases if the baby is healthy and the mother just doesn't want to be pregnant it's already fairly disastrous that her pregnancy has been allowed to continue for so long.

You have to draw the line somewhere though. And most people, regardless of whether they are pro choice or opposed to abortion generally, don't think the line should be drawn when the baby's head is crowning.

So if you believe it should be drawn later than 24 weeks but before the pushing stage, when?

Sorry I don’t understand this. So you would just extend the limit to 28 weeks because you know no doctor would perform the abortion after? Or do you want the law changed to any gestation and fingers crossed nobody actually exercises that right because there’s nobody to do it?

I completely understand exceptional circumstances and the reasons behind it, and I am sympathetic to the women who have been put in that situation.

I am not opposed to abortion up to the legal limit. I am opposed to people suggesting that women should be able to abort at any time for any reason, so hypothetically a doctor could be asked to abort a 39 week fetus because the mother has changed her mind. I know this would be an extremely rare scenario but in that circumstance I think it would have huge implications on the mental health of medical professionals that would be involved not to mention the ethics of aborting something that could live on its own.

I think 28 weeks (the original limit)is better than 24. But logically I don’t think there should be a limit because women and their doctors should be trusted to do what is right in individual circumstances.

As far as I’m aware there is no law against a doctor performing a double amputation on me. But the law assumes that I if I am mentally competent I won’t ask for one, and a doctor would only perform one if I genuinely need one. I wonder why it’s only in this area where women aren’t trusted to know what is best for them.

Even a baby born at 24 weeks has a good chance of survival, which is why I am already uncomfortable with the limit (but not to the point where I would actively campaign to change it) and certainly wouldn't support extending it further.

No, that's not what the choice is between. We currently have neither of those things in the UK since the vast majority of abortions are carried out before 10 weeks.

But new born babies can’t live independently can they? They are still totally reliant on another human to keep them alive, they just happen to live outside the womb as opposed to inside it.

I disagree with late term abortions (unless for health related reasons) and if that means I’m not pro-choice then so be it, but I’m just pointing out that the point of babies “being able to survive independently” comes a long time after birth.

Actually I'm pretty sure you can consent to grievous bodily harm, which is what a non medically indicated double amputation would be. This example comes up a lot in the trans debate. We don't allow people to have their healthy arms and legs cut off, so why breasts or genitalia?