This is the Handmaids Tale in real-time

[Crapsummer2023]

If I were living in Texas, I’d start making moves to leave soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/28/texas-lawyer-abortion-ban-procedure-patient-information

@Babochan88 should a woman be forced to carry a pregnancy to term knowing that her baby will die at or immediately after birth because they have a condition incompatible with life?

Nah, pro-birthers are usually in step with other right wingers in opposing state aid and support in favour of picking and choosing who they think deserves support.

Most couldn't give a fuck about anything post-birth. If they really cared then they wouldn't try and restrict a woman's fundamental right not to bring a baybee into a chaotic, miserable life.

100% agree with @Thelnebriati on this This is how you can tell it's not about abortion, it's about controlling women. If it was about reducing abortion, they'd be in favour of contraception, woman's rights and sex ed. But they aren't.

And to the list above, we add:
Woman who’s life is at risk / women who will die by continuing the pregnancy
The foetus with catastrophic abnormalities

And when the anti-abortioners continue to screech ‘abortion is wrong’ and ‘abortions must be illegal’, we understand how profoundly anti-life and anti-women these people are. Making abortion illegal and preventing women from having control over their reproductive rights has always been about hating women to the point of being fine with an agonising death in child birth and/or feeling fine with condemning the life of a child to misery.

The very essence of totalitarian control is control over another’s physical body and absolutely nothing else. Aunt Lydia is alive and well.

So is it OK to refuse abortion to a woman who will die if forced to go through with the pregnancy and birth? Or where, if the baby is born, it will have at best a short life in agony before dying?

And funny how, in the US, people will go to this sort of trouble to prevent abortion whilst apparently being relaxed about children killed by guns. In Texas, whilst they tighten up anti abortion laws they have been busy progressively relaxing gun laws, with the result that an average of 450 children per year are killed by guns. To say nothing, of course. of the approximately 4000 adults killed by guns.

Apparently life before birth is precious in Texas. Afterwards, not so much.

I know someone who was told at a scan that their baby had not developed any kidneys or lungs. They left it a few weeks and had another scan to see if it was somehow wrong. It wasn’t.

she had to choice to terminate for medical reasons and end a very wanted pregnancy, or give birth to the baby (if they survived) and essentially watch them die painfully. I know what I would have done.

I think it’s a choice a lot of people don’t want to make but have to.

by disregarding it as evil, immoral etc… you are completely disregarding the emotional weight these decisions carry at any point in a pregnancy. It’s not a choice anyone makes lightly.

I think people don’t realise the impact bans will have for people in already terrible situations.

*by labelling it as evil

Not RTFT but skimmed the article: what a very nasty little man.

This is so bloody depressing. I'm old, old enough to remember the days when abortion was illegal in the UK. My DM, who had been a nurse, was delighted when it was legalised here, because she had nursed women through to aftermath of botched back-street abortions and DIY attempts to terminate a pregnancy. Some of them died.

Desperate women will always try to end pregnancies, regardless of what the law says. Ffs, let them do it safely.

I also find it bizarre that so much of the US is anti-choice, but determined to allow people to carry deadly weapons. They'd rather protect foetuses than actual living, breathing people.

Woman who has been raped
14 year old girl with no family support
Woman with mental health problems who would be suicidal if pregnancy continued

And to the list above, we add:
Woman who’s life is at risk / women who will die by continuing the pregnancy
The foetus with catastrophic abnormalities

And to add further to the list:

• woman in an abusive relationship whose partner uses pregnancy as a means of keeping her tied to him

• woman with severe cognitive impairments who is used by a man she knows, is emotionally distressed at being pregnant and unable to care for a child

• 11 year old girl being sexually abused by a male relative

• mother of three who cannot support another child emotionally or financially

• woman who finds out she has cancer and the treatment is not compatible with pregnancy

Should they all be denied an abortion?

Pro choice here - always will be.
The disgrace of those who are pro life but do nothing to protect that life from guns. School shootings daily in US.

I think people don’t realise the impact bans will have for people in already terrible situations I’d refute this and say they absolutely do know.

Yes, apparently they should according to the likes of @Babochan88 and other misogynistic anti-abortioners.

They know, they just don't care. If a woman dies or is seriously unwell due to infection or left with life-changing injuries then they consider this her just desserts because their motto is "you made your bed, now lie in it".

They view pregnancy, and all the possible outcomes of it, as a punishment for daring to have sex or for tempting a man into having sex with you.

It has absolutely nothing to do with protecting innocent little babies and nothing to do with the sanctity of life. It's all about controlling women and keeping them in what these people view as "their place".

Laws are changing because they want to control women, they don’t care about babies. In the very same state they are arguing that this viable foetus doesn’t have rights.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/11/texas-prison-lawsuit-fetal-rights/

You’d think the pro forced birth lobby would be all over this but there’s not a peep. They are a bunch of hypocrites.

Can I just say Thankyou for your compassion and professionalism in doing what must be a horrendously difficult procedure for women who really have no other choice.

My hat off to you and my heart goes out to you too. It must be so unspeakably hard.

I have known a couple of women who had to go through this and the dignity and compassion they were treated with helped to lessen the trauma and heartbreak.

And I'm raging for the women across the world who are being controlled and abused by men who are so small of mind (and penis? 😬) and feel they have to exert power over others. Pathetic specimens.

And @BiscuitsandPuffin yes the reality is grim, but the alternative is much grimmer. Women need the right to choose. And if that means not discussing the actual procedure details then that's fine too. When I had surgery I really did not want to know the gory details of cuts and bones being sawn through. It wasn't necessary, and increased my anxiety in an already stressful situation for something that needed to be done. Abortion is no different, we don't need to know the exact ins and outs for the surgical options, unless we want to.

Women's bodies, women choice. Always.

Rightsraptor ...........................sorry, but I know exactly what goes on and it is horrific, which is one of the main reasons I steered well clear of Obs and Gynae and concentrated on Emergency and Intensive Care medicine.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/28/yelp_paxton_abortion/

I have to say that I do find the fervour over pro life at any cost but at the same time a fervour over the right to bear arms when there are so many tragic shootings each year to be a really strange and morally compromising attitude. I do agree with others that it's such a blinkered approach - I really don't think that there seems to be so much of a compassion as a zealotry. There is literally no-one who would want to have an abortion, given any other option. It's not a lifestyle choice - it's a very sad and emotive situation to end up in. Ultimately the woman has to have the choice - it is their decision and it anyone imagines that it's an easy one to take, they would be very misguided.

How does that work in the case of the hypothesis given of the woman who is suicidal as a result of the pregnancy? Are you proposing to section the woman while she goes through the pregnancy to prevent her committing suicide? What happens for the rest of her life when her mental health has been shot to hell?

So what do you suggest we should do about miscarriages? If foetuses are to have the same status as babies who have been born, should we be holding an inquest for every single miscarriage? Should we be making the mothers liable for not looking after their health adequately or even changing them with murder or manslaughter? It would be really helpful to know how far you take this argument.

Yes

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/03/pregnancy-birth-murder-charge-kelsey-carpenter-san-diego

I understand we have different view points but surely you know the answer to your question is no.

I’m not in the area of mental health legislation to give you an answer abut the strategic and structural implementation of pregnancies.

Just like I can’t tell you how we solve the national debt to take care of babies being born to women wanting abortions. I’m sure there are many qualified people to answer these questions. But one thing I do know is that the answer isn’t murdering babies