To think the tactics of CBR UK are disgusting? Trigger warning - pro life.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

I've been seething since Saturday when I encountered the organisation CBR UK on one of the busiest parts of our town centre.

CBR UK are a fundamental pro-life organisation claiming to have the interests of women traumatised by abortion at heart. Actually their roots are in the US and are underpinned by fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

Their way of educating and supporting women is to display 6 x 8 feet technicolor pictures of the aftermath of abortion in full view of women and children to get their point across.

A look at their Facebook page will prove to you I am not making this up. They place a warning sign ahead if the images, and also warn that they live film their activities, but it's obviously lip service.

They hand out leaflets and try to engage people

I challenged one of the very smug beatific older woman and suggested they must really hate women, but no, it's because they love and want to protect us apparently. And "God" - which slipped out as I took my leave and she called out God bless you. To which I responded how dare you bring God into this - and her parry was - why do you hate him that much?

Anyway, I'm posting this to make you aware that you might come up against this while doing your Christmas shopping.

Whatever your views on abortion, (Mine are pro choice and pro it's noone else's Goddamn business except a woman and her doctor) can we agree that this kind of "awareness raising" is almost psychological terrorism and should not be on our high streets in such graphic forms?

Women who have been rated, suffered traumatic medical miscarriages and are possibly accompanied by curious children don't need this shit rubbed in their faces while doing their Christmas shopping - or at any time.

AIBU?

But it isn't consistently, and you know perfectly well it isn't. I just think legalised abortion advocates should man / woman up and use the honest term.

Thanks for the heads up OP!

Ill be watching - I’m assuming that CBR think the filmmaker is on their side rather than the fact they have to give a balanced view.
Shows how embarrassing they are really.

What’s the honest term?

I live in a University town where it isn't uncommon for there to be placards and occasionally billboards with graphic images in support of various causes. I can see why people would want to limit that, it's really seems to be ever escalating to be more sensationalised, with any emotional response treated as a victory.

I've no idea how the fundamentalists try to spin that exceptionally unpleasant passage

US Christian Fundamentalists will usually side step it for Jeremiah or similar parts of the texts discussing God making and knowing someone in the womb or, if pushed, blaming the woman for her infidelity since it only the negative effects if she has been unfaithful.

In Jewish traditions, there have been arguments on whether the bitter water ritual could even be given if the wife is pregnant. From the earliest recorded debates, pregnancy was not an expected component to the ritual taking place, so while an abortion may occur (most debates lean towards yes it can, as the texts largely treat the unborn at any stage of development as property), the ritual within Judaism is not about causing someone to miscarry or abortion and few would argue that the idea is that the punishment for adultery would be to miscarry or abortion.

Biblical scholars debate whether the bitter waters ritual is about abortion depending on how we translate certain words and concept. Those who support it being about abortion lean to tsava meaning spout linking that to discharge and the concept that a man would bring his wife there because of a pregnancy, and the pregnancy ending after she takes the oath and drinks means she was unfaithful. It has a logic to it, but ignore the Jewish tradition outside of the Tanakh.

Many others argue it doesn't because the the texts states that if she is innocent, she will be blessed and conceive and go on to have children - some argue she can't become pregnant that if she is already pregnant (and this is part of the Jewish debates on if a pregnant wife can be given it). Also it discusses organs falling, which isn't part of miscarrying. There are similar rituals that developed in the time and region, one of many 'we have no evidence, so let the Divine decide'. The outcome if guilty was meant to be painful infertility - tsavah can also be translated to mean swell, basically the womb swelling shut and falling from place. Very pleasant from some ink and dust in water.

@RamblingEclectic

Thank you x fascinating x

People don't use foetus when someone has miscarried as it would be cruel and heartless to minimise someone's loss like that. Equally it's cruel to use the term baby when discussing abortion as a foetus isn't a baby.

I'm sorry you lost your baby.

Why don't you man/woman up and use the honest term "forced birth"?

They do.

Maybe you should start a campaign to persuade expectant mothers and forced birthers to use the correct term themselves if it bothers you that much.

This isn't the 'gotcha' you think it is either. It shows a lack of understanding of the 'other side'.

If a fetus is nothing, its death is nothing, the only person it affects is the pregnant woman. It doesn't even affect the fetus because its not deemed a person in this context.

I disagree with this stance, because I don't believe a fetus is 'nothing' but I can understand that you do feel that, and therefore why you don't feel it affects anyone else.

Now look at it from the perspective of someone who believes a fetus has whole/partial/increasing personhood. Not because you are with them, but because it's always good to try and see an issue from both sides, even if that just shows you where a side is vulnerable.

If someone believes that a fetus has as much right to live as any other human, then it doesn't matter whether a specific abortion would affect that person or not (I don't believe this personally BTW). The death of a child in war, a murder of an unknown person, as sad as those things are, they are unknown events happening to unknown people and they do not affect me personally. If I believed that abortion was a tragedy on a par with these then it doesn't matter if I'm personally affected.

As I said, I don't believe this personally, I can just understand the line of reasoning that would flow from those that do. Equally, I understand that if an abortion is akin to getting a mole/growth removed, then there's no personhood and it truly does affect no one. I don't agree with this view either, for the record.

Its also perfectly possible for women to believe that a fetus is an early human, that it has some worth, but that whilst it is dependent on living inside another human being, the rights of that human override its own.

Was this Glasgow? If so we encountered this as well!

Again, just a post full of waffle semantics.
i prefer to talk in real terms.

No one is saying a fetus is “nothing”. It’s a fetus. But the abortion debate hinges on where it comes in the pecking order to a woman. Medically, legally and morally its rights come secondary to the woman carrying it. Which is why doctors would always save a woman over a fetus given the choice

If someone believes that a fetus has as much right to live as any other human, then it doesn't matter whether a specific abortion would affect that person or not (I don't believe this personally BTW).

But why do we have to indulge such demonstrably dangerous viewpoints? Some people ‘believe’ sex with 9 year olds is OK. Iraq is legislating on it. But it’s demonstrably deeply harmful, so I wouldn’t entertain their viewpoint, or ANY that deliberately harms living, born humans.

The death of a child in war, a murder of an unknown person, as sad as those things are, they are unknown events happening to unknown people and they do not affect me personally.

War affects us all. And especially the people in that country. Dead children as a result of war is, at the very least, demonstrative of a risk to other children’s lives. But the personal choices (that you’ll never even be privy to) of random women having an abortion don’t affect you and never will.

Equally, I understand that if an abortion is akin to getting a mole/growth removed, then there's no personhood and it truly does affect no one

Does anyone even think this though?

Its also perfectly possible for women to believe that a fetus is an early human, that it has some worth, but that whilst it is dependent on living inside another human being, the rights of that human override its own

You’ve just described being pro-choice

I've read at least three threads on MN in which an OP is told that her doctor should have realised she would regret her abortion and shouldn't have allowed it. And I've read several more threads about abortion regret.

It’s a really crap argument though. Not allowing an adult to do something because they might regret it later? Nobody would be allowed to do anything.

I've also seen people on here express regret at having children. What do we do about that?

This. Life is complex, people have to take difficult decisions and take responsibility for them. Deciding on abortion or not is no different. Taking choice away isn't the answer - unless you want to take away all agency and responsibility on everything else too.

Sorry, I should have made my post clearer. I'm pro-choice: I was actually saying that abortion regret isn't a reason to ban abortion. If a woman regrets her decision, that's on her. It's not the NHS's fault.

I absolutely agree that the words aren't applied consistently. But, psychotically there was a massive difference between the foetus/ baby I conceived and then aborted from rape at 15 years old. And the foetuses/babies I conceived, carried to term, birthed and raised within a loving adult relationship.

I mean, sure, biologically they were the same. But in my head they were not. And I have to think of them as different things to protect my own mental health.

And if God (I'm a Christian) doesn't agree with what I did then I'll have that conversation with him when my day of judgement comes.

Sorry too - I knew that and was badly reinforcing your point!

Abortion doesn't prevent women becoming mothers, it leaves them as mothers of a dead child, with zero support or counselling from the businesses that profit from abortion.

I can't say what i want to, it will be deleted.

But, my abortion didn't leave me as the mother of a dead baby. It means I didn't have to become a traumatised teenage mum. It means a child wasn't born to either end up in care, or with an inefficient parent. Not sure how I'd ever have been able to explain that it's uncle was also it's father. The abortion also stopped my highly likely to happen suicide, which also would have led to a "dead baby"

It’s important to address the reality of abortions. I had an abortion when I was in my late teens, and I deeply regret that decision. If I had understood how truly tragic an abortion can be, I would never have gone through with it. Aren't we all in favor of people making informed choices? This illustrates why informed decision-making is crucial.

But surely "addressing the reality of abortions" should be information that's available if the pregnant woman wants it? Not forced on them if it will make an already potentially upsetting/traumatic situation worse?

No is advocating for women having abortions without any information about the procedure. But projecting (mostly fake) images in a biased emotive way in a public domain is not in any way ‘informed consent’. Only a medic can inform you of the true realities, not some anti woman loons with no medical experience

The pro life agenda seems to be underpinned by people’s total refusal to trust women. “Silly lady, you might regret, you might not, who know but we will decide for you - no abortion for you!”

Very much this. It's the same thinking that makes it so difficult for women to get a sterilisation when they have decided they don't want (more) children. The poor little woman might change her mind...

The pro-life agenda doesn't give a tiny fuck about children or women.

They don't care about the depressingly high number of women who die each year because they don't have access to safe abortions, and they certainly don't give a crap about the children once they are born either.

It's all about punishing and controlling women for being careless enough to get pregnant. That's all.

Never mind that contraception sometimes fails or that people just sometimes make mistakes, and never mind of course that a man has to be involved with the whole thing as well. None of that matters.

Pro-lifers can go fuck themselves, frankly.