Reform and abortion

[Craftymam]

Just a public service announcement as I missed this last week and find it quite shocking that coverage was so low.

Nigel Farage has said he wants to ‘open a new discussion’ on abortion rights.

Considering everything that’s gone on in America, the rise in popularity of reform and this alleged 100 Million donation from Elon musk; I felt I had to bring this to everyone’s attention.

The right-wing Evangelicals, and some conservative Catholics, in the US and elsewhere are opposed to Islam mainly because it's (a) a religion opposed to and competing with theirs; (b) associated with foreigners and immigrants, Not because of women's rights.

There is indeed a certain libertarian element among Reform voters, who would oppose religious-right policies; but there is also a traditionalist Christian Right element, and I don't claim to know how large a proportion it is. Ann Widdecombe is a prominent example of the latter.

A friend of mine had an abortion at 23+3 weeks newly 30 years ago.
She only found out she was pregnant a week before because she thought she was going through an early menopause just like her mother did.
The father didn't want to know (was married and she was unaware). She lived in an ancient cottage with no central heating and no family within 300 miles. She would never have coped with a child. She could barely look after herself.

I would oppose any religious based laws. I don’t care what religion you are. Religion has no place in dictating UK law.

I was saying this in reference to the post you quoted, sorry for the misunderstanding.

Quite. There are frequent threads on here from women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant and whose male partners are pressuring them to abort.

And many women on this thread have reacted viscerally against some people's defence of abortion up to term (and beyond...)

There certainly isn't a nice, neat male/female divide on this issue. That's a simplistic and reductionist view.

I have not told women to shut up. Tolerance is hard, you obviously haven’t discovered it yet.
La la notion? WTF are you on about.
I get it. I get your hackles up, Tough shit.
And I’m still waiting for you to explain why women don't have rights in the UK 👍

@Dotjones supporting abortion up to birth is extremist and frankly sickening.

If you push for something like that you would destroy the settled liberal consensus on abortion and drive millions of people away from supporting it at all. Idiot.

How many take place in the UK each year?

I think I've read 250000.
How can we reduce that number is perhaps the debate we should have.

Do e have good contraceptive advice available or could we increase this? Are there other reasons?

There's an attitude of 'why should I have to pay for other peoples lifestyle' but the fact is that spending on contraception saves the taxpayer money in the long run.

''A good example is contraception, for which an investment of £1 is estimated to return £9 of cost savings to the government.''
www.local.gov.uk/publications/breaking-point-securing-future-sexual-health-services

The Family Planning clinics that used to be in local GP practices were moved to sexual health or GUM (genitourinary medicine) clinics instead.
For women in coercive relationships, contraception can be difficult to access or use.

''One in four women at sexual health clinics reports coercion over their reproductive lives''
medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-women-sexual-health-clinics-coercion.html

Ok but many women want have kids not all want use contraception

Women who want to limit the number of children they have also use contraception so I don't really understand your comment.

Yes those who want limit they use contraception

You reduce the number of abortions by looking at what happens in countries where abortion is legal but the rates are very low. And you'll see a pattern.

• Excellent sex education, starting young. The UK falls down very badly on this one.
• Accessible, affordable contraception - we do OK on this, but because we fail so badly on item 1, responsibility for contraception falls on women.
• An excellent social safety net - again, UK does badly on this.
• Affordable and plentiful childcare - don't even go there, the UK is incredibly bad.
• Superb family support services including domestic violence support - so much work to be done here.

I would also add that the UK health system needs to start taking women seriously when they ask for sterilisation while they are still of childbearing age rather than paternalistically refusing because 'the little woman might change her mind'.

Anything else is just tinkering in the margins and will achieve nothing.

I'm incredibly pro choice, but at the same time I'd like to see the number of abortions plummet - but for the right reasons.

There is no such thing as 100% failsafe contraception. And the mathematical modelling of the numbers of unwanted pregnancies likely to occur even if it's used perfectly have already been very well explained further back on this thread. Maybe read that post back again and use your maths.

Then of course there's the issue of men refusing to use condoms because 'it doesn't feel as good'. And saying 'just take the pill' to women isn't realistic, because for many women it has intolerable side effects.

1. Sex education ok but from secondary school at age 13 not earlier and not from Primary when kids are to young to hear about sex and contraception
2. Affordable contraception yes
3. Rest yes especially the family support

IDK why you picked the age of 13 to teach about sex ed, but its too late. Subjects including periods, FGM, and consent need to be tackled much earlier.

Ok periods etc fine but the sex topic start later young kids not need hear about sex

1. Sex education ok but from secondary school at age 13 not earlier and not from Primary when kids are to young to hear about sex and contraception

You are very naive. The reason why Scandinavian countries and places like the Netherlands have such low abortion rates and such low rates of teenage pregnancy is that they start their sex ed in primary school with a thorough grounding in the correct names for body parts, elements of consent and appropriate/inappropriate touch and how babies are made. This is then built on throughout the school years. By 13, nearly all girls will be menstruating and that is far, far too late. And you know what? In countries where sex ed is early and explicit, young people have sex later, not earlier. You are completely wrong on this one.

FGM must be discussed earlier too. Girls as young as 7 to 9 are being subjected to it.

You know this times even 8-10 year old girl can menustrate do to hormones in food especially in chicken. Do you think so young kids should be educated about sex just because they start periods

It's not really about using immigration to plug certain skill gaps, it's more a pure numbers game.

People are living longer and having fewer children, meaning that if it were not for immigration, our population would be shrinking (significantly). Not only that, but the proportion of working-age people would dwindle in comparison to retirement age people.

Scrapping the 2 child cap probably would help very slightly, but even when the cap didn't exist, British people still weren't having children at anything like a high enough rate for net zero immigration to be a realistic possibility.

Labour and the Tories have generally been happy to plug the gap with immigration; looks like Reform might go down the forced-birthing route instead.

Yes, because when you start periods you can get pregnant!

It isn't just due to hormones in food, by the way. Maybe do a little more reading. Your view of biology and sex education seems to be lacking in understanding.

The evidence is very clear: early and comprehensive sex education leads to lower abortion rates, lower teenage pregnancy rates and a later age of first intercourse. Keeping young girls ignorant does the opposite. Why would you want that? Knowledge is power.

Of course they should. Sex education is vitally important, from primary school onwards.

I don't think so a child who start menustrate at age 10 will get very shortly after pregnant. If yes then first it will be crime and second it will be the parents responsibility and this even pathology for children to be pregnant. 16 years ,18 20 etc ok but can't imagine 14 or 13 or even 12 year old girl pregnant