Termination of pregnancies - too willing to terminate, maybe there are other choices?

[Ilovepastafortea]

I have trouble with the issue of terminating pregnancies.

For context I had 5 miscarriages & 1 baby born 'sleeping' at 29 weeks.

Also 2 of my (3) husbands were adopted-well DH's mother was adopted in the 1920's. The point is if abortion was available in 1963 & 1926 neither of them would have existed. Their childless mothers wouldn't have had babies to love & care for.

If my first husband had been aborted my lovely son wouldn't exist. He killed himself at the age of 32 leaving me with a baby. But at least I had my baby which was part of him.

If my DH's mother had been aborted my 3 lovely step children & 7 gorgeous grandchildren wouldn't be here. Both of my step sons served in the Royal Navy - one in special forces & got his Green (Marine) beret. My Step daughter is a nurse & worked in A&E for many years, is now a Matron. She has saved many lives & made a difference to many other people's lives including taking unpaid leave to be there when her grandmother was dying.

But then I understand why some people do it.

I can particularly understand it if the woman has been abused or raped - who would want to bring their abuser's or rapist's child into the world. I get that.

I just wish that they would think about having their unwanted baby adopted so that someone who can't have a baby can love & care for it.

My heart goes out to those with an unwanted pregnancy & facing this.

I don't know what I'd do to be honest.

I have no doubt that most women terminate a pregnancy after much heart searching & grief. However, I also hear about women who are terminating their 3rd or more pregnancies & using it as a method of birth control.

So brings me around to AIBU to ask if people terminate a pregnancy number 3 or 4 are being unreasonable?

Or not.

Just canvassing opinions.

Yes, I've seen threads like these and it did surprise me, tbh. I'm absolutely pro-abortion, as late as necessary, no issue with it. For whatever reason, as many times as a woman wants/needs. I have no issue with Lilly Allen or the show hosts' 4-5 abortions.

But I did see the threads where a woman clearly says she will have the baby, she wants it. Like you say, from an affair partner, maybe one night stand, maybe she already has 3 kids and this will be the 4th, not ideal circs and the like. But she wants the baby. And I did see multiple posters suggesting her to abort, some quite forcefully. This is odd. Why do this?

I personally don't understand all this hand-wringing and insisting 'all women do soul-searching before deciding, it's a massively traumatic experience, it will change you forever, you will always think about that baby'. Um..what? Definitely not ALL women.

I had one. The very second I found out I'm pregnant, I knew I'll terminate. No 'horrible' reason, I had one child and strictly didn't want another. Booked a termination the same day, went at the appointed time, did it. Came home, had a rest, ate some food, watched a movie, went to bed. At no point it was a 'baby' to me, just some grape-sized mass of cells. Never thought about it, never regretted it, would do it again if needed with no hesitation.

And that argument 'what if your mother had an abortion'. My mother did have a few, she told me. I don't know the reasons, but I don't need to. Whatever they were, it's absolutely fine by me. She didn't abort me, that's ok. Had she aborted me, I wouldn't be here. And so what? I'm a regular person, one out of billions. I won't cure cancer, won't change the world. If I wouldn't be here, the world wouldn't stop spinning.

People on this thread are already reasonably discussing ramifications of opinions surrounding abortion, whatever side they may be on, especially the pitfalls of the argument "just give birth and let someone else adopt".

If you agree with OP, what should be done that respects women's bodily autonomy but is still in line with OP's view?

Because very few people are crass and cruel enough to say to a woman who has had a miscarriage, "I'm sorry you lost a foetus that may or may not have resulted in the birth of a live baby at some point."

When we know the parents who have suffered the loss really wanted the pregnancy to go to term, it's only right and respectful to refer to it as the loss of a baby rather than getting all scientific and technical on them.

If you have had people call you a slur, like the B-word, I recommend that you report them.

Otherwise, depending on what you define as "pro-life", it should not come as a surprise that your view invites strong pushback unless your definition of "pro-life" actually does not impinge on other women's right to terminate.

Where are all these babies going to go? There are already thousands of children in foster care who nobody wants to adopt, the advent of IVF helped so many women have babies for themselves instead of adopting. My aunty & uncle adopted in the 1960's their dd was a child of a schoolgirl mum who got pregnant at 14, they then adopted a ds 3 years later. Adoption then was very different to now, there weren't so many hoops to jump through, you registered with an agency who checked out your references & if you passed were matched with a baby. My aunty told me they saw a photo of both their dc & then met them for the first time on the day they picked them up. Too many children now who are placed to be adopted have baggage, my friend adopted 2 boys after having her own children in her first marriage & having to have a hysterectomy before her marriage broke down & she met someone who had never had children. Both boys were found after adoption to have severe autism & ADHD, the youngest has global developmental delay, he is 14 now but is developmentally about age 8, he didn't start sleeping through until he was 10. Her second marriage broke down & she was left in her late 40's with 2 severely disabled young children to bring up on her own, her birth children were grown up & as she said, it should have been her time now but instead she has dealt with fighting for school places in special schools, one child being out of education for over a year as no school wanted to take him.

Women must have autonomy & choice in health and that includes making decisions others don’t agree with. By all means have your POV but don’t impose or prevent another woman from making decisions

I didn’t need to read past the ‘for context bit.’ You have issues terminating pregnancies. That’s ok. You don’t have to terminate a pregnancy.
what other women do is nothing to do with you.

It's never unreasonable for a woman to terminate a pregnancy she doesn't want or to continue with a pregnancy she does want.

What about every egg you don’t fertilise ? Do you mourn the loss of what could have been every time you have a period?

Seek therapy .

Not your body, not your business

I don't want to risk pooing through my vagina to give a child to somebody else, I'd only risk that if I wanted to enjoy raising it thankyou

As someone who was adopted - I’m firmly pro women’s health care.

Don’t use adoptees to support your anti healthcare stance.

It’s not a baby.

society just isn't set up to help women carry all babies to term.
men are not even having to be financially responsibility for the children they father. too many loopholes to stop them paying a reasonable portion.
financial support to help women who can't work months before and after the pregnancy is not enough.
all that is assuming the child is born healthy, there are no long term residential facilities for children born with life limiting conditions.
then there are women who's partners are violent, should a child be put at risk if the man is insanely obsessed.
there are solid reason's for abortion to be available until such time as society has a solid safety net in place to help women during the most vulnerable period in their lives.

Nailed it.

@Ilovepastafortea the mother's life is always more important than the embryo/foetus. It's her body, her rights.
The way you think of things assume that the baby should have the same rights as the mother. Which is dangerous.
Did you even think about pregnancy health related risks? If I didnt have my termination, I would have been disabled (as my body cannot handle another pregnancy) and unable to provide for my 3 living children
Keeping the baby, in a situation like mine would have been absolutely irresponsible and selfish

Even then, if all things were ideal, you would still have unwanted pregnancies. It's not all
down to economics.

I'd rather people terminate more than bring children into the world that they can't or won't take care of. Sadly for some, it is best that they never existed. Anyone who can't see this or choose to acknowledge this, doesn't put children first.

I'm a mum of four

I've had three miscarriages.

I've also had two abortions.

I adore my four children. I was devastated about my miscarriages. I feel absolutely zero trauma or upset or grief over my abortions.

If I hadn't had my abortions, two of my very much wanted children wouldn't be here today, so works both ways.

If I fell pregnant again accidentally I'd absolutely have another abortion.

I'm M48 and my last long term partner is 44. She had 4 children, I had 2, everyone was happy. I've had a vasectomy and enjoyed that freedom. Right from the beginning we had the conversation that if there was a pregnancy then it would end in an abortion. We were too old, our lives were sorted, everything was in order. It wouldn't have been down to us not using contraception - we'd done what we could. It never became an issue over 6years thankfully but having another child wouldn't have worked for any of us.

So you're OK with OP's husband being so damaged he took his own life, and you want more unwanted babies born to the same fate?

A woman who has one or more abortions cannot be held accountable for the thousands of women who can’t conceive. That’s unfair and not how it works

Oh good, another goady anti choice woman blaming thread. At least this one's not on the feminism board. YABU, and practically incoherent.

Why should it matter how many abortions a woman has had? Either you think it's an acceptable choice or you don't and if you thought it was acceptable you probably wouldn't care about how many. It's like saying; "Is it unreasonable to have more than three stalks of celery?" If you think eating celery is benign then the number of stalks doesn't matter. So it sounds like you actually don't consider abortion benign and acceptable. So I suggest you be upfront about how you really feel about abortion if you're going to start a thread like this.

Exactly. It's baffling that some people can't seem to understand that.