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.

You can be pro-choice and still believe in reasonable term limits. An abortion becomes less and less safe the longer you wait. So the answer is to increase access so it can be done ASAP.
There is no such thing as abortion at 38 weeks. That's going to be a live birth or a natural stillbirth, not an abortion. Don't believe the "partial birth abortion" myth the forced birthers have been spreading. It's bullshit.

The problem with adoption is you still have to go through a pregnancy, which can disrupt your career, your relationship with your partner, and even threaten your health. It's just too much of a sacrifice.

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Fertile women don't exist to give infertile people babies. Yes and all those wonderful adoptions you're talking about often left the birth mothers traumatised and children who sometimes had totally divergent personalities to the families where they were placed. Other women in the "good old days" risked their lives, health and future fertility in back-street abortions with knitting needles and who knows what. My husband is a genetic geneologist who spends a lot of time, free of charge, helping adopted adults, often middle-aged or elderly, who desperately want to find out who their birth parents were.

It’s my opinion, which I am entitled to, end of. I don’t try to control what women do to their bodies, I’m not out there physically stopping women from getting abortions and I’d certainly give compassion and support to all those who have had to make that choice. But fundamentally, due to my beliefs, I believe a life starts at conception, so I HAVE to be pro-life. Please allow me to have a differing opinion than you without being preached at. I’ve not preached to you about why ‘you should be pro life’ so please do not preach to me about why I should be pro choice. I am well educated in the matter and know the risks/ difficulties women have to go through.

What about the child and adult the baby grows into? You speak as if it’s guaranteed an unwanted baby will find a loving adoptive home. Adoption isn’t easy and the child will already have attachment issues from not having a primary caregiver by the time they are adopted. Also women’s bodies aren’t a marketplace for the human race. Pregnancy is a huge strain on a woman’s body - not to mention the emotional trauma of birthing a child for someone else.

Children don’t exist for adults to be feel sanctimonious- as women we have a right to ensure that any human life is wanted and will be loved and cared for and have a pain free life. It is the courageous to abort when this can’t be provided. There’s far too many children who live lives of abject misery, abuse and neglect who carry this with them life long and then pass it to their families - all because someone thought their own feelings about abortion mattered more than the life of the unwanted child.

As for this bizarre idea that people you know wouldn’t have existed if they had been aborted? So what, you would have just known other people who did exist instead. You wouldn’t have mourned what you never knew the same way you aren’t mourning children never conceived.

Abortion is a woman’s choice for a reason. She knows best the risks and decisions she wants to make on her body and her baby. And maybe if more women weren’t forced into not using contraception, or treated as breeders or manipulated into unprotected sex by men who don’t like condoms - or science could guarantee babies born without terrible limitations - there’d be fewer abortions.

Also our own bodies determine whether a life conceived should be birthed or not - that’s why miscarriage happens and is so common. Our own bodies kill off an embryo with abnormalities and when the bodies misses it, we have science and intuition to help. All women do on top of this is add more data points to the decision of whether life should be birthed or not - a woman’s mind and body works in concert to determine this. That’s the beauty of nature.

It's all 'what ifs' isn't it. If your husband's parents had had sex 5 minutes earlier it might have been a different sperm and your husband wouldn't exist as he is. Just as if my aunty had balls she'd be my uncle. The image included shows how ridiculous it is to ponder it.

Also I shudder to think how overloaded the planet would be with all those millions/billions of abortions not done. The planet would have been uninhabitable long ago. Abortion in a way acts as a balance.

Also you say I can particularly understand it if the woman has been abused or raped

To that, my answer is this image:

It's NOT a 'baby'. It's a blastocyst of embryo. Scientifically and clinically, it's a parasite that is attached (without consent in the case of a woman or girl wanting a termination) to it's host. This is not a 'baby', it has no skeleton, no brainstem, no nerve receptors and no sentience;

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If you’re “genuinely interested” you should be able to work out the difference for yourself.

I don't like the idea of abortion. However I think the idea of forcing someone to give birth is 1000% worse.
I don't like how people on MM automatically push people to terminate. I have seen countless threads where people aren't sure what to do about going forward with unplanned pregnancy and their first response is "get an abortion asap". I now understand why that is though, mostly from posters previous experience. For example, Women who have children tied to abusers, had a hard life with children from being pregnant teenagers or they know that the the potential child in the scenario will have a hard life (where the woman would be left to handle things on her own or in a shit situation financially,) when the truth is, she now doesn't have to. It would be ideal if children could thrive on love alone, but practically that's not the case.
I also think the more women who share their experiences of abortion, holds less stigma for those who consider it. It's still very much taboo.
So while I wouldn't go through the process myself, I would definitely support those that need one. I think those that are prolife need to invest their time and energy into children going through poverty, are in the system or who suffer from abuse. Stop punishing women, stop judging women.

I really dislike the notion that a termination can be accepted as okay as long as the woman is repentant, guilt stricken and traumatised.

it really is okay for a woman to decide not to continue with a pregnancy, go through the procedure and not carry life long regrets or trauma. It’s such a judgmental view that one termination is acceptable and that it should be a huge moral decision. An early termination is, for most women, a relatively minor medical process. The weight of responsibility should come with the decision to carry on an unplanned pregnancy, not the decision to end it.

And having more than one is just as morally acceptable and no-one’s business. Women need to know that it really is ok to feel nothing other than relief.

None of that detracts from women who do find it a difficult decision or are dealing with later pregnancies but the default position shouldn’t be that women have to pretend to wrap themselves in sackcloth and ashes for making a practical, rational decision to not go through a life altering event when they simply don’t want to.

My pregnancy was awful. I had severe HG which put me in hospital. I vowed never to have another so if I had got pregnant again ( thankfully that didn't happen), then I would have had a termination. As harsh as it sounds other women's infertility is not my problem, I needed to be fit and well enough to take care of the child I already had and if that meant sacrificing the cluster of cells in my womb then so be it.

Medical opinion is not agreed that DNA = life. Viruses, for instance, have DNA in them but the general scientific opinion is that they are not alive.

If more restrictions were put on abortion in the UK, it wouldn't lead to more UK babies being available for adoption. Women living in difficult circumstances would just keep their babies and they and the rest of the family would struggle financially and in other ways. It would make it harder for abused women to leave their abusers if they are pregnant and can't access an abortion.

There is often very little support and sympathy from some posters for OPs who post about living with a dreadful abusive partner and/or in difficult financial circumstances where they can't afford even the basics, if they mention that they are pregnant or have more children than posters deem reasonable. There are cries of 'why did you get pregnant when you know what he is like', or 'it's your children I feel sorry for' and 'why didn't you use contraception'.

Restricting abortion doesn't lead to fewer abortions. It just leads to fewer safe abortions. Desperate women will take matters into their own hands like they have always done before the Abortion Act of 1967.

We also have a two child benefit cap that many posters on here don't want the Government to remove. The sort of legislation that you are advocating for would disproportionately impact poorer women with fewer options.

You can’t ban abortion. You can only ban safe abortion.

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That baby is born, taken away from its mother at birth, put in some sort of emergency foster care, then moved around until a suitable parent can be found. Oh hang it took 6 years. The child has had 3 foster families and is placed with Adoptive parents, it fails, they're back in foster care awaiting another family..

There's barely enough funding to deal with the children in the care system as it is, there's not enough foster and adoption places as it is, who's going to magically take on all these extra children?

Better a termination than an unwanted child or one born into adversity.

Exactly. Too many women continue a pregnancy than abuse and neglect the innocent child who didn't ask to be born. I think of Baby P and think he really should have been terminated. Why should a child be born and SUFFER like that? It would have been much kinder if he hadn't been born at all than be born to be starved, neglected, abused, beaten and choke on is teeth punched down his throat. Who would choose to live just to experience pain and torture? He shouldn't have been born at all. If his 'mother' (if you can call it that) had done the right thing, the responsible thing and had a termination, he wouldn't have suffered.

Maybe the OP should consider that on ponder on that.

Many abortions happen for medical reasons, you want to add disabled babies to the already too long list of children needing homes?

You want to force women to give birth to children they know will die within weeks?

You want to force women to have babies if their abusers?

You want to make that 12 year old who was raped by her father follow the pregnancy through?

There was no need to ramble. You could have just said that you do not believe women should have autonomous over their bodies. Period.

Yes you are correct. They agree a virus is not a living thing. That is for separate reasons which wouldn’t apply to a foetus though. Ie inability to grow and survive means it’s not considered life. Whereas a foetus can do both these things.

One last disclaimer, I am not against abortions. I’m just not comfortable saying I’m pro choice when I have my cut offs in my own head. For example, I’m having a boy and wanted a girl so I’m having an abortion to try again. I’d inwardly judge.

For example, I’m having a boy and wanted a girl so I’m having an abortion to try again. I’d inwardly judge

You say that as though abortions for that reason are a common occurrence.