To be saddened that anyone would want to take away a woman’s right to safe abortion?

[Balayagequeen]

It makes me sad and angry that there are so many people who believe that a woman’s right to a termination is up for debate/political football.

It’s always privileged men too.

No woman should be forced to continue with a pregnancy that she doesn’t want.

An abortion is a very safe, simple procedure, it’s a personal and private choice, it’s discreet, no one is ramming it down anyone else’s throat or trying to persuade others to do it. The vast majority of the time is done very early on in the pregnancy. Evidence shows that there are no long term negative physical or mental effects on the woman.

As someone who works for children’s services, there are already far too many children in the care system and they can end up deeply traumatised, and having poor outcomes in life, adoptions often don’t work out and even when they do can be extremely traumatic for both the mother and child. That is not to take away from all of the wonderful adoptive parents and foster carers, but please let’s not romanticise it.

Most adoptions are because the birth parents are unable to care for the child, not because the mother willingly gave the baby up. Therefore to force a woman to give birth would potentially be the worse option for the woman, the child and any existing siblings. It isn’t a fairytale ending where a woman willingly gives up her baby to a loving couple to live happily ever after.

There are babies conceived in poverty, domestic abuse, rape, teenage pregnancies, older age pregnancies. These women should not be forced to give birth, it is not the better option for anyone.

If abortion was ever restricted in the western world then I have no doubt that it would result in unsafe illegal abortions, risking the woman’s life.

Women take all the risk with pregnancy and childbirth. They take an enormous toll on a woman body, her mental health, her life outcomes. We are not living in the dark ages, women deserve the choice.

What right does any privileged male who has probably never experienced any of these things and has probably done very little child rearing, who can never conceive or give birth, have to try to restrict a women’s access to abortion?

Are they themselves going to care for the babies born? Or will they expect that someone else will do it?

Pro-choicers do get that some people feel that way. We just think it's moronic to consider it murder and we have good arguments that it is not, which are all over this thread. Forced birthers have no good arguments that it is.
Even if it was murder, it would be justifiable homicide in defence of one's self. Pregnancy is inherently dangerous.

Women's lives can't become irrelevant just because she's pregnant. Her life has to matter too. She's a grown adult. I think either women should have the choice or for a much better alternative to be introduced. Such as men not being allowed escape responsibility, being pulled up on maintenance, proper welfare and a school system that takes other situations into account etc.

And that goes for married moms too. Married moms lives matter also, not just their spouse and kids lives

Not really and I'll tell you why. Polls show it's important to most Canadians that abortion stay out of the criminal code. Permanently. This is mostly because in the seventies, a famous abortion doctor, Henry Morgentaler, was given an 18 month prison sentence, which outraged many people. It turned the tide on the issue and he and other choice advocates worked tirelessly to get abortion out of the criminal code. So you see, it really isn't the same. Medical regulations aren't going to put anyone in prison.

I do agree that abortion shouldn’t be something that is determined by politicians but by medical professional acting in accordance with their oaths to do no harm. The consequences of overruling Roe v Wade are horrifying and I feel for women of reproductive age in the US.

Trying to visualise this - you get pregnant and for whatever reason you can't /don't want to have this baby, but you're still forced to continue with pregnancy. Any worse horror than this?

There was a thread a couple of months ago by a woman who had a very disabled child, she was pregnant at 6(?) months, don't remember exactly, but scans were showing that baby could have the same disability, she was in knots but decided to terminate. This was absolutely heart breaking, but the choice could have been taken from her still?
Surreal!

😄
Unbelievable. If you don't have sex with the intention to get pregnant, of course it's accidental. It's not intentional, therefore it's accidental. Get it? You don't drive a car with the intention of getting hurt in an accident either, but it very often happens. Should health care be withheld because the person chose to drive, knowing an accident was possible? If I choose to climb a ladder to paint my house and the ladder slips off the wall, should health care be withheld because I chose to do something risky? That actually happened to me. My back has never really recovered. Pregnancy can have life threatening complications. If you think women deserve that because they had sex, it means you hate female sexuality.

Posts this silly really don't merit a response, but I'm bored today.

I can't be bothered even attempting to argue with the incoherent nonsense from the "make an exception for rape" crowd.

I believe Charlie Kirk's position on this was wrong but it's a logical, consistent and honestly held position.

I agree.

I think what Charlie Kirk said about if his daughter became pregnant at 10 is disgusting but yes, at least he was consistent.

Why does that matter?
The punishment is in not allowing her to rid herself of a pregnancy she does not want. What is the reason for that, just because she chose to have sex? Why does having sex deserve punishment, yet other choices that result in health consequences do not? Can you really not see the disgust for female sexuality (and perhaps sexuality in general) behind such a viewpoint?

Do late abortions actually happen in Canada? I recall seeing articles that although in theory there is no time limit there weren't doctors willing to do third trimester terminations, resulting in women travelling to the US.

But there'd still be less?

I agree with all but the honesty part. I do not think extremist forced birthers like Kirk honestly care about the "baby." They inevitably demonstrate their lack of feeling for children by being opposed to the social programs which help them. They just want to punish women for having sex. But yes, I can appreciate the consistency at least.

Fair enough. I understand your views. I just think that new life (which biologically begins at conception) had worth inside the womb and outside the womb.

The problem with making things illegal is that it's really hard to monitor illegal things.
As I said earlier, I worked with MSI in a country where abortion is illegal. Abortions were still readily available but the authorities only knew about the ones that went wrong. And actually not even all of those ones, because women who died from them were often buried in secret too.
There'd be less that you know about. And all that does is make you feel better.

I agree with you. Ultimately, forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term when she doesn't want to is cruel in the extreme. She has to go through all the unpleasant effects of pregnancy: sickness, aches and pains, her organs being squashed into a tiny space, pelvic girdle pain (formerly known as symphesis pubis, which doesn't always resolve on delivery!), heartburn, sleeplessness, the pain of labour, the very real possibility of birth injury including long term continence issues and pain. You wouldn't be allowed to inflict any of those things on a prisoner of war, but it's OK to inflict them on a woman for the 'crime' of having sex? I don't see how that can possibly be the moral option.

By all means support those who really want their baby - but in all other cases focus on providing safe, legal abortion as early as possible. We can start with banning pharmacists from refusing to provide the MAP. Don't want to provide that aspect of care? Pick another career.

And of course the elephant in the room will always be the fact that abortion will simply go back underground if you ban it. @VeganMilk how many women's deaths per year do you think is an acceptable number in order to protect the unborn?

I feel the whole "if you don't want one don't get one" could have also been applied to the horror that was slavery. I do have the honest belief that abortion is inherently wrong and immoral. I accept that the law of the UK will not change one bit by what I said.

It's not punishing a woman or a man for having sex, it's accepting that actions have consequences. And we should accept the consequences of our actions.

But women would die as a result.

How is that pro-life?

And women would die.

I don't think you're being at all realistic about the consequences of illegal abortions and being born when you're not wanted or not able to be provided for.
You act as though unspecified support can fix anything and that's just not realistic.

An abortion is also a consequence of an unwanted pregnancy if that is what the woman decides is best for her.

Slavery would be more comparable with forcing a woman to be an incubator against her will.

Yes, access is limited. They do happen, but rarely. They are rarely necessary if you don't restrict access to abortion and make it difficult to afford, because women can get access to it earlier. They don't have to save up for months to afford it or search for months for a facility which does it. Polls show Canadians are content with the way it is.
There is a lot of conservative propaganda about people going to the US for health care, the goal of which is to smear socialized medicine. Right wing organizations have even hired shills to make outrageous claims about their need to go to the US for care, some of whom were caught out. So I would tend to mistrust anecdotes about women supposedly going to the US. Yes, some probably do. I doubt it's a significant number, but I have no statistics on it so I can't state it as a fact. Health care has been impacted by the huge number of aging baby boomers needing care and governments have been slow to take any action, so health care actually is a mess these days. It used to be absolutely wonderful. Socialized medicine is unbeatable when it's managed properly and funded sufficiently.

Then you need to answer as to whether you think doing anything risky means you should be denied care for the consequences of that choice.
If you don't, it is about punishment for sex, because you have singled sex out from other acts which have health consequences. Smoking, overeating, engaging in dangerous sports, you name it. All of them have health consequences.
I don't see where the slavery analogy comes in. It doesn't compute.

Forcing a woman to have a child she does not want IS slavery.

Your 'consequences' would be horrific. I've already set out how this would go, but you clearly haven't read it - or bothered to.

Forcing women to carry unplanned pregnancies to term will break up marriages - because the man can just walk away. This will leave any already living children in the stressful situation of watching their parents split up, and is likely to increase the chance that they will end up in poverty. Put away the rose tinted specs - 40% of women who have abortions already have children. Do those children not matter?

Forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term will leave them potentially tied to abusive men, who will have an enforced 'relationship' with that woman for 18 years.

And that is aside from all the health risks of pregnancy and birth. This absolutely is about punishing women for daring to have and enjoy sex. Stop pretending it is anything else - it's misogyny loud and proud.

👏👏👏

really? so more women would have babies they didn't want to? only because they were denied an alternative? who exactly would benefit from it? from children growing in families who didn't want them, from permanently traumatised women?