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?

I think that was a remarkably generous response.

I'm cutting and pasting in this, from an essay on the Irish abortion referendum in 2018 (in which abortion was legalised for the first time in Irish law by a majority of 66.4%, despite the anti side being substantially funded by anti-abortion US groups).

Previously, after a referendum in 1983, the legal position was that the foetus and the woman carrying it had equal rights, and termination was illegal unless there was 'substantial risk' to the woman's life. Lack of clarity about what that 'substantial risk' might be led to a raped 14 year old girl having an injunction slapped on her to prevent her leaving the country to have a termination in 1992 and in the death of Savita Halanappavar from sepsis because, despite the fact that miscarriage at 17 weeks was inevitable, the foetus still had a heartbeat.

This is from an essay in the LRB shortly before the 2018 referendum, and I think it gets to the heart of why discussions of the difficult cases like rape or a foetus with abnormalities incompatible with life miss the point:

Do women who are not victims of abuse, or in mortal danger, have the right to end a pregnancy just because they feel like it?

Yes. Pregnancy, entered into willingly, is an act of generosity, a commitment to share the resources of life with another incipient being. Such generosity is in no other circumstances required by law. No matter how much you need a kidney donation, the law will not force another person to give you one. Consent, in the form of a donor card, is required even to remove organs from a dead body. If the foetus is a person, it is a person with a vastly expanded set of legal rights, rights available to no other class of citizen: the foetus may make free, non-consensual use of another living person’s uterus and blood supply, and cause permanent, unwanted changes to another person’s body. In the relationship between foetus and woman, the woman is granted fewer rights than a corpse. But it’s possible that the ban on abortion has less to do with the rights of the unborn child than with the threat to social order represented by women in control of their reproductive lives.

[...]

Traumatised or fatally ill women may be granted the right to terminate a pregnancy precisely because they are not seen to be exercising free and independent agency. Those who object to abortion, but make an exception in the case of rape, cannot be primarily concerned with the sanctity of the unborn: a foetus conceived by rape is no different from a foetus conceived by consensual sex. To make an exception for women who can be classed as victims is to display fear and anxiety of the woman who is not one, but who would simply exercise her right no longer to be pregnant.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n10/sally-rooney/an-irish-problem

This makes me thinking - those political forces which supported CK are now very actively penetrating the UK.
Be very careful who you vote for in the next elections - you might agree with Reform or chose them as a protest vote, but please remember that Farage &Co are in bed with the likes of Musk etc, so don't be surprised if they get into power and ban abortions

Brilliant essay!

I've asked this question. The forced birthers never have an answer.

Yes, we absolutely should bring down the number of abortions. But that is not done by banning it. What you do is look at policies in countries where abortion rates are very low, but where it is legal. And then that is the path you follow.

But that would mean accepting women's autonomy, accepting that women are allowed to enjoy sex, accepting that investment in women's health and childcare is needed, accepting that early and comprehensive sex ed is needed (in the Netherlands it starts in early primary!). These are all things the forced birthers do not want to see - but they work.

@VeganMilk
But it is your opinion only. You cannot force others to have the same opinion as you. There are people who believe that pre marital sex is a sin. Does it mean everyone should be punished if they have sex outside marriage?
As PP said, forcing a woman to stay pregnant against her will is treating her like a slave.
Not everyone is religious and not everyone believes that human life is sacred from conception. It’s their right.

It's all worth a read -- link to full essay is at the bottom, for anyone who hasn't read it before. I don't think it's behind a paywall.

It’s still diffirent because the woman is hurting a baby which isnt her. It’s only half hers anyway.

???

Read. The. Essay.

FFS.

I agree. I just think it's sad that anyone would want to use abortion as a means of not having a baby (as you rightly point out it isn't contraception), but that's just my personal opinion. Certainly, a surgical abortion can't be at all pleasant. The last abortion this woman had was done that way because by the time she got seen by the clinic, it was too late for her to take the tablets.

In my second example, I am sad because this woman agrees to anything her boyfriend says as she doesn't want to lose him, although I think the relationship has pretty much finished now anyway. There is a lot more to this story which is quite horrendous, but I won't go into that as it is too outing and would derail the thread.

I am definitely pro-abortion and don't want the law to change, but these are just two examples which came to mind when thinking about this topic.

Looking at it from a different perspective, I know of one woman who is now in her late sixties and has had to raise two of her GC to prevent them from entering the care system. One of her DS got his girlfriend pregnant. Neither of them were deemed fit to raise the child, so she took that child in. A couple of years later, the same thing happened again! Hence she took in the second child. I have no idea why the girlfriend didn't have an abortion, but I don't think it was for religious or pro-life reasons. I would hazard a guess that it was because she didn't realise she was pregnant until it was too late or they both decided to keep it a secret for as long as possible. I think in this scenario, an abortion might have been a better option had it been discussedin the early stages. .

Less abortions but likely more injuries to or deaths of pregnant women. Is that a preferable outcome?

@Lelophants
That’s your belief. I believe that no woman should be forced to stay pregnant against her will. Every woman has a right to decide if she wants to use her body to support and feed the foetus till it can live outside her body.

I know you’re speaking from the same pro-choice angle as my own, but can I pounce of that bit there about the dark effect of abortion on women? (General rant, not directed at you. )

There are many of us for whom an abortion was and remains no more than the obvious solution to our being caught out by an unwanted pregnancy.
It did not occasion moral anguish nor even physical distress.
There may have been a hassle getting past an unwilling NHS GP (a Bavarian staunch Catholic, just my luck!), and therefore the cost of a private clinic, and there may have been the boyfriend or partner who wanted none of it/ wanted you to bear the child/etc, or whatever your circs were, but in cold hard facts, the main thing was maybe inconvenience (and some difficulty in selecting a better method of contraception.)

What I’m saying is that I disagree with perpetuating the line that abortion must, absolutely, be a terrible experience and one every woman regrets.
I feel this panders to the pro-life crowd by making us appear apologetic and regretful, which by extension admits they must be right to oppose it on the grounds of some kind of inhumanity!

There’s also the implicit message that we women exist to be incubators, and that we reject that rôle only with deepest reluctance (and if we think we do no such thing, we must be reprogrammed until we DO.)

We do not need to apologise for, nor appear to regret the decision to terminate a pregnancy.
Of course there’ll be women who experience terrible sadness or regret, and they are not wrong to do so, god love them, but this isn’t necessarily a universal response. We are mostly adults, and can take charge of our decisions.
As the great book declared, even while it was banned, ‘Our bodies, ourselves!’

@LayerCakeOfStrangers you realise that by saying you feel nothing for the fetus, you are merely playing right into the hands of pro lifers by coming off as extreme callous and uncaring. We know they can feel pain from 24 weeks. Saying you dont care at all about a fetus aborted aborted after this point is disturbing. Surely youd feel a little sad, even if it was the right choice? A lot of woman still have mixed emotions about it if they have to do it. You can be pro sbotiom and state that you beleive an inpregnated woman or girl is always more important to than the unborn child, but surely you acknowledge its sad for the baby? You don’t have to be nasty about the fetus.

Her body is all hers though. and as the vast majority of abortions are carried out before 12 weeks, it isn't hurting them.

Access to immediate termination on demand, no second opinion/pseudo therapy time wasting, and with OTC chemical means greatly improved and more easily acquired.
Education, through every means necessary, about careful menstruation tracking and contraception. (Free contraception, of course.)
Retention and expansion of sexual health clinics. These are essential, and they’re being cut everywhere. Many women, and especially girls, require reproductive health care in a holistic, specialist setting, unlike the care and advice her GP’s rôle permits.
Continued emphasis at school about sexual relationships and related pressure, consent, etc.

But above all, it must be abortion on demand, as early as possible.

What about women who regret it and say they felt pressured by society to abort because it wasnt the right time or it was “just a bundle of cells” but never got over it. I think it’s unfair to dismiss these women.

Which is exactly why I have more respect for people who prefer an all out ban as opposed to a ban except for rape. Can’t fault them for consistency

You mean women should accept the consequences of both men’s and women’s actions?!

None of your examples make sense. Nobody is talking about health care being withheld.

If you drive a car you have insurance, this is because you acknowledge the risk of having an accident, and you take precautions to mitigate against the costs associated with that. I.E an insurance policy.

If you play contact sport, you also acknowledge the risks and take responsibility for any injury.

Having sex, knowing there is a risk of pregnancy, but not taking responsibility for that outcome, is not the same as the situations you have described.

So you do think the ‘pointless legislation’ should be lifted to allow late term abortions for the ‘0’ women that want them?

There is no such legalisation.

Legislation is up to 24 weeks and TMR thereafter as agreed by a doctor.

You are wrong, by the way. Late term abortions are very rare in countries that allow them, but they are by no means non-existent.

I didn’t say they were non existent. I said no one wants a late term abortion because of lifestyle choices. Well there may be the odd 1 or 2 but yes it’s pointless to legislate based on so little demand.

Who matters more than who? We are comparing 2 hypothetical women having abortions at different gestations.

The women matter more than their fetuses.

You REALLY want me to say I agree with late term abortions for any reason. You’re utterly desperate, it’s very odd. Why is that?

Oh right do share the peer reviewed research that proves a negative.

I’ll wait.

Right up until birth ? Or til what gestation ?

Women can't be prevented from accessing healthcare because some women may have regrets.

Women are capable of making their own choices.

Nobody's dismissing them. If we are pro-choice, that means we abhor the idea of women being coerced to abort as much as we abhor being coerced to give birth.
I don't think the pressure comes from society at large, more likely the father or the woman's family. It's deplorable and if they really cared about her they would support her making her own decisions.