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Infant feeding

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Original poster

Pope urges breastfeeding in Sistine Chapel

402 replies

marmitecat · 12/01/2014 21:30

news.sky.com/story/1194030/pope-urges-breastfeeding-in-sistine-chapel

Go Pope Francis Grin

I have to admit I felt a bit awkward feeding in church with dc1 so this is pretty much the ultimate way of dispelling that worry.

OP posts:
atthestrokeoftwelve · 15/01/2014 16:28

Cheerful so you are against abortion yet you are fine to "throwaway" a conception if it happens then is discarded as a result of the contraceptive pill or coil use.

Why is that OK and not abortion?

curlew · 15/01/2014 16:29

Why do people always talk about abortion as if the exceptions are the norm? Oh, and as if people take the decision lightly and without due consideration and heart searching?

atthestrokeoftwelve · 15/01/2014 16:40

curlew are we? I think abortion is always ddifficult and never a situation a woman wants to find herself in.
It is usually the lesser of two bad situations. I don't think women take abortion lightly, I disagree with cheerfulyank if she thinks it's a symptom of a throwaway culture.

If it prevents unwanted children being porn into bad situations then it is necessary.

CheerfulYank · 15/01/2014 17:03

I don't know, why is it okay to stop the heart of an 8 month fetus who hasn't been born but not the heart of a premature baby born at 7 months?

Do you think it's okay for girl fetuses to be aborted based on their sex in India? Why not? We all draw lines in the sand.

I never once said that women treat abortion lightly. Please read exactly what it is I did say. I said SOME abortions.

atthestrokeoftwelve · 15/01/2014 17:09

You are a bit of a drama queen cheerfulYank.

So some abortions are OK but not others?

And you are the best person to judge?

CheerfulYank · 15/01/2014 17:15

:o I'm actually one of the least dramatic people I know. Though to be fair I do know a great many theatrical types.

No, I am not the best person to judge. What I was saying is that everyone I know thinks some abortions are okay and others not so much. For some people that line in the sand is 24 weeks. For others it's the aforementioned sex selection.

I am not saying that women who have abortions based on things like Down Syndrome, twins when they wanted one, it being an "inconvenient" time, etc, are bad people or that they made those decisions as easily as they'd decide what to eat for breakfast.

What I am saying is that we live in a culture that preaches entitlement. And I feel that many of us make decisions based on that, including but certainly not limited to, abortions for the reasons I mentioned.

atthestrokeoftwelve · 15/01/2014 17:21

But women deserve freedom over their reproductive function. The catholic church seeks to remove that completely.

You talk of entitlement - are women not entitled to have power over their own bodies?
I disagree completely that some women are having abortions with as little though as you suggest. Abortion for the vast majority of women is a huge thing and not something women enter into lightly.

CheerfulYank · 15/01/2014 17:29

Sigh. Are you deliberately misunderstanding what I'm saying?

I am not saying, nor have I EVER said, that women do not deserve freedom over their reproductive choices. I am not saying, nor have I EVER said, that abortion should be illegal.

What I am saying is that we do live in a culture of entitlement as well as many other things, and -quite naturally- that culture influences our decisions.

And I never said or meant to imply that women who abort for the reasons I mentioned are not putting thought into it. I never said it wasn't a hard or even heartbreaking decision for them.

All I said, and all I meant, is that I think the culture of entitlement influences decisions.

atthestrokeoftwelve · 15/01/2014 17:30

I don't see that as a bad thing.

Women have put up with being controlled ( and the church must take a lot of blame for that) for far too long.

CheerfulYank · 15/01/2014 17:37

Well, one thing we're certainly both entitled to is our own opinion. :) I doubt we'll change anyone's mind!

But yes, as far as the original quote the Pope made about our "throwaway" culture, I agree and don't think it was terrible of him to say.

aciddrops · 15/01/2014 17:46

Juggling Have you been to heaven? What was it like? Why was it boring?

aciddrops · 15/01/2014 17:53

I have worked in medical records and there are many women who have had multiple abortions for social reasons. That seemed pretty throw away to me. Whilst there are some very compelling reasons to choose abortion, not all of them are compelling and as CheerfulYank says, where do you draw the line?

curlew · 15/01/2014 17:56

The pope said that thinking about early abortions
was "frightful". Interesting to note that people
are as usual talking about the vanishingly small
Number of late term abortions. He wasn't. He was talking about lalll abortion. And that, according to catholic
Teaching includes the MAP.

CheerfulYank · 15/01/2014 18:13

Yes, that wasn't the part I was commenting on curlew.

Thank you for understanding what I was trying to say, Acid. :)

aciddrops · 15/01/2014 18:15

That is correct, Curlew. When it comes to abortion the Pope is on one extreme end of the spectrum of opinion about it. There is no doubt about that.

JugglingBackwardsAndForwards · 15/01/2014 18:35

"Juggling have you been to heaven? What was it like? Why was it boring?"

Well no, like you I'm imagining possibilities.

Perhaps I was there, depends where we are before we enter this world I suppose. Star dust for both before and after is what I tend to imagine Smile

As I recall it was a little tedious, as it went on just the same forever ....
like some threads on here (but not this one so much)

curlew · 15/01/2014 18:37

Obviously I'm not expecting the pope to embrace the right to choose....

But whatI am saying is that he is not actually saying anything different to his predecessors. His liberal credentials are based entirely on his mod populist approach, and nothing else. His first pronouncement on abortion,which I quoted was at least as hard line as his predecessors. And there is no reason to believe his subsequent statements on contraception and other issues concerning women's bodily integrity will be any different.

JugglingBackwardsAndForwards · 15/01/2014 18:39

"When it comes to abortion the Pope is on one extreme end of the spectrum of opinion about it. There is no doubt about that"

Sadly that was probably a pre-requiste for him getting the job

ElenorRigby · 15/01/2014 18:45

I was press ganged into the catholic church as baby.

At 16 I left after hearing the many abuses committed by the catholic church.

No pope has swayed me back. Always same old.

However on the limited so far evidence of pope Francis, I think he may actually following Jesus teaching! Shock

SmudgyDVDsAreEvil · 15/01/2014 19:10

"I have worked in medical records and there are many women who have had multiple abortions for social reasons. That seemed pretty throw away to me."

Surely women who have multiple abortions for social reasons must have quite big problems to start with, it's not something you'd choose to do time after time if you had the education / mental health / organisational ability to avoid multiple unplanned pregnancies. Would it be better to force them to bear and raise the children instead?

ethelb · 15/01/2014 19:14

I'm not a pro-lifer myself, however, I do think we are looking at Pope Francis' comments about abortion from a fairly sanitised, first-world perspective.

In South America, where he is from and has been a parish priest (ie he has seen the real world, not just been a theologian within the Vatican's walls) abortion probably is pretty horrific as procedures are possibly backstreet abortions, disproportionatly affecting poor vulnerable women.

Not NHS-funded procedures in clean clinics carried out by medical professionals.

ethelb · 15/01/2014 19:17

"Surely women who have multiple abortions for social reasons must have quite big problems to start with, it's not something you'd choose to do time after time if you had the education / mental health / organisational ability to avoid multiple unplanned pregnancies."

I wouldn't assume that would be the case for everyone. I think that to support on-demand abortion, is to be prepared to support a system that can and is abused. Anything else is naive.

However, I think there is far too little debate about co-erced abortion in this country, which I think is a real issue.

ethelb · 15/01/2014 19:19

curlew of course he was talking about all abortion, anything else would be inconsistant with the Catholic Church's teaching on the death penalty etc.

JugglingBackwardsAndForwards · 15/01/2014 19:25

"far too little debate about co-erced abortion in this country"

Yes, I'm sure that must be an issue too, though wouldn't want to confuse the Catholic church with any complexity ....

Was sad though to see the issue in the news today of female fetuses being aborted after screening for sex of baby. So sad when women in any culture are persuaded to prefer boys, and to this extent.

SmudgyDVDsAreEvil · 15/01/2014 19:53

I would have thought that co-erced sex was a far, far bigger issue than co-erced abortion. That and young women lacking the self-esteem, education and social support to avoid multiple unwanted pregnancies.

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