Can I be a feminist and not be fully pro-choice until term?

[Moonfishstar]

As in to think there should be some restrictions on stopping a mother aborting their foetus very close to term if there is no reason other than the mother has decided not to proceed?

Because abortions after 21 weeks (cause that is what we are talking about here - that is considered a late term abortion) is generally because of complex medical circumstances. Abortion is healthcare also.

There's a certain irony about using the word "hysteria" when criticising women who don't agree with you.

That case happened in Ireland - Ireland which claims it's so much more liberal, tolerant and progressive than the UK. That woman would have got an abortion at 8 weeks and probably at 25 weeks and certainly at 24 if she'd been in the mainland UK.

Dear god that's some projection! I'm only expressing a view that the vast majority of women support....

To read your response, you'd think I was some kind of fundamentalist pro-lifer who was trying to press their misogynist views on the rest of the population, when in fact only 3%, yes 3%!, of women over 40 believe the current 24 week limit is too early, and should be extended later (see attached survey).

You may believe you are correct, but don't be under the misapprehension that your view is anything other than an extremely unpopular one in the UK. You're acting like it was the other way round!

yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/47568-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-abortion-in-2023

@Fatcatinahat

forced birther loon

^
What a way for a feminist to refer to 97% of UK women over 40!? Time to get out of your extreme echo chamber!

Thank you for being honest that it doesn't matter to you if a woman aborts a healthy foetus who is very close to term...

But you will need to convince the vast - and I mean vast (I had no idea quite how vast until I did some research just now) find it unacceptable.

But you (general you) keep arguing that the right to do that should exist, even where is no medical reason.

Basically, only maximum of 3% of women over 40 could possibly be eligible to be legitimately called feminists based on my on this thread.

That is a sad indictment for the feminist movement, and I feel frustrated that a hardcore few are trying to dictate their extreme and purist beliefs on the masses, as though anyone who doesn't believe it is some kind of misogynistic bigot!

It's one thing to support a view that's only held by a small minority - most of us probably hold at least one such view. And it's good when people have the strength of mind to hold unpopular principles, and don't follow the herd.

But I don't think I can think of any fringe view (which the survey I attached suggests clearly that a purist pro-choice is) where those that hold that fringe view are so utterly deluded as to believe they are in the majority...: and that those who disagree are so weird and alien that they need to crawl back under their rock so "the rest of us" can get on with it.

Oh do fuck off, you know what I meant.

The thing is, if you look in the past , a lot of the rights we enjoy today ( women, disabled people, BAME people, poor people ,working class people etc) started as you call them , as fringe and small minorities. Where would we be today if those voices just quieted down and gave up as they were such a minority?

There is no singular definition of feminism. I'm sure there are many self identified feminists that share the OP's position.

Would those who support legal late term abortions also support the right to induce labour at, say, 22 weeks just because the woman no longer wants to be pregnant, thereby giving birth to a living but extremely vulnerable premature baby that could be blind, suffer cerebral palsy or all sorts of other challenges?

@PaperDoIIs

This is one thing I do agree with you on... but that misses my point entirely, namely that "purist pro-choice" is a fringe view, but one where many who hold that view seem to believe it is mainstream. The responses to my thread demonstrate this, and seem to be under the misapprehension that someone who doesn't hold their purist pro-choice view is in some reactionary misogynist right-wing minority, and that we need to crawl back under our rock so the "rest of us" can get on!

What if the baby was going to be born in extreme pain? It’s just very difficult to legislate for this type of thing.

i’n aware of that I’m also in Ireland. Does Ireland claim it is more liberal, tolerant and progressive than the UK? Who claims this? All of Ireland?

Your totally right - she would have got an abortion in the UK - at the time there was ban on abortion in Ireland except where the life of the mother was at risk. Since then the situation has changed and there is abortion on request available.

You might want to check your facts about abortion being available on demand in Ireland.

It's available up to 12 weeks - if the woman can find a practitioner willing to do it. And after 12 weeks, women still come to the UK.

Re your other point- no of course the whole of Ireland isn't saying that en masse, but if you haven't seen such claims being made, well, that doesn't stop them existing.

I don’t think anyone on this thread has stated they are against late abortions for extreme medical reasons. The discussion is around late abortions for any reason other than those.

I am aware of all this thank you. There are circumstances where abortion is available after 12 weeks - risk to life and fatal foetal abnormality but it’s restrictive and there are people who still end up travelling the UK. You won’t hear any arguments from me - UK abortion law is preferable to Irish abortion law.

it’s certainly not a claim I have heard. Ireland is country that is changing but I’ve not heard it described as more progressive for sure.

You appear to argue that the thing you want to be legal is vanishingly rare, so therefore making it legal would have no impact. This does not feel logical to me.

I’m just here for the philosophy - I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your overall position.

This is a good question. If not 22 weeks, when? Bearing in mind that birth of a live baby or dead foetus will be happening, one way or another.

Again, I’m not arguing any particular position here, just suggesting that the position of “as late as necessary” needs to be articulated. I suspect the lack of articulation is playing into “pro-life” hands.

I think extreme demands for abortion to term for no medical reasons are a gift to anti- abortionists.

I suspect the lack of articulation is playing into “pro-life” hands.

There aren't any (apologies if I've missed anything) posters on this thread who are "pro-life" in the usual sense of the term (ie life begins and is sacred from conception).

The articulation is very clear from the purist pro-choice brigade, that there should be no boundaries, no limits concerning abortion, none. It is purely about female bodily autonomy and nothing, but nothing, else. It's just that few actually believe and accept it, much to their chagrin and bafflement where this is even recognised (and it's clear from this thread it isn't in many circumstances).

I think extreme demands for abortion to term for no medical reasons are a gift to anti- abortionists.

I agree, it is, especially when those who make these extreme demands lump everyone who disagrees with them into the "anti-abortionist" camp. It's not just a gift, the "purists" seem to want to actively push people away for any hint of "heresy" into that camp. They are (at least with the impact of their actions if not their intentions) the anti-abortionists' biggest helpers... shooting themselves in both feet in the process!

Well, no, I think I made a more complex argument than that, but I don’t have the time or inclination to repeat it.

Precisely because the argument is more complex, the reduction of the argument to ‘make abortion legal with no limits’ to demonise that argument is what I am calling spurious. I personally think there is a difference between decriminalising late term abortion and making it legal with no limits are two different things.

@Moonfishstar

I feel like you have created a paper tiger with this thread.

"those who make these extreme demands". Is anyone with any power and control listening to them though? I don't see any evidence of public opinion being successfully persuaded to agree with them. There is zero appetite in society to change the law to do what you say the radical pro-choice lobby want: abortion without restriction.

There is also fairly limited support for that stance on this thread and yet you keep stating the opposite. You keep conjuring up some cohort of depraved, ultra feminist baby killers, both on this thread and all around us in real life, but I'm not sure where you're seeing them all. You're doing the most talking about and explaining their views, it seems, whilst simultaneously despairing at how damaging they are 🤔

You say their extremism is helping anti abortionists, but pro-lifers will continue to oppose abortion with all manner of both sincere and disingenuous arguments, no matter what pro-choicers say.