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Original poster

Abortion rate highest ever - I'm sorry I just don't buy the reason suggested for this...

875 replies

CountessDracula · 08/02/2007 11:39

"But pregnancy advice groups said the figures probably reflected poor access to contraceptive services"

What utter tosh

You can buy condoms in many loos in clubs and pubs. In any chemist or 24hour shop.

You have access to family planning clinics and doctors with free contraception

You can buy the morning after pill over the counter ffs

Shouldn't people take a bit more responsibility and get themselves to these places and get some bloody contraception?

OP posts:
lulumama · 09/02/2007 20:33

sorry, didn;t mean to shout

paula this cannot be a situation where men and women hold equal rights, end of !

paulaplumpbottom · 09/02/2007 20:40

I think you misunderstand my question. In my scenerio the man isn't asking her to carry the baby. He doesn't want it. Why should he have to support the child? Why should a woman not have to have a baby she doesn't want but a man just has to deal with it if he doesn't want it.

lulumama · 09/02/2007 20:44

because the child is the one being supported

if he didn;t have to,then men could get as many women pregnant as they wanted and there would be no legal recourse. they could be in a long term relationship, find there is an unexpected pregnancy and walk away.

as i have said, it is not black and white, and we are not going to agree

cannot equate financial contribution to the physical act of abortion of carrying baby to term

i am going to leave this thread as i am too tired to go over this again and again

we will have to accept that we will not agree on this

3andnomore · 09/02/2007 20:45

I think I know what you mean, but, I do also think that you just can't compare it...iykwim.
I suppose if you have sex and conceive, by acccident or not) you have to live with whatever the consquences, and those are decided by the parties taking part...not always fair but part of life.
Thing is, if we wanted a soceity where, automatically if you have sex (relationship or not) you sign whatever contract..how could that contract ever be fair?

daisey · 09/02/2007 20:45

Well i fell pregnant after having ds he was only a few months old. I couldnt even remember how it happened. I was still breastfeeding ds and i couldnt even remember a moment when dh and i even slept together.The only thing i can think of is that i hadnt taken the pill correctly probably because i was so exhausted or maybe the pill just failed to work i honestly dont know what i did wrong.

It took over 6mths to get pregnant with ds and all of a sudden i fell pregnant again without trying. I have always, always been careful as far as contraception was concerned. If in any doubt i would not hesitate in going to my doctors for the morning after pill or advice.

When i found out i was pregnant i was devastated i actually wanted to die. I just curled up and cried and cried. I just wanted it to disappear.I have never felt so low in my entire life. I went to my doctors to find info on abortion or even for him to refer me to a cousellor. He just said that he thought id regret it and told me to go away for 2 wks and think about it . I felt i couldnt go through this pregnancy emotionally i was a wreck looking back i think my hormones played a major part in my decision. I didnt want a abortion but i was falling to pieces at the prospect of having another baby. I wanted someone to make me feel better emotionally so that id feel id be able to cope not just send me away.

I ended up driving 2 hours to see a cousellor who was obviosly anti-abortion didnt make me feel better just made me feel worse then i already did. The fact that time was ticking made me decide on the abortion because i didnt have any other help to make me decide otherwise.

3andnomore · 09/02/2007 20:48

(((((Daisey)))))

LaDiDaDi · 09/02/2007 21:00

This thrread has just made me think ho fortunate I am for never having needed to consider having an abortion.

I think that there are times in my life when, if I had got pregnant, I would have wanted to have an abortion. I also think that there may be times in my life in the future when I would consider a termination.

I recognise that the situations that would lead me to consider a termination are not the same as those in which others would consider one. I wouldn't presume to judge someone else's reasons/situation just as I wouldn't expect anyone to think they could judge me.

All of this isn't to say that I'm not suprised and disappointed by the rate of abortion. I feel this way because I think that anyone can see that prevention (contraception) is better than cure, for want of a better word, (abortion) when it comes to unwanted pregnancy.

Although all contraception has a failure rate the figures suggest to me the lack of use of contraception rather than it's failure. This is deeply unsettling as it implies that for some reason men and women are prepared to risk STDs and the possible physical and emotional consequences of abortion for what? Sex without a condom?

If the abortion rate is to be reduced then it must happen as a result of a culture change in which adults, or those who deem themselves adult enought to have sex, take on the personal responsibility of contraception. This must be the aim of a wide ranging sexual education programme in our schools. This message must get across to society that abortion is, and imho should be, pretty much freely available, but that the consequences may be as longlasting and irrevocable as continuing with an unwanted pregnancy can be.

Goodasgold · 09/02/2007 21:04

Anybody tried a femidom?

twoisenoughmum · 09/02/2007 21:43

Why can you people who have had an abortion not say you regret it? Surely you would have preferred that your contraception worked/that you didn't accidentally have unprotected sex/that the MAP didn't fail ... whatever?

I regret every single filling I have in my teeth. I regretted them when I was having the procedure and I regret the way those filled teeth look now. Of course its better that I had the fillings and that my teeth didn't rot to stumps in my mouth. And because all of my fillings were done years ago, they were done on the NHS.

There are times in my life when I would have chosen to have an abortion, rather than an unwanted baby. Even if I had been raped and had an abortion, I would have regretted what had happened to me (the rape more than the abortion, OF COURSE, but still the discomfort with what I had had to do as a result) Luckily, I have never had to face that choice.

But to say you don't regret it is ... just ... burying your head in the sand? Denying the truth to protect your own feelings? Understandably trying to reassure yourself that you did the right thing?

You can regret something and not beat yourself up over it for the rest of your life. But to deny the regret? It makes you sound ... I don't know ... cold and heartless. I could think of stronger things to say, but then I might be accused of being a religious-fanatic-pro-lifer, which I most emphatically am not.

Surely abortions are always sad. Never to be celebrated. Never to be made light of. Best avoided by any means possible.

Mog · 09/02/2007 21:45

I think the point that some of us are trying to make on here is that the reason for the huge number of abortions in this country is that people are treating it like Aloha et al i.e. the embryo is just a bunch of cells, a 5p piece (sorry Aloha but I still find that highly flippant and offensive). Because of that having an abortion is no worse than taking the pill. It's not something people even think about.

If you look at the original legislation an abortion was quite heavily regulated in terms of getting one. Don't you think we should stop to think as a society why we have got to abortion being used as contraception? I just think it is a slippery slope when we start treating life so flippantly.

Dinosaur · 09/02/2007 21:47

Aloha, you are doing a fab job on this thread and I just want to register that I agree with you 100%.

expatinscotland · 09/02/2007 21:48

I'm honestly stunned at the level of misogyny on this thread.

Dinosaur · 09/02/2007 21:58

To me it is just so simple.

Women will always get pregnant by accident. Not all women, not all of the time, etc etc etc.

Some women who get pregnant by accident will want to keep their babies, and that's great. Some women will keep them, unwillingly, and that may or may not work out okay, for them or for the baby .

And for some women, having a baby will be just intolerable, for one reason or another - violent partner, they were raped, they are mentally ill, they are physically unable to cope etc etc etc. And if free, safe and legal abortion is not available, then at least some of those women will end up having an unsafe abortion.

We have to have legal abortion rights. There is no other choice in a civilised society.

twoisenoughmum · 09/02/2007 21:59

I must be very dim ... misogyny? please can you point it out?

twoisenoughmum · 09/02/2007 22:01

Dinosaur - is there anyone arguing against legal abortion rights in this country on this thread? I seem to have missed that too ...

Dinosaur · 09/02/2007 22:02

Yes, Mog and paulafatbum are arguing that abortion is always wrong.

Saturn74 · 09/02/2007 22:04

I haven't got the energy for this debate at the moment, but wanted to add my support for Aloha and Lulumama's recent posts.

Aloha · 09/02/2007 22:04

So if you are in a relationship and you get pregnant and your partner says, 'have an abortion' and you don't want to. Do YOU think it is OK that he can then simply choose not to contribute to his child? Do you? Really?
Do you think it would be OK for a man who is violent and cruel to force his the woman he slept with once to carry a baby that she doesn't want, even if the idea fills her with horror and terror? Do you think that? really?
If so, I really don't know why you think you have the moral high ground here. I honestly don't.

Dinosaur · 09/02/2007 22:06

Hear, hear, Aloha.

expatinscotland · 09/02/2007 22:08

Too right, Aloha.

And yes, I think it's misogynistic to even SUGGEST that women never have abortions and be forced to carry a pregnancy to term and give their baby away if they don't want it.

Sorry, but why not just bring back the Magdalene laundries and workhouses?

Aloha · 09/02/2007 22:08

It is not 'flippant' to say an eight week foetus is the size of a 5p. It IS. It's a fact. And it does start out as just a few cells. All this talk of 'babies being killed' needs to be given some kind of reality check IMO.

expatinscotland · 09/02/2007 22:09

'Surely abortions are always sad. Never to be celebrated. Never to be made light of. Best avoided by any means possible.'

Is anyone celebrating?

I haven't seen that.

No one is making light of them.

But believe it or not, they're not always sad, especially not to someone who's in a violent relationship, been raped, has mental health issues, etc.

twoisenoughmum · 09/02/2007 22:10

Mog and Paulaplumpbottom (and Quootie and Smileys) are you arguing that there should be no legal abortion rights in this country?

Mog · 09/02/2007 22:11

Dinosaur- I have never in the whole of this thread said that abortion is always wrong. I am arguing about the logic of when people are saying life begins.

Mog · 09/02/2007 22:15

By the time anyone knows they are pregnant it is not a few cells Aloha. You are far too intelligent to keep banging this drum.
I've just has a party of 6 year olds at my house and I'm hosting a party for a 4 year old tommorrow so I'm retiring now with a glass of wine.