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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:
Dinosaur · 09/02/2007 22:16

Mog - so in what circs do you think that abortion is permissible then?

Aloha · 09/02/2007 22:18

No, by the time the foetus is eight weeks it is the size of a 5p, as I keep saying. And the vast majority of terminations - 67% - happen at under ten weeks. So I'd say it was pretty relevant.

sandcastles · 09/02/2007 22:20

Wasn't there a late abortiob foe a harelip?

Yes it's a medical reason....

What the F??? I have a harelip, should I have been aborted?

Answer that carefully, because my mother DID try!!!!!

expatinscotland · 09/02/2007 22:21

Sandcastles
I'm sorry you had such a sad upbringing, but I think your mother had issues besides your harelip.

Aloha · 09/02/2007 22:23

Discussed that lower down. Nobody knows exactly why that woman had her termination as, fortunately, she has had her anonymity protected by her doctors. Cleft palate can be a marker for absolutely horrendous disabilities.

twoisenoughmum · 09/02/2007 22:24

Well, here's the problem. Because we are not sitting together talking about this in real life, then its very easy to misread what other people are saying. I didn't say I saw anyone celebrating abortion on this thread. But I have seen people saying they don't regret it. So, if its possible to honestly never regret for one moment having an abortion then its easy to see how its possible to view abortion as the ultimate contraceptive device. Perhaps this explains the recent hike in rates.

Wouldn't it be a good thing if abortion rates were to fall? Because people were taking more care?

Abortions due to abnormalities detected in pregnancy/due to later settled relationships and planned pregnancies/due to contraceptive failure etc. must have remained constant for the last 5 years at least, I would have thought. So the recent hike (as discussed on Newsnight last night, and finally put down to unwanted pregnancies conceived over the Christmas high-jinks period) cannot be explained by those reasons.

And the original post was about PEOPLE (not just women) taking responsibility and getting themselves sorted. If more people did this, then abortion rates would fall. Which would surely be a good thing?

How is it possible to argue against that?

sandcastles · 09/02/2007 22:29

Expat, thank you....yes, she had huge issues, too right.

The ironic thing is, my cleft lip wasn't picked up, no one knew about it til I was born. It was most likely her trying to self abort that caused it too.

lulumama · 09/02/2007 22:30

(((((((((((((((((sandcastles))))))))))))))))))

sandcastles · 09/02/2007 22:31

Aloha, it wasn't directed at you...I see your point. I really do.

Going thru my ops I have seen horrendous cases linked with cleft palate. Cleft lip, an occurance ion it's on is nothing that a few (or in my case 2) ops can't put right.

sandcastles · 09/02/2007 22:33

Hey Lulu...thank you for your hugs! How are you?

expatinscotland · 09/02/2007 22:34

A work colleague of mine had a daughter w/cleft palate.

I had no idea how much it affected her life.

The girl was 3 and had had multiple operations and many problems feeding. She was tube fed for the first year of her life.

NOT saying this is an excuse to abort, but cleft palate can be pretty severe.

dolally · 09/02/2007 22:35

Abortion is now (apart from in cases of rape, mental health, mother's health..) being used as a form of contraception. How can we say it isn't? Because if we don't fit any of the above categories then we are having an abortion because having a baby is just not convenient, and we forgot/messed up/ didn't use contraception.

Abortion is also being used to practice eugenics...that baby has a harelip/a syndrome/a malformation.... would you like a termination?

I'm a cluster of cells too, just a bigger cluster than when I was a 10 week feotus the size of of a 5p piece.

lulumama · 09/02/2007 22:35
daisey · 09/02/2007 22:37

I regret getting pregnant and having to go through a abortion. I never thought in my right mind it would happen to me and that i could go through with it.And i do think it will haunt me for the rest of my life but i know how i felt back then.

Aloha · 09/02/2007 22:42

The alternative is forcing women to have babies they do not want. I'm on the side of the women. The bigger 'cluster of cells' if you like. You know, the ones that have actually been born.

dolally · 09/02/2007 22:59

unfortunately Aloha, that is the case.

Where I live, Portugal, abortion is still illegal (except in special cases). They are having a referendum on Sunday which I suspect will change the law to bring it into line with most of Europe.

Dh reckons, like you, that you cannot force women to have unwanted babies.... and you cannot allow these clandestine abortions to continue. I agree with him intellectually but....

sandcastles · 09/02/2007 22:59

Am good, Lulu. Just should stay away from this thread now!

Chat soon

Aloha · 09/02/2007 23:01

Oh and Sandcastles, I am very sorry about what happened to you. It sounds horrendous.

LaDiDaDi · 09/02/2007 23:15

twoisenoughmum, I agree with part of your last post. If abortion rates did fgall, whilst bei8ng freely and readily available to any woman, then I do think it would be a good thing.

That does not mean that I think that abortion is currently being misused/abused but that increased use of contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy is clearly better than abortion.

NappiesGalore · 09/02/2007 23:37

oh please.
this story was on newsnight last night and i watched after being on this thread... woman kept going on about the 'shocking' rise in abortion... then went on to say there were 90 abortions last month. 90!!! how many millions of peopl had sex last month?? what a non-story.

surely i must have got that wrong?? surely there must be thousands and thousands every week for all this uproar to have come about??

NotAnOtter · 09/02/2007 23:38

185000 last year

NappiesGalore · 09/02/2007 23:43

185thousand?

well that does sound a lot. but i ask again, how many millions of women are sexually active in this country?, and if you multiply the number of people by the number of times they do it... well its hardly a landslide amount is it??

and who the hell is anyone to judge anyone lese on the way they manage their own sodding bodies??

and arent abortions better than unwanted, unloved, sad and lonely children??

Monkeytrousers · 10/02/2007 00:23

or just more people - dur

Monkeytrousers · 10/02/2007 00:27

Thing that gets me is that all these people worried about abortion in the 'developed' world don?t seem to be at all concerned about rates of infanticide in counties without access to abortion.

It seems to me, abortion, especially early abortion, allows a quick and humane end to a pregnancy thus minimising suffering to both parent and putative 'child' - this is the most HUMANE and MORAL path available

BassMama · 10/02/2007 00:36

Just want to agree with nappiesgalore - its a tiny tiny figure when you think how many times sex was had!

Also - ALL contraception (bar celibacy!) is less than 100% effective. Now, 99% may seem like a decent figure, but if you think that for every hundred times protected sex is had, one will result in pregnancy, thats thousands and thousands a day.