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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:
paulaplumpbottom · 10/02/2007 18:26

I don't think anybody is for treating women as infants. People want to restrict or ban abortions because they are concerned that there is a life that has rights as well. You seem to think its an anti-woman thing.

Caligula · 10/02/2007 18:42

Well yes, I do. It is an anti-woman thing, to tell a woman that she may not make a decision about the functioning of her own body. The other life involved has not got the right to be treated as equal to the life of a woman, because to do so imo downgrades a woman's humanity.

Even the catholic church accepted right up to the 19th century that abortion was acceptable if a woman's life was at risk. This mad idea that a fetus is equal to a woman, is a very modern phenomenon and interestingly has a direct relationship with the rise of women's emancipation.

And I think that if you accept that abortion is OK if the life of a woman is in danger, it's simply illogical not to accept it for other reasons. Either the two lives are equal, or they're not.

edam · 10/02/2007 18:46

Agree with Caligula, anti-abortion is anti-woman. Whatever the gender of the person seeking to ban abortions.

Aloha · 10/02/2007 18:57

People call their four week foetus a baby because they want it to become a baby. It doesn't look like a baby, it doesn't act like a baby, it has no brain function, it has no arms or legs, it is not a baby. But you invest in it all your hopes - I know I did, and so felt very protective towards it. But that was MY foetus and a much-wanted pregnancy. It's just like a house. You don't call a house your home until you live in it. It's still the same thing - a building - but your emotional connection makes you feel differently about it.
Do you know how many terminations there were at 35 weeks or more in the last lot of figures? SIX. And numerous babies are born with absolutely catastrophic disabilities incompatible with life, such as the lack of a brain.

MrsBee · 10/02/2007 19:02

I think the 'kind' of women who tend to have multiple abortions are some of the most vulnerable women in our society: they tend to be the kind of women who have very low self esteem, often young women / girls who tend to go out with much older partners than themselves, they are women who do not have a lot of power in the relationship. These women often find it very dificult to negotiate contraception use. These women often have history of domestic and sexual abuse, and perhaps do not consider themselves as having much 'choice' either in their own life, or in whether they become pregnant. They often have been excluded from education, and do not access health services, and do not know a lot about contraception and personal health choices.

Blandmum · 10/02/2007 19:08

Mrsbee, to a degree I agree with you totaly.

However there are still lots of girls in full time education, of 'normal' intellegence, who have had endlesss lessons in contraception, who have ample avaiability to contraception who choose not to use it. And they do this because while they feel liberated enough to have sex, they are not confident enough to have safe sex.

We seem to be in a situation where people now feel free to use sex as just one of a series of pastime activities (and I have no mormal probelm with this), but lasck the confidence to make sure that the amuse themselves safely.

I teach far too many girls who would rather pretend that they didn't intend sex to happen, and have sex unprotected, rather than be adult enough to recognise their desires and plan contraception. Ironically they seem to think that planning would make them a slut. A value judgment that makes me impotent with fury. (no pun intended)

paulaplumpbottom · 10/02/2007 19:38

The reason that I feel it is ok only if a mother's life is in danger (by this I mean that she will die if she has the baby)is because a woman has just as much right to live as the baby. In most abortions this is not the case. I don't think a baby has more rights than a woman. I do think they have equal rights. The right to live.

Aloha · 10/02/2007 19:46

And in Romania, where the right to control your fertility was removed from women, the result was a hideous collapse of all social norms of maternal love, as we all know.
I absolutely refuse to believe a non-sentient being the size of a 5p piece can have more rights than a grown adult woman. I find that repellent.

paulaplumpbottom · 10/02/2007 19:48

size really has nothing to do with this.

MrsBee · 10/02/2007 19:49

martianbishop thank you for your comments. I was specifically talking about the kind of women who have multiple abortions in my last comment. However I totally agree with your comments re. lack of responsibility in lots of people.

I know that the majority of people who access emergency contraception and abortion services do so because they haven't used any contraception at all. I make no judgement about that. However I find it interesting that in the gay community, where a lot of people are still very worried about contracting HIV, you tend not to get so many condoms 'splitting', 'breaking' or 'falling off'.

lulumama · 10/02/2007 19:49

what about her mental health , Paula....what if going through with the pregnancy will be so traumatic she becomes ill with depression, or suicidal, ? how is that different to a physical reason ?

paulaplumpbottom · 10/02/2007 19:50

There is a huge diffrence between depression and death. If you were going to save someone from depression or death surely you choose saving someone from death.

Aloha · 10/02/2007 19:52

So you really think a four cell embryo with no brain and no nervous system is equal to a fully grown adult? I think that's utterly insane. I am so, so, so glad that your Taliban-type views will never prevail here.

paulaplumpbottom · 10/02/2007 19:55

You can hardly compare me to the Taliban Aloha. Quite unfair. You know as much as I hate your views I would never stoop to insulting you.

I just think that a life is a life no matter how big it is or how developed it is.

lulumama · 10/02/2007 19:56

depression can lead to suicide. which is death

so frankly,i think it is just as relevant

have you suffered from PND?

i cannot believe that you think it is ok for a woman;s mental health to be overtaken by the rights of the unborn foetus

something as devastating as severe depression can have a massively adverse effect on the woman, her husband and family...

but the rights of an unborn child take precedence over the rights of the mother, to be healthy and to be able to mother the children she has and to be a loving wife to her husband???

lulumama · 10/02/2007 19:57

if a life is a life, Paula, why is it ok to abort if the woman is in physical danger?

SmileysPeople · 10/02/2007 20:01

Caligula, I am also anti death penalty and anti war (with war as with abortion in most cases).

I agree with you that to start from the life is sacred point, and then be pro death penalty would be inconsistent. I feel my view on this is consistent, and was only explaining my own view.

I too cannot understand the stance of right wing Americans who are anti abortion and pro death penalty. I have never heard a convincing logical argument from them on this.

As I said earlier I do understand your argument and why it makes sense from the point you start at, but again we start at different points.

Aloha, do you also feel that 12 week and 16 week foetuses are not babies? Again as I think I mentioned earlier I am not clear in my own mind about when I would regard an embryo/feotus as a a baby, and may struggle to argue convincingly(?) for a 4week old foetus.I do think though, that with scans where a formed baby is seen at 12 weeks, we coo over peoples pictures of these babies, and yet we shy away from acknowledging this when it comes to abortion.

I think MB's post is really insightful. I think another social aspect of this is young girls who do not use contraception beacuse they want to be pregnant. To a young girl who has few prospects and no ambition, a baby in her arms gives her purpose and status that she feels she cannot acheive any other way. Of course this will not appear as an abortion statistic, but a teenage pregnancy statistic, I just felt it was linked to MB comments.

paulaplumpbottom · 10/02/2007 20:02

Then you are having to choose between two lives. In every other case only the baby stands to lose its life.

Depression rarely results in Suicide. You are talking about really extreme cases here.

None of this reflects the reality of abortion.

Most people have abortion out of convience. Its ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

lulumama · 10/02/2007 20:04

paula, do you have any idea about the reality of depression? I do and i find the dismissive attitude you have towards a little shocking to say the least.

paulaplumpbottom · 10/02/2007 20:05

I'm not being dismissive, I'm just saying you can't put it on the same level as death.
Do you think that depression is as bad as death?

LaDiDaDi · 10/02/2007 20:08

I agree with what you've said Smileyspeople regarding MB's post. Although it was interesting that the highest rate of abortion wasn't in the typical teen mother age group of 15-18 I do wonder how many of those who were represented in that group are, "a young girl who has few prospects and no ambition, a baby in her arms gives her purpose and status that she feels she cannot acheive any other way."

My pregnancy was planned and dd was much wanted but I still felt panic and doubt over my pregnancy for a few days after getting the BFP. Had I been 16 with the motives that you identify above and my boyfriend or family had been unsupportive I can easily see that I would have thought seriously about an abortion.

lulumama · 10/02/2007 20:16

having suffered horrific PND, to the point of being in hospital, then yes, it is a living death. and depressed people do commit suicide.

at the stage i was so ill that i could barely function , and i had got pregnant despite using contraception, should my health and the needs of my family be overruled by an unborn child

not in my view , no

3andnomore · 10/02/2007 20:20

Paula, how would you feel if your choice of Birth , o rfeeding method or whatever else would be overruled, by maybe well meaning, but by no means all knowing Doctors?

Caligula · 10/02/2007 21:00

This reply has been deleted

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paulaplumpbottom · 10/02/2007 21:08

Of course I would be upset if I couldn't have the birth I want or breastfeed but thats something diffrent.

I am aware of how awful PND is. My sister had it. I had to leave University for a year to look after her kids. I still think that its better than death. She came out of it.

Yes Caligula that is what I'm saying. But only if the mother is going to die. You are having to choose between two lives. Yes both lives are just as precious and both are equal. If that woman chooses to have an abortion then I could understand that.