Abortion statistics

[musica]

Just read that one in five pregnancies nationally end in abortion, and in London it is one in THREE! Surely this is not good!

This is the relevant story

I have not wanted to post on this thread, but i want to give a big hug to Cahrliz, and to all the others who have been so open and honest.

I read this message, and was shocked by the statistics, but then I thought: I AM those statistics. 2 out of my 3 pregnancies have ended in termination. In one case I got pregnant with no penetrative sex, just fooling around (beware, those who are so sure of everything: sperm can travel by hand), and the second time a partner with whom I was splitting up decided that he could keep us together by forcing me to become pregnant. And I mean force.

The experience was upsetting, in both cases, but I do not, not for one minute regret either termination. Both were done very early, I was not financially or emotionally ready for what I now know to be the big job of parenting.

When I experienced a wanted pregnancy, I did not consider termination even when they said my baby would be disabled.

I do not actually think that there is a position of compromise for people who morally / ethically consider termination to be just plain wrong, whatever the reason, whatever the circumstance (and I have sympathy for those people, and respect for their belief, even tho' it is not mine). But if you are going to be pragmatic at all, (oh, it's understandable in these particular circumstances etc)it is just plain judgemental to attack people who make legal decisions which don't happen to match your own.

I do not feel ashamed, I think I made the right decisions at the time, and I certainly would not attack anyone else for such a personal decision.Someone posted that the Mumsnet reaction may be to do with people who view pregnancy as the fist cherished step in being a parent. With a wanted pregnancy, you DO project your idea of your baby-to-come onto the embryo/feotus long before it has developed consciousness, feeling, any kind of viability.

This is SO difficult, but please lets talk about it without attacking people.

Another hug to Charlize

I do agree that it is a worry that so many people seem to risk unsafe sex.

openheart thanks for being so honest.

marialusia, thanks for replying. Me and my husband still use condoms because I am unable to use the pill and at 26 do not want to have a permenant method of contraception yet...just think people would think the same, but obviously they do not!

charlize - I agree with Batters' post. Please don't get too upset.

DH and I are also a 'condom couple' ! Horribly clinical form but I also can't use any hormone related contraceptives and we want another child in the nest 18 months/2 years so a coil is also out of the question.

I am also a condom-girl

I think it's brave of both charlize and openheart to post about their own experiences here, especially in view of some of the comments that had been made earlier.
Twinkie's sister's circumstances are very, very sad and I absolutely think that she did the right thing but I don't feel that anyone has the right to judge charlize when they don't know her circumstances. M2T, you mention that Twinkie's sister's circumstances are 'totally different' and yet admit that you don't know what charlize's circumstances were. They may be equally sad for all you and I know. Whilst I know that Twinkie's sister's situation is rare, it does happen. My sil went through a termination for similar reasons a few years ago.

Tabitha - I didn't mean totally different from Charlize post. I just meant totally different from the issue of people aborting unwanted pregnancies.... I didn't explain that very well. I was just a bit taken aback with Charlize!

I don't like condoms, either; but I don't understand why MariaLuisa's friend doesn't use a coil or a diaphragm. Sorry, MariaLuisa, but your friend's attitude towards childbirth indicates a complete lack of common sense, anyway. Maybe a lot of this thread is about how we cope with giving people, unfortunately including the stupid ones, reasonable discretion. WSM -- if you weren't happy with condoms, you could get a non-hormonal coil, and you don't have to have it in for the possible full 5 year life span.

Message withdrawn

And again... I feel like I have to point out that I WAS NOT judging Charlize...... my only point was her comment about a baby not being a baby unless its wanted, which Georgina claryfied for me.

Sorry if I have offended anyone!! I thought I had posted a rather explanatory post about how this thread has opened my eyes quite a bit!! Although apparently I am just being high and mighty and I do this all the time!!!!! CHarlize - offending people works both ways, at least I tried to make up for it instead of throwing blind insults around.

marialuisa, as a heavy smoker your friend will realise that having surgery in the form of a termination is also pretty risky behaviour - in form of possible dvt. bizarre

The people who have posted their own experiences on here are so brave. Huge respect to them.

Hear Hear

I completely agree that a five week foetus is only a baby if you want a baby - ie you project onto it all your hopes that it will become a baby. In every other sense it is not - it certainly doesn't look like a baby, it cannot exist independently, it doesn't think or feel. It is, IMO, no more a baby than a sperm is a baby - it is merely a potential baby. Of course, cut off dates are difficult, but yes, I can see quite easily what Charlize meant. Unless you are religious I cannot see what is so awful about terminating a pregnancy at this stage. As others have said, the coil prevents the fertilised egg (a baby? I really don't think so) from being implanted and so 'aborts' it. I think you have to be an extreme fundamentalist to oppose the use of a coil. I think a termination, freely chosen (not under pressure from a partner, for example) by an intelligent person of sound mind is unlikely to be bitterly regretted, while a termination carried out to please someone else is. I do think that sometimes clinics should make a little more effort to ensure that a woman is not under pressure from a partner to have a termination. I really, really don't see the problem with emergency contraception. I have used it a few times when contraception has failed - yes, condoms can disintegrate in use. But I also do not see a moral problem with someone who doesn't have much sex using it as contraception. Unless you think that anyone who doesn't use condoms shouldn't have sex. What's the big deal with it? It's not dangerous. The dose is less than was in one normal pill when it was first introduced.

Keeping track of this thread. Very hard to contribute, but I'll add my tuppence worth anyway. Here goes...

I've always been against abortion for any reason because I believe that a life is begun at conception. It is a question of semantics whether you call that life a "baby" or not, but it's a life and alive nonetheless, unless my biology teacher was lying. To me, all life is worth an attempt to save/keep alive and preserve.

I had a missed miscarriage at 10 weeks and therefore a D&C to "remove the products of conception". I had never considered my baby to be a "product" and that has always deeply distressed me since then. As far as I understand, that procedure is also used in some abortion cases, in which case I find that truly abhorrent. It was a horrible, horrible experience and I'm so glad I was knocked out for it. I was almost sick when the details of the operation were explained to me and when I left the hospital I felt awful knowing my baby had been disposed of with the hospital clinical waste.

I also personally don't believe in sex outwith marriage. To me (faith reasons aside - not pertinent to this discussion), then any child conceived is in a loving realtionship where both partners are on equal footing having made the same public promises to each other.

Obviously, nowadays most people disagree with that belief. But nowadays the choice of contraception available is huge - surely abortion is a bit archaic, apart from anything else? Haven't we come further than that?

Is it ever possible to keep the ... shall we call them 'baby bits' after a miscarriage, I mean, whether or not you need a D&C? I can imagine having a miscarriage at home and lying to the Health Professionals, no we didn't bury all the bits in the garden under a favourite tree, honest guv'.

Love the way abortion is 'archaic' but your beliefs on sex (and therefore children) outside of marriage are not !

Just an observation, not meant to cause a fuss.....

Zebra, won't use coil or diaphragm because she and boyf both work for WHO so often separated for months when working in the field. She and I have gone all through this and her logic is impeccable. It's just that I have an emotonal reaction to what she does. Her attitude is really not that different to what many leading pro-choice figures accept. as I mentioned before, see Janet Hadley, "Between Freedom and choice" for details.

Zebra I know a lady who owns a funeral directors and yes it is becoming available to have funerals for miscarriages. Apparently alot of funeral directors do not agree with it, but as demand is rising for this kind of funeral/burial/cremation they have started to supply it.

WSM - As I said in my post re my personal beliefs on sex before marriage "nowadays most people disagree with that belief." I fully admit that probably no one else on this site would agree with me on that one

But being in a minority doesn't make an opinion archaic - surely?? It might not be anyone else's lifestyle choice, but it doesn't mean it should be dismissed off hand.

However, when I said abortion in this day and age seemed archaic, I meant that with all our supposed intelligence, education and choice of birth control, why is is still even necessary? What has gone wrong that unwanted pregnancies even exist? I thought we had more "choice" now in our liberated age?
( I discount rape here, because obviously choice for the woman is removed by a horrific attack.) But if you have sex with someone, even with the best contraception in the world, there will always be a risk of pregnancy. If people kept sex within any committed relationship (I know some of you don't rate marriage that highly) then is it not possible that pregnancies "with the wrong person' might be avoided? Can't we "choose" not to have sex, if we don't want to get pregnant?

Ok, I apologise for my remark.

As someone who has miscarried two babies, one in the 1st trimester and another in the 2nd, I find it astonishing that anyone can say that they are not babies. And I am a biologist and stultifyingly familiar with the blastocyst.
I am pro-choice and see abortion as the lesser of the two evils in many sad circumstances, but a society that tries to pretend that it is not a baby's life that is being terminated, but rather a ..what? Some sort of gynaecological accident that might one day have become a child? A blob? Someone actually told me that my second son's twin would have been 'just a blob', so it didn't matter. All you have to do is look in a decent biology book to see that's just plain nonsense.
Abortion is sometimes necessary and I defend the right to choose, but please don't insult the lives of those who couln't live further by pretending that they were never children.

I so didn't want to get drawn in to this thread but you summation paragraph Droile is one of the most profound and powerful comments I have ever heard on this subject. Sorry if this has hurt anyone's feelings but that is my personal opinion on a great piece of writing

I 2nd that. Well said Droile.

Droile, well said. I agree with you 100%. I also lost a baby at 12 weeks and was insulted that to make others feel better about their choice (which I fully defend for the reasons you gave), I was denied the right to call my lost child a baby.