Abortion Age Limit - Your Views...

[Salamander]

This news story has broken in the past 24hrs.

What are everyone's views?

I spose if they stopped advertising about it as much then maybe sex wouldnt be so widely done.

BUT

People should know how to stop themselves getting pg even if the media is bombarding them with how to guides etc. Maybe advertising should start using themselves properly. Start advertising "safe" sex instead of just sex. If sex sells so much then make it sell condoms, the pill etc etc etc

Jenswish, abortion is a form of birth control, that's a fact. There is no category distinction, just apparently a moral one.

I'm saying a small minority of women use abortion in perhaps what could be termed a blaze fashion. I say this because I do not believe that the majority of women are immoral or bad or stupid and are only out to abuse the system that helps liberate them from their biology.

And your naive (sorry but it is) dismissal of cultural influences in society excludes a whole lot of middles. The government spends a lot of money studying the influence TV and the media has on us. The media is the principal disseminator of all cultural discourse: many people only understand the world they live in via the media. It is hugely powerful. Why do you think Rupert Murdoch is such a contentious figure?

You are entitled to your opinion. But what I find astonishing is that no one questions how they come to these opinions. Via the media! The media is not unbiased. It is primarily controlled by the market via advertising. We are customers not citizens to it. It has no duty of care to us even though it often claims to have. It isn't going to criticise the sexualisation of culture because it's that sexualisation which provided it with the majority of its revenue, without which it cannot survive.

"Maybe advertising should start using themselves properly. Start advertising "safe" sex instead of just sex. If sex sells so much then make it sell condoms, the pill etc etc etc"

Exactly! But unfortunately this would only work if we paid for the pill and condoms and as we can get them free from the NHS there is no money to be made by the media marketing them.

Exactly! But unfortunately this would only work if we paid for the pill and condoms and as we can get them free from the NHS there is no money to be made by the media marketing them.

I'm sure a lot more people buy condoms than get them free and the free ones are paid for by someone so there is an incentive to market them

they sponsor music events and things don't they?

They used to advertise safe sex back in the 80's!

Well, I'm not trying to change your opinion monkeytrousers but I find it extremely hard to think that media is controlling peoples lives.

Yes I listen to the news to see what is going on in the world as thats the only way you can but suerly people have a head on they're shoulders which tells them. No you shouldnt do this, yes you should etc etc.

Your asking how they come to these options. They got pg. thats how.
Yes some people have a horrid time of getting to it. Rape, being a main one and in that situation I have no qualms about someone having an abortion.
But some people come to it by doing exactly as I have said. THey go out sleep with the first person they see and get pg, not to mention all the STD's they're picking up along the way.

I think the main problem I have with Abortion is from my own prospective. Like I've said, I've had a mc at 11wks and that child inside me looked formed, it looked like a baby that was just too small so to me abortion is killing a baby. I cannot distinguish between baby and foetus.

Now whether this is my own naive opinion I dont really care but what I would appreciate is that I havent once told you your opinion was stupid or naive! I just told you how I feel. Personally I think your looking at the world through rose tinted glasses and think that every person that has an abortion has had they're condom split, been raped or felt ill that day. Not everybody has.

I dont feel that this discussion is gaining anything, I'm going round in circles so therefore, I withdraw from it.

EenyWifeMum and I were talking about this at length last night on our trip to and from Sainsbury's.

It truly is a subject which has so many ramifications and no easy answers.

we came to the conclusion that there probably should be some kind of dual system - one time limit for 'elective contraceptive psychological' reasons and another for medical reasons.

But what, who, why, where, and so on.... I wouldn't want to decide.

My thoughts go out to anyone who has had to make an abortion decision.
What a horrible situation to be in.

All I can say is for those women who you cite going into A&E and having a number of abortions, the reality of their lives and the circumstances that lead them there will be more grim than you can imagine.

I really find it hard to take on board the fact that people are more prepared to think these women are on some kind of jolly than suffering abuse or hardship.

Yes MP, for HIV, and they were government ads.

Jenswish, I said your opinion of the media was naive, and not your personal opinion and experience of abortion. I have a huge amount of sympathy and empathy with you there. And I've never said you were stupid.

It's just this point comes up again and again, women who go out and 'sleep with the first person they see and get pregnant. Basically, it seems like this has more to do with female sexual promiscuity rather than abortion and feel that such women should be made to pay for their 'sins'.

The media panders a version of female empowerment that says it's okay for women to be as promiscuous as men and never ever mentions the consequences. This is a mixed message that has the full force and resources of the media behind it. Any counter view cannot compete.

I really don't want to upset you. This is a rigorous discussion but I hope that you will not think I am attacking you personally. Really I have nothing but respect for everyone who has joined in this discussion. But I also think it is my duty to challenge certain opinions, especially when I think they have been established on misogynous ideas pandered in the media.

Maybe we should end this thread as it appears to have been exhausted - opinion-wise.

Thanks everyone for your views... opinions... rants... experiences... everything.

See you elsewhere on MN!

i just feel sorry for young girls today, there seem to be little in the way of role models in the media for them to aspire to. and is does really annoy me when the church get involved in the abortion debate.

it is one of those subjects that people will never agree on! sorry salamander's wasn't the last post, do it again salamander and i'll shove off

salamander..it rarely works like that

You allude to this in your 9:22:11 post Pucca, sorry.

Yes, it is a terrible thing for a women to have to go though. That's why I can't believe people think these women are having them for their jollies. Like I said the truth is often time more stranger and more terrible than fiction and just because people who work in the NHS see 'lots' of women going back for the procedure it doesnt mean that statistically a lot of women actually are, IYSWIM.

I just think we should try to understand what these women's individual circumstances are before we judge them to be unworthy of that understanding and sympathy. That's all I'm fighting for really.

I understand but like I say and I think Pucca said is aswell, we both have emotional involvement in this which is why we probably think as we do.

I lost my baby through no choice of mine other that it didnt live. So knowing that other people have abortions cos they went out and "Doinked" a bloke annoys me. They chose to kill their child.

This topic riles me as much as those who take drugs during pregnancy so I probably am putting forward an emotional response which is why I leave you to discuss.

Don't see why this thread should be ended just b/c people are discussing a matter they feel passionately about.

I know it's tempting to keep the debate raging here, but probably no new info will come from it - who knows...

I'll bow out too and leave things be...

Thanks to all and sorry if anyone has had offence caused by this topic

I understand Jenswish, no worries

I think it's important that people with all sorts of varied experience do debate it because it effects everyone and one day it might be something very close to your heart, or soemone close to you who is facing these traumatic decisions.

Salamanda, we're just getting into the influence of the media. You don't think it's relevant?

Salamanda, we're just getting into the influence of the media. You don't think it's relevant? I've a whole dissertations worth of stuff on this. There is ALOT more!

Ha ha MonkeyTrousers - fair enough - fire away!!!

i was only saying that it's so emotive and upsetting and cyclic that we're probably not going to ever be able to reach an end

don't want MNers getting distressed either!

this subject can offend and upset that's why i though salamanders ending post was a good one.

It is too emotive for people who maybe have personal experience. saying i could see it was a baby when i mc is very unfortunate for you but not very helpful to people who may have other experiences

While to do have the utmost respect for people who withdraw because they know that they are getting emotionally involved, I don't think that should then foreclose the debate completely. Emotive things do need to be debated, if possibe in unemotive terms, that's the only way we can progress on such issues. It is possible to talk about such issues liek this, it's the only way probably, though I know it is difficult.