Deary me, did anybody read this piece about abortion by Caitlin Moran?

[emkana]

Dare I post this link

Not really, chocolate face. These are the women who usually present for late abortion as they are both groups who do not expect to become pregnant.

The young teenagers are usually terrified and scared of mum or dad and the older women often have adult children and have assumed (before feeling movement) that the lack of periods/weight gain is due to the menopause

But neither 'takes it lightly.'

edam it was not the 'disgusting' nature of the surgery described by Xenia that made it hard for me to read, but the fact that a foetus was killed after surviving birth, or at least surviving being taken out of its mother's body.

I do feel more practical support should be offered to women who are undecided about having an abortion, and certainly rabid pro lifers should start raising money to support potential children long term instead of just ranting at women and making them feel awful.

I am so sorry about what you went through Piffle and i am glad that women who have experiences like yours can choose the right option for them, as you did.

I find it hard to understand how somebody would not feel guilt about an abortion in ordinary circumstances, but accept it is a woman's right to feel what they want to feel, and nobody else's business. But not feeling guilt almost verges on flippancy and a rather clinical view of the whole issue, and i find that a bit distasteful, if I;m honest, though i certainly don't think it is anything to do with being a 'decent woman' or not.

i put that badly. Rather than 'not feeling guilt' I should have said 'not feeling some sort of sadness/loss'

"Depends which country you're in. In the UK a mother can abort right up to 40 weeks on various grounds legally. So assuming those grounds apply the child gets its rights once it's emerged from the womb in the UK. I think Bush is trying to prohibit the kind of late abortion where the baby is sucked out and then killed after, brain smashed or something rather than injected and killed inside. If I were a doctor saving the life of a premature baby at 23 weeks in one room whilst a colleague aborts a 23 week year old in another must be hard. Increasingly UK doctors are just finding it easier to refuse to do abortion work. It's never been that popular with doctors anyway but if too many opt out women will lose their choices."

Xenia, can you give some factual support to the following statements please?

"..sucked out and then killed after.." Firstly lets deal with the "sucked out" - in late abortions women are induced, there is not sucking out, unless you take into account assisted birth.

"Brain smashed" - are you asserting this as a matter of fact?

Your personal knowledge seems to know no bounds. I'm started to be reminded of those dinner parties on Bremner, Bird and Fortune.

I did read the article that I think xenia refers to- and I remember that the baby would have their braincase crushed then they were delivered. It had a special name and sounded utterly horrific. I think this was only in the US though. There were also cases mentioned in the same article of babies being born alive following terminations, although that was a mistake. It wasn't meant to happen like that.

I think it was in the Sunday Times- it was fairly horrific and graphic.

MT, it's been all over the newspapers in the last week because of the US court ruling on "partial birth abortion".

"Doctors call this type of late-term abortion an "intact dilation and evacuation."
www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/18/scotus.abortion/index.html"
That doesn't go into the procedure in much detail but I don't have time to tonight.

ON UK legal right to abort up to 40 weeks or indeed 41 weeks if she's still pregnant that has been the law since 1967 I think...

"Up to 24 weeks two doctors must decide that the risk to a woman?s physical or mental health or the risk to her child(ren)?s physical or mental health will be greater if she continues with the pregnancy than if she ends it.

There is no time limit on abortion where two doctors agree that a woman?s health or life is gravely threatened by continuing with the pregnancy or that the fetus is likely to be born with severe physical or mental abnormalities.

In the event that an abortion must be performed as a matter of medical emergency a second doctor?s agreement does not need to be sought."

I think in the UK they have to decide whether to keep alive or destroy if by change a late aborted child is born alive but there are very very very few late abortions in the UK. It's almost a non issue in any material sense. I imagine they inject them if they are born alive in those cases they don't keep them alive. Presumably if the whole foetus comes out that is better than scraping it out inside so later them other can recover better. I think that's why it may be a better procedure for a late abortion.

The other interesting issue is pain. It seems late aborted babies can feel some pain so should they be given a pain killer before they are killed?

After a baby is born it cannot be 'killed' you work in law, you should know this - where are the sources, not the media interpretations?

There are such huge guidelines when it comes to viviscetion, do you seriously imagine doctors and nurses crushing the skulls of almost full term babies?? I'm sorry but this sounds like pro-life propaganda to me.

The law is vague about killing babies born alive during terminations

I will find source

this?

As I understand it, late abortions involve an injection which stops the foetal heartbeat before the uterine contents are removed. Very late abortions are pretty much invariably done for medical reasons (ie the baby, if born, would not survive or some kind of major medical emergency occurs). The sort of thing Xenia describes sounds far more like antichoice propaganda than a reflection of anything that actually happens. So, frankly, does the piece in the linkMP posted.

I don't think the BBC piece was propaganda- it was careful to say that these situations are rare. Rare doesn't mean never happens though and personally I think there should be clearer guidelines on what happens in those cases. Especially ones such as the child born healthy after a termination for a suspected severe abnormality.

Times article from 20005 on this

someone has picked me up upon my use of the term - that no decent woman would not agonise over a decision to abort. My point being that CM seemed to think that the decision to end the life growing inside her caused her less angst than chosing her worktops - FFS, decent? A bad analogy maybe that has left me with a low opinion of the author. I do not think that any woman, (apart from those who use it as a form of contraception, and they do exist) should be made to feel guilty for a termination and it is probably that she would have never thought of the foetus as a baby or she would never have been able to cope with her decision, not matter why she made it. Its a coping mechanism.

Xenia made an excellent point though, what about the fathers rights??? How terrible to have a woman abort a child that you want, does this happen? Clearly an abusive partner etc does not have the same rights in this instance.

hmmm I'm not sure about father's rights, because in most cases its the woman who has to take on the most responsibility. Also being pregnant/giving birth is more than being an incubator. Unmarried fathers have no automatic rights over their own children anyway so can;t see how they could have any other a foetus.

it is obviously not cut and dry when it comes to fathers rights, as your point about women as incubators is a valid one. My DP and i are not married, does that mean he has no rights over his child? of course he has parental resp.

I think post 12 weeks, only in EXCEPTIONAL circumstances, medical etc. I remember having my dating scan at about 11 weeks and being totally blown away looking at my BABY on the monitor.

I can only speak with my emotions on this subject as it fills me with heart ache. I am sure that many women feel the same, im grudgingly pro-choice i suppose. Does that mean i cannot be a feminist as i do not see abortion as every womans automatic right?

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I'm not particularly pro-life. I did say late abortions are very very rare below. They do mostly ensure they are killed by injection before birth, but sometimes the baby survives (which I think is what the new ruling in the US is about - the difference between the baby being killed in utero and kind of scraped out in parts or coming out hole and potentially alive I think - the latter procedure the US may be having decided is not wise although morally I can't much see the difference) and in one room you m ight have a doctor with a prem baby they are doing all in their power to save and in another letting nature take its course. Intervention or levels of it is a difficult topic and doctors have always had very wide discretion often in consultation with parents about what they do in particular cases.

But as I said below it's a bit of a non point as hardly any late abortions are done in the UK. Anyway they ship you off to Spain to have them done if you have trouble in the UK..... in a few cases.

..and we have a ridiculous typical british fudge of an abortion law which in effect is abortion on demand but the law doesn't say that - it requires 2 doctors often in effect to lie - that the mother will be mentally damaged by the birth or some rubbish like that. Why not just change it to abortion on demand up to say 20 weeks and after that only if the mother would die?

Or do we think up to 40 weeks if the child woudl be born with down's or hare lip or what level of disability means we think children should not be born?

not all unmarried father's have automatic parental responsibility . Particularly those of children born before the end of 2003. What happens if after the birth the father changes his mind (shacks up with someone else, child is the unfavoured gender, disabled etc)?

Pruni- one problem though is that there is no agreed definition of "severe" disability. Which led to that whole hoohah a few years ago about a late termination for cleft palate. My son, would defiitely be classed as severely disabled. Im sure his condition would "count" in terms of severity as one that would be allowed a 40 week termination. Luckily his condition can't be picked up in utero- as a termination at 40 weeks for a child with his condition would be nothing short of infanticide imo. I do think this is one area which needs to be examined urgently. This sort of situation would never arise wrt the mother's health, as a wanted child putting the mother's life at risk would be delivered early if possible and given life saving treatment.

My goodness Xenia -cross posted in agreement with you

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Ruty - I think the distinction between 'sadness or loss' and 'guilt' is a good one.