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Original poster

Terrifyingly anti-woman law passed in Oklahoma

368 replies

SethStarkaddersMum · 28/04/2010 11:45

I am absolutely at this.

A law has been passed in Oklahoma to force women who want abortion to undergo vaginal ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus and view the ultrasound image before terminating a pregnancy.
Even if they are rape or incest victims.

words absolutely fail me.

OP posts:
Coolfonz · 28/04/2010 15:11

"as my right to control my womb could not trump hers to live"

it's not a her it's an it. it's not a human, it's a foetus. it's not a human when it comes out the womb. it's still an it. without consciousness humanity doesn't exist.

Sakura · 28/04/2010 15:12

Ah, I see TheButterly.
As you say, it's chilling.

toddlerama · 28/04/2010 15:12

I think justifying abortion for rape comes dangerously close to saying rape is an inevitable, commonplace event. It is far too prevalent, but again, far too many men get away with it. We need a more easily satisfied criteria, better rape trauma counsellors and far far harsher sentences for what is a brutal crime. Don't let it become the posterchild for abortion. What happened to Butterfly is horrendous and using her as an example of why all abortion should be allowed puts the onus on her to 'fix' the situation she found herself in. Butterfly, I don't know all the details of what happened to you, but you described a man who raped you to deliberately cause pregnancy so that he could be tied to you. That was calculated and weighed up by a man living in a society where no one is speaking up for women! He should have been terrified by the prospect of life in prison and a lifetime of paying for that child, in which case it would probably not have happened.

I hope you understand that I am not trying to make this harder for you, but point out that the onus should never have been on you to correct his crime.

TheButterflyEffect · 28/04/2010 15:13

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Molesworth · 28/04/2010 15:13

pipoca, good post. Definite shades of Handmaid's Tale. Terrifying.

TheButterflyEffect · 28/04/2010 15:15

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toddlerama · 28/04/2010 15:16

The Handmaids Tale is about enforced surrogacy and slavery! It isn't about abortion and the fact is that most abortions do not occur after someone is enslaved and forced to carry a child. That is a massive leap.

TheButterflyEffect · 28/04/2010 15:16

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Original poster
SethStarkaddersMum · 28/04/2010 15:17

Thanks for the explanation Toddlerama.

'It's all about the mindset you approach the problem with I suspect!'

yes. Perhaps my visceral reaction to the horror of forcing a woman to go through with a pregnancy against her will is shaped by the fact that I have had hyperemesis in all 3 of my pregnancies - not badly enough to consider termination, thank goodness, but as I said earlier in the thread I have know women who have.
My last pregnancy caused a lot of suffering to my two older children (eg when I was too sick to cuddle them). It effectively ended my career too. If I got pregnant again it would destroy my family financially if not emotionally. I don't know if my relationship with dh, or his mental health, would survive. (I was suicidal and self-harming too.)
Donating a kidney or bone marrow would be nothing in comparison.... and yet no-one would ever force me to do that.
Still feels strange.
space in my womb for a month - if ONLY that was all pregnancy was

OP posts:
porcamiseria · 28/04/2010 15:17

i agree butterfly. If someone is not able to confront the fact that they were raped for many weeks, well what can you do??? I am not including you in this criteria, really I am not

But I am referring to commonplace incidents, mistakes, unwanted 5th baby etc etc etc. I dont think they should have the right up to 24 weeks. I think the law should be changed, and once people know this, behaviours will start to change

toddlerama, very true

Original poster
SethStarkaddersMum · 28/04/2010 15:18

sorry, nine months not a month - typo.

OP posts:
Molesworth · 28/04/2010 15:19

Isn't abortion after 12 weeks actually a pretty rare occurrence in the UK? I thought that late abortion was only an option under certain circumstances?

Sorry, I am not familiar with the details of the law on this - can anyone enlighten me?

toddlerama · 28/04/2010 15:19

Butterfly that's what I mean about relaxing the laws of evidence so that you could prove it. Maybe that conversation is not for this thread, but what happened to you was horrendous and you were left powerless to have justice. That is what I mean by a society where women aren't valued. In a differently biased society, you would have been able to prove rape with DNA, testimony and corroborating evidence (same as assault) with no fear of stigma, the stigma would have been on him.

toddlerama · 28/04/2010 15:21

Butterfly - didn't mean to be icky. Sorry if I overstepped the mark with that.

pipoca · 28/04/2010 15:22

But toddlerama if I am RAPED and then FORCED to carry the baby to term when I don't want it I am effectively being enslaved, am I not? I don't think it's that far a leap really.
If no abortion is legal, (which is what a pro-lifer would like) whether it's a result of rape or incest, then women do become slaves, incubators, forced surrogates, whatever you want to call it. If there is no abortion, not even after rape then we are not FULLY HUMAN because we do not have autonomy over our own bodies in the same way as men. No matter your feelings on when life begins if you do not support a woman's right to decide what she does with her own body you strip her of her humanity.
I hope never to be in a position where I have to make the decision whether to abort or not but it MUST be my decision or I become nothing more than an incubator. Why is that so hard to see?

Molesworth · 28/04/2010 15:23

Very much agree with your points about the lack of justice wrt rape, toddlerama.

TheButterflyEffect · 28/04/2010 15:23

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toddlerama · 28/04/2010 15:31

Pipoca I don't know if you have read the whole thread, but the reason a 'pro-lifer' would find that hard to see is because they believe the baby's rights are equal to the mother's. So she has a right not to be an incubator (temporary state) and they have a right to live. On balance, if you consider them equals, it would not be valid to say that the mother can have her rights at the expense of the child's (the removal of which cause more drastic consequences - death).

As I've said before, it depends on your starting point. If you don't believe that a foetus is a human life, you will never see it's rights as equal to a grown woman's - regardless of the severity of the consequences of denying the right. If you do believe that a foetus is a human life, it is unthinkable to compare pregnancy to death.

APassionateWoman · 28/04/2010 15:34

Pipoca, I always feel like shoving a copy of the Handmaid's Tale into the hands of pro-lifer women...

expatinscotland · 28/04/2010 15:38

'I hate the polarisation of the issue. Either you're a loony, religious, misogynistic nutter, or an intelligent, liberal, reasonable feminist.'

And, at this moment in MN history, I completely agree with Spidermama.

DuelingFanjo · 28/04/2010 15:41

"Isn't abortion after 12 weeks actually a pretty rare occurrence in the UK? I thought that late abortion was only an option under certain circumstances?"

Yes - you are right. Abortion after 12 weeks is rare.

According to the National Statistics site:

90% of abortions were carried out at under 13 weeks gestation; 73% were at under 10 weeks

2008 stats

Abortions where gestation has
exceeded its twenty-fourth week
account for less than 0.1% of the total.
There were 124 such abortions in 2008

Molesworth · 28/04/2010 15:41

Thanks DF!

APassionateWoman · 28/04/2010 15:42

OK, OK, so not all pro-lifers are nutters. But look around you. Who in the world stands up and is counted against abortion? Fundamentalist religious leaders and followers (Evangelical far right in the USA, RC church here, oppressive Islamic regimes everywhere). Extreme right wingers. People like Sarah Palin.

Those who are pro-life tend to hold other views which are at odds with liberal, democratic, feminist thinking. That is FACT.

That's why I said 'own it' earlier on. And if you want a more moderate pro-life voice to be heard, look first to the people who represent you on this issue. The 'loony, religious, misogynistic' folk. They are your worst enemy.

squirrel42 · 28/04/2010 15:46

At the risk of being flippant, it would be great if the more charitable of the pro-life, that bundle of cells has a right to live and become a person" women could somehow offer to become walking incubators for nine months and do the pregnancy bit for those who can't or don't want to have and raise the child. The children could then be given up for adoption and more charitable people could step in to raise them. Win-win.

toddlerama · 28/04/2010 15:53

squirrel, I know you're joking, but I do think that's kind of where your heart needs to be pointing towards if you are pro-life. Don't ask people to do something you wouldn't do for them if you could, iyswim.

I know you say 'own it' passionatewoman, but isn't that what I am doing by just being who I am in public and private? What more can I do? It isn't actually my responsibility to stop people lumping me in with right-wing 'nutters' when I have nothing else in common with them! On this one issue of the start of life, I have something in common with those terrorists who bomb clinics. Branding me as one of them and saying it is my responsibility to differentiate myself is no different to labelling all muslims as terrorists because some are.