Terrifyingly anti-woman law passed in Oklahoma

[SethStarkaddersMum]

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.

America is very much about bundles of belief. You have to buy into the left or right wing completely.

On most things, I'm an extreme liberal and I don't have any particular religious belief.

But I have great difficulty with abortion, though many of my friends are ardent pro-choicers.

I simply can't agree with the sentiment that life begins at birth. There's no magical event which starts the baby feeling pain at birth. A baby can feel pain in the womb past a certain point. But no-one knows exactly what that point is. I can understand people setting 'viability' as a milestone point, but I'm not even convinced by that - viability gets lower and lower with medical technology.

For a long time, we believed that newborns could not feel pain. Circumcision and surgery without an anaesthetic were considered ok.

I also believe that babies need protecting. Using the 'life starts at birth' argument, it would be ok to stop the heart of a term baby as long as it has not been born. If the umbilical cord was cut, that would be considered infanticide.

I don't know how you make a cut-off point for abortion. It's rather arbitrary. I also don't honestly know what the law should be on abortion. My feeling is that it isn't really justifiable because it is the ending of a life (not a potential life) and I can't reconcile that feeling. It doesn't make me popular, but I have to be honest about it.

I can't subscribe to the pro-choice viewpoint that a foetus is not worth anything until it is separate from the mother.

I don't actively campaign against abortion. But it's tough... you wouldn't stand by while someone killed a born baby and in my heart, I can't see a clear, definable difference between a born and unborn baby so if I accept abortion (particularly late term), I feel I am standing by while something awful is happen. But that's pretty much what I do.

Terrifying.

I don't believe abortion is a decision which is undertaken lightly - those (in the minority one would hope) who simply "don't care" - should, imo, not be encouraged to become mothers.

Those poor women.

Thanks Thumbwitch, I think the point I was trying to make is that sometimes the woman's life should be considered more important than a foetus of a few weeks old.
I'm not totally pro - choice and don't agree with late terminations again unless the mothers life is at risk, however to I do believe we should have the freedom to decide at an early stage. I can't believe many people undergo regular terminations as a form of contraception - its surely a myth created by pro-life extremists?

I don't know anyone who had one who did it lightly and unthinkingly. Everyone I know agonised about whether it was the right choice for them, and of those who went through with it, some of them felt relief and others felt deep regret. However - all of them had the choice and I strongly believe that is the way it should be although I would like to see the legal limit for "inconvenient" pgs reduced from 24w to about 20.

On the other side of the coin: there is a woman who comes to my playgroup with her adult daughter and 2 little girls. I knew she was their grandmother but I thought the adult daughter was the mother - turns out she is their aunt. The mother herself is not yet 21 and is pg again but has no ability to look after children, hence her sister and mother have taken over the role. Women like this (her own mother said she hasn't a maternal bone in her body) should not be having children, imo. But for whatever reason, termination doesn't seem to be an option - she clearly doesn't understand contraception, so what are her family supposed to do? (Rhetorical question, I don't have any more info than is here, I have no answers)

"(her own mother said she hasn't a maternal bone in her body) "

Off topic, but lots of emotionally abusive women say this about their own daughters, painting them incompetent at raising their own children and taking over the mothering role themselves. NOt saying this womans like that, she could be a saint; but I'm always deeply suspicious of women who paint their daughters in such a negative light where children are concerned.

Many a woman has had their bitch of a mother march them up to the abortion clinic.

s'true, Sakura - but not in this case.

I don't know the other daughter, not able to comment but the 2 women and the children seem to be a happy unit. Still, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. I only know what I see.

The way to lower abortion rates is to prevent pregnancy, making it more of an ordeal to terminate just means it's more shit for women. Perhaps if men had to fund terminations they may be more responsible.

There's no bright line re 'incompatible with life' disabilities, though. Some disabilities are so severe that they mean a child will live in extreme pain for years and be totally unable to function without a fulltime medical support system, but they will live. So that's really tricky.

I'm thinking aloud here, and open to argument, but at present I see no problem with banning abortion after the point of viability if the government is prepared to pay for the delivery and fulltime support of the resulting baby for the rest of its life. A woman can choose to abort before that date, or have the baby delivered and taken into care after that date. Either way, she gets to choose not to have the foetus inside her.

I can't even read that story about the Italian baby right now - perhaps it's just a bit too close to home as I'm currently pg. I am however, still a supporter of pro-choice - that child's mother made her choice - I believe it was the medical staff who let him down. They have a duty of care and however crass this might sound - they needed to "finish the job".

Every woman in Italy who had an abortion this week will torture herself for the rest of her life about this. It's just awful.

Right, so, if someone wants an abortion at 22 weeks, deliver the child in whatever way is safest for both mother and baby, and see if you can keep the baby alive.

Around 20/21 weeks, an abortion procedure is an induced labour anyway (I know several women who very sadly lost their babies around 22 weeks, and all had to go through vaginal labour).

In that case, it wasn't the decision of the mother to abort that was the issue, it was the fact that the baby was born alive but not kept alive by the medical establishment, surely?

Of course this is a horrific story Leonie but it is utterly irrelevant to the majority of abortions. The majority of abortions are performed very early in pregnancy and the majority are not botched. This extreme sad case certainly questions the upper date limit for abortion but it does nothing to argue the case against all abortion.

I'm going to say the same thing about disability as I said about sexuality. Moral decisions about aborting babies shown to have severe disabilities are not made in a vacuum. These decisions are made in the context of a wider society which discriminates against disabled people and does little to help their carers.

As has been said earlier these things are not black and white in reality even if they can appear to be so in theory.

I respect the prolife opinion but seriously think that the people who wish to impose this opinion on others need to have concrete solutions on how to eliminate rape, sexual abuse, sexual coercion, contraception failure, the objectification of women, the sexualisation of the media, the pressure on young people to have sex, the problem of absent fathers, and so on before they can even begin to have a leg to stand on.

If someone on here can explain to me how they will achieve the above I will reconsider my point of view which is currently firmly prochoice.

Unless the above issues are dealt with (which would seem impossible) unwanted pregnancies will happen and, if there is no other option available, backstreet abortions will happen.

It is all very well having a personal moral stance (and it is one I respect and agree with in certain respects) but unfortunately the actual practical consequences of that stance in the real world are antiwoman and dangerous.

I know, Beachcomber. It's complex.

That's why I feel so torn on the issue. I can't condone abortion (particularly late term) as I see it as morally wrong to take a life and I can't find a meaningful way to separate the status of an unborn baby from a born baby.

But I can agree that the practical consequences of bringing an unwanted baby into the world are very, very hard on everyone. As are the practical consequences of backstreet abortions.

I just stand back and I wouldn't vote either way on the issue.

But as I say, I feel it's like standing back when something very wrong is happening.

Most of us would do all we could to stop someone harming a newborn baby. Yet we draw a line that says it's 'not nice but ok' to abort a baby that hasn't been born. For some people, that line is at birth. For some it is at 'viability'. For some it is at conception.

For me, I can't see a clear way to draw that line to say 'abortions before this time are ok' and I especially see late term abortions as barely removed from harming a newborn baby (as with Leonie's link).

So I'm deeply uncomfortable with abortion. I've been trying to resolve my thoughts on this for many years and still haven't reached a conclusion. It's like trying to solve world hunger.

I'm of the opinion that there is no good solution and this is why individuals must be able to choose (within reasonable limits) for themselves.

For me the problem lies with the 'within reasonable limits'. However considering that we know that the vast majority of abortions are performed early on I don't see the point in too much moral hand wringing of society over the issue.

I would agree with people who want to lower the time limit for abortion but I vehemently disagree with people who use the current upper limit as an argument against all abortion (and question their motives).

People on this thread are having a very rational debate on the subject of abortion, but please don't confuse genuine debate with this bill in Oklahoma. It will force a woman to have an internal exam, even against her will, and in my book, that's assault. It will even allow one's brother to sue the doctor for giving one's sister an abortion if the doctor didn't go through the new procedures. That's so shocking that any one else would have any say whatsoever on a woman's body. Could a woman sue a doctor/healthcare provider for giving her brother a vasectomy? Or father?

I hope this law is appealed through due process, and found to be unconstitutional, and then perhaps a real debate about abortion can take place in the US.

Good point ilovemydog.

As was said earlier on this thread it is just twisted to try to humiliate/emotionally blackmail/cause distress/etc to a woman who is exercising her legal right to an abortion.

It is also dishonest, cowardly, blinkered and anti-constitutional (and not a little bit sick).

Leonie I think I have changed my mind. I totally understand various circumstances...etc. But that is just completely horrendous.
I think the cut off should be 5 weeks. I am aware of the difficulty of this. I don't need to be told.
Leaving a baby to suffer and die of starvation is just unacceptable (that DM story)

Your posts are spot on Beachcomber - I agree completely

Butterfly: so very very at what you had to go through.

"The shocking thing is, it says he was aborted for a disability. Which i previously in this thread said i could almost just about condone... "

Sorry, Leonie, but as someone who refused any scans at all during pregnancy until 35 weeks, when I was told I had to have at least one just to check the amniotic fluid, I find it shocking that you think it's ok to terminate on the grounds of disability, but not okay to terminate because the woman has decided that is the best decision for her. That has scuppered your argument in my book.

obviously I never had an amnio too!!

Sorry StarExpat, why have you gone to a drastic cutoff of 5 weeks? I can understand you may disagree with late term abortions (though see all the other posts about the rarity of this) but suddenly down to 5 weeks? Was that a typo?

(I personally think that late term abortions must still be allowed for - any woman who chooses to have an abortion at this late stage is not choosing it willy-nilly, quite the reverse, and I would not judge her reasons for doing so or her choice. As others have said, the reasons for needing abortions at all, let alone later in the pregnancy, should be what people should be addressing.)

comixminx - I'm not in charge of making these policies, I was just knee jerk reacting to that article Leonie posted. I was just so that I didn't even think it through. Just thought, well, I don't want to deny anyone the choice, but... then started thinking about my early scans and what I could see of a baby even at 6 weeks. I still don't know what I really think. That article really freaked me out and I still feel like crying thinking about it. A baby left to starve and die, without even being held or touched... just left in a sheet I'm crying now! I just don't know what I think.