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.

Neither you nor I are in charge of making these policies, which I'm quite thankful for! At my early scan (also about 6 weeks) it's true I could see a heartbeat (which isn't always possible to see) but even so that is so far down the limits of being an independent being that I see no reason to reduce the term for abortion down that low. It would mean that so few women were able to have an abortion for whatever reason that it would make a mockery of the "choice" to have one at all.

At the very least you have to give women enough time to be able to really think about the decision to have an abortion!

Lowering it to 5 weeks would surely mean a lot more women rushing into (or being rushed into) decisions without support or time to think.

As I said, it was a knee jerk response. I didn't think it through at all. I still don't know what I think! Don't dwell on that, please... I'll take it back. I just got so upset by that article!

by leonie's article I mean

IIRC, the limit is a bit lower than the UK's in the rest of the EU. Like, 16 weeks in some countries.

There has been enough research to justify the current limit, I agree with it too. To be honest I think medicine has almost come too far and we save lives of babies that really have no quality of life at all.

Posie that comment will be a very hurtful remark to someone raising a child with severe disabilities. I used to nanny for a family in the summer during university and their eldest child was severely physically disabled and people use to make "tsk tsk" like comments about "that poor thing that's no quality of life at all" and it made his mother so upset. It was a result of infantile seizures, nothing they knew about during pregnancy. But doctors did all they could to save the baby at birth. I am glad that I got to know him. He's a great kid.

And? I would never ever look upon a child and say that their life isn't worth living, but you do hear of babies having very invasive procedures and still not surviving. Of course if it were my child I would want drs to do everything they could, but that is emotional and pretty selfish.

'Of course if it were my child I would want drs to do everything they could, but that is emotional and pretty selfish. '

To you, perhaps.

But to whoever might have survived such procedures, surely that is her/his choice and decision?

I know parents of disabled children, severely disabled ones, who stay away from this board now, or from topics like this, for the very reason that they're tired of people judging them as selfish for having done what they could to preserve their child's life - or their own, even - for them to be able to make that decision.

People who used to be quite active posting here, sadly.

And feel it's wrong to say that a disabled life isn't as worthy as another kind of life because of what it might cause the parents.

It's not a straightforward issue.

Well said, expat
I'm very surprised, posie. I usually (I think) quite agree with you when I read your posts... this comment really surprised me. Do you think people with severely disabled children whose lives were saved at birth were selfish?

Well, I'm totally pro-life and even I think this is an instrusive and uncalled for measure. Apols if this has been said before on the thread.

I tried to explain, Kerry, diplomatically .

My Pc keeps messing up so I'll be brief.

I would never be so offensive as to suggest that a child with disabilities is not worth saving. I am talking about those very rare cases where a child is put through thoroughly invasive and painful procedures to sustain their life which is then filled with pain and torment. The children who are incapable of having little outside of pain and suffering.

expat, I am sure there are boards that are too close to my heart too....but that shouldn't stop people posting their points of view.

posie a life of pain and suffering is not a good life for anyone. that was not made clear in your previous posts. Thank you for clarifying You aren't an evil person, after all.

kerry - agree re oklahoma. I am from nowhere near there, of course!

In my experience you don't have an ultra sound when being prepared for a termination.