Single Parents

[Eulalia]

I don't want to start yet another message board so will tag on here as it is relevant.

I wondered what the parents here thought of the case in the news of the father who is fighting to prevent his partner from having an abortion. He says he will bring the child up himself. As the current law stands the embryo is said to belong to the mother but an abortion can be refused. However in practice it rarely is and we effectively have abortion on demand.

So who is right? Are some women becoming to lax with getting rid of unwanted babies (and unwanted partners)?

Should a father have the right to force a mother to go through pregnancy and then take the child away? What about breastfeeding? Is it right for a child to be knowingly brought up single handed?

I feel that abortions are too easy to get but as for this individual case I don't know enough details. I do know that there was a case similar to this recently and the woman did go ahead with the abortion and regretted it afterwards.

Fair points all, I suppose the main point is Bugsy's - no contraception is 100%, and we all have responsibility for who we have sex with - as the Catholics say, sex should always be considered 'open to conception'. I have difficulties with abortion myself, and with the fact that a father has no real say in the matter, but I really don't want to stir up a s**t storm, so I'll leave it.

OK IIll probably get slated here but here goes ....!! Why do we all talk so freely about women getting rid of babies they don't want as if this is a normal way to carry on. I thought the whole issue of abortion was that it was supposed to be carried out in extreme circumstances like the woman is ill, was raped, is very young and so on. In other words there had to be a good REASON for it - it is not about just thinking "oh dear I don't think I want this baby". We are getting it the wrong way round: yes the woman has to carry the child but this factor doesn't mean she should have yet MORE freedom just to dump it if she feels like it. Don't you think this is women's rights gone mad?

We talk about women having more control over their bodies -yes all good and well but surely this is what contraception was originally about, not about getting rid of babies. To me it seems that abortion is now about taking the contraction issue a step further, thinking oh well if the contraception doesn't work then I can just get rid of it. I am not saying that women explicitly think this but their actions suggest it. As we all know there is always a small risk of pregnancy and surely women (and men) should just take responsibility for their actions and have the baby.

Why is it seen as forcing a woman to have a baby? Before abortions women just had to put up with it, have the baby, adopt the child and get on with their lives afterwards. I am all in favour of women's right but to me abortion is far far too easy to get.

We don't drown kittens at birth - we would be prosecuted for this! OK I am not talking about a full term baby but the point is that we deal with unwanted kittens, we don't kill them.

I don't see this issue as being the father forcing the mother to have the baby. I see it that the mother should be refused an abortion on the grounds that she went into the sexual act knowing all too well what the risks were. We seem to live in a society now where we don't take responsibility for our actions. I had thought that originally married women were refused an abortion because having children was a part of marriage and the father was in a position to support the mother and baby. Without marriage does this mean that the fathers role becomes meaningless? Surely financial support is a big issue for bringing a child into the world? Not to mention the emotional support that is involved with two parents.

I am sorry but I think this woman is behaving like a spoiled child. Yes men have it easy and some can walk away and it is difficult to trace them etc etc but does that mean that women should start acting more like (some) men and start being irresponsible themselves? What kind of role models are these people giving to our children today?

Spot on Eulalia. I agree totally.

Actually, Eulalia I think you'll find that before abortion was made legal, many thousands of women (usually poor) died in botched backstreet operations rather than "put up with it".

Nobody here is talking freely about abortion as if it is something unimportant. The facts are that under current UK legislation, she is clearly entitled to one. Aside from that, obviously we don't know the full facts of her case in terms of the other difficulties she is facing in her life and I don't understand how you can judge her as "a spoilt child". Nobody is ever pro-abortion as such and I'm sure that having one is a traumatic experience.

Latest estimate is that 78,000 women a year world-wide die from botched abortions in countries where is it either illegal or severely restricted.

I think everyone is making really valid points here. It is dreadful to think of women being mauled around and killed through dodgy back street abortions but it is also pretty dreadful to think of an abortion taking place because having the baby would interrupt someone's career or place too great an emotional strain on them.
Maybe we need to look at why women don't feel able to keep their babies and why they feel that abortion is the only answer. So many women are deeply traumatised by having an abortion and regret it for years afterwards, even though they think it was the right thing to do at the time.

Eulalia, Mr Hone (the father in the case that spurred this discussion) walked out on his wife and 2 children when his affair with his neighbour (the mother of his unborn child) began at a Christmas Party. His wife has been forced to seek child support from the CSA owing to his unwillingness to adequately provide for his 2 children. It was he who made the initial call to the clinic in order to book the abortion. His philosophical objections to abortion only emerged when his pregnant girlfriend dumped him. I thonk that he fits the bill of "spoilt child" rather better than the woman. Some compassion please.

I know I shouldn't get into this debate, but I get really p**d off when I hear women who've no concept of real poverty, saying abortion shouldn't be allowed. Abortion isn't only about the woman is it. Its about bringing a child into the world that wasn't wanted or can't be provided for. What sort of a life is that to inflict on a child. The fact is, if any of us had been aborted, we wouldn't know about it! Better that than ruin 2 people's lives surely. Look at the effect the catholic doctrine has in the poor countries. Women living in slum conditions with 5 or more kids. How can that benefit anyone?

Exactly Lil. MOst of us couldn't begin to imagine the desperation of these people.

Lil surely that's mixing contraception and abortion. If these women had good access to contraception, they wouldn't have to have that many children.

Can I just reiterate that in certain circumstances abortion is justifiable before I get bombarded with more statistics and examples of back street abortions, practices in poor countries and so on. I know all of this but these points are hardly relevant to this case. We are talking about the UK not a poor Catholic country and besides back street abortions were largely carried out before contraception was widely and freely available. The whole point of contraception was to stop unwanted pregnancies.

I don't feel qualified to state exactly what the circumstances should be for a woman to have an abortion but doesn't the law state something like if it would cause distress to either the mother or unborn child? This seems to be open to a very wide interpretation and basically means what you want it to mean. Surely it doesn't mean carrying out an abortion merely on the grounds of two silly people having an affair. At the end of the day it doesn't matter who left who or any of the emotional/domestic stuff as they are both responsible for the act itself. And I am sorry but the fact is that women do have to bear the brunt of the responsibility, and because they have the burden of pregnancy this should make them be MORE responsible. This may sound harsh but the facts of nature are such that we are the ones who carry the baby and this means that we ultimately have a harder deal when it comes to this. We seem to want it all ways - support if we want a baby and support if we don't. On the one hand babies are wanted but on the other they are a dammed nuisance and the difference between the two merely rests upon how the mother decides this (with exceptions of rape and so on of course).

It is good that women have more power, control and freedom but this should be channelled into positive aspects not negative ones. Looking at it positively women have the pleasure of pregnancy and birth and nearly always they get custody of children. The ability to have a baby is power in itself and this often seems to be overlooked in our society. We tend to take this for granted and focus on the negative aspects. The way I see it is that there is always a negative side to all the good things in life but we seem to view this fact as being fundamentally wrong rather than dealing with it when things go wrong or more importantly make sure that it doesn't happen in the first place. Yes we may have to bear unwanted children but how do some men feel when they have cared for their children for years and the woman can just walk away and he never sees his kids again. There is a bad side for men too but no-one thinks twice about this. Women want all the positive aspects of children but none of the negative.

If a man walks away from a pregnancy we say they are bastards, they are being irresponsible, cowardly and so on but if a women does so then she is merely asserting her rights and her independence. I wish that men and women would stop fighting and blaming each other and take joint responsibility for their acts. In the past an unwanted child was usually either adopted or taken into the folds of the family or the man and woman were forced to get married. Yes perhaps some were miserable because of this but I don't see people around me being any more happy because they have more freedom.

As I say it just feel that the abortion laws should be tightened up a bit that's all.

Excepting the pill (which many women can't take for a number of reasons) most contraceptives are only around 70% effective.

The woman in this case is 31 years old and has a 4 year old daughter so presumably didn't take her decision lightly. Having watched her boyfriend of 2 months walk out on his own 2 very samll children and refuse to provide adequate support, no doubt she wasn't willing to take the chance on him providing for her child. As many people on this site have commented before, it is often almost impossible to pay for childcare for 2 children out of 2 incomes let alone 1. With her experience of how hard life as a single mother is, presumably she took the view that it would be absolutely impossible for her to cope financially and otherwise with 2 children.

There were 16,000 abortions in the UK last year despite free access to contraception. No doubt, if it wasn't accessible, at least half those women would have resorted to back street jobs.

What always amazes me is how people can self righteously say how terrible the mothers are that have abortions, and how precious these foetus' are, and then have nothing to say about the miserable lives a lot of these unwanted children go on to have. I mean, how are you helping these children that go onto suffer poverty, abuse, drugs etc there is suddenly a deafining silence when those poor cute babies grow up to be 'uncute' teenagers.

The fact is when abortion was made legal there was a corresponding drop a number of years later, in the overall level of crime in the UK. A eugenics issue that is rarely mentioned.

and Sml the link between the right to have contraception AND abortions is unavoidable. How many of us, intelligent women have had a close escape with missed contraception, and i mean while being inside or outside a marriage. Its a fact of life, human nature being what it is!

Surely abortion is the lesser of two evils. I don't think anyone thinks abortion is an option taken lightly.

I never had a failure of contraception when I was young, and I don't know what I would have done if I did, but unitl I've walked in the shoes of others I am not peprared to say what they should and should not do with their lives and their bodies.

I thank God it's not a decsion I 've ever had to face - but I still think "there but for the grace of God go I"

Incidentally, if abortion had been legal 60 yrs ago my mother would never have been born. She was. We cann't live with might have beens but she does live with the memorys of an awful childhood.

Reminds me of my family history. My mother's cousin was a bit lax in the job and responsibility area of life. Sadly his wife was also. When they produced a daughter, she was deposited with his mother pronto. Grandma did as much as she could for as long as she could, but in the end handed the toddler back to his parents. Both of whom walked.

The daughter ended up in an orphanage. Just imagine how abandoned she must have felt, growing up, knowing she had not one, but two parents alive who did not want her. I never met her, but I knew her father. Still a bit of a lad at the age of 80.

The daughter made a life for herself in America, but the bitterness ran deep. On the death of her father, she came back to claim her inheritance. Ther was no funeral - She wanted no one to mourn him. He was buried in an unmarked grave.

That story haunts me, as does the prospect of bringing an unwanted child into the world.

I do agree with what everyone is saying but I still maintain that it is too easy to have an abortion and that if it wasn't then people would take more care. If you are going to have sex outside marriage or a relationship why not use two methods of contraception together ie the pill and use a condom for example or use the morning after pill? Surely condom use should be advised anyway due to STD and AIDs of course. Then there are other ways of having sex (you know what I mean!)

As someone said earlier perhaps we should be looking at why these babies are unwanted and why we feel so negative about bringing them up. Some sort of new Century malaise?

I don't have any views about cute little foetuses and am not a militant pro-lifer although part of me feels I should be. I do feel though that in the past we did do some things more 'properly' for want of a better word. Generally we dealt with the consequences of our acts. It is not true that all adopted children are miserable.

There are a lot of people out there desparate to have kids, their blood must boil when they hear of cases like this. There is talk of making adoption easier so this could be one way out ... complicated though.

Whilst I believe in every womens right to choose what she does with her body, I feel it is a shame that it is almost more socially acceptable to have an abortion than it is to give a child up for adoption. Perhaps if society were a bit more compassionate about giving a child up for a better life than you could provide, more mums to be would choose that option.
Oh, and it is sometimes possible to have 2 forms of contraception fail. A friend of mine (honestly) had a failure with a condom, & ended up with an ectopic pregnancy after taking the morning-after pill as an emergency case. I have also had a condom fail (& I took the pill in a panic but luckily it worked). So it is impossible to judge whether people are being responsible or not. the only fail safe contraception is abstinence!

I'm sorry but I really have to take issue with the notion of how awful it must be to be an unwanted child. I am one of those unwanted children, my natural mother had me outside of marriage in the late 1960s and did not feel able to keep me. I was adopted by people who thought they couldn't have any children of their own and then a couple of years later when my adopted mother was diagnosed a diabetic, found that they could and went on to have 2 children of their own. I have detailed elsewhere the miserable childhood I had and I think it would be fair to say that I was unwanted by 2 mothers. However, since leaving home at 18 I have led a normal and happy life. I am not a drug addict, alcoholic or particularly dysfunctional in anyway.
It is highly unlikely that any child born today that was not wanted by its natural parents would be put in an orphanage. As someone else pointed out there are people out there who can't have children who would be delighted to adopt a baby and bring it up as their own.
I am not an ardent pro-lifer but I think the high rate of abortions in the UK is a desperate shame. It suggests something highly dysfunctional about a country where the majority of us live above the breadline. I would also be very interested to see statistical evidence for the social background of women who have abortions because I don't think that abortion is driven by poverty alone.

Bugsy, that is a desparately sad situation you describe, but a very worthwhile addition to this discussion. I have always felt that the "better to kill the baby than risk him/her being unwanted" argument is deeply wrong, and I too am sceptical of people's motives for abortion.
Please ignore this if it's too personal, but have you ever considered tracing your natural mother? Maybe she does want you but was in a bad situation at the time?

SML, It really wasn't a desperately sad situation at the time. Like most children I was unaware that family life was different until I became a teenager. Those years were the worst but I knew that there was an escape eventually. I also learnt to make the best of a bad situation at a young age, something that has stood me in good stead for the rest of my life.
I did trace my natural mother and spoke to her on the telephone. She was the one who told me that she hadn't wanted to keep me and that my father had. So there it is. I don't blame anyone because I've got better things to do with my life, which is exactly what it is now - MY life!
Obviously, had I been aborted I wouldn't have known any better (as Lil so rightly pointed out). However there are better ways for societies to deal with slums, poverty, inadequate childcare etc than aborting babies.

With all respect Bugsy, isn't the problem that our society (and most others)just isn't dealing with poverty, childcare issues and so on the problem?. I am sure that if the infrastructure for single mothers and the disadvantaged in general was better and there was affordable childcare that there would be fewer abortions.

Many people here have made comments that suggest abortion isn't viewed as a serious step. I think this is completely incorrect. There is a huge amount of stigma attached to abortion. I bet you don't find anyone on Mumsnet admitting to having had one even though it is anonymous....

Bugsy, very sorry if my family reminiscence upset you.It was wrong of me to draw any parallels with the present issues. As you say, an orphanage would not be the usual option nowadays.

Personally speaking, I wouldn't want to be forced into bearing a baby just for adoption, however deserving the adoptive parents were. I would want to have, at least, the option of abortion, however sad that would make me feel. There is not easy answer though....