Straightforward, drama free abortion

[FineMom]

I know everyone’s different and possibly some women get upset by having an abortion. But my experience when I was in my early 20s was really fine. My partner was supportive. The whole thing was relatively free, it was also guilt free and stress free. I told my mother she was fine too and came to stay with me. There was no drama or doubt just a sense of relief that
I had access to this safe health care service.

I love the Archers and I know they need a story line but, AIBU to feel they have massively over milked this subject.
I remember when Lizzie Archer had one a few years ago and they treated the issue far more in line with my experience.

Happened to me.

@MintyFreshOne the fact that these referendums have passed does not mean that extremely religious Republican fundamentalists in politics and the judiciary aren't trying to roll back abortion rights. That is still happening despite the push back. Denying it is dishonest.

If my "friend" thought that then we wouldn't be friends. Truth is life does begin at conception. That's science & if anyone is still struggling to accept that from science, I really have no words. People blaming religion all the time but the facts are out there!

@Birdie002 you cannot extrapolate your individual experience to the entire population of women using the abortion pill. If you were not given information, either verbally or in leaflet form, of what was likely to happen to you then you were poorly served and I am sorry. This does not mean it happens that way everywhere.

MintyFreshOne, the fact that the referenda were needed at all says much.

Of course life begins at conception. That does not mean that we then ignore the mother's life completely - that would be reducing her to a walking talking incubator. There are choices to be made, and those choices should be made by the women who are affected, not by anyone else. I trust women to make good choices.

I'm pro life, pro the lives of women who already exist in the world, the protection of their freedoms and choices.

Some women are traumatised by their abortion (eg those who actually wanted to have a baby but felt pressurised into terminating).

Some women are not at all traumatised and simply feel relieved (eg those who were instantly certain they didn’t want to have a baby).

It is important for women to know that BOTH reactions are possible. We shouldn’t be representing abortion as an easy solution which nobody ever regrets, but nor should we be representing it as always a deeply traumatic experience leading to lifelong sadness. The potential impact should not be downplayed but neither should it be overstated.

The most important thing is that a woman considers her decision very carefully (of course), and that it is truly her decision.

Roe was a terrible decision. We are now doing what should have been done years ago and shoring up protections at the state level through legislatures.

Judiciary should never have been involved either way. Anyway Roe is dead and the new political reality is not as bad as once feared

Hi @Jippers, are you sure you weren't meaning months instead of weeks? We had to go for early scans during my pregnancy and at 6 weeks there was absolutely nothing there that we could see with the internal scan other than the yolk sac. At 8 wks there was just about a foetal pole. So I highly doubt that they were portraying a 3wk and 5 wk embryo as a 'real baby'. Because that's certainly not factually correct.

This work would have been done in the 70s if not for Roe. Even RGB has pointed out this would have led to better acceptance of the practice.

But this is somewhat off topic, apologies

I once found a woman sobbing outside the hospital , I asked if she was ok, took her for a coffee and listen to her.
She had 4 children under 5, a 3 month old baby and was 2 month pregnant and had just taken the 1st pill.
I held her hand and let her talk about how she just couldn't have another child and I told her she was so brave to put the life's of the children she had at home before anything else. That it was OK that she made this choice.

I don't even think about mine tbh. Emotionally it means nothing to me. I have two DC I utterly adore, but I had a termination between them and outside of threads like this, it doesn't really occupy any head space nor do I think about it on a daily basis.

Also a 3wo blastocyte doesn't look like a baby. It doesn't even look the weird shrimpy thing fetuses begin as. It's literally still in the cluster of cells phase. So take your inaccurate pish elsewhere.

And then everyone clapped.

Have respect that that a little baby regardless how big it is had to either be clamped out, suctioned out, given injections & pills to stop it's little heart.

What do you mean by “have respect that”? Nobody here is being flippant or making jokes about abortion. What lack of respect are you seeing? Or do you think lack of regret or sadness = lack of respect?

Mine was at 7.5 weeks with the abortion pill and it was no worse than a slightly heavy period. I took the codeine they gave me but apart from some mild cramping it was otherwise painless. The anticipation of what was going to happen was far worse then the reality. It was a relief when I realised that was it.

Of course that's just my experience but I doubt it's a unique one. I remember the nurse saying that a termination is much safer in terms of maternal health than carrying and birthing a baby too.

I had one at 17. It was a relief more than anything. Was a surgical one so had to go into hospital. Was a slight pain to arrange on nhs. I very occasionally think about it, what would have happened if id continued the pregnancy, but I dont feel guilt or grief or anything.

@Birdie002 Nobody who is pro choice is going out there telling women to go out there and have lots of abortions because it's so much fun. That's why it's called pro choice. But your language is typical of the forced birther. You present all 4 abortion methods as if they happen with equal frequency - and you know full well that the vast majority of abortions happen before 10 weeks and are done with a pill. You also know full well that the more drastic methods are reserved for later term abortions, which in the vast, vast majority of cases are done because of serious foetal abnormality or risk to the mother's life. Abortions after 24 weeks make up about 2% of the total in the UK and yes, they are traumatic - because the women in those cases are having to end much wanted pregnancies. Equating a late stage TFMR with an early stage medical abortion and presenting them as if they occur with equal frequency is appalling.

This kind of dishonest discourse is sadly typical of those who support forced birth.

The majority of terminations as far as I'm aware are early terminations... so it's interesting you use language such as "stop its little heart" when there's most likely not going to be a heart to stop in the first instance. Intact the first 'heartbeat' we hear is actually electric currents passing through the cell cluster of the embryo rather than there being a little tiny heart that is beating. That's an example of using overly emotive language instead scientific language which you say yourself you are opposed to because it misinforms women.

There is risk with literally every single medical action we take in life. Whether that's taking the contraceptive pill, using antibiotics or going for major surgery. Risk is a part of everything we do in life. So when people talk about safe abortion what that usually means is regulated abortion that is done in the safest way possible, under the clearest medical guidelines and to the correct medical professional standards. Undergoing abortion in these conditions is relatively safe and as other posters have stated correctly is also safer than childbirth especially for women with underlying health conditions/ women of colour who have a more increased maternal mortality rate. So it's very strange to me that you're focused on the 'safety' for the woman when you'd have them do something more dangerous as an alternative? Never minding how vastly unsafe unregulated abortion is.

@Birdie002 so you're basically saying that all women who have an abortion have some sort of moral obligation to feel sad about it? That's pretty controlling. We're all allowed to feel the way we feel about our choices, you do not get to dictate that for anyone but yourself.

In an ideal world we would have 100% failsafe contraception, no men would ever stealth a woman, there would be no reproductive coercion and no abortions would ever be needed. That would be great - and I'm as pro choice as it's possible to be. But we don't live in that world so we accept the flawed reality and we should not be forced to cry crocodile tears over our choices just because it makes people like you feel better.

You should also read up on foetal development, because your prattle about the 'little heart' of a 6 week foetus suggests you don't know much about human biology.

'To someone who doesn't feel sad or care about that baby, it's just a "clump of cells" but for someone who does care/ want, it's a life that's lost.'

But you don't get to care/ want someone else's pregnancy that's for them to determine how they feel about it and act accordingly. Comparing a 10wk termination to someone killing their 6 month old baby is massively disrespectful and completely different. But if you want to get into the effects of postnatal psychosis and severe post natal depression for example - there's another very very valid reason why someone might choose not to continue a pregnancy because they don't want to take the risk with their mental health. But that's where you keep talking about the sadness of lives lost- what about all the women who died in childbirth/ died in pregnancy due to conmplications/ died later in life due to long term complications/ completed suicide because they couldn't cope/ were murdered by abusive partners they couldn't escape due to having children with etc etc... why aren't you mourning them just as hard? Why are you only mourning the pregnancies that didn't go to term?

People have different opinions about what constitutes a baby or life.

The fact someone has a different opinion to yours, and doesn’t see a 6 week old foetus as a baby, is not a lack of respect. It’s a different opinion.

Well no, it’s not a different opinion, it’s medical science.
A foetus isn’t a baby until the 9th week.