Pro-life / Pro-choice

[Drowz0r]

Admittedly usually something argued accross the atlantic than in the UK anymore... I am curious to know how it ranges in the forum.

Anyone here pro-life or pro-choice? Any specific reason?

Superdiva, good luck. I hope the adoption goes well for you. Just remember that your own feelings re adoption may not be the same as the child you adopt. That said, I don't believe my adopted mother handled the subject too sensitively

I really wish we could be sat together in a pub discussing this in RL

That's nice to know! However that's a whole other argument if you are saying a happily married couple shouldn't have consensual sex whilst one of them takes medication incompatible with pregnancy.

DontCallMeFrothyDragon

I'm adopted and i'm glad i was'

I was lucky and have fantastic parents,i was never tormented by the idea that my bio Mother did'nt want me...my Mum made it clear that people are adopted for many different reasons and she had great sympathy for my bio Mother.
She says the day she took me from the M & B home she could only feel great sadness for her, mingled with great happiness at having me.

She asked the staff about my bio Mother and they told her that she was ok and had her own Mother with her.

dontcall - thank you

I will bear that in mind of course. Just as I will bear in mind my feelings on abortion/politics/religion might be different to and would never seek to impose my views on a child :) i realise ive been lucky.

I'm glad your experience was more positive, reeling. I didn't mean to be dismissive of all adoptions. My point was that it doesn't always work out for the child... Some end up in very damaging families indeed.

Well, I was going to link to this post about how traumatic abortion can be for the birth mother - but it seems that the anti-abortion posters on this thread don't care about the birth mother/pregnant woman at all, so I doubt it will influence them. Powerful stuff, though, and worth a read for anyone who hasn't already decided that they are right.

However, to those posters I will say this: offering 'one word: adoption' - isn't going to stop the woman who doesn't want to be pregnant and doesn't want to give birth, from being forced to be pregnant and forced to give birth.

That's what irks about the anti-abortion arguments presented thus far. They are inconsistent - either abortion is murder, or it isn't - and they are shying away from the consequences of their opinions. If you're anti-abortion, then you want to force women to be pregnant and give birth against their will.

My DP says he wished he had been adopted.

Sadly,some unadopted children get the short straw when it comes to parents too.

They're also damaged.

Yes, some children get missed in the system.

Ideally, we'd find a way to make sure no child ended up damaged. I'm not sure it'll ever happen, though.

Argh, typeo: the post I link to is about how traumatic ADOPTION can be for the birth mother, in an attempt to rebut a lot of the anti-abortion propaganda here in the US about how abortion makes women suffer mental health problems (propaganda because no evidence substantiates their claims, and the majority of women who had a termination expressed relief afterwards).

And i'm pro choice.

If abortion had been more easily available when i was born then quite possibly my bio Mother would have had an abortion.

That would have been her right.

Obviously i'm rather glad she didn't but i wouldn't have known anything about it.

It's too easy to blame and judge other people when you've never been in their shoes.

adoption is not always the answer in every circumstance (although i have known many positive outcomes)

I'm a bit late to this - but IMO adoption is rarely a simple solution - but also often not presented as an option at all.

I can well believe how traumatic for the birth mother it could be.

Having said, when I had an abortion when I was 18, I was the one asking my GP about adoption, and both he and my then boyfriend (who was there with me and the GP the whole time) strongly argued against it. I was made to feel that the option really wasn't there, and certainly not if my boyfriend disagreed. I was encouraged to feel that my boyfriend's decision (or rather, veto of my decisions) was just as important as my own feelings, and that both keeping the baby and adoption were not allowed.

I am very strongly pro-choice, but if we are going to have abortions available we need them to be presented as a proper choice - not something you're either persuaded out of or hounded into. I'm sure there are many women who were persuaded to have babies they didn't want in my situation, though.

IMO it's not really about whether these people agree with abortion or don't - on both sides of the aisle you can find an attitude towards pregnant women that boils down to 'it's very simple, and you don't matter at all'.

We need to get rid of that attitude.

Loving your work on this thread generally lrd.

Absolutely though when you say, 'it's very simple and you don't matter at all.' The woman has to be central ... A brief look at countries where law relegates them to secondary citizens evidences this amply.

Research shows clearly that abortion is less traumatic for women than other options, that's not to negate any individual's response to their own abortion.

Adoption as an answer to unwanted pregnancy? sure in countries without accessible abortion, with religious or cultural constraints but not routinely in a country that legally enshrines the rights of women.

I find the lack if compassion in people who suggest this startling, it doesn't matter whether they are judging a woman pregnant after consensual sex, contraception failure, non consensual sex...

because black the woman made the choice to have sex/not use contraception/took the risk

suoerduperdiva

You do realise that not all pregnancies come about by not using contraception, don't you? That EVERY single method of contraception fails, you know that right? So your statement I copied is bullcrap! Because you are assuming that all pregnancies, wanted & unwanted are because a woman choose to have unprotected sex. And you assume wrong. I got pregnant after 2 methods failed. Mini pill & condom. And no, I didn't have it. I cannot bring an unwanted child into this world.

And advocating using a baby as punishment for having sex is awful & barbaric.

As an unwanted child (my father's vasectomy failed) who was raised by the parent who didn't want her, you have NO idea how harmful your views are. I live with the legacy that I was unloved & unwanted (& I felt it very keenly, almost daily, until I left home at 18 & stopped talking to my mother) If you want to know what effect that has had on my life, I will happily tell you, but I get the feeling that you couldn't give a shit about what legacy lies before a woman & her unwanted baby,....as long as she is forced to have it for daring to have sex! Let's wreak as many lives as we can, hey!

I'm not strongly either way on this topic as I sympathise with both 'sides' of the argument when someone has an unwanted pregnancy (I know several people who have had abortions)but I always find it odd that our choice as to whether or not we have sex doesn't get mentioned much in the 'choice' debate in our society. No contraception is 100%, so if you REALLY don't want a baby (so much that you would have one sucked out of your womb when you are asleep)why have penetrative sex? Some of the friends I know who had abortions (some more than one) almost treated it casually, like another form of contraception. Lots of situations where really good reasons for a woman not to proceed with a pregnany but I know from my own circles, its not always the case.

so if you REALLY don't want a baby why have... penetrative sex?

So women should only have sex if they want a baby? So now we are no more than incubators.

Nice.

But why reduce sex to something that is solely there for reproductive purposes? Even without contraception, most sex does not lead to pregnancy. Does that mean people who never want children can never have sex? What... erm... fun? And are people not allowed to change their minds post-sex, even if we ruled that sex was only allowed in attempts to conceive?

Also, it is no one's business as to why someone has an abortion. If we start deliberating over why someone has an abortion, we go a long way tlo restricting the god damn service. To me, it is better that a woman who requires a termination for whatever reason is able to access one, rather than every woman is made to jump through hoops to get one, possibly divulging painful information to get one.

Or what differentnameforthis said

I feel like I've taken a step backwards to the 1950s

Some of you appear to believe that married couples should never have penetrative sex, unless they want a baby. I look forward to seeing you on the next thread where a woman says her husband is sulking about not having enough sex, advising that unless they're TTC, he's being unreasonable because there's no other sort of sex that's valid anyway.

It's very telling that no-one has answered the question about whether men should definitely never have penetatrive sex, unless they're prepared to become fathers. I expect that there'll be some kind of shit about seeing that he's not the one that's left with the problemm of having an embryo in his body, it's irrelevant for men and they can't be expected to worry about such things and women should just put up with being penetrated if they live with a man and he wants it, whether they want a baby or not, because it's women's problem, not men's. And such explanations, dear fellow-posters, are merely cover for woman-hatred.

Thanks for that link blackcurrants, have not read that piece before and found it very moving especially as another birth mother who although fine with her choices sees adoption as a something very far from an easy option. I find poeple who suggest it have no compassion for the birth mother, I would certainly never suggest it to another woman.

Elf - even the catholic church has given in and "allows" sex for the strengthening of the bonds of marriage as opposed to just procreation...

Yes, the backsliders. St.Augustine must be turning in his grave.

transverse - thanks. And sorry, I need to clarify: I don't think women shouldn't matter! I think they should be central. And I do know we have it so much better here than many other countries. But I still truly believe there is cavalier and patronizing attitude from 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' people in this country, towards women.

I think the fact that abortion is generally less traumatic than adoption or an unwanted pregnancy (something I fully believe btw), has allowed some people to conclude it is not really important to provide good treatment of women trying to choose their options or undergoing this procedure.

I think that, as so often, the underlying belief is that women are not really that important, and should be grateful for a piss poor system.

What we need is an approach that teaches both men and women to respect women's bodies and women's potential to become pregnant. We need to bring girls up to know that they are supported and valued. I think if we could do this, the number of unwanted pregnancies would drop hugely.

Yeah I know you meant that lrd...me too although I see I quoted you most oddly drunkenly ahem.

And again yup I agree:)