Supporting abortion to term.

[VegansTasteBetter]

Asking this question in feminism because, 1. I don't want a pro/against bunfight and 2 because I have only ever seen this comment made by feminists. *

I have seen the comment made that someone would support an abortion up until term for any reason (so in theory just because they changed their mind would be acceptable I guess).

If you take this stance is it because you feel to decide a cut off date for abortions would be to choose an arbitrary date in a pregnancy and that we need legally to have free access to abortions... but actually if your mate said, "just found out I am 37 weeks pregnant really don't want it, going for an abortion" you would be horrified and because you know it isn't likely to ever happen

or

if in the above scenario would you happily (assuming it were legal) take your friend down to the clinic to get an abortion because you belive the mother's choice trumps the fetus/babies right to life?

I'm prochoice but I have a real difficulty with people saying that it's acceptable for any reason up till term. And in the above scenario (if it were legal) I'd support my friend's right to demand to be induced early for her mental health and to give the baby up for adoption but not for an abortion.

• disclaimer: I am a feminist but don't support this view

I think now they probably do (df) because it is legislated. But I do belive that there would be a tiny minority of women who if it were legal (the same women who might kill their baby AFTER it was born) who would take advantage of the chance of killing their baby because they realise what's coming. If the baby is born and the woman is easily allowed to terminate parental rights it might save those few.

I also think that a few women who are suffering from depression from pregnancy might do it without being of totally sound mind.

Why are you some of you not feminists. The only central tenant of feminism is that women deserve equal rights to men. The rest is details, debate and philosophy, and you will never meet any two women with absolutely the same opinion

because too many more vocal feminist give people the idea if you don't agree with their idiogly that you aren't a feminst. SGB has informed most of us that not only are we not feminist but we are women haters.

This is why i rarely post on here - i shall post what i like actually, if you don't like it, i apologise, but this is a free forum is it not? it just seems unless you agree with the woman being right, no matter what, you can't post here. Fuck that.

I don't see how its a feminist issue really, its a human issue. Yes, the woman has the baby, but for me, the baby will always be more important, always.

I don't understand what you mean by late foetal removal? Does that mean keeping the baby alive?

FWIW i can see situations where a late abortion would be necessary and i would sincerely hope that it would only ever be for medical reasons. But then i think that abortion should only ever be for medical reaons - will that point of view get me bannished completely?

"But I do belive that there would be a tiny minority of women who if it were legal (the same women who might kill their baby AFTER it was born) who would take advantage of the chance of killing their baby because they realise what's coming"

really? don't you think they would just choose an early abortion? How do you imagine that they would get all the way to 40 weeks, unless you are suggesting that they would wait all that time on purpose just so they could have a late abortion?

What vegans said.

Do you disagree that some women kill their newborn infants? Maybe they realize life is about to get very hard, maybe their partner leaves them..maybe they are suffering anti natal depression

I know of a few cases where women have had babies and then killed them or pretended to lose babies (after faking pregnancies) (is it Munchhausen by proxy I'm thinking of?).. so think that a woman suffering from that would take advantage for the attention.

Again, I don't think there is going to be some huge baby genocide. but I think there would be cases.. if a woman could abort for a cleft palate someone could abort because they changed their mind.

Also think gender choice could come in to it,

so you want to deny the choice to the tiny amount of women who really need it, because of the teeny tiny minority that you have imagined will abuse the right to choose?

Who would need it?

no, not at all. I am not against late term abortion (i'm not sure anyone here has said they are) but only for the medically needy.

If a woman's health is at risk. Or is she is going to give birth to a baby that will die a horrible death or have no quality of life.. obviously I don't judge them for it.

but that is already an option

I once read a very good academic paper showing that the historic infant burials once thought to have been infanticides caused by women actually weren't - they were natural deaths.

It's the paradigm.

Yes I mean who would need it aside from the reasons for which are already legal.

As recently as 40 years ago in the UK it was not unheard of for severely disabled babies to be 'left to die' after birth in hospitals. The parents would be told it was a stillbirth/natural death but it was in fact infanticide/euthanasia.

I would never put my own health before that of my unborn child at full term. I would be willing to die for a child of mine, it is my child and it deserves it live. As for dying a horrible death, this would be picked up on much earlier when abortion is legal.

they referring to stillborn babies, not their mothers - it's getting too late for me!

As someone else said, making it the law that, after a certain duration of pregnancy the woman would have to give birth to the live baby and have it adopted would once again lead to women's loss of control over their bodies. A woman wanting a termination at, say, 29 weeks would be almost certainly be pressured to remain pregnant for a few weeks more to give the foetus a better chance at life; if she stated her intention to take drastic action to rid herself of the pregnancy, would she be locked up? What if she was a drug user, would HCP try to prevent her from using drugs by means of force or legal compulsion?

Abortions are not something women do for fun; nearly all women who terminate a pregnancy would rather the pregnancy hadn't occurred in the first place. And they would all rather terminate as soon as possible once the decision has been taken; it's not something you put off because you want to do it as late as possible.

Again: abortion is a decision that should be up to the woman who is pregnant and doesn't want to be, no matter what stage of pregnancy she's at, because her body belongs to her and no one else.

Something that bothers me here is we are assuming all women freely choose abortion. I have known more than one teenage girl who has concealed her pregnancy until after the abortion limit has passed because she feared her boyfriend or parents would pressure her into an abortion. I think raising the abortion limit would put these girls at risk of sustained pressure over several months until they gave in and had to suffer a 'forced' late abortion. It makes me very uneasy.

Out of interest, since medical records are (quite rightly) confidential, is there any substantiated case where a woman has aborted late simply because of cleft palette with no other medical reasons? Cleft palette is a soft marker for (as far as I remember) both Edwards and Patau's syndrome, both of which are invariably fatal within the first few months of life. I am always deeply suspicious of the "aborted just for a cleft palette" anti-abortion propaganda, because I suspect that behind it lies a story about parents who have made a desperately difficult decision to abort late rather than bring a child into the world for a few months of pain and minimal quality of life.

More broadly, does anyone honestly believe women would be queuing up to have late abortions for minor social reasons? As I understand it, most will occur when a birth defect comes to light which is incompatible with the foetus' survival after the birth ("disabilist" abortions - I'm a bit m'eh about the terminology, because I went for my nuchal fold and blood tests in the knowledge that I probably would have aborted a foetus with Down's Syndrome - generally happen much earlier). And it is a really agonising decision (I have known two couples who have had children in the knowledge that they probably or certainly would die shortly after birth - and certainly at least one of them wouldn't have chosen to criticise someone who made the opposite choice).

There will also be the occasional case where a woman's social circumstances are such that an abortion is best - for instance, DV escalating during pregnancy where she fears for her life and feels that a child will tie her to the father for life (DV against a woman is generally not taken by family courts as a reason for denying access to the children for the father - so an abortion would be the only way of being able to break away from further contact with the father). Personally I'd favour offering women in those circs the chance to have the child adopted at birth (since a late abortion involves giving birth anyway).

Interestingly in the UK, women are almost never prosecuted for infanticide immediately after the birth - there seems to be a general assumption (a humane one in most cases) that they are not of sound mind. And if you want to get an insight into the horrific circumstances behind this sort of case, Helena Kennedy details some absolutely tragic cases in her book, "Just Law".

SGB, I don't understand the drugs argument. My friend was in a London hospital with pre-eclampsia for 5 weeks before her babies were born. In the bed next to her was a woman who was a drug addict who was being kept in specifically to keep her away from drugs (it didn't work, she was meeting her dealer right outside the hospital every day anyway). So it seems that HCP already (very sensibly given the consequences) try to "discourage" women from taking drugs in pregnancy.

Sgb that is the law now isn't it?

If it were accepted that women own their bodies, then they would indeed own their bodies.

All else would follow from that - free and quick abortion; or support to be pregnant and raise a child.

I haven't caught up on the whole thread but I just saw the comment about how the baby (foetus) is always more important than the mother. Why is that? It is quite an unusual stance.

Topknob - cross posted. It's not true that all serious defects are picked up before 24 weeks. There are, for instance, some heart defects where it's really hard to resolve the precise location of the blood supply until very late in pregnancy - so it's impossible to make a decision as to whether potentially life-saving surgery can take place after the birth or not.

nearly all women who terminate a pregnancy would rather the pregnancy hadn't occurred in the first place.