Mumsnet demanding that I change my nickname

[AbortionFairyGodmother]

Suddenly after posting on several transgender issue related threads, I am getting a note in my email inbox:

"We wanted to drop you a line about your Mumsnet nickname, because we've have had a few reports from other posters about it and how it has caused distress.

Our aim is to make parents' lives easier by pooling and sharing advice and support, and while we're all for free speech, we really don't feel that this nickname is in the spirit of our philosophy.
We're asking therefore if you can change it please. "

Yeah, well, a lot of parents need abortions. My nickname is here because I am an abortion activist who sends abortion pills to women (mostly mothers!!) who desperately need them and are not in areas where they can access them.

Watch this, women. This is what censorship looks like. No "misgendering" people, no getting too far out of line, no being too public about your activism. Because it will offend someone. Best to make my nickname something like KittensAndFlowersLOL, right?

Despite Wendy Davies brave filibuster for a lot of Texas women, it might as well be illegal.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/01/texas-abortion-law_n_4195735.html

The far right find ways around Roe vs Wade.

Texas: in law, no. Texas is covered by Roe vs. Wade same as the other 49 states. In practise, yes. Physicians performing abortion have to have "admitting privileges" at a local hospital (this was the amendment to state law Democrat Senator Wendy Davis tried to oppose with her filibuster last year). Most physicians in abortion clinics cannot get these privileges (even though my understanding is that if something did go wrong with a surgical abortion in their clinics they could still call for an ambulance same as anyone else - it's just a piece of bureaucratic red tape to ensure that the clinics can't be licensed). So in practice, there are no clinics in the state (or maybe one) which are licensed to carry out abortion - not because abortion itself is illegal, but because needless bureaucratic restrictions have been placed on the clinics. This is increasingly the situation at state level in the US - the right-wing anti-abortion lobby know they can't overturn Roe vs. Wade, so they are trying to render abortion impossible in practise by putting such severe restrictions on it that women can't get one.

I think the AbortionFairyGodmother needs a visit from the EmpathyFairyGodmother.

I think you're so far up on the moral high ground you can't see the distress of the mere mortals beneath you.

Who are you to decide whose distress is more valid.

If you've made one man or woman cry through your desire to have an in-your-face nickname, then shame on you.

The admirable work you do in other spheres does not render you infallible.

And I need to read the fucking thread.

Sorry, OP.

UglySwan, Dadwashere isn't taking the OP's name out of context.

The context of the OP's username as being about her providing abortion pills exists only in her head and those of her friends, prior to this thread.

The context for everyone else is whatever thread they read it on on MN.

The first time I noticed the OP'S username was on a thread she started about her blog using historical abuse of women in China as an analogy, and describing graphic elements of that abuse.

So yes, if somebody starts a thread about China and abuse of women as an analogy, and their user name is abortion fairy godmother why would I leap to the conclusion that she is providing abortion pills somewhere rather than connecting it to abuse in China? Or, given the blog was about whether or not mothers are privileged, about all the women around the world forced into abortion by family members? Or, given how many times various mothers deemed undesirable get told they should have an abortion, it isn't an anti mother reference?

The only context most people who have seen that username on MN is that somebody is calling themselves abortionfairygodmother on a site mostly used by mothers. Has anyone on this thread actually said, oh, I saw that name and assumed you were an abortion activist supplying pills. No? Then it is not the context.

You are the ones who are talking that username out of context and saying it is about what the OP does when she's not on MN. I don't know if the OP uses the username as a pseudonym when dealing with her client group, if she does then that is the context in that situation.

But the literal context here is that she has called herself abortionfairygodmother on MN, on a bunch of threads that were not about her supplying abortion pills.

Woman miscarries after partner tricks her into taking abortion pills:

nypost.com/2015/03/12/man-tricked-ex-into-miscarriage-with-abortion-pill-smoothie/

Teenager does after being raped and forced to take an abortion pill:

liveactionnews.org/teenager-dies-after-man-rapes-her-and-forces-her-to-take-abortion-pill/

At this point, I'm less bothered by the OP's name (everyone makes mistakes) as by the actions of various posters on this thread to trivialise and minimise the reasons women have given as to why they were concerned about it.

Jesus almond those like are fucking awful!

That's a pretty dodgy organisation you've linked to almondcakes.

Radically anti-choice, tries to get Planned Parenthood clinics shut down by faking visits, asking strange questions and editing videos afterwards (and with links to some horrible right-wing sites as well).

I wouldn't believe anything on that site.

*links

Here you go George, the link to the Times Of India, with the same story.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kanpur/Minor-girl-forced-to-consume-abortion-pill-dies/articleshow/46356352.cms

I can't believe that anyone other than perhaps the OP who is by her own admission a radical activist would think this is OK or condone it in any way. This is backstreet abortion.
More than 1/100 women taking mifepristone from known suppliers in hospital conditions in the UK suffer side effects such as bleeding or infection which could be fatal without medical intervention.
Over 1 in every 100 women; and those are the ones who have been screened for kidney or heart problems and are receiving appropriate treatment at the time of administration and post-procedurally.

These medicines are very powerful, cause huge hormonal, vascular and neuronal changes and must be given under medical supervision. These poor women's lives are being put at risk by anyone who would give them these medicines, no matter how well intentioned.

Far better to provide contraception to prevent repetition than to make a bad situation worse.

And actually, that link was in the article you complained about. So you could have just clicked on it and verified it rather than claiming not to believe a girl was raped and killed.

Awful case, I agree.

I disagree with your take on the OP's work; as I've stated upthread I think it's incredibly valuable. I have experience of someone close to me who availed of a service like this. She didn't want to be pregnant, lived in a country where abortion was illegal, and couldn't afford to travel to the UK. Getting abortion pills in the post was a solution to her crisis and offered her a viable way out.

I don't think abusive/coercive cases like the ones you've linked to means that all of that sort of work is out of bounds.

I'm not blaming the OP. I'm blaming a variety of posters on this thread, for trying to present a totally one sided perspective on abortion globally, nana dismiss all other perspectives, for reasons known only to them.

George, I never said I disagree with the OP's work.