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?

Yy TBR.

All forced abortion stories are horrible, just as all forced birth stories are. The point is to provide information so that people are aware of women's reproductive rights issues.

Here is UN Women's stance on trying to prevent sex selection, forced abortion and female infanticide without threatening other reproductive rights for women:

www.endvawnow.org/en/articles/606-son-preference-female-infanticide-sex-selective-abortions.html

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.

Yes it is. Is it less safe than the other options these women have? No. Based on the figures provided by the MHRA on chemical abortion side effects I would beg to differ. In the best case scenarios with health screened patients in a hospital setting 1/100 women receiving the most common abortion drug require treatment for what would otherwise be a fatal side effect.

I'm sure that will be a lot of help to a rape victim living in a country without legal abortion. Or a woman living in a country where contraception isn't easily available. My point is that if the OP can get hold of internet fake versions of very dangerous meds and ship them off to countries where abortion is illegal then I think she would be able to get hold of large quantities of easily available contraceptive meds and make a bigger difference more easily without putting anyone's life at additional risk

How about we do both - campaign for better access to contraception and safe legal abortion? Just a thought. Well obviously, but first do no harm. The contraception issue can be addressed by for example vaginal rings which have next to no side effects: by 2016 they will even be available containing contraception and some protection against herpes and HIV. Morning after pill is low risk and could be provided as part of a medipack for sexual assault/rape as a matter of course. Abortion pill is a very different thing and so dangerous.

Can I underline that I am pro choice. I am pro contraception. I am pro campaigning and the availability of legal safe abortion. I think that what the OP is doing is well intentioned but wrong.

TBR, I've never before had people taking issue with me providing multiple links to a topic which is a feminist issue, including those with distressing content. This is how I usually discuss things on the feminist section.

My opinion on activism around forced abortion for people who want their activism to involve that issue is we should:

a. let people know about it, and where possible, link to reports and women talking in their own words about it.

b. Work towards a better culture around women's rights and motherhood.

c. Support UN women and campaign for greater use/ signing of CEDAW, particularly for the US government.

I don't think that is relevant to the OP as she is busy with her own activism.

TBR, you don't understand what links to women's rights around abortion have to do with a discussion of the connotations of the word abortion, on a thread on the women's rights section of MN?

I have never criticised what the OP does.

I have said several times why I have posted the links.

I have acted no differently than I have in raising any other feminist issue on this section. I am not normally told that I am banging on about something/that it is a horrible story etc.

It looked like the purpose was to imply that the op was facilitating forced abortion. That's why I asked repeatedly.

Yes, that's how I interpreted it as well. Is that not what you meant by it almondcakes?

It was just totally lacking in good taste to have a username containing the word 'abortion'.

Even if you do think you're the bees knees.

almond I agree that feminists need to consider that abortion is sometimes used as a tool against women and not as a choice.

My problem is that whilst I understand why someone could believe that it's a good thing to work towards abortions being unnecessary , I am uncomfortable with that.

If we start saying that the ideal is not to have abortions then we're suggesting that women who have them occupy some sort of immoral position. And women will still continue to need them. Even if we could banish rape, we can't banish contraceptive mistakes so women will continue to get pregnant when they don't want to and they need to have solutions.

I just can't bring myself to say that the solution is less than ideal because that infers some sort of judgement. The best that I can do is say that abortions are neither a good or a bad thing but simply a necessary thing.

And yes, I get your point that the availability of abortion can work against women who don't want one but that's a larger issue of women being mistreated, abused and harmed because they are already seen as lesser.

And for others on the thread, the service given by the OP is pretty much similar in risk terms to the one I received from the NHS - I just had to pick the pills up in person but no-one checked my BP, my weight or my kidney function. No-one supervised me through the process. I had a pelvic exam (entirely unnecessary and the cause of what became a phobia of all HCP) and a dating scan that was entirely unnecessary for me (but of course we don't believe women when they say they know the date they conceived) and was handed 2 pills at an appointment to take there and then and 2 to take at home 2 days later. Oh and a leaflet about what to expect. No check up, no follow up, no pre or post counselling. The service offered by the OP doesn't look so bad in comparison. And no I'm not holding the above out as being relevant to anything other than my own experience of legitimately acquired termination pills.

No. I never suggested that.

I think forced abortion is a serious and important issue. I think it is really important we talk about it in terms of three contexts:

1. Abuse of women's human rights, including sex selection and the millions of missing girls.
2. The development agenda and how contraception and abortion have been forced on women for demographic purposes at the expense of women's rights.
3. The climate created by 'choice' feminists which ignores social contexts which allow women and girls to be pressured into abortion by society, abusers and partners. I have read too many 'choice' feminists saying things like 'yay abortion,' promoting abortion at the explicit expense of poverty eradication, or advising men to have anal sex with women who have said they personally would not have an abortion (see Dan Savage's column).

I am not opposed to the OP's politics. It is very important in the context of this thread and posters' own experiences to defend women's reproductive rights. To do otherwise puts women at risk of being forced and manipulated into reproductive choices under the argument (from society/abusers) that to have an abortion/contraception is in itself feminist or about helping the woman.

Blistory, I never said that abortions could ever become unnecessary.

I said that whether an abortion was a positive thing or not depended upon its context.

I don't think forced abortion is linked to the availability of legal abortion, and have never claimed so.

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if this has been brought up already, I'm just slightly concerned about the action of selling abortion pills over the internet.
I can totally see that this is necessary in many circumstances, but are you making absolutely sure they are going to the woman herself?

I'm thinking of the Norwegian woman whose ex gave her abortion pills without her knowledge -she lost the baby and he is now facing jail. It's slightly concerning that these pills could become increasingly available...

Story here: metro.co.uk/2015/03/12/man-spikes-pregnant-exs-drink-with-abortion-pills-5101176/

Again, sorry if this has been covered already.

And TBR, I don't think you would take this stance on any other issue. If people posted rape myths, and posters linked to reports about rape, including UN reports in the Guardian, you would not say... ' why post these horrible stories? People made those rape myth remarks earlier in the thread. Why do you keep making these points? Are you accusing X of being a rapist?'

You'd just assume I was a feminist providing reports and topical news stories in response to the insensitivity to victims shown by multiple posters earlier in the thread, not that I had some hidden agenda for you to interpret.

Almond, I'm also baffled by your posting style on this thread, which doesn't usually happen.