How do you deal with religious objections to abortion ?

[Youcanttaketheskyfromme]

I recently had a conversation with someone who I didn't realise doesn't agree with abortion.

I should probably have realised as they are quite religious - married young, didn't live together before marriage, attend church and do charity work quite often.

Anyway it was a civil conversation and I pretty much said that I don't believe that a. A collection of cells is a human/a life/whatever and that b. The welfare of the woman or girl is always the priority as far as I'm concerned.

Threads, not thread!

Yeah it was stupid but I don't see why my life should have been so drastically altered all because I wasn't careful enough, once the abortion was over I went onto the implant and I never made that mistake again. Everyone that I known to have an abortion was because of not taking careful enough measures to prevent pregnancy, I'm pretty sure it's the number 1 reason most women have one very rarely is it down to rape or forces out of your control.

Basically, we need much better education about and availability of effective contraception to reduce the need for abortion. And swift and easily available abortion for when it is needed.

Having attended an RC girls school and then an RC VI form some of the arguments I have used are:

What about a molar pregnancy? - expect to have to explain what this is.

Mother has cancer, treatment will kill her baby is it more moral to end the pregnancy (if she wants) or withhold treatment?

Miscarriage - is it OK to help it along with pills or surgery?

differenteverytime

Very good of you to offer that to your dd's friends, I hope you don't need to do it.

Are you aware of the ';abortion support network'? They are set up to basically bring women across water to access abortion.

Basically, we need much better education about and availability of effective contraception to reduce the need for abortion. And swift and easily available abortion for when it is needed

Are you talking about the UK? To be honest I'm struggling to see how any woman in the UK does not already have that information.

I expect what I'm about to say will not be popular here. I support the right to choose to have an abortion because it is the lesser of 2 bad things.

Abortion was legalised in the UK (excluding NI) because it was recognised there were situations when it was untenable for a pregnancy to continue and back street abortions were worse. Looking at the language of the 1967 Act the conditions which are to apply look strict but the reality is abortion is available for those who want it. I'm fine with that as is majority opinion in the UK (excluding NI and I'm in no doubt the law should be the same as rUK)

I dislike both the "bodily autonomy , I can abort to term if I want to" argument and the "baby murder" argument. As far as I am concerned abortion is in many cases terminating a foetus which would otherwise have resulted in a live birth. I don't like the expressions "necessary evil" or "lesser of 2 evils" but they are the closest I can think of. It is possible to support the right to have an abortion but still have reservations about it , without a religious basis.

It makes me angry when I hear idiots like Lena Dunham saying she had never had an abortion but wishes she had or Martha Plimpton talking about the "best" abortion she had or Julie Burchill talking about the 5 or 6 she had.(how much more education about contraception did a very privileged , wealthy woman living in London need?)

They sound callous and stupid and are dangerous. It is handing a gift to the anti-abortion lobby.

The abortion legislation is outdated but is too politically sensitive for anyone to make radical changes through parliament. Nobody sticks to the law and termination is available free on NHS to anyone on demand.
The law requires two doctors to certify the same ground for abortion but in reality no doctor ever examines, consults or generally even meets the woman - unless they've gone to GP first or are terminating for anomalies later in pregnancy.
The overwhelming majority of termination are certified and prescribed remotely. This does create a slight issue around prescribing doctor and following GMC guidance re consent by children- they wouldn't usually even know they were prescribing for a child. Nurses actually hand over the tablets. It would be much more sensible and cheaper to allow pharmacists/GPs and sexual health clinics to provide early medical abortion on demand. This would be up to 9 plus 4 weeks when vast majority take place.
Women terminating later for anomaly should have the proper support services available through NHS maternity services (where many are cared for now).
The language used by zealots on both sides is repugnant. The pro life lobby using emotive terms like murder are as bad as the pro choice describing the foetus as a parasite and not even life are as dismissive of the feelings of mothers who have lost their babies.
I do think women come under pressure to abort for abnormalities. The default settings are that any abnormality or risk of abnormality will result in termination. I think that has a huge impact on the nature of our society where perfection from conception is the expectation. I think the societal pressures stop it always being a free choice.
The Catholic perspective is not that life starts at conception.
Many Catholics use contraception and the morning after pill. Many support termination but most would want limitations on the gestation.

Abortion should not be a crime, say Britain's childbirth doctors

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/22/abortion-decriminalise-crime-britain-childbirth-doctors?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

I just wouldn't engage.

I had to have a termination 2.5 weeks ago at BPAS in London. My 17 week old foetus was extremely disabled and would not have survived the pregnancy had a chosen to continue it. I had been warned that fanatical religious fundamentalists were likely to be picketing out front and to use a separate entrance if it concerned me. Luckily for the lone arsehole she hadn't started waving her placard yet when I got there otherwise I'm not quite sure how much of a mouthful she would have received.

Everyone's story is different. In the clinic I was next door to a woman who was absolutely hysterical all day. I could hear her sailing through the wall. I think she may have been in a similar situation to myself but I'm not sure. I would not judge any if the women I saw that day and I hope to God they didn't judge me either.

*wailing

I think what I would have asked in the OP's position: "Do you believe in the separation of Church and State?" As a practioner of a religion it does inform my notions of right/wrong, but my study of history tells me what happens when we don't keep religion and government apart.

If you manage to get someone who thinks religion should control the state then answer "Great! Which religion and by what method shall we pick it?"

There is an article up on the BBC website atm where Doctors are saying abortion should be viewed as a medical issue and not a criminal one.

I've unfortunately had to have this conversation a couple of times

The pro-life zealots tie themselves in knots with me, because I had a 'good' abortion - the baby had fatal abnormalities which were incompatible with life, and were also likely to cause it considerable and constant pain in utero if I had carried the pregnancy past 24 weeks when the nervous system had developed.

I've also made a rather facetious comment a few times which I've also never had a reasoned come back to - your god can't think the life of every fetus is particularly special when at least 25% of them are miscarried and many of those for no clear medical reason. That says to me your god has a pretty blood cavalier disregard for the sanctity and precious-ness of fetuses to be honest...

Good points from Dervel and Crumbs.

Pro choice means people have a choice. Unless you are authoritarian in nature, perhaps accepting that they have a different view from you and going on liking them would be the best way forward

Somebody from here recently complained on a thread on Chat (about the whole Speakers Corner debacle) about lurkers who weren't engaging with the whole transgender/women's spaces issue.

This subject, right here, is the reason I don't get involved and don't ever post on the feminist board even though I'm Spartacus and lurk here every day.

If I don't mention that I'm anti-abortion I'll feel like I'm dishonest and misleading people into thinking I'm a feminist when I'm not. If I do mention it nobody will want me on their side anyway, even if I agree with them on almost everything else.

And with that I think I'll go back to lurking again!

I believe that from conception there is some sort of life. Abortion ends that life.

However, I also believe that the woman's wishes come first. A woman's needs and choices should come ahead of those of the embryo/foetus. I don't understand the thinking that a woman is just a baby carrying 'vessel'.

I had an abortion many years ago. I'd been in a very controlling relationship but when I got pregnant by him it was all over. Yes money and housing and emotional support would have helped but it still would have been his and I'm not sure I could have done it.

It never ceases to amaze me that someone puts the welfare of a living breathing woman behind that of an embryo.

You can't say it is cells if you don't want it but a baby if you do. Pick one

I believe that from conception there is some sort of life. Abortion ends that life

I don't see how anyone could argue against that- it doesn't need any religious basis.

However, I also believe that the woman's wishes come first. A woman's needs and choices should come ahead of those of the embryo/foetus

I agree.

I don't understand the thinking that a woman is just a baby carrying 'vessel'.

I don't think a woman is just a baby carrying vessel but the unique aspects of female biology result in pregnant women taking decisions which can have catastrophic consequences for what you call "a sort of life".

When push comes to shove I support the right of a woman to have an abortion if she wishes. I make donations to ASN in Northern Ireland and have no desire to see UK law made more restrictive, but ,as I said earlier, I find some of the arguments put forward by the pro choice zealots repugnant.

So far as contraceptive failures- could trying a bit harder be the answer? Is one even allowed to say that? If you don't bother taking the pill everyday and a pregnancy results that isn't a contraceptive failing to work. I went on the pill a week after my 16th birthday. I have had unprotected sex once in my life, when I was 30 , and I became pregnant (and was delighted) so clearly what prevented pregnancy in the preceding 14 sexually active years was properly used contraception not lack of fertility.

I know this sounds judgemental but if women are entering into consensual sexual activity I do think they have a responsibility to make sure they do their best to ensure there is no need to end the "some sort of life" which may result.

You can't say it is cells if you don't want it but a baby if you do. Pick one

Well, women do. It comes back, for me, to the position of the least worst option, which sometimes is picking "cells" not "baby".

I know this sounds judgemental but if women are entering into consensual sexual activity I do think they have a responsibility to make sure they do their best to ensure there is no need to end the "some sort of life" which may result.

I don't think that's judgemental, it's a fair comment. If you don't want a baby then you should at least use contraception, even doubling or tripling up! I was very sad to read pp say upthread that most people they know who have had abortions had them because of not using contraception, rather than rape or abuse. Why does that happen? To me that seems to be using abortion as contraception.

It would only be using abortion as contraception if they said "oh, I won't bother using contraception- if I get pregnant l'll just have an abortion"

Yes of course in an ideal world there wouldn't be any unplanned pregnancies. Nobody would ever get drunk or carried away, Nobody would ever be flaky and disorganized. Nobody would ever do anything they regretted the next day. Contraception would never fail.

But until that day happens, there needs to be safe, prompt, easily available abortion for any woman who needs it. You might not like the reason she needs it. Hell, I probably won't like the reason she needs it. But you can't ban abortion. You can only ban safe abortion.

It is possible to support the right to have an abortion but still have reservations about it , without a religious basis.

Absolutely this.

For me, the decision to abort is definitely time-sensitive. This has further been compounded by having children of my own. Seeing a foetus at a 12 week scan made me question my beliefs, and I cannot help that.

However, I would never argue that the life of that foetus was more important than the mother's choice. Until that 'being' is able to survive without a woman's body, it doesn't have any rights.

Every time a woman ovulates there is a potential unborn baby. The ovum is alive and given the right conditions it will develop into another human being. Whether the woman chooses to abstain from sex, use contraception, or terminate the pregnancy, the consequences for that potential life are the same. In every circumstance, the woman is interrupting the natural reproductive cycle, and I firmly believe that every woman should have a right to do so. If a woman has a right to say no to sex, or to use contraception, then she should also be free to terminate any pregnancy.

Most -all people I know keep their thoughts to themselves on the subject...why upset people with yr views..there are groups you can join ,both ways,if you feel the need to discuss...you also never really know who has had One and why start upsetting people bringing it up ..I tend to find it is a subject best avoided

I think the pro lifers have some valid points but none that should ever take away the rights of a woman at the end of the day

But this is the thing (also another reason why the "my body my choice" argument doesn't really hold) - if one believes that life starts at conception, then you're basically saying that "the rights of a woman" also includes the right to murder. It's sort of analogous to eating your friend, then saying "Well, it's my body" and getting rid of them just because it's inside your body at that moment in time.

I haven't yet decided when life "begins" but I have a lot of issues with the "my body" argument because it's not just your body, is it - it's a life/potential life within it too. "My body" only really holds for personal choices like cosmetic surgery.

Seeing as "when life begins" is an argument with no definitive answer, this debate will rage on pretty much forever. Don't argue with your friend about it, you're not going to agree.