Anti-abortion acitvists do rather represent the worst of human beings,don't they?

[SolidGoldBrass]

Dishonest, ignorant, supersitious, woman-hating and sexually dysfunctional. What's not to despise?

If you don't approve of abortion, don't have one yourself. it's fair enough not to like abortion. It's not fair enough to actively involve yourself in removing other people's human rights for your own stupid malevolent faulty reasoning.

(Yes I am posting this and going to bed. I will be back tomorrow...)

It's hardly propaganda to acknowledge that some women are affected by abortion. That's just balance.

Rockbird, my comment about viability at 23 weeks was that is the earlies that a child can be born and reasonably expect to have a chance of surviving outside the womb. Even then, they are only viable because of massive medical intervention. The outcomes for these babies are pretty poor.

Until that point, what's in my uterus is my business.

I would like a society where it wasn't necessary, but we aren't going to get there by oppressing women now.

An obsession with stopping other people having sex, and condeming other people's sex lives, is a sexual dysfunction.

I imagine the women who are negatively affected by abortion are those who were pressured into having one against their true feelings or who were in such a poor state that it was literally their only option.

If I got pregnant now, at the age of 45 ( unlikely but just about possible as a result of vasectomy failure) , I would have an abortion without a second thought because I wouldn't want to be stuck raising another child until I was 60 years old.
What right has anyone to judge my decision as wrong?

Sparksea, the point about propoganda is that you never hear from women who are unaffected by abortions. We are silenced and branded as heartless baby killers. I like to bring bablnce to the equation by pointing out that I, for one, was not affected.

Interestingly, once I started to admit to my friends that I had had a termination, I was surprised how many of them had had one also. None of them would admit to it in pubblic because they had not, to a woman, found the proceedure a problem and had not been emotionally affected by it. Yet they stayed silent because the prevailing wisdom out there is abortions are a difficult choice that women have to steel themselves for and should somehow be ashamed about.

You then end up with the problem:
Women are supposed to be emotionally affected by abortion
I was not affected (except to be relieved)
Therefore I must be a heartless, cold and unemotional person.

This leads to the silence of many women in the debate who don't want to be portrayed as heartless, unemotional babykillers.

That's a stipulative definition of 'sexual dysfunction', SGB. But I am happy to agree to disagree on semantics.

There is a brand of anti-abortion activists who embody most of your points SGB, yes I agree.

Most people who are pro-life though (and I include myself in their number) would consider those activists' actions and opinions to be much more repellent than abortion.

Do you agree that abortions can be manipulated for anti-feminist or paternalistic reasons, too? Some examples;

At school my friend was bullied into an abortion by her Father, who didn't want the shame & expense of her being a single mother. Another friend was talked into an abortion by her boyfriend who was about to go to Sandhurst and didn't think it would be good for his career. "Lets wait and have DC when we're married blah blah blah"(Of course, he went on to dump her a few months later) Not to mention, women who are forced into abortions in China or India when a scan reveals they are carrying a girl.

The paternalism that the medical profession exhibits towards women sometimes, also results in much-regretted abortions for some women. I became pro-life after my sister was talked into an abortion by a busy Doctor who told her a pregnancy was incompatible with some medical treatment she needed. Finding out later that she hadn't been given all the information and he had exaggerated has impacted the whole of her life. She's been on serious anti-depressants since, and has made suicide attempts. It has affected the mothering of the children she's gone on to have, and resulted in a serious phobia of hospitals.

If there was a more rigorous counselling process before abortions, then some of the above manipulations of women would hopefully have been prevented.

I don't think anyone is saying that it is propaganda to say that some women are affected by termination. No one would dispute that it leaves scars on some.

What is propaganda is the way that anti choicers promote their beliefs...i.e that any woman who has a termination is some kind of child killer/mentalist/child abuser etc. who doesn't care about anyone but herself. And also the way that one group had toddlers holding signs that said aborted foetuses are Satan's army!

I also really dislike the term "Pro-Life" I'm pro life. I'm pro my own life and any wanted child. In reality, what those who call themselves prolifers are is anti Choice

I am also someone who had an abortion and didn't regret it. I was upset at the time, and thought I would be affected by it, however my most heartfelt response was one of relief and the realisation that I had done the right thing for me, my daughter and my partner (who I am still with, by the way).

I do consider early foetus to be a cluster of cells with the potential to be a baby. Not a baby itself.

And my thoughts are that a woman has a right to do what she wishes with her own body. Adoption is not a replacement fro abortion - if a woman decides that she doesn't want a baby, it is far less traumatic for her to have an abortion, than carry an unwanted baby to term and go through labour, adoption process etc.

Abortion activists think that from the moment of conception the life of that 'baby' far outweighs that of the mother. A 6 week foetus is given more consideration than a fully grown woman with her life, family, desires and needs. Which is wrong to me.

Firmly pro choice, always will be.

I laregely agrree with Carmen and I have no problem with people who would be activists in a letter writing, petition signing sort of way

But

I have huge issues with the placard waving, murder accuisng people whop plant themselves outside abortion clinics at what is quite likely to be the worst time in a person's life. I really, really loathe that in your face nastiness.

there are great ways of reduc9ing abortion rates: help out onn self esteem and sexual awareness projects, support anti poverty emasures and anti abuse charities, promote improvements in social housing that eman women don't face being pregnant and homeless...

But don't think you have the right to casue emotional distress and fear to extremely vulnerable people. And don't assume you know thier rationales either: i've supported women 9despite my own not for me stance) through work having terminatins because of disability related reasons (and I have disabled children so know that termination isn't an essential but it does to an extent depend on what else is on your hands and the women I worked with were not in good places to start with); becuase the father is the abuser they justescaped; becuase father is absent but a danger to his existing kids and one who turns up and there is police invovlement; or where mum forgot to buy the condoms. There isn't one reason, tbh.

And as I said I am a 'not for me' person but in actuality that's 'with all being equal'; should I fall pg tomorrow I do not know what I woul;d do, probably go through with it as DH is ehre but if he were not- well with 4 kids, 2 disabled, and a very high chance of baby being disabled with a syndrome impossible to test for antenatally I woudl have to look at my boys and think ',woudl I be cheating them if I had this baby;' and I fear the answer woudl be yes.

Slug, I have had the opposite experience.
I know several women who have had abortions, some felt relief, some felt, and continue to feel regret. Most are quite (not very) open about it, particularly the women who are happy woth theur decision. I don't see anyone who is being judged as emotionless babykillers.

That's just anecdote and personal experience, but equally so is your post. I don't think it's possible to extrapolate about prevailing wisdom based on our won "subsets", iykwim. Therefore I don't think it's propaganda to acknowledge that some women are affected by it and it is a major decision in a woman's life.

(You can also be somewhere in the middle: 6 week old cells don't concern me tbh, that's a potential baby, but to me a foetus of 16, 20, even 24 weeks is a baby. I think if you have that feeling it can't easily be changed but that does not give you the right to try and force it on other people aggressively)

I 'felt' my babies as being new lives as soon as I discovered I was pregnant, and the thought of having an abortion is something I imagine would scar me emotionally, so I don't think I would do it. I don't know this for sure though as I don't think you can know until you have been in the situation.

It feels instinctively wrong to me to have an abortion BUT, maybe that is just an animal instinct thing, because I also think, what if a woman has a baby she doesn't want because she disagrees with abortion, but then brings the child up badly because she doesn't want it. What if that child picks up on the fact that they are unwanted. The child could have a lifetime of emotional difficulties, as opposed to what it would go through by being aborted (which some people think they don't even feel before 24 weeks).

Even if the mother gives birth and gives the child up for adoption, this hurts the child as well as the mother even if the adoptive parents want the child and have the best intentions.

I think yo are missing my point Sparks. Yes my comments were anecdotal. However, where, in the press or in the debate (apart from on MN) do you ever hear the view that women are not affected by abortion. If you can show me any evidence of it I'd like to know.

Abortions cannot be that traumatic to many women as so many of us have them, in increasing numbers. Yet the debate often speaks of the emotional cost to women. You hear stories of women who regret their decisions (and yes I accept that many do) but you never hear stories of women who don't. These women don't speak out because the prevailing wisdom is that there is an emotional cost to women, that choosing an abortion is a difficult and traumatic decision. The subtext is that if you don't find the decision difficult or you don't find you have emotion problems afterwards then you are not conforming the the prevailing wisdom of how you should feel.

There is a term for this. The social abortion. You hear a lot of argument about how women use abortion for social reasons, and how social abortions are generally a bad thing. ( The image I get when I hear that is of a woman popping off down to have a termination so she can go drinking at a party on the weekend. )

It's very difficult for women to speak out against such a strong sterotype. Hence the silence of so many women who don't find themselves conforming to the "great emotional trauma" view of abortion. (subtext, we are evil heartless babykilling cows )

But that foetus cannot survive without the mother. So actually until it is viable without her uterus and her blood then it is part of her body.

And as I said on that other thread, forcing someone to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term because that is more palatable to you is frankly sick

Maybe it is good if the media is warning people how they might feel if they have an abortion (which people may not realise until they actually do it). If they said 'don't worry, it won't affect you' and then it does, that wouldn't be good. I suppose they should say Some women feel x, y, z when they have an abortion but some don't feel any bad effects. I would imagine, but don't know, that most women would feel some negative effects, so people talk in generalisations for ease of communication. Generalisations do upset people often though.

Maybe people who don't feel much when they abort would still feel upset even if the media etc said most women feel bad effects rather than all women though because people often don't like to feel they are in a minority.

To me, the question is not whether the foetus is viable without the mother but whether the foetus can feel pain and whether they suffer, and how much, if they are aborted. Recently some scientists said they don't feel it up to 24 weeks didn't they? Is this definite, how do they know? (I need to go away and read more about it)

But OrdinarySAHM, when do you ever hear "It won't hurt a bit"? You only ever hear of the trauma, the tears, the regrets. How do you think it feels for someone to experience none of this and yet only hear about how harmful it is? It's propoganda by the anti choice obby to make women feel guilty for their choices.

And Ordinary, how do you know that most women feel bad effects? Where's the evidence? Where's the data? there is none. All we have is the anti choice's word for it.

It should be balanced in terms of you might feel X or Y but it should be balanced at a level that represents relaity: if you are OK with your termination then you walk away and move forwards I guess, but if not you need to be able to locate and access support: if someone googles termination and finds websites ofering support it mighth well look as if it's all doom and gloom, but it is right and proper the support be there and that easy to access.

Mum had a termination in the most horrible of suituations: after several stillbirths she ahd a baby damaged to non survival level by rubella. She chose to erminate and still feels it weas the right and obvious thing; I was advised towards termination becuase of some problems with my preganancy with ds1 and even the thought was quite traumatic tbh. two fairly similar women with similarish outlooks and completely different responses.

Mum never needed counselling, I would have done hugely ahd the termination happened.

They know they don't feel pain because the neural pathways aren't connected so it's impossible.

I had an abortion. It wasn't really traumatic actually and there is a lot of counselling available both before and after so I don't think we need any public information saying that you're likely to really regret it

"what if a woman has a baby she doesn't want because she disagrees with abortion, but then brings the child up badly because she doesn't want it. What if that child picks up on the fact that they are unwanted. The child could have a lifetime of emotional difficulties"

Welcome to my life. #3, unwanted, unplanned. Mum didn't have the access to an abortion, Dad would never had allowed it. So she made it known that I was a burden & I can't remember ever feeling loved by her. She told me when I was 16 that she never wanted me, and attempts to miscarry me didn't work.

That is not a legacy I would encourage anyone to give to a child. Which is why I don't think adoptions would work.

"and whether they suffer, and how much, if they are aborted"

How about how much the woman suffers if they don't abort? In the 4 weeks between finding out I was pregnant & my termination I contemplated crashing my car to induce a miscarriage. I didn't ponly because 1/ I was scared I'd die & leave my 2dds motherless or 2/ because I always had dd2 with me, I was worried she'd get hurt.

Is my suffering not important? Or was I not suffering enough? Because believe me, I felt like my life was over. All this during my babies first Christmas. No one has any fucking idea what we go through,...none at all!