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...)

I just knew this thread would be started by SGB. So predictable in its hyperbole, vindictiveness and hatred.

"foetus-worshippers"?

you are so crammed full of hatred and bigotry SGB. I actually pity you. This thread's OP is right up there with the "Tony Blair is a child murderer because he invaded Iraq" thread back in the day.

That all sounds awful diffname I'm so sorry

It's illogical and cruel to put the life of an unborn child (who may or may not make it to term) before that of a living sentient being. It's just morally wrong

I don't know slug, I said that in my post, I just imagine that is how it is, probably because I imagine that is how I would feel (although I don't know that either for certain). We can't know it unless studies have been made.

I'd never considered before, how it must feel if you don't feel much about it but then feel bad for not feeling much. Or rather, feel upset that society would seem to judge you.

I apologise DifferentName, I didn't mean to belittle what you went through by saying we should think about whether the foetus suffers. I'm sorry for what you have been through.

My own issues probably cause me to think of babies/foetuses' importance before their mothers', having been given away for adoption and feeling some bitterness about that.

Thank you LB. It is intrinsically wrong to put a foetus over a woman!

donnie, You only have to read some things on here to see that SGB is just using the same tone of all the anti choicers who frequent MN. This is never one sided & the anti choicers are some of the worse people I have had the displeasure to 'meet'.

My friend was pregnant with her new husbands baby & she was bleeding & in some pain. After tests/examinations it was revealed that she had early cancerous cells. Her choice was to abort or risk her life. She choose to abort. She doesn't regret it, because she gets to see her dd grow up & pass all her GCSEs. If it was decided that she couldn't have that termination, then she may not be alive now & her daughter wouldn't have her mother to celebrate fantastic pass results with...just a brother or sister.

LadyBiscuit, thank you, that makes sense that they can't feel pain if their neural pathways are not connected yet. Physical pain that is. Can they feel emotional pain?

OrdinarySAHM, that's understandable.

You see, sometimes I wish my mother had had me adopted, because I would have (hopefully) been loved & I would have felt that love.

We don't talk now. I can't understand why she felt that she had to tell me that. But it hurts...every single day I wished I had a loving mother. Not one who finds it so easy to love my elder siblings, but not me.

She had a termination several years ago too. I was 18 & she was with a new guy. He wanted it, she didn't. That was the best things she ever did. I feel for her husbands pain, I really do. But nothing compares to that pain of realising your own mother never wanted you.

It would still hurt if you were adopted DifferentName, especially if the adoptive parents weren't as loving and responsive as one would hope, although I imagine being told you weren't wanted repeatedly by a mother who kept you would be worse.

I've sometimes said to DH that my mother should have aborted me if she didn't want me and he has told me off for saying it. He says that then he and the children wouldn't have me and I shouldn't wish that on them(which is quite a nice thing to say).

'If you don't like abortion, don't have one'. Quite!

Anti-abortion activists who hassle vulnerable women outside clinics, or kill doctors, or do other terrible things, are evil. Too thick to even see the irony in protesting about what they claim is murder by actually going out and murdering someone.

People who object to abortion... well, I disagree with them and wish they would consider the rights of other people to make their own decisions about their own bodies but they are entitled to their opinions. I'd argue about the sort who actively campaign not having the right to force other people to live by their rules, though.

Hey, it's OK Ordinary SAHM, I just think we should take time to consider what the other side of the story might be.

The media has a lot to answer for in the way it tells women how to behave and what they should feel. I would never tell a woman to have an abortion, that's a decision you have to make for yourself. But I'm dammned if I am going to be villified for my choices about what happens in my own body.

for Ordinary

I don't understand what you mean by emotional pain. A foetus is in a state of semi-consciousness and has nothing to benchmark any of its experiences against. I would say that you need a greater degree of cogniscence to be able to feel emotional pain.

The activists would argue that they weren't trying to stop you making decisions about your own body so much as trying to stop you deciding the destiny of another person who is powerless in the decision. But if it is proven beyond all doubt that a foetus is not technically another person, in the sense of being able to feel physically and emotionally, and up until what age this is true, then perhaps their reasoning would be flawed.

slug kveta GetOrf

well done for saying you had an abortion and felt nothing but relief. me too.

I agree there is far too much presumption that women will "of course" regret having an abortion. Many, many don't. But as you say slug we are somehow cold heartless witches if we say so.

A woman should only have an abortion if she is certain that it is the right decision for her. If she makes that choice having been certain, then why on earth should she regret it?

The myth that women will "of course" regret an abortion is very harmful and may in fact persuade some women not to have an abortion who would otherwise prefer to have one. (Which I suppose is probably the aim ).

ROFL @ that video slug

It's true though innit!

And what about terminations for medical reasons? Interevening before nature does its thing and you end up with a stillborn baby instead?

Would love to see one of these campaigners in a consultants room been given that news and see how many of them would continue with a pregnancy. Some would, but i bet an awful lot wouldn't.

Every abortion is lumped in the same category...and made out that women have them at the drop of a hat, can't be arsed to look after a baby and are using it as a form of contraception.

That makes sense too LadyBiscuit. I would want to read loads of stuff like that before I considered an abortion, to make sure I felt sure. Otherwise you could live with so much guilt eroding your life (I think some women do). At least they (scientists) are researching it Slug, and it's getting in the media, and if it is proven that the foetus doesn't feel anything then women will feel much better about making that decision if that is what seems best in their specific situation.

minipie - I have not had an abortion - but if I felt I couldn't carry a baby to term, I would have one. no question. And I would only have one if I felt that I was likely to be relieved by it, iyswim. (basically what you were saying, but I haven't slept for 9 months so lack eloquence )

When I was pg with DS last year, I can honestly say that even after seeing him on scans, he didn't seem like a real baby until he was properly kicking (as in, when DP could feel the kicks too), which was about 23/24 weeks. Until then, if I'd found out he had an abnormality, if DP had left me, if something hideous had happened which would have affected my ability to be a mother - I'd have had to come back to the UK to have the pregnancy terminated, and I would have done it as soon as possible.

Oh, and since MY baby wasn't real TO ME until about 23 weeks, then I couldn't possibly judge anyone else's decision to terminate before then, as it would be merely a parasite which couldn't survive in the outside world anyway.

' so I don't think we need any public information saying that you're likely to really regret it

Public no, although certainly public information on what to do if you really regret it is essential

There's a site I know of where [people who terminated due to the condition I had post: it's horrid to read but often the only outlet some women have (many didnt tell tehir famillies) and as it is a rare condition if it's not fairly easy to find people simply won't be able to. I only know it as I helped the charrity supporting teh condition (charity now folded) for a little bit and had to refer women there.

And whilst I agree public info should be factual or useful, private info is another thing- and restricting the ability of people to say such things gets us into far murkier water surely?

Oi, minipie...you forgot me!

Yes, ordinary...it must hurt you too, wasn't trying to say otherwise, I only have my experience to go on. I have often said that I wished she had aborted me too & people tell me the same that your (wonderful) dh told you.

'It would still hurt if you were adopted DifferentName, especially if the adoptive parents weren't as loving and responsive as one would hope, although I imagine being told you weren't wanted repeatedly by a mother who kept you would be worse.

• soem adoptions work fabulously: FIL is curious about his birth parents who abandoned him (literally, in a street) as a toddler but adores his adoptive family and considers them very much his relations.

Differentname- I went to school with someone with a similar upbringing (heck it could be you) and the effect on her was tangible, too. It was glaringly obvious though that ehr mother was particularly sadistic to ahev actually told her DD: why would you do that? Whatever ahnd youare dealt with you should try and make the best of and not harm anyone else, surely?

I suppose I actively campaign aginst terminations by default in some things I do: I beleive wholeheartedly that some erminations for SN are amde through alck of knowledge and udnerstanding of Sn rather than actual reality- I try and campaign to make sure that people have full knowledge, and far mroe importantly experrience of people who have SN long before they are prregnant: Iw a slucky enough to attend a school that was inclusive way before it was common and I am sure that ehlped when my boys were Diagnosed. But there is a huge difference between promoting information and trying to deny a right to choose and maybe athe people who feel a need to amke a stand should start there? it's not our job to judge or enforce.

There is a big difference between a child with sn and a baby so ill they will die within minutes of being delivered.....

just ignore me...i'm in a pants mood ...sorry

Yes, LittleMiss, or a child that would be so ill that they would live in constant pain and suffering. What would the activists think of that situation I wonder! Each situation must be judged individually.

Of course they should.

Actually, i'd personally have had a child with eg Edwards (and some, a very few, have survived a while) but would have chosen a none medicalised home birth so the child could die there if intended.

Other disorders I would have to think about; if I were otherwise childless probably more liekly to deliver at term that putting my other children through it.

I suppose what I think is that women aren't always informerd either about the vast range of emotions they may experience (from absolute relief through to utter despiar) or the relaities of life with different outcomes of pregnancy, such as a chidl with SN ornindeed having a child when mum has health issues.

I woudl stand up and campaigne for that to happen, and probaly do in my way, and have in the past been told that wishing women to have more of an experience of for example DS to draw on when making decisions is ultiamtely me being anti abortion; I disagree. I am anti uninformed abortion, which really is the same as being pro choice: pro informed, supported choice.

A women's right to choose is absolute within the contraints of the law (I do think the 0alw allows terminations for too long when tehre are no health risks including psychiatric trauma to mother but don't campaign on that and we are allowed our own personal opinions); but choose emans accessing rinformation that can be hard to come by. A few eyars ago I refused an amniocentesis for ds3: we'd ahd a highish risk bloods result. Instead of accepting that I was posted a leaflet called your baby has downs syndrome which in my pregnant state just seemed a list of fatal complications, even though probably it was not.

That's not free choice. Real choice is about having grown up alongside disabled kids (even if not at school with you- some obv. need snu provision as does ds3 and ds1 if he gets his aplce); knowing the relaities from the absolute love to the sheer tiredness of decades of sleep deprivation.

And it simply isn't inforrmation easy to get out there: threads here in the past reflect that- the pregnanct woman who thanked someone on SN for allowing ehr to relaise that in fact m,ums of disabled kids did love their children as mcuh as anyone else; threads where giving information about actual risks to mothers making post- prenatal dx decisions is considered as being anti termination (had Mum already decided it would be wrong unless there was clear evidence that it was based on a false belief such as all DS babaies having terminal heart conditions); in my own life my sister who despite watching two of my children being dx'd with ASD (almost amusingly after scares for DS ds3 now has a compeltely different dx!) and still thinks that a set of clear tests gusranatees a SN free baby so a few terminations and the world would be totally NT.... it's all very fiddly.

But to sum it up: I support informed termination but don't beleive full information is easily available to all women in cases such as SN yet.