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 agree with the OP, it is the pig-headed way they carry on, without listening or thinking. The doctor shot by an anti-abortion protester in a church was one of the only doctors that carried out late stage abortions. If they had actually bothered to look at what he did they would see he also helps woman deliver stillborn babies or helped them when they found out the foetus wasn't viable. It meant that a large proportion of the women they were abusing had just gone through something horribly traumatic and didn't have any sort of choice (not that it would be okay if they had). We cannot reconcile living in a world where you are innocent until proven guilty, with the uninformed (and no desire for information) punishments the anti-abortionists give out. I find them barbaric.

IMO there is also a big difference between a child with SN and an adult with SN with no parents.

I would abort for some disability because I would be leaving a vunerable adult alone when I die.

Bt whilst I see that DF< it's something I am faced with anyway and no test could have picked it up.

reality is that most people with SN go on to have rewarding lives: categorically not all, I knkow that, I am a realist but most.

DS3 won't ever be independent but may well live in a supported flat with 2 or 3 other adults and have a great time of it (before becoming a mother I was the assistant for one such provision so really do know what it was like).

Many people with the most commonly aborrted for conditions, such as DS, do manage that level of independence.

Even care homes of the full on type- i;ve visited some appalling ones yet there arer great ones- opposite my home now is a specialist unit, I see them about a lot and they are a good place to be living.

It's a personal choice of course: but some people truly think that if you have a child with Sn they end up in a care home, there are no middle levels and allc are homes are horrible, or that youca re forr them until you drop then they are whisked away. We fully intend ds3 to move out around the age he would anyway, maybe 25, so we can se ehim settled and have a retirement of our own. SSD back us on this, it is their preferred plan as well.

I do think that's great SanctiMoany infact I have a second cousin who suffered brain damage at his birth and is very independent now both his parents are no longer alive. They spent many years preparing him for this independence so I know it can work and be wonderful.

I guess for me it just isn't something I would want to do if I had the choice (god that sounds awful I knw!) but I do totally respect anyone else who does.

I imagine you have to be a very strong person to cope well with SN children (depending on how serious the problems are). Some parents may feel they would not be up to doing a good job.

Each situation is so different, with so many factors involved, it's impossible to put in place some blanket rule about what the best outcome would be. The person in the best position to judge what is right for the woman, her body, her family, and the foetus is the woman who is pregnant - for anyone else to claim that they know better is arrogance in the extreme.

slug - re your point that the fact that some women do not suffer longterm upset from abortions but it is not highlighted in the media etc - the only thing I have seen is a piece by C Moran in the Times a couple of years ago. It was v good I will have a google

here - it's interesting

sancti i think your right about your other children too.

Say your baby has anencephaly...how do you explain to your other kids that the baby will be born but die straight away? How do you as a mother deal with raising your children while everyday wondering if today is the day your baby is going to die inside you? Being asked by strangers if you've done the nursery, been shopping, watching your bump grow bigger and bigger everyday, knowing your child will not survive. Your faced with loosing your child now through a termination, in a few weeks or so as a stillbirth, or if you're 'fortunate' you make it fullterm and your child dies then.

I couldn't do it...and didn't Hats off to those who have but i'd except they are few and far between. It's something i wouldn't wish one my worst enemy and the 'i'd never have an abortion' brigade are just plain ignorant at times...or bloody lucky they've never been in my shoes!

santci i didn't mean your baby as such by the way....i meant in general

Thanks, will read later. Am off to a seminar about IT accessibility and education.

You don;t have to be strong to have a child with SN: in fact if you categorically could not cope you should be aware that most Sn cannot be diagnosed antenatally- ASD, for example, is now diagnosed in 1% of children and is far furtehr away from being diagnosed in utero than people think.

If you love your baby you will regardless of SN status. You just will. there's a fair chance anyway that you would have your child for years ebfore you realise anything is up: ds1 was diagnosed at 6, and conditions such as epilepsy can set in at any age even before you get to accidents etc.

That, sadly, is rlaity. It doesn't take a special person to handle SN- just an unlucky one.

DF I don't have an issue as such with your take simply becuase it's considered and not a blanket acceptance that SN = pain / wasted life / intelrable existence iyswim.

oops kveta and differentname looks like I mixed you up in my post. but we all agree anyway

Riven - of course, that is true. Everyone who gets pregnant has to accept that there is a chance that, one way or another, their child could be disabled. But those who find out during pregnancy have a choice - those whose children are disabled at birth or later don't have that choice.

Absulutely you can't guarantee it. Thankfully though there are some things I can test for and that is a choice some people want to make which for me is something I am grateful for.

Slightly dumbfounded at the hostility shown towards SGB by some postes on this thread, some nasty shit being bandied around.

I think some people might have read the derogatory words SGB used to describe the extreme activists and thought she was applying them to anyone who is anti-abortion. Doesn't she just mean the extreme activists that use violence and intimidation though? That's what I thought she meant.

I did snigger when "life" complained about the noise of the children in the hosuing assosiation flats next door - apparenlty they couldn't think for the noise of children playing

They weren't to happy with the bail hostle the other side either and siad it would be a danger to their staff, why there staff whould be any different from any other staff that are situated next to a bail hostel - the housing assosiation never compalined

I do support people's right to protest and campaign by means of letters, petitions, etc, whatever their particular cause (Yes, that means I support the right of the BNP to exist, print leaflets etc, doesn;t mean I ahave to agree with them). But I think that if you devote time and effort to preventing other women from having abortions, or trying to, then you are an ignorant, woman-hating, fuckwitted waste of oxygen. It is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS what decisions other women make.

SGB, is it our business if someone smacks their child? Or beats a child? Or commits infanticide against their newborn?

The 'none of your business' can be used in any of these cases. It's none of my business if someone murders their child.

Yet most good people will jump up to protect those who are vulnerable. I protest circumcision which could easily be 'none of my business' but I see it as my business because in my world view, babies and children are being harmed. I am very much anti-choice in smacking and circumcision for example because I don't think anyone should have the choice to legally harm someone else.

Your entire argument hinges on the definition of a foetus as a part of the woman's body, entirely owned by her and with no rights of its own. I understand that argument and viewpoint perfectly well but I don't agree with it. If I was to protest abortion, which I don't because I am undecided and think it is very, very complicated, I would be doing so on the grounds that I was protecting the vulnerable.

Assuming that everyone who does so is woman-hating, controlling, dysfunctional etc. etc. is just childish.

Really, you want to give a foetus rights? Rights that trump those of the woman?

Possibly to the first question.

Not necessarily to the second.

If it's life against life, then I would agree that the mother's life should be saved.

In other situations, I honestly don't know. Few people would argue that infanticide should be legalised to suit the mother's convenience or because a baby has special needs.

I wonder at what point the baby acquires that special status where life must be protected. Birth? 28 weeks? 24 weeks? Conception?

I don't believe many people would support an abortion at 39 weeks because a woman doesn't fancy having a baby... but surely if you are arguing woman's body, woman's choice then you have to support that.

The time limit is set at around the time that the foetus has some (extremely small) chance of existing outside of the woman's body.

Before that it is not possible for it to be an independent entity.

As medical knowledge moves on, it may be that it is possible to keep foetuses alive outside the womb at younger and younger ages. At that point there will no doubt be further debates, including research into whether the foetus can feel pain and so on.

I find comparing abortion to infaticide bizarre. One is (except in difficult and uncommon circumstances) killing a sentient individual, one is killing something that has no separate consciousness and is totally dependent for every aspect of its survival on the mother.

The reason that people would not support 39 week terminations is because at this point it is undisputedly a baby, and one that could survive perfectly happily outside the womb.

This sort of "obviously you must support 39 week terminations if women fancy them" is the sort of thing that people have been talking about on here - painting people who support a woman's right to abortion as they are allowed under the law in this country as merciless baby killers.

It also shows rather a lack of faith in ones fellow women to think that there would be a demand for 39 week abortions for no reason other than that the woman fancies it.

I mean its just not going to happen is it. Unless the woman has severe mental health issues in which case she needs help.

I agree wholeheartedly with the OP.