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 always amazes me that some people would force a woman through an unwanted pregnancy against her will

Adoption isn't the simple solution it might seem. The birthmother can struggle with difficult feelings from it for the rest of her life and the baby can struggle with being separated from its birthmother, difficulties bonding with adoptive parents (attachment disorder - well documented), the knowledge in later life that they were unwanted by their birthmother, the feeling of there being a difficult to explain 'gap' in their soul and desperately searching for something to fill it etc. Some people might cope really well with adoption but lots don't. Maybe adoption is better than death, I really don't know what I think, I'm just saying that it isn't just a simple thing.

"Honestly, are we being selfish physically and emotionally"

I guess I was. Physically because as I said before, I don't know if my body would have coped, or come out of it the same as it was when it went into it.

Emotionally because my existing children (one only 5mths) needed a mother. I wasn't a very good one while I was waiting for my termination. To the point that my depression saw me screaming at my baby. Something I am not proud of & that upsets me greatly, even now.

Should my children have been exposed to that for a further 8 months? No, they bloody shouldn't have been, but they would have been, such was my depression over the situation I found myself in. Not to mention that I would have been a single mum because my marriage couldn't cope with my sudden depression & rages.

Surgeons refused to tie my tubes at #2's birth. It wasn't reliable, too difficult as all swollen, what if something happens to baby after birth etc.

Dr refused to refer me for tubal ligation at 4 after a section scar infection, refused at 6 week check as dd too young (surgery policy not to refer until youngest a yr) & at a 3 months contraception review (same as at 6 weeks).

So I tried to prevent it. But it happened, and there was NO way my family was going to live with the consequences of that!

I am please for the man in your story. I really am, but to me, that is fairy tail stuff, because I know that horror story of being forced to carry & raise a baby you don't want.

Sex is not primarily for making babies MichaelaS. We're not cows. And many mammals have sex for pleasure I believe, not just humans.

I do think it's women-hating to force women to continue an unwanted pregnancy, yes.

fairy tale

I'm reminded of some people who wanted to be animal rights activists, who were concerned about fox hunting... so they attacked a kennel of hunting dogs.

Ideology is one thing, but I don't think it should justify violence or bullying.

hi differentnameforthis thanks for your views, I'm sorry you felt that bad. Can I ask what the circumstances were which led you to consider such a drastic action?

I'm afraid I disagree that a woman has a basic human right to abortion though - different people and different countries disagree over whether it's a right, and whether or not it should be available.

Thanks duelingfanjo also, I guess this is the point of difference - that I would rather a child was born and "abandoned" to another couple - in the case of babies it's likely there would be a couple desparate for a child to love and care for - rather than not born. I can see it's a grey area if the child is older (less likely to be adopted) or has some sort of disability (ditto), or if we lived in a country where children regularly starve to death, are put in the workhouse or sold as slaves...

I'm lucky to have never been in the situation of having an unwanted pregnancy, but I do remember thinking, even at 16, that if i got pregnant by accident I would keep the child. Real adult life is different and complicated though - I can see others situations might not be as straighforward.

I have in the past had interesting conversations with my cousin who adopted two children when she and her husband couldn't conceive

she has said that although she wanted children very badly, she was totally against women being forced into going through unwanted pregnancies

the way she put it was that just because she and her dh were desperate to adopt and give a baby a loving home, didn't mean that a woman should be forced into continuing an unwanted pregnancy and birth (if that woman wanted a termination)

Idon't know whether I have explained that very well

I think that makes sense OrientCalf - because there are people who can't have children doesn't mean that women who can should be forced to act as baby farmers to supply the demand

Well that's how I read your post anyway!

posts crossed because i took so long to write it... sorry.

Thanks for your views, it's really interesting to hear different opinions and experiences. Especially thanks for your opinions differentnameforthis

I guess one thing we can all agree on is that we're very lucky to live in a time and place where contraception is available and we can, to some extent, choose not to conceive a child in the first place. Although it doesn't always work and methods can fail.

I definitely disagree with any violent protests, and even protests ouside abortion clinics - by the time a woman has got that far I think it's cruel to interfere. But I would like to see more general information, perhaps in GP surgeries or even schools, about non-abortion options. It's not really socially acceptable to carry a baby and hand it over for adoption, and I wonder how many women choose abortion rather than face the stigma. What really saddens me is teenage parents who have repeated abortions as a method of birth control rather than take better care with their contraception. This seems to be on the increase, and I wonder if these girls go on to suffer emotionally as they grow older. I have a good friend who had an abortion at 19 after falling pregnant too young to the guy who is now her husband. 12 years later they wanted to start a family. She had problems conceiving, probably nothing to do with the abortion, but she was so cut up about it and felt so guilty. She didn't feel that she was given enough information at 19 about how she might be emotionally effected in the long run.

I would also not want to force any woman to go through with an unwanted pregnancy. But more than this, I would not want to force any foetus to die. I dont' think either option is good, but in my view i'd rather look on the "rights" of the foetus rather than the "rights" of the woman, in most cases.

ladybiscuit - if sex is not primarily for making babies, what is it for? Only dolphins are known to have sex for pleasure. Other mammals often use it as an aggression / dominance play.

I'm just saying that imho from an evolutionary perspective, the relationship aspects of sex comes out of the baby making aspects, and the fact that we have an extraordinary length of childhood and child-dependence on parents, therefore need stable pair bonding over several years for succesful breeding.

MichaelaS I think you will find that I have posted here on this thread why I did what I did.

Yes, sorry, as I said at 14:40, "posts crossed because i took so long to write it... sorry."

You know what, I adore babies. I have wanted children for as long as I can remember & my marriage almost broke up over dh's lack of wanting them.

So, if you asked me any time during the first 13yrs of our relationship "what would you do if you found yourself unexpectedly pregnant'' I would have said, unequivocally 'I would keep it". I have never been against abortion, but I never thought I would ever have one.

It is only since I have experienced pregnancy first hand, had physical & emotional issues attached to those pregnancies, had surgical births that I decided that I contemplated it. I did everything in my power not to fall pregnant again. Because I just did not want to live through that again.

That is my basic human right. To choose when to get pregnant. To choose to bring a life into this world. My existing family was more important to me that the foetus inside me. I felt weak at the time, weak & hopeless.

My daughters have basic human rights too. They have the right to a sane, balanced parent. They have the night to be nurtured, to be cared for, to be fed. To not be screamed at constantly. They deserve a mother who thinks of their welfare.

I made a strong choice. I choose my life & my daughter's lives over a pending life. If that bothers you, that is your problem.

"Only dolphins are known to have sex for pleasure"

really?

Oh well in that case I don't tick any of your boxes as to what's right for successful breeding. I have no idea how many times I've had sex but it's been several hundred with a wide number of partners and only conceived three times. So for me, sex is primarily about pleasure. Oh and I'm a single parent so am not doing that right either

Ladybiscuit!

It's a bit different in the west with a welfare state and no requirement to hunt or gather though! Just our biology hasn't caught up with our relatively recent change in lifestyle.

I don't claim any benefits except for child benefit - just to explode another myth

"Only dolphins are known to have sex for pleasure"

Tell that to the bonobos and the chimps

micheal - sex is for humans a pleasure and or dolphines- but they have both evolved to that state and probably the dolphones got there first - but for humans since the 60's not only has it been for pleasure but it is easier for pleasure without a baby.

I think women should always have the choice of continuing or not continuing with a pregnancy, without their reasons being scrutinised and judged.

Regarding late term situations however, I think there is a bit of a blind spot in the discussion. Consider a woman who at 37 weeks decides not to continue with the pregnancy. If she were to have an "abortion", this would mean the baby's heart would need to be stopped intrauterinely, but then she would still need to give birth. Be it by cesarean or by induction. At that stage she could NOT avoid giving birth - it would just be a stillbirth. I wonder if in such a case, inducing, giving birth and then giving the baby up for adoption is not the better course of action than stopping the baby's heart, then inducing, then burying. Can it really be harder for the woman to give the baby up for adoption than to stop its heart?

The blind spot I think is that after viability has been reached, the choice is not simply "carry the baby to term, give birth, and care for the child for the rest of your life" vs. "make sure the baby can't live, then induce (abortion)" but there is also a third choice, namely "induce right now, get the baby out, and give it up for adoption".
Before everybody comes crashing down on me, I KNOW that adoption in general is not an alternative for abortion/the right to chose. I'm just wondering if it might be an option in late-term situations.
The arguments against adoption-as-alternative-to-abortion that I've seen on here don't really hold for late-term situations, or am I missing something?

• You can't force anyone to continue with an unwanted pregnancy. ->You wouldn't be. The pregnancy can be stopped immediately (by inducing labour/doing a CS)
• Going through labour/birth is something you can't force women to do. ->At this late stage, any abortion involves "giving birth" - just that the baby won't be alive after birth. But there is no avoiding the "birth" bit.
• Giving up a baby for adoption after having born it for 9 months is a trauma you cannot force on anyone. -> Do you think stopping the foetus heart at say 37 weeks, and then giving birth to it, is less traumatic?

I hope it comes across that I'm arguing for choice. I just think the choices are more diverse than is sometimes put out. Compare for example after the baby has been born - a woman can decide at any time that she wants to give the baby up for adoption. Why can't she decide/chose the same before the baby is born, without being forced to keep bearing it until it decides it's time to be born? Why must she stop its heart before she can give birth to it, if she doesn't want to continue with the pregnancy?

different said, "You cannot make it unavailable. You are taking away a woman's basic human rights if you do that!"

But different - you argued for setting limits after 24 weeks. Surely that is taking away a woman's basic human rights?

An abortion is not a basic human right. It's a medical procedure.

IMO, either abortion is OK or it isn't. Any time limit is essentially arbitary. Time limits as they stand are disablist and discriminatory. If it is OK to abort a baby with genetic conditions, then it is also OK to abort one without.

I firmly believe that abortion should be freely available right through pregnancy, for any reason. I hate abortion, I hope I would never be in a position where I would feel it was my only choice - but I firmly believe that it is a fundamental right of a woman to not be forced to carry a baby to full term if she does not feel she can.

I genuinely do not believe removing the limits would cause a massive upswing in abortion, because the number performed in the later weeks is tiny anyway. But the limits are arbitary, pointless, without foundation in anything other than a bizarre opinion of what viability is.

"But different - you argued for setting limits after 24 weeks"

No I didn't. I have not mentioned anything about setting limits at any weeks. Please be accurate before you contest my posts.

"An abortion is not a basic human right"

By basic human rights I meant the basic human right to choose how many children she gives birth to & raises. I am sure I have posted that elsewhere on here. Will re-read my posts.