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...)

Here you go...

by differentnameforthis Fri 02-Jul-10 15:14:38

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

Apologies, different. I confused you with another poster.

Unfortunately it's not possible to give foetuses 'rights' without taking away rights from women. That is, the right to self-determination, to a choice of medical treatment, to be more than a walking uterus.
And that stuff about giving women c-sections at 37 weeks and having the babies adopted - yeahr right. Because women only abort late in pregnancy because they are selfish silly bitches who couldn't make their minds up?

SGB I think you misunderstand me. All I'm saying is that women should not ONLY have the choice to a) abort or b) carry to term in late pregnancy, but ALSO a third choice c) to be induced/have a c-section. I'm arguing for MORE choice and against an artificial limitation of the possible options. I doubt that this would be a common situation at all, but if for whatever reason a woman decides at e.g. 37 weeks that she does not want to continue her pregnancy, why limit her to a) and b) when c) would be just as possible?

Are you seriously suggesting offering women C Sections whenever they want?

What do you do with the live, premature, possibly very premature baby that is born?

She means for late term pregnancies doesn't she? Actually it seems quite sensible to me to offer Meita's option c. The mother might be thinking about giving the baby up for adoption but might be put off by having to go through natural birth. If they can have a c section it might not seem as daunting and they might rather take that option than abortion.

(On the other thread I was dismissive about adoption being a solution (because of being adopted myself and knowing about problems associated with it) but DH has managed to persuade me that it is still better than death.)

I've just read something really sad about unwanted babies which is also making me think about recent abortion threads - about a baby 'recycling bin' in South Africa

www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1291137/Why-South-Africa-braced-unwanted-baby-boom.html

Sorry but I think you are conflating this with another nasty woman-hating pile of bullshit - that women have C-sections because they are selfish and don't want to give birth vaginally (all that to-posh-to-push crap) - FFS C-sections are a major operation and fuck your body up more than a normal vaginal delivery.
Yes there are some women who have a genuine phobia of giving birth and prefer a c-section, but guess what, just like abortions that should be between a woman and her doctors. But there is this strand of thought that is getting steadily worse and which boils down to the fact that it's a bad thing for women to have autonomy, especially with regard to motherhood, that women are inherently wicked and don't 'know their place'. It;s where all the ridiculous nonsense about alcohol in pregnancy comes from. as well as the constant attempts to restrict access to abortion, the fuss about childcare and working mothers, etc etc.

I don't think it's selfish to have a c section at all! The thought of it seems much preferable to all the pain of vaginal birth to me! I wish I'd had one!

I thought Meita was suggesting another alternative which would give women more choices. I don't get how that is saying it is a bad thing for women to have autonomy.

And somebody (was it also Meita?) made a good point on the other thread, that even if you have an abortion late term, you still have to go through the process of giving birth and it would be just as painful as if the baby was alive.

I'm a bit shocked that you think warning women about alcohol during pregnancy is ridiculous nonsense! Hasn't this been proven to be bad for the baby? (foetal alcohol syndrome)

More autonomy for people is fine up to a point, but when it means that another person is caused to suffer, that other person needs to be considered too. If they are not considered then yes, it is selfish. Isn't that logical?

Carmen, in the same spirit of "offering" women late term abortions, yes, I would also offer the choice of terminating the pregnancy without first stopping the fetus' heartbeat. Would you prefer to have dead premature babies? (I suppose you'd prefer to have neither. So would I and I suspect, most people. But I still think it should be the woman's choice - maybe to her, the alternatives are worse.)

SGB it's not about c-section vs. "natural" birth at all. If anyone finds themselves at a late stage of pregnancy, the fetus will have to come out some way or other. It doesn't really depend very much on whether the fetus' heart still beats or not. The options are largely the same (with some differences regarding pain management options). Unfortunately the woman in this scenario does NOT have the choice to avoid birth altogether. So it should be her choice, with medical advice given, to have a c-section OR to have labour induced.
(I agree that it is scary how women's autonomy is restricted. Like the story of a pregnant woman in the US who was put in a closed care hospital because she refused to "rest" as much as her doctors thought was necessary. What next?)

OSAHM I think SGB doesn't mean that giving women the information they need to make informed decisions about e.g. alcohol is the problem. The problem is when women are instructed/coerced to behave in a particular way. Shouldn't it be the woman's choice if she wants to take the risk and potentially cause harm to the fetus she is carrying? She might have very good reasons. In fact, legally it IS her choice - but morally, the pressure is mounting. As with the American woman mentioned above - where does it stop?

What good reasons can there be for wanting to risk harming your foetus by drinking alcohol?

Meita, I ask again what will be done with premature babies who are delivered because the mother no longer wants to be pregnant. Are they left without medical treatment to die? Do the NHS pay for months of NICU treatment for them?

well... say you might lose your job if you don't go along with your employer's "sociability code". Perhaps one glass of wine a week (at a weekly work do) was expected. If you didn't have it, you'd "just not fit in the company" (and maybe you can't let on that you're pregnant as that would put you top of the list for redundancies). You might really really need that job. Without it, you couldn't provide for yourself let alone your new baby. The risks associated with one glass per week is perhaps something you'd much prefer taking (particularly as they are so low) to the risk of landing yourself and your future baby in poverty.
I think there are many possible scenarios like this. But even if it were simply "I want to enjoy myself and relax with a glass of wine" over "I want to avoid any possible risk of harm to my baby" - if that's the woman's choice, who's to say it's wrong?

You would advocate bringing a 28 week baby into the world with all the pain, medical needs and long term disability... for /any/ reason a mother decides?

Does a woman's right to 'choose' override the fact that that child will either be left to die in pain or go through months of painful, expensive, frightening treatment and a probability of long term disability?

No. This is why I am not pro-choice. Some choices should not be legally acceptable.

Carmen, what about premature babies that are born every day. What if the mother decides to give them up for adoption. Will they be left to die? No they won't - as our society decides that in solidarity, everyone pays money in order to support those who can't care for themselves.
This scenario would be extremely rare - just like late-term abortions would be extremely rare. No such decision would be made by any pregnant woman lightheartedly.
So yes, the NHS i.e. all of us would pay to keep the premature baby alive. Wouldn't it be a bit odd to argue that you can decide to have your fetus' heartbeat stopped in utero and then give birth to it, but you can't decide to give birth to it alive and then give it up for adoption?
Through the NHS we would all be paying to keep up the solidarity principle and keep choices open for affected people.

"No such decision would be made by any pregnant woman lightheartedly."

But here's the thing - you don't know that. You could say 'Oh, it's rare that anyone would murder someone...' but the law is there because they might. People do things for all kinds of reasons. And they're not always well considered or informed. Your argument assumes that all women are sufficiently intelligent, mature and educated enough to realise the full consequences of what they're doing.

If it is legally allowed, you accept that in the eyes of a law, a doctor must perform a caesarean, deliver a baby who will need massive, long term, expensive, agonising care because someonel couldn't wait a few more weeks to go on her holiday to Majorca.

No, that is not an acceptable choice, just as murdering someone is not an acceptable choice. And practically speaking, the very first time it happened there would be a massive outcry of people lobbying for a law to stop it ever happening again.

I would advocate that if a woman decides that this is indeed the best option, having been advised of possible alternatives and of possible effects on herself, on the baby, on her perhaps already existing family - then yes, that should be her choice.
I would not advocate for the child to be left to die in pain though. Just that it should be the woman's choice if the fetus' heartbeat should be stopped in utero or if it should be born alive and then "go through months of painful, expensive, frightening treatment". Some might chose the former, some the latter. Most everyone however would chose to stay pregnant for another x weeks. But those for whom staying pregnant appears worse than stopping their fetus' heartbeat, and worse than subjecting their baby to months of pain and possible disability, they should have the choice.

Carmen, I agree that the public would most likely not tolerate this.

But for me, as long as the fetus is part of the woman's body, it's her choice. That is not the same as after the baby is born - it is then not the woman's choice anymore, it is not her body anymore.

To go down the other route: If you say women should have restricted choices about what they do with their bodies when they are pregnant, do you see any boundaries on that? Or is it in effect that women should legally be prohibited to do anything that carries a risk to their fetuses? Where is the cut-off point where a woman may still decide for herself and where do the fetus' needs override her own? Do you have any legitimisation for such a cut-off point (perhaps, if the woman's life is in danger, she can chose to do differently, but if only her sanity is in danger, she cannot chose to risk harm to her baby). How would you argue this, the other side?

My problem, Meita is that I don't see the foetus as part of the woman's body. It is inside and supported by her body but not part of it. Therefore I see it not just about her choice over her body.

I'm not going to argue about smoking or drinking during pregnancy. And I don't have any cut-off where I think abortion is acceptable. I've already said on this thread that I don't have the answers. I know that I'm probably ok with someone having an early term abortion or taking the pill. I know that I'm not ok with someone having a later term abortion for no medical reason.

But I do think it is necessary (as long as we have a legal system) to find a compromise in there. And to specifically overrule deliberate, medically assisted harm to a 28 week foetus for frivolous reasons.

Also, are doctors going to be obliged to deliver these premature babies at 28 weeks because mum wants a holiday? Where does that fit into the hippocratic oath?

Carmen: That's kind of an interesting discussion point you have raised. Except for the fact that no one who wasn't completely mental would think that having a c-section in order to go on holiday would be feasible, let alone desirable - how much of a holiday would it be with an unhealed section? This is another example of 'Ooh, we can't let women make choices all by their ickle selves, they might have some fun or something'.

Mind you I do remember reading of a woman induced at about 30 wks in order for her dying mother (ie the baby's grandmother) to get to see the baby. Would you call that frivolous/selfish?

I wouldn't call that case frivolous or selfish, but if I was a doctor, it's not something I would agree to ethically.

It really doesn't work to say, "Ok, we don't need a law against that because hardly anyone would ever do it." People do 'mental' things all the time. If they didn't, we wouldn't actually have any laws against things like murder.

In fact this is why there is a legal system. Because sadly, some people ARE so supremely selfish that they would destroy another person's life, just so that they could 'have fun or something.'

"I don't think it's selfish to have a c section at all! The thought of it seems much preferable to all the pain of vaginal birth to me! I wish I'd had one"

Firstly am that you think sections are less on the pain scale than vaginal births.

Ordinary....no you don't! Sorry,....but after having 2, I don't think anyone should 'wish' they had one. It is major abdominal surgery! It took me several weeks to recover from my second, along with an infection. They make subsequent pregnancies more difficult, they lower fertility. In some women it has been known to cause infertility. You can have problems with bleeding, you have a higher chance of hysterectomy. I had no choice with dd1, she was distressed & needed to come out. But with dd2, I had a choice. But I was worried my scar would rupture & cause complications.

When you have a vaginal birth, the process of coming down the birth canal forces fluid out of the babies lungs. This doesn't happen with section babies. When dd was hours old she was choking on this fluid & I couldn't move quick enough to turn her. I had to press the emergency call button to get help. I have never felt so useless in my life...I couldn't even twist my body to help my baby! Vaginal birth is much less stressful for mother & baby.

I couldn't lie on my sides for weeks, I couldn't get out of bed without help for weeks.

I don't understand why people wish for major surgery when there is an alternative.

to answer the OP: although there are worse pople than Anti-abortionists in the world, the scandalous amount of money that gets spent on it in the USA could save the lives of so many children who are already drawing breath you have to wonder at the waste.

In this country i have less of a problem with it, although invariably it is those people who hate poor , young mothers most who are msot opposed to abortion (so effectively what they hate is young women who dared to have sex...)

Just to throw another late night cat into your happy pigeons....

meita said "But for me, as long as the fetus is part of the woman's body, it's her choice. That is not the same as after the baby is born - it is then not the woman's choice anymore, it is not her body anymore."

Does that mean that when you have sex the penis is part of the woman's body until it's removed when it becomes part of the man's again?

By the way, most 28 week premature babies are not disabled. Those that are will most likely have some sort of mild cerebral palsy which makes them uncoordinated and bad at sports but does not ruin their entire lives. See this which is talking about babies born before 25 weeks, amongst whom 31% had no problems, 11% had severe disability and a whopping 30% had to live with the terrible impairment of "needing glasses / having a squint"

Carmen: your attitude to what the legal system is 'for' sums up a lot of what is wrong with the world today - you seem to think that laws should be in place to restrict people's freedom on the grounds that a tiny, tiny percentage of nutters might do something naughty.
Please bear in mind that we have laws against murder and theft but people still do these things, and denying women the right to choose what happens to their own bodies on the grounds that a tiny minority of women might terminate pregnancies on grounds that other people don't like is an example of doing more harm than good. The harm done to the far larger numbers of women who need or want to terminate their PGS much outweighs the theoretical harm that might be done by allowing a hypothetical tiny minority of female sociopaths to have their own way.

on late abortion: many of those who have late abortions do not have anything wrong with the foetus: but are themselves extremely young (which is why they don't come forwards to terminate earlier) - is making a child have another child protecting childrens rights?

incidentally, i think for someone else to decide what i should consider a severe enough problem with a pregnancy to terminate is treating me like an infant: doctors should not be allowed to decide what considers 'serious' as they seem to me pretty slap-happy about what is 'fixable'. It isn't them after all that would be at the side of a sick baby for month - or year - upon end. the stats on abortions from 24-28 weeks are available online somewhere.....and make very sad reading. though the law i think still requires sign-off from two doctors...

on counselling: if I had been made to have counselling prior to abortion, it would have been a farce involving me saying what i thought the other person wanted to hear in order to get the abortion i wanted. nothing more. counselling is not for everyone, and to make it mandatory is again treating me like a 'silly litle woman who doesn't know her own mind'

i believe the policy at our local hospital is not to suggest an abortion to anyone, though be supportive if requested.

I also have never regretted having an abortion, and indeed the risk to your mental health of having one is the same as the general risk of long term ill effects from having a child...(and that is comparing abortion result from the normal rate of PND amongst mothers, not those mothers who, perhaps, would have considered termination who we can suppose must be more vulnerable to PND..)