Abortion

If i've offended you, then sorry. Its not my intention with this thread, i just wanted to see other peoples views.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

Yes its always ok as far as I'm concerned. And the term is not abortion its 'termination' technically.
What I have a gripe over is that when you suffer from having a miscarriage, and you have to go to have the op to remove, that they put termination on your records, no matter how far in the pregnancy you are.

It up to a mother to decide. And no matter what the circumstance its a decision that is not pondered over lightly. You can't condemn any woman for making the decision.

Is that why they don't distinguish between miscarriage & abortion in your records?

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

In other words in stead of harping on about something you have no experience about come and chat to someone who has

+1

[dizzyblonde]

not offended, its just not a subject I have excetionally strong views about. Having experienced twice.
A)when I was 19 and had to make a serious decision about it.
B) having a miscarriage a year later, and having a baby removed.(like I said is still classed as termination)

The likelyhood the first child would have gone further(loking back at my history) would probablly have resulted in miscarriage anyway. My son was nearly born at 26 weeks, its a miracle hes actually here.
So decisions decisions, a woman certainly does not take it lightly. A moral judgement call, no matter who you are, how old you are. Its stuck in your mind forever. The people who help you make the decision don't just sign a form willy nilly either. You have to convince them why you want a termination. They also offer councelling before and after too.

[dizzyblonde]

Originally Posted by Stu

Is that why they don't distinguish between miscarriage & abortion in your records?

I have no idea, but losing a baby kinda makes you feel **** as it is without putting a stigmatic(right word?) phrase on your records. It wasn't a bloody termination, I wanted the baby. It died. They had to remove, as nature didn't remove it for herself.
It was something I got quite hacked off over for a while.

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

not offended, its just not a subject I have excetionally strong views about. Having experienced twice.
A)when I was 19 and had to make a serious decision about it.
B) having a miscarriage a year later, and having a baby removed.(like I said is still classed as termination)

The likelyhood the first child would have gone further(loking back at my history) would probablly have resulted in miscarriage anyway. My son was nearly born at 26 weeks, its a miracle hes actually here.
So decisions decisions, a woman certainly does not take it lightly. A moral judgement call, no matter who you are, how old you are. Its stuck in your mind forever. The people who help you make the decision don't just sign a form willy nilly either. You have to convince them why you want a termination. They also offer councelling before and after too.

What do you mean when you say the child would probably resulted in a miscarriage? (please dont feel like you have to answer if its personal)

[dizzyblonde]

I don't actually mind, its personal, of course it is, but its nature.

Some women are somehow designed so that pregnancy is very difficult. All pregnancies have thier ups and downs, pregnancy is actually hard work!. I seem to be one of those women that have difficulty in keeping a baby going in early stages. My mum had many miscarriages in between having us three kids. So for me I imagine its genetic

My son was nearly born at 26 weeks. The likelyhood of surviving is obviously a lot less than full term. Fortunately for me, the drugs that were given to me, stopped the process, and I went through the rollercoaster ride I had through the rest of the pregnancy, to which the little so and so decided to come late!
There are many women that miscarry a lot. Some women have difficuty concieving, just like some men have difficulty providing their little fish

Its just nature.

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

I don't actually mind, its personal, of course it is, but its nature.

Some women are somehow designed so that pregnancy is very difficult. All pregnancies have thier ups and downs, pregnancy is actually hard work!. I seem to be one of those women that have difficulty in keeping a baby going in early stages. My mum had many miscarriages in between having us three kids. So for me I imagine its genetic
There are many women that miscarry a lot. Some women have difficuty concieving, just like some men have difficulty providing their little fish

Its just nature.

Im glad to hear your son made it after 26 weeks, it is very young. The limit of 24 weeks for a termination is hard to think about when they can still survive around that age.

[skeetly]

I don't think it should be illegal.
There should be as much help as possible available to anyone considering it. (Theres a lot more than there used to be for sure).

TBH if you want to avoid most abortions stop yougsters from getting drunk (1). Speaking from experience thats when an awful lot of conceptions happen whether they're desired or not.

It's not fair to expect a young girl to stop everything, carry a baby to term and then give it away just because of a moment of passion/madness. That is, potentially; two people in the world with some huge issues to deal with.

1.Seeing as this is impossible better have a back up plan eh?

[gruntygiggles]

Originally Posted by Magnum

The reason i think it is wrong is that there are other options, such as giving away the baby at birth. If the mother was even considering aborting the child, then it shouldnt be hard at all to give it away to someone who cannot conceive themselves. Then after 9 months of being pregnant, she can return to work as normal. As far as i know, women work whilst pregnant for a very large period of the pregnancy (7 or 8 months?). Its not all that much of an inconvenience in my opinion.

I think its stupid how a father has no say. (i didnt actually know this was the case till you mentioned it). It is 50% his child, and 50% the mothers child. The fact that she carries it does not make it right that she has 100% of the decision.

There's a lot that you've said in here that could really annoy me if it weren't for the fact that I know you have no way of knowing what it could be like to be a woman in this position. I do understand where you are coming from and you raise some points that I don't think many men haven't thought themselves at some point.

However......

To say that it is not all that much of an inconvenience is something that I think you need to have a think about and talk to your mum or any woman you know that has gone through a pregnancy.

I was unlucky enough to go through three and a half months of having an unviable pregnancy (too complicated to go into, but technically not a foetus, just a growing, multiplying mass of cells). I thought, as did the doctors that I was in fact pregnant for a lot of that time and my body went through all the hormonal and physical changes that come at the start of a pregnancy.

Imagine the last time you got so stupidly drunk, you had the hangover from hell the next day, or if you have ever had food poisoning. Your whole digestive system is thrown into turmoil. I spent three months feeling sick and half of that time, being sick. It's not just morning, it's all through the day.

Imagine thinking of every recipe under the sun for you to make some lunch or dinner and all of them make you feel like you could be and sometimes are sick at just the thought of them. Now imagine you think of one meal......just one thing that you think YES....I can eat that. You've not been able to hold any food down for the last few days, you are more hungry than you ever thought possible and finally you have thought of something to eat that you are actually looking forward to.
You get the ingredients, you cook it and can't believe it's not making you feel sick. You sit down at the table and put it on your fork with the biggest sense of satisfaction that you're actually going to enjoy something and then, just as you get it to your lips, you're body just says NO WAY and you are left to do all that you can to get to the toilet in time to throw up.

Now think about having to go through that every single day for three months. One of the common things is wanting to only eat carby stodgy foods. Potato waffles plain, chips, plain pasta. Imagine being out for the day in the summer enjoying yourself, tucking into a cone of plain chips and really enjoying them, then all of a sudden, getting that feeling and panicking as you need to find a toilet before you have a showground full of people watching you throw up. Then think about when you do......because you've been eating dry, starchy food, there isn't enough saliva to help it move, so you start to choke and have to open the toilet door and ask a passer by to give you their drink before you lose the ability to breathe.

I'm not trying to be disgusting, I'm trying to give you just a little insight as to how incredibly life changing it is just to go through those first three and a half months. Ask someone that's actually had a child and they'll tell you about all the backache, stretchmarks, inability to sleep due to lack of comfort, painful breasts, the total humiliation of giving birth and the lack of bodily control that comes in the last 6 months. Then there are the following months of having a belly that you can tuck into your pants and have to work really hard to get back into shape and the fears and worries that come with being intimate with your partner again for the first time, after your body has changed so much.

Now....what makes this bearable for most women is that they get a child at the end of it. To ask a woman to go through all of that when they don't want that child is in my opinion, out of order.
Even if you forget all of the physical turmoil, when the child is born, you will see it and hear it and know that it is your child. To ask a woman or even worse a teenage girl to go through that and give the child away would be incredibly emotionally damaging. That woman or girl would always have the memory of hearing her baby cry and watching it being carried away and so, I don't think it is right to ever think that doing that is something we can ask of any woman!

Where women or teenage girls choose to do this, it is their choice, so then there is no problem. What I am trying to say is, adoption can never be the answer to the problem of unwanted pregancies. It is just potentially far too much to ask of someone that doesn't want a child.

As for the man being able to have 50% of the choice as well....I do understand what you are saying, but again, it has to be the final choice of the woman and yes.........it is because it is her that has to carry the child. If we got to a point where a man could force a woman to carry his child and give it to him at birth, we might as well say that it's ok to force a woman to lie down and be raped be any man that walks by. It's a womans body, so what she does with it should be absolutely her choice and to get to a point where we can force any man or woman into doing unwanted things with their bodies will be a very very bad day for man.

I'm not sure I agree with women being able to use the law to force a father to pay maintenance for a child where the father did not want the child to be born in the first place. It's maybe not fair to make a man pay for a womans decision to keep a child if he wants and both agree that the father will have no part in the childs life.

Again, I'm not trying to push my opinions on you Magnum...we all have different opinions and are all equally entitled to them. Personally I don't like the idea of termination, bu I think it is a necessary and important option for women, whatever their reasons. It's also not something that is done lightly by anyone. When I had to have my D&C to remove the mass of cells and get my body back to normal, the ward was full of women, all there for differing reasons and I wouldn't have swapped places with any one of them. I count myself lucky that what I went through wasn't a real pregnancy as I was not in a position to have a child then. If it was real, I can't say what I would have done as it was not a decision I had to make.

Sorry such a long post.....just wanted to give some reasons behind my response to your posts.

It's a shame that fathers don't get better rights when a woman has a child that he wants as well and refuses proper access. But that's a whole other topic!

Originally Posted by Magnum

The fact that she carries it does not make it right that she has 100% of the decision.

Of course it does.

She has to carry it, nurture it, give birth to it. Then hand it over? Get PND? I doubt it. The amount of mental anguish that goes on even with a WANTED pregnancy is unbelievable, and to then add the UNWANTED element makes it all the more important that a woman has the choice of abortion.

If your gf/sister/friend was raped and got pregnant would you tell her to keep it? Would you make her bring up a reminder of that event for the rest of her life?