Abortions

…What is everyone’s opinion on them? Quite a controversial subject obviously, but it think it is an interesting debate.

Personally I think people should be allowed control over their own lives, but at the same time I know I personally could not terminate a life, unless there was a chance that the life would be one of utter sorrow or suffering through some kind of disability, and I haven’t been in that situation (I may indeed feel differently if I was). However, I don’t and won’t judge people who have.

Opinions?

Ideally, it shouldn’t happen, but needs to be there for less than ideal circumstances. Wouldn’t imagine it to be an easy decision for a second. The one and only time we ever discussed the possiblity was when ms pap fell pregnant with Juvenile Unit #1. We were very young, but both of us were prepared to give it a shot and neither of us was very comfortable with the idea of termination.

I understand the decision is very complex - differing from person to person, and situation to situation. I’m not trying to be judgmental about it. I knew it would be difficult, but ultimately, we would have made the other call for the wrong reasons, such as fear, convenience or establishing ourselves first. None of that seemed to be adequate justification for us personally.

I tried to write a long spiel about this but cannot.

IMO it should be available for the mother to decide at any point upto the cut off point of when if born the feotus would actually survive on its own. after this point it should be availble if life threatening to the mother. At no point should the father or any judicial body have the decision to make the mother keep the foetus if she does not want to.

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Not a dig at you in the slightest Cherts, but I find the fact that this is a debate again pretty sad.

People (women) should have autonomy over their bodies. It’s not up to other people to tell them what they want to do. I imagine this can/will/does cause some deeply upsetting disagreements in some scenarios, but it is ultimately the woman that has to choose to carry (or not) a pregnancy to full term. I know what people think, but if some weird inexplicable change to humanity occurs and men start becoming pregnant my stance would be exactly the same. It is no one else but your’s decision what happens to your body.

I do understand how people can object to abortion, honestly I do. I cannot possibly imagine how hard a decision it must be for someone to take, I am so glad I’ve never found myself in a position where I have had to consider such things. It is ultimately, something that is going to happen. Whether we outlaw it, try to stop it, whatever. There will be people, for whatever reason (and there are plenty of legitimate reasons) that will attempt to terminate a pregnancy. Given that, there needs to be safe-gaurds to ensure the health and safety of those people. Walling them off behind expensive treatments doesn’t help anything either, it doesn’t make people stop and think, it just punishes those already at the most risk.

I find the debate sad, as although I’m sure next to noone agrees abortion is a good thing, I thought the debate (at least in the UK) had moved beyond whether or not it should be allowed. I know a lot of this comes from the other side of the pond, but I hope it stays mostly over there. It feels as though you are attacking symptoms, and not the cause.

Edit: fixing typos.

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Originally posted by @KRG

Not a dig at you in the slightest Cherts, but I find the fact that this is a debate again pretty sad.

People (women) should have autonomy over their bodies. It’s not up to other people to tell them what they want to do. I imagine this can/will/does cause some deeply upsetting disagreements in some scenarios, but it is ultimately the woman that has to choose to carry (or not) a pregnancy to full term. I know what people think, but if some weird inexplicable change to humanity occurs and men start becoming pregnant my stance would be exactly the same. It is no one else but your’s decision what happens to your body.

I do understand how people can object to abortion, honestly I do. I cannot possibly imagine how hard a decision it must be for someone to take, I am so glad I’ve never found myself in a position where I have had to consider such things. It is ultimately, something that is going to happen. Whether we outlaw it, try to stop it, whatever. There will be people, for whatever reason (and there are plenty of legitimate reasons) that people will attempt to terminate a pregnancy. Given that, there needs to be safe-gaurds that ensure the health and safety of those people. Walling them off behind expensive treatments doesn’t help anything either, it doesn’t make people stop and think, it just punishes those already at the most risk.

I find the debate sad, as although I’m sure next to noone agrees abortion is a good thing, I thought the debate (at least in the UK) had moved beyond whether or not it should be allowed. I know a lot of this comes from the other side of the pond, but I hope it stays mostly over there. It feels as though you are attacking symptoms, and not the cause.

I think some people may have had this debate, although it’s certainly not a debate I’ve had recently. What prompted it was an Independent Tweet about a US columnist who got various abusive messages, including someone pretending to be her dead dad after writing an article about abortions. I was wondering what opinions were, because although attitudes are a lot more laid back over here, it is still something that is an opinion piece, and it isn’t just a simple ‘they can decide themselves’. This isn’t about whether it should be allowed for me, it is about the actual decision (morally and ethically).

Think I saw that, Lindy West?

Fair enough on the rest of it. But yeah, I do find the fact that in the States this is still a serious debate. As in, perspective Presidential Candidates are vetted on this shite. I really cannot get my head around that. Then again, a Mormon, running on a Mormon ticket was considered a viable Candidate at their last election.

Whilst Prime Ministers here pay a bit of lip service to Christian beliefs, I find it hard to envisage religion playing such a large role in the election build up here.

If I didn’t make this entirely clear before, I don’t agree with abortion being illegal. That creates far more trouble than it the present situation. Irish women still have to come here for terminations. Before it was legal, desperate women would take desperate actions. For me, there is no question of taking it off the books.

That said, it is a decision that many of us have either have had to make or have been affected by. My second hand experience from talking to women that have had an abortion completely scotches the myth that people just use it as form of retroactive contraception. I never got the impression that it was an easy decision for any of them, or made in the easiest of circumstances.

We were strengthened by a mutual resolve to see it through, but it’s got to be a difficult decision for the girl that gets pregnant to the prick that doesn’t want to know.

Never got that impression, FWIW.

And yeah, I think that idea is something people that are morally opposed to abortion use as something of a strawman. Of the people I know that have been through the process, none of them took the decision lightly. Even when it wasn’t really a choice at all (age, circumstance etc), it was still something that weighed heavily. I’m sure there are people that have had a few, and think nothing of it. But I’d be surprised if it was little more than an anomaly.

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I used to have a very confirmed view on this and that was that the woman had every right to decide for herself if she wanted an abortion. The pro life lobby, to me, were reactionary old (generally religous) fools.

Then the wife and I went for scans when she was pregnant.

My views very much softened after what I saw on the super 4D image thingy that was being used to show us our 19 week old foetus! It was a proper little person in the making!

Now I still believe in the right of women to decide for themselves. I still believe abortion should be legal, but I think 24 weeks is too long a time period for a limit. And i also think it must be one of the hardest decisions anyone has to make.

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Pro choice but they should lower the time in which you are allowed to do so, religion on this has absolutely no role to play.

From a liberal, lefty perspective I feel that everyone should have the right to choose. We as a society should do everything we can to support people in a situation like this (I actually know somebody who’s going through a termination now) to make an informed decision, because it’s the kind of thing that changes your life one way or another. Welfare can help to support people to raise their children properly when otherwise they couldn’t, and we all have a role to play in that.

From a pragmatic view, global population growth is worrying. Our current ways are incredibly unsustainable and something will need to change to ensure that we can survive on this planet - whether that’s through our lifestyles or through the number of people living those lifestyles. Either way, I think Doug Stanhope sums up my views on population growth in this segment:

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I think the legal limit for abortions should be raised to 18 years.

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That’s plain daft. Who on earth does that help? It’s not going to stop kids having sex.

All you do is force the problem underground and put already vulnerable kids in even more danger.

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KRG hopefully Ohio meant you should be allowed to abort your kids up until they are 18 years old sounds like a plan to me. Might even keep the little bastards in check knowing at any stage they could be euthanised.

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lol

Thank goodness I have never had to make that decision. The first Mrs SOG had an obortion with a previous bf. We agreed to go for 3 kids when we got together (she had a daughter from her previous marriage so that meant 2). After 2 she got broody again. So we had another. Later she said it was to replace the one she had aborted! Eek.

I am with others here. People should have control over their bodies and their lives. But I also think it should be harder to have an abortion and there should be a lot of counselling before hand, and after. It is a massive responsibility and who knows, you might be aborting the next Beethoven or Da Vinci? ( as well as the next Hitler or Stalin).

I know where you are coming from with this PS but what about this situation? The couple are in a permanent relationship, have a home and other children together. She is pregnant with a child they both want but has the tests and the child has Downs Syndrome. The mother wants to abort but the father wants to keep the child. Who gets the final say?

Yeah, misread Ohio’s post. Sorry Ohio.

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SOG In this case the mother still gets the final say it is her that will carry and deliver it if they take it to term, it may bring some harm to there relationship, but there is always the possibility of trying for another which will not have downs.

And that brings up the debate about do you terminate a child because of Downs, or even if it is a girl as in China? We want children but we want what we want, not what we are given? It sounds a bit Brave New World to me.