Abortion Time Limit

Emotive subject ...but I think as babies are now becoming 'viable' at 24 weeks, with medical intervention, the restriction on time limits does need to be looked at. I don't think the OP is wrong there at all.

Just ask nurses who have to legally allow babies to die, just because they are aborted at 24 weeks but are still breathing and could be given treatment to allow them to live

Also parents who's babies are born at 24 weeks and pray their babies will survive the next 24/36 hours. Medical staff do all they can and many DO make it.

I am not procrasting for or against abortion. It is a HUGE decision for any person to make but I would certainly vote to reduce the time limit. If somebody doesn't WANT a baby, even a baby with complications, there is always other routes to consider.

The underlying narrative is frequently that women must inevitably be traumatised and psychologically damaged as a result of having an abortion and that they suffer from lifelong feelings of guilt and regret. If ending a pregnancy is constantly referred to in these terms, I think a self-fulfilling prophecy is in danger of being created.

Shame, guilt and regret is, perhaps understandably, more likely to arise in women who felt that they were pressured, perhaps by a controlling partner or parent, into having a termination against their true wishes, and if societal views appear to see these feelings as natural, it reinforces these emotionally damaging thoughts. I don't think anyone who believes in a woman's right to choose would condone coercion being used to either push women into continuing witha pregnancy or into aborting it.

I think many women are grateful that they were able to end a pregnancy which, for any number of reasons, they felt ill equipped to cope with or which, given their current situation, would make their lives infinitely more difficult.

gummy bears, thanks for your post. It's a brave woman who shares her history as you have and Respect and love to you.

As for the question about the physical and mental health of women who have terminations. The research evidence is positive. Yes, some women remain distressed by their experience but many get on with their lives, with a sense of relief that a termination was a possibility at the time they needed it.

Nonnie I think all of us who have known someone who has had a termiantion can tell you stories of the guilt and regret felt even when there has also been relief .A friend of mine has carried the guilt with her for 30 years ,she knows she did the right thing.Having the baby would have tied her to a vile abusive man for life .That doesn't stop her crying on the annivesary or on what would have been the birthday .Its not an easy choice but sometimes its a necessity .

Gummy bears ?

Early one morning some years ago I happened to see a minibus which delivered women who'd been to a clinic specialising in abortion back to the city centre. One was young, pale, and looked tired. She was greeted by a well dressed older woman, most likely her mother, with the sharp query 'Have you got rid of it then?'
I could have wept for her.

gummybears, you are a brave woman. I wish you well.

gummybears I don’t even know what to say, but I just needed you to know that I am thinking of you.

nonnie I hope I didn’t give the impression that I am not concerned about the wellbeing of the mother. I of course am, and firmly believe that there needs to be counselling offered at the time, and available to the mother throughout her life. However I agree with trisher, forcing a women to go through with these pregnancies is not the answer and will only create its own problems.

Oh gummybears we never know what other people go through. You are a survivor and obviously a good friend. I send you hugs but that doesn't seem enough. I am awed by how you have survived and still remain compassionate and understanding.

Not at all, Nonnie, I don't wish to give that impression.

I have been asked on a number of occasions by friends to accompany them as their support for the procedure. It is genuinely, regardless of the circumstances, always a harrowing trip. There was one particular incident, when the friend and I were both not quite fifteen, that I will not ever forget.

I didn't do this lightly, but I always asked myself: if this was me, what would I want from a friend? Someone to be there and support so I wasn't alone. So I have gone, and dried the tears, and given the hugs, and sat and held hands in the bathroom afterwards. And it is not a thing anyone does lightly. But I never wanted anyone I knew to have to do it alone.

The modern medical and surgical methods are extremely safe for the woman, and have been shown to not affect future fertility. That doesn't mean they mean nothing to those who have them, merely that the physical danger is no longer potentially fatal in the way the backstreet methods were. (many of which didn't work, either)

My friends were scared, and sad, and in a terrible state. But I knew that I would be taking them home safe and with the full expectation they would physically recover completely. I cannot imagine how I would have felt taking a friend to one of the old backstreet practitioners, knowing she might easily die. I want to say I would still have had the courage to go; I don't think I would have done.

I had an unplanned pregnancy as very young woman as a result of rape. My then boyfriend was savagely violent and abusive. I was still in university. I thought long and hard about my choices. I knew anyone I confided in would expect me to terminate, especially my parents.

I decided I would continue the pregnancy. At that time, I believed in a lot of shit about the father having the right to know, no matter if he was abusive ya ya.

So I told him. The resulting beating and shove down the stairs left me with a slight lifelong limp, a bum knee, two ribs that have never quite healed, and the miscarriage that he had intended to induce.

My child would be a teenager now. That child is not here because someone else took my choice about my pregnancy away from me. I will never stop being angry that my choice was taken. I will never support efforts to take other women's choice away from them.

I have had three (including current) very medically difficult pregnancies since. Doctors have seriously talked with me about the possible need to end them for my own health. I have chosen to continue. Is that a bad choice for my own health, short and long term? Undoubtedly, especially this time. But it is my choice to make. It's my body. I don't regret those choices. I only regret the time someone else chose for me.

No we are all worried about the women who have abortions, but changing the law will not make things easier and better for them. Having a child is as great if not a greater emotional and physical trauma. Only then the traumatised woman has to care for a baby as well.

Am I the only one worried about the emotional and physical effects of abortion on the women concerned?

My comments weren't aimed at anyone in particular gummy bears. I was meandering and reflecting on life and work experiences which lead me to feel the men who cause so much damage often walk away without living with the emotional and psychological consequences the women and often children, are left with

Nonnie I do know 2 women who’ve had more than one abortion due to abnormalities. This is 40% of the women I know who have had (to my knowledge) abortions. I’m not saying that no women have multiple abortions for ‘unwanted’ pregnancies, but I suspect the number of those is probably quite low.

Thank you for all the informative and thoughtful posts on this important subject.
Better funded MH services and drug facilities would clearly help but I guess we already knew that.
I'm shocked that no disabled children have been adopted. However I have knowledge of dedicated people who
foster disabled children.

Iam, I am not sure if you are referring to my post, but I assure you nothing I wrote there is a condemnation of the vulnerable.

It was (poorly expressed on my part, it seems) an attempt to illustrate how some vulnerable people repeatedly present for terminations, in answer to something posted further upthread.

I don 't criticise what anyone else does with their uterus, because it is absolutely none of my business. And what I do with mine is no one's business but my own.

I don't expect anyone to justify their reproductive choices to me, because I will be damned if I will justify mine to anyone.

But my heart absolutely went out to the women I met who were in the situations I describe. Some people have damnably hard lives.

I assure you I have plenty of blame to assign to the people who raped, coerced, paid, abused amd took advantage of these women with literally not a care for the consequences.

As paddynan says , contraception fails. I have one child (much loved) as a result of that and that child, herself has a much loved child who was conceived when contraception failed.
Yes, women who have chaotic lives as a result of mental health, drug/alcohol dependence are less likely to use contraception. So are their male partners. Those who criticise the women who have abortions haven't so far as I've seen, made any criticism of the men who fathered those unwanted babies. I've known men who fathered 16 babies, that they know and agencies know about, no one know how many other babies they've casually fathered.
Women usually end up bringing up the children. Most women aren't unhappy about that. Let's support women, let's speak out about men who casually father children they have no intention of supporting in any way.
Let's stop judging women, we aren't all perfect. I'm not a Catholic but some of my Catholic friends find the whole subject of abortion so distressing they avoid it. I respect their views. What I really struggle with is the blame loaded on vulnerable women, we're all vulnerable if we are considering abortion. Some of us are more vulnerable than others.

Another non-signer here.

Very well said paddyann.

My experience working for many years with families in the community accords with what you say in your post gummybears. Some people live very chaotic lives and sadly the situation has become much worse with funding cuts affecting any supportive services that are available. Whilst I don't like the idea of high levels of abortion, as maryeliza says we do not live in a perfect world, and I wouldn't like to support a change in legislation that would adversely affect women whose lives are infinitely more difficult than my own. As has been said, regardless of legislation the better off could always source medical abortion.

Gummy contraceptives FAIL ...fact! I got pregnant twice while using contraceptives .I was married so I wasn't that concerned ..I later miscarried both those babies.

We need to stop judging women who have abortions ...whatever the reason .They may have been coerced into getting pregnant ,they may have been taking medication that stopped the pill working .They may like me just be unlucky that their IUD failed .Its really no ones business but their own.If they feel that at that stage of their lives a baby is not the best option then they MUST be able to terminate the pregnancy

The facilities to care for unwanted/negeted or abused children is aready strtched to its limits ,we cant add countless other children to that list.
As I had family members who grew up in care I can tell you its not what most people would want for a child.

I recognise all the above but can it really account for 38%? It just seems such a huge number of people either unable or unwilling to take responsibility for not getting pregnant. Bearing in mind my friend who was never able to get pregnant again I wish there was something we could do instead.

Nonnie, that advice is given.

Sadly some folk have very chaotic lives (substance users, serious mental health issues that are not consistently treated, people not in regular contact with health services due to eg homelessness) and they continue to end up in the terrible situation of being pregnant when continuing the pregnancy would not be safe for them or the foetus.

A persistent issue I encountered in previous work related to alcoholics. They often had little idea of what had happened to them when blackout drunk, subsequently realised they were pregnant, and presented to health services having drunk extremely heavily in the first trimester. Foetal alcohol syndrome is devastating and has a myriad of extremely serious lifelong effects. Disabled children, it wrings my heart to say, are statistically unadoptable in this country: in 2015 not a single child with disability was adopted in England and Wales.

And some of the most unfortunate and vulnerable women turned up in this state, time after time. And time after time, they were given a termination. The highest count I ever personally came across was a young woman with several very serious mental illnesses, a personality disorder, and a very serious alcohol addiction. She had been through this cycle eleven times. Every time, she was further psychologically and emotionally hurt by the choice she was faced with. Each time, the people in the community who were taking advantage of her vulnerability remained nameless and faceless, whilst she was condemned by the people around her and I am sad to say, some of the workers who were supposed to help support her.

The implant or IUD can be really effective for these women, but the way contraceptive services are delivered means you have to have a separate appointment to have the device fitted. (My consultant wanted me to have the implant fitted before discharge with my second baby; it couldn't be done in the hospital and I ended up waiting six weeks to have it done in the community)

There is a percentage, small but significant, of really vulnerable women who are not being well served by how we try to manage their medical and social needs.

And that is not a desirable outcome for anyone.

I imagine most of us on here who support a liberal abortion law, would wish for a world in which all pregnancies were welcomed ( even if not planned); in which all mothers lived in emotional/financial circumstances that made the birth of a child the joy it should be ; that all mothers and foetuses were healthy ( and in the mothers case that would include mental health). A world in short where abortion was never necessary. But the world isn’t like that. I can’t find any research on women who have more than one abortion but my guess would be that the reasons are many and varied and in many cases probably beyond the reach of counselling ( during the wait for which a woman could probably get pregnant again several times) and contraception advice. It would be good to have some evidence base re women having more than one abortion to see if there were anything to mitigate against that happening but we have to live in the world as it is whilst trying to improve it. I just feel sad that some women for whatever reason end up in this situation

trisher you may be right but 38%, that's a lot.

Perhaps some of those women were desperately trying to have a baby free from abnormality and aren't succeeding.