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**migirl** · 11-03-2006, 09:27 AM

Re: abortion

Originally posted by mom2three

should there be a cut off for the abortion? yes, 6 weeks

I don't have time to respond to all of your questions here, but I wanted to address this point with my own personal experience.

I'm not sure you were around when this happened, but almost 2 years ago our first pregnancy ended in termination at 19 weeks and it was the single, most painful experience of my entire life. I still can't even talk about it without becoming completely grief-stricken, even just typing this is difficult for me. Our baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18 during a routine ultrasound; if she even lived through the rest of the pregnancy, she would almost certainly have died after birth because it is a fatal condition. So, by your logic, I should have been forced to carry a baby - who would have had essentially no chance for survival - to term? As excruciatingly painful as the decision to terminate was, I cannot even imagine the pain of having to carry a child inside my body for 5 months, only to know the outcome in the end would be her certain death.

Obviously it was not a choice that I had wanted to make, I wouldn't wish that situation or that type of pain on my worst enemy. However, I'm grateful that I was given the CHOICE to make the decision that was right for me and for my family.

**alison** · 11-03-2006, 09:31 AM

I'm staying out of this one.

But I will say, Jane, that I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you.

**rainbabies** · 11-03-2006, 09:38 AM

im so sorry, jane.

i should have added to my response(and i almost did in the original post) if the baby has a defect that will prevent it from living, or endangering the mother's life...then yes. after 6 weeks.

**Sheherezade** · 11-03-2006, 09:48 AM

So Sylvia....you are really brave! Or really bored!

This is a lightning road issue. DH (also in an OB field) is pro-choice and has been exposed to some pretty ugly OB situations in inner cities. (Those 11 year olds raped by their brother, the 42 year old grandmothers with 6 dependents at home raped by their neighbors etc.

) I'm glad he went in to a non-OB field. I couldn't deal with this moral conflict in our house. I'm also pro-choice but wish that people could be trusted to make choices that were in moral agreement with me.

(Is that so much to ask?

) I have heard of abortion situations that disgust me, but I've also heard of situations that I can understand. I wish the issue would be settled one way or the other, because I personally believe that it has ruined the political process in this country.

It's been very hard to move on with *abortion* hanging over every election since the 80s. I'm in favor of some limitations, but I fear they are just putting us on the road to total bans. (Cynical me)

Honestly, I wish we lived in a better world, with higher standards and values, and that people were free to make their own personal medical decisions in the privacy of their physician's office without interference from the world. (Placing fingers in ears and singing LALALALALALA!)

Jane.....I remember your loss. I'm sorry it still causes you such pain.

**rainbabies** · 11-03-2006, 09:51 AM

Originally posted by goofy

So Sylvia....you are really brave!

trust me, it's not bravery.

i just dont remember ever seeing this hashed out before. as mentioned in the past, im just not into the political side in things. but, since coming here and reading about stuff....i have been able to learn so much, change my views on things, and give dh a better argument.

**SuzySunshine** · 11-03-2006, 09:59 AM

To be honest I don't know where I stand on this issue. I am a strong republican and a strong Catholic so I know where I "should" stand.

I know I'm going to get stoned for this but...

IMO, women that get pregnant by normal means (i.e. consensual sex) should not be allowed to have an abortion after six weeks except for medical reasons. Put the child up for adoption or be more careful in the first place, even before its born it IS a child.

Other situations are just too different and should be handled just as such.

:!

**Stella** · 11-03-2006, 10:05 AM

Re: abortion

Jane, I can't imagine. I am sure that must have been a heart-wrenching experience (and still is) and I can completely understand why you made the decision you did.

Going out on a limb, here are my opinions.

Originally posted by mom2three

[color=olive]
what do you think about abortion? i am pro-choice for others, but would never have it done myself. however, partial birth IM SO AGAINST.

Agreed. Esp on partial birth.

Originally posted by mom2three

[color=olive]
should it be illegal? no, because then people will start having back alley abortions leading to death and infection

Agreed.

Originally posted by mom2three

[color=olive]
should kids under 18 have to have parental consent? yes

Agreed.

Originally posted by mom2three

[color=olive]
should the father be notified?unless it was rape or incest...yes. (which could be tricky because incest could have been done to someone under 18 )

I think yes. But what if they don't know who the father is?

Originally posted by mom2three

should there be a cut off for the abortion? yes, 6 weeks

Yes, although my personal opinions differ, I think generally a good reasoning for legal limits would be cut off afer 2nd term.

ETA: My big issue with abortion is the tendency for some to use it as a means of birth control, which disgusts me. It's all about taking responsibility for your actions. Every time you CHOOSE to have sex, you are making a CHOICE to possibly get pregnant. It's just the chance you take. That's why we use two forms of BC. Seriously.
--Of course, this is not relevant to every situation, so don't flame me for every exception to this please.--

**Vishenka69** · 11-03-2006, 10:20 AM

I'm completely pro-choice. While I don't think abortions should be the preferred or chosen method of birth control, I think it's better to terminate a pregnancy in a medical environment than to give birth to many unwated babies.

Although part of me agrees that there should be an age below which parent concent is required, I'm also not sure what to do in situations when the parents are pro-life and girl is pro-choice.

I think the woman should decide for herself if getting an abortion is the morally correct choice for her. I don't think those who are more religious should impose on those of us who are atheists/agnostics and don't believe that life begins at conception. Keeping abortions legalized doesn't force pro-lifers to get one but banning it forces pro-choicers to abide by pro-lifers rules. I don't think that's fair.

**PrincessFiona** · 11-03-2006, 10:30 AM

This issue has been brought up in the past, and...we admins have usually seen the topic and deleted it/PMd people about it because of the potential for 1. a horrible blow-out and 2. a desire to be especially sensitive because of Jane's devastating experience.

I can remember a time in my life where I was adamantly pro-life without the ability to see any other way.....but as I gained more life experience/heard more stories from individuals with horrible pregnancy related illnesses or devastating birth defects I changed my mind. Additionally, I would ask any pro-lifers how you would want to legislate the exceptions of rape,incest and potentially life-threatening conditions to the mother or birth defects of the child.

1. If a woman claims she is raped, does the rapist have to be caught and convicted in court before she can terminate the pregnancy? If so, you are looking at our legal system and the woman will likely have carried the pregnancy to term before it gets to court or the rapist won't be caught (likely) and she'll have the baby before anything happens. If she doesn't have to go to court first, can any woman say "I was raped" just to terminate? How will you prove it?

2. Who determines whether the woman is subjected to a life-threatening illness and how is it defined? Does the woman have to be knocking on death's door or does mental illness/mental instability/stress also count as potentially life-threatening? Who determines what the universal standard is and what physician is then responsible for signing on the dotted line? Psychiatrist, Family practitioner, OB?

3. What medical illness of the fetus constitutes a substantial enough birth defect of the child? Club foot? Mental retardation?

What is the difference between 6 weeks and 8 weeks or 12 for that matter? Also, many women don't even know they are pregnant until they are 4-6 weeks pregnant. How would we be able to expedite things in case s of rape/incest etc. Most women don't get thorough scans that determine potentially serious conditions of the fetus that may not be consistent with life until 20 weeks. If you are opposed to the termination after the 20 week scan, are you willing to pony up your tax dollars to help provide all healthcare,respite care, and extra educational and therapeutic expenses for the child or do you just turn you head and say "thank God that didn't happen to us"...There but for the grace of God go I, you know....should a rare genetic problem have the ability to completely bankrupt a family or will political policy follow the pro-life at all costs doctrine?

These are all very difficult questions that I think would be very, very difficult to legislate in our courts and would place an incredible pressure on our medical system as well as women.

In my opinion, the bottom line is that we don't KNOW what we really would do in a given situation unless we are placed in that situation. Thank God that most of us are not. Had my cancer been discovered earlier in my pregnancy last year, I truly do not know what I would have done in regards to Zoe. I would like to say that it wouldn't have mattered, that I would have had the chemo anyway and prayed that baby wasn't affected negatively and that if she was that I would be able to care for her....but I don't KNOW. Thank GOD I was in my second trimester with more hope of her not being affected. Still, I was offered a *termination* before chemo and turned it down...but I did so with the understanding that there was indeed hope for her to be ok. Had there been no hope, it wouldn't have been fair to Zoe to bring her into the world suffering. It would have broken my heart and I would probably never have healed emotionally, but I think I would have terminated the pregnancy.

For the record, DH's choice many months ago was that I go and terminate the pregnancy. He was so devastated by the cancer and was so terrified that the extra complication of pregnancy might interfere with treatment that he wanted the pregnancy out of the way. He felt ....devastated about that as well, and he left the choice up to me, but if he could have ruled with an iron fist, we would have ended the pregnancy and then gone on to treat the cancer. There was some anger on his part especially because the chemo did endanger Zoe at the end, we did have complications related to pregancy and complications related to chemo....did have to play around with radiation dates etc.

I do not hold it against my husband that he wanted a termination....he was thinking of my health as the mother of 4 living children who needed me....as well as the fact that we may bring a handicapped child into the world with my health being an uncertainty.

There are no black and white choices out there, as much as we'd like to be able to make life that way. That is my opinion.

This is an extremely sensitive topic and because of Jane's experience with the illness and loss of her baby, I have to reiterate that discussion is ok...but we'll notify and delete if any flaming happens. BTW, we never delete without notifying.

**rainbabies** · 11-03-2006, 10:34 AM

kris, i love you. you bring up some excellent points. if this will cause too much hurt, please do delete. i did not have any intention of hurting ANYONE by bringing this up. just election time stuff was all.

**DCJenn** · 11-03-2006, 10:39 AM

I'm adamantly for a woman's right to choose, provided that she's given the array of options available.

I am just as disgusted by the teen-agers slapping around their kids in the grocery store and giving them Hi-C as nourishment as anything else. I have women in the methadone clinic who are on fifth and sixth pregnancies because all of the other children have already been removed from the home and...they "want a baby at home".

Who is the more or less responsible person? The person who knows that they cannot take care of a child or the person who continues to have children that are abused, exposed to drugs, have FAS/FAE and/or are stuck in the foster care system.

Jenn[/i]

**Stella** · 11-03-2006, 10:45 AM

I completely agree with your questions and comments, Kris, which is why abortion is still being debated. There are no black and white answers. It is all grey matter. I can tell you what I believe in and what I would expect myself to do in any given situation, though there is no way of knowing in the end. I also know that my views on abortion are more conservative than others, though I don't think that my more pro-life ideas are related to my religious beliefs. I don't ever remember sitting in church hearing a sermon that life begins at conception so that's why God wants us to vote for Republicans and if it was there, sorry I missed that day. It's my personal belief and I can have whatever reason I want to think it. It's categorically associated with "those Christians" and while I am one, that's not why I feel the way I do.

So, that said, can I tell any of you what to do in your own situations? No. Just like Vishenka said, no one can tell the other what to do or not do.

BUT, as I said before, my issues with abortion lie in the fact that a lot of people use it as a form of birth control and do not take responsibility for your actions. I say this in every forum, but it's true, there is ALWAYS A CHOICE. If you don't ever want to be faced with the decision, don't have sex. I wish that there was a way to better enforce the education and responsibility that goes along with the choices that people make every time they have sex.

**PrincessFiona** · 11-03-2006, 11:09 AM

Stella,

Ultimately, I do believe that having sex is a choice and people need to be educated that birth control is not 100%. I do remember sitting in church and being told when life began on many occasions, btw....and also I can say that my experience in TX with religion was that any attempts to impart knowledge on teens about birth control or sex was rejected adamantly by the hard-core religious right in our community as "encouraging sexual activity". God also provided us with physicians as healers. We don't pray for our appendicitis to get better...we pray to guide the hands of the surgeon fixing the problem....and in the case of a severely deformed child or serious health problems of the mother, we have to be able to be thankful to God that he has provided us with 'healers' who can stop the suffering of the child or the mother.

Again...my opinion. And, I apologize for throwing God into the discussion.

Many parents don't discuss sex or birth control with their children other than to say "wait until marriage", which isn't happening.

I feel that we need to be more open about talking about sex in terms of both physical and emotional consequences/maturity. When dh was about 12 or 13, his dad came into his room with a condom/banana, showed him how to put the condom on the banana

and had a long and open discussion with him about birth control, sex, respecting himself and women, etc.

My feeling is that in this country that could almost be termed some form of child abuse by a large group of people.

My husband fully intends on having these same kinds of discussions with our boys at the point he deems appropriate and I intend to have similar discussions with my girls when they get to an age where it would be appropriate. I would not hesitate to get birth control for my children if I thought they were sexually active even if I didn't agree with it and I won't be shy about discussing Aids, syphillis and other Infectious Diseases as well.

All of that being said, I don't think that most people who terminate a pregnancy do so in a flippant manner. Most women aren't runnign around with Planned Parenthood's "I had an abortion"

t-shirt. I think that the abortion as birth control argument is thrown out in a political sense, but that it isn't necessarily a reality.

I hope I have not offended anyone. Please, if I have, PM me and I will delete any of my comments that are hurtful or offensive.

kris

**Stella** · 11-03-2006, 11:35 AM

Kris,

Not being from TX, I had a far different experience. Also, Episcopalians are generally more "open" about things than either Baptists or Catholics. I formed my own opinion on when life begins because I believe that when/if I become pregnant, I will form an emotional bond with my child and that we will grow together. That in the womb, you are raising your child. Again, personal decision, no one needs to share it.

While I do consider myself conservative on a lot of fronts, I would also be hard pressed to understand the "hard-core religious right" on their opinions regarding sex education. I, too, believe in education on birth control, sex, respect, choices, and diseases. I would also get birth control for my children. I got a lot of those lessons from my high school, but still ended up with some "situations" I wasn't prepared for. I'll just leave that at that.

When I said that abortion is *sometimes* used as birth control and that is where my issues lied, I hope I was clear that I wasn't speaking for the population at large. I base a lot of my socio-political beliefs on the environment in which I was raised. I grew up in an extremely poor area where 13 year olds were getting pregnant by their basketball player boyfriends or the school faculty or God knows who. A lot of people had the kids at 13 and dropped out of high school and a lot of people drove to the next county to have abortions...and then would continue with the same behavior. Birth control? Basically. That said, I also have a friend who had an abortion last year. Her boyfriend got her pregnant (no BC) and she decided to end it. He broke up with her the next day. She still has regular one night stands w/o BC.

I mean, seriously. Am I not being compassionate enough? Where do you draw the line on taking responsibility?

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