Abortion limit

Coxy1974 wrote:

Like people have said in an ideal world there would be need for abortion.

I am for the right to choose. I use contraception and so does my sister. She was on the pill when she first got pregnant and wasn't in a position to bring up a child. She chose to have the pregnancy aborted.

She faced a very tough choice and was very emotional for months afterwards however, she still believes that she did the right thing because there was no way she could have given the child everything that it should have had or the quality of life that it should have enjoyed.

She was also emotionally unstable at that point and so bringing a child into the world was not the best thing to be doing in that emotional state - that was her view. She had the pregnancy aborted at 8 weeks. She wanted to make sure the choice she made was the right one for herself, the baby and her partner and they made this decision together.

She now has 2 healthy children - 8 miscarriages separated their births and in her more emotional moments she has said that she wonders if this is how god has punished her for the abortion.

Yes, maybe she was not in the position to bring up a child at that point, but there are THOUSANDS of couples who ARE who are not able to adopt through the lack of kids available.

I don't think the pill should be used as an excuse for that as things can go wrong, especially if you need to take other medications while on it. If a couple is really not ready to have kids, use a condom.

(oh, this is the exact same thing I said to my sister after she got pregnant on the pill and she agreed with me - in hindsight obviously)

Essexgirl wrote:

helencbradshaw wrote:

Essexgirl wrote:

Under the NHS you can only have one treatment of IVF, then you have to pay for it yourself.

Is that fact or an urban myth?

It doesn't fit with my experience...and it is down to the old postcode lottery...isn't it?

The only person I know who has tried it was in Aberdeen. Checking the BBC website, this has been the case since 2004.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3516941.stm

I remember this story VERY well..

i think the point was there would be at least one...many areas give more. Glasgow was four, at that time, at the big hospital near st Mungos? that Drew will remind me the name of (but most of England was very poor..i.e. next to impossible)

helencbradshaw wrote:

at the big hospital near st Mungos? that Drew will remind me the name of (but most of England was very poor..i.e. next to impossible)

Glasgow Royal?

Yep that's it..I thought it was, but doubted myself as I have been away too long now...!

I agree with drew. I could go further and say if you dont want to get pregnant, dont have sex lol! The pill is not 100% effective and should never be used as the only form of contraception. Condoms too can split etc. Since the day i started having sex i swore that if i was mature enough to have sex i was mature enough to face the consequences. Having an abortion just because your not ready etc or using the pill as an excuse is just wrong.

I agree with drew. I could go further and say if you dont want to get pregnant, dont have sex lol! The pill is not 100% effective and should never be used as the only form of contraception. Condoms too can split etc. Since the day i started having sex i swore that if i was mature enough to have sex i was mature enough to face the consequences. Having an abortion just because your not ready etc or using the pill as an excuse is just wrong.

I started this topic and Ive read the replies with interests.

My reason for starting the topic was finding out that you can have an abortion up to 24 weeks LEGALLY.

After reading the replies its plain to see this subject is not black and white - there are a lot of grey areas and exceptions to the rule, some Ive read on here and some Ive read for myself.

But this is a subject close to my heart at the moment, I have a baby boy on the way 22 weeks old. I saw his scan last weekend and it was incredible to see him acting just like a born baby - features, yawning, moving, itching. And I was interested to read in The Times this morning of a baby that survived after being born at 22 weeks.

Although more than 80% of abortions are carried out early in the first 8 weeks, a small percentage are done up to 24 weeks and its these that I abhor.

Im sorry if Im being over emotive but I dont understand how you can take a babys life at this stage if theres no medical reason. It is murder and I dont apologise for being blunt. Abortion means just that - taking or aborting a life.

That limit has to be lowered in my eyes.

spoilt_little_brat wrote:

I agree with drew. I could go further and say if you dont want to get pregnant, dont have sex lol! The pill is not 100% effective and should never be used as the only form of contraception. Condoms too can split etc. Since the day i started having sex i swore that if i was mature enough to have sex i was mature enough to face the consequences. Having an abortion just because your not ready etc or using the pill as an excuse is just wrong.

I would think that the majority of women who unexpectedly find themselves pregnant and decide on a termination are very careful thereafter and I think women should be allowed at least one "accident".

I still hear no compelling reason for going back to the dark old dyas when you had to find the money for a termination or that it should be stopped completely. There are lots of things people don't agree on and i can see why this is such an emotive issue but I do wish those people who do not agree with it could be more sympathetic towards those women who mke that choice.

The way some people protest outside clinics that carry out terminations makes me feel angry; as if it wsn't hard enough to go through without idiots singing hymns outside the windows.

I can see how this is an emotive subject and there will always be those that will disagree however, a right to choose is exactly that. My sister was not relying on the Pill as her only means of contraception. She had gone on the Pill for other reasons and because she was with a new partner she was using condoms (she has been very graphic with this on occasions believe me) and yet she still got pregnant.

I agree that if you think you are old enough to have sex then you should be mature enough to accept the consequences however, I believe that one of these is the termination of a pregnancy. No woman should be made to go through with a pregnancy if she doesn't want to. If you are using contraception then you are using it to prevent a pregnancy therefore you usually have made a choice before you start to have sex.

This is a subject I feel strongly about however, I do think that at 24 weeks then aborting for reasons other than medical should be something considered as a very last resort. Has anyone actually read what this entails? If you have a late abortion then the baby is actually killed in the womb and when there is no actual heartbeat detected then the woman has labour induced so she gives birth to the baby. How any woman would choose to go through that as a means of contraception is beyond me.

I very much doubt any one decides at 23 weeks that they want to abort, I agree.

There is only a small percentage after 13 weeks and given that amnio tests are done after 13 weeks I imagine most are medical related.

I worked with a husband and wife, years ago, and they had problems quite late on and she had to deliver the baby. It was heartbreaking for them. It also happened to a friend more recently.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7059169.stm

A government minister has said the limit will not change from 24 weeks. Im disappointed.

"But the British Medical Association says the number surviving at 24 weeks is still extremely small".

I dont get this argument, even if its only 1%, abortion shouldnt be an option.

Babies do survive at 24 weeks but only with round the clock medical attention in intensive care. Without that they last a very short time.

If someone could show that a highly premature baby is compatible with life WITHOUT receiving that care, then there would be a case for saying that abortion could be out of order. But I think that's not the case.

As far as I know - and in all honesty I haven't studied it - most late abortions are for medical reasons and come about because tests show that the baby is severely handicapped or unlikely to survive birth. Women don't carry a foetus for nearly 6 months and then get a 'fancy' to get rid of it. Those 'oops, I didn't mean to get pregnant' terminations are dealt with much earlier than 24 weeks and if the proposed changes to make those earlier terminations easier to get, then the 24 week ruling becomes almost academic. Women will only be doing late terminations when doctors advise it to be in the best interests of the mother and the severely damaged foetus.

koshkha wrote:

Babies do survive at 24 weeks but only with round the clock medical attention in intensive care. Without that they last a very short time.

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According to the link, viability at 22 weeks is 1% and at 23 weeks it is 11% (probably higher than that at 24 weeks). Eleven out of 100 is a lot of babies able to survive on their own. Even if only 1 out of 100 babies is able to survive on its own then the limit should be lower in my view. And I dont trust those figures anyway - a very premature baby has a lot better chance thesedays because of medical progress.

I also think on this issue, a lot of people rely on figures too much. Its not about what percent this, what percent that. If a baby feels pain when it is aborted which I believe it does at 24 weeks, then it is wrong. I would lower it to 20 weeks with a view to going even lower.

The vast majority of late abortions are on medical grounds BUT not all.

Look again at the article where it refers to the 'viability'.

"Ms Dorries pressed her to say whether she was content with the 24 week upper limit, when viability rates for babies born below that age were quite high in NHS hospitals where there were good neonatal units. "

i.e. they don't survive without intense round the clock medical assistance. Viability is NOT saying 11% would survive without medical intervention.

If only 11% of abortions are carried out after 13 weeks (in your article) then where's the data on how many are carried out between 20 and 24 and even more importantly, how many of those are 'elective' rather than done for medical reasons?

I think after watching and reading more on this in the last 2 weeks, it would be hard to have an abortion at around 24 weeks unless it was for a medical reason.

However I still don't agree with abortion even at 16-20 weeks, unless for medical reasons or a reason such at rape etc.

I have always been against abortion but more so since being pregnant myself as at 16 weeks I 'looked' pregnant, I was producing milk (ewww) and could feel my baby kick and move about, so how anyone in the same situation could kill their baby, unless for such reasons I listed, is beyond me.

Whats wrong with recieving medical intervention. If 11% of babies survive at 23 weeks, whether they recieve medical intervention or not, that is surely a good thing.

The fact that at a time, when a healthy baby can be aborted, 11 out of every 100 could survive is morally wrong to me. If 0/100 would survive, that would be a stronger case to keep the limit intact.

Babies can feel pain as early as 13 weeks and probably younger and are very well developed. Now of course some mothers have to wait past this date for their appointment I accept that. 20 weeks with a view to 16 weeks seems very appropiate to me. I know the numbers are small but it does happen and its wrong IMO. There was a lady on the radio yesterday whose friend aborted at 22 weeks and it was on pyschological grounds on the mothers behalf, thats plain wrong to me.

I still stand by my argument that a foetus isn't 'viable' if it can't survive on its own without intervention. We will have to agree to disagree on that one - you won't persuade me and I won't persuade you.

BUT I am sickened that as a man you presume to take a moral highground about the decisions that a woman might have to make or on what those 'pyschological(sic) grounds' might be.

At the end of the day the issue of abortion is about a woman's right to choose and not a man's. When men find a way to get pregnant and have babies then I'll listen to their arguments about what's right and wrong but until then, you are free to have an opinion and I'm free to consider that it's secondary to that of a pregnant woman who is faced with a choice like this.

It's not something that's ever happened to me but I am sure that v. few women would ever have a late abortion without some very serious consideration and I'm equally sure that a debate about 20 vs 24 weeks is statistically pretty insignificant due the the tiny numbers involved. A friend of mine had to take her dead baby to full term and go through a full labour and delivery already knowing that the child had no brain and was 'incompatible' with life. That was because the tests showed the problem too late for any earlier intervention.

Reducing the limit to 20 weeks would either force women facing uncertainty about the health of their unborn child to take a decision before they have the full facts and results of tests or, if the rules were changed to say '20 weeks but more where medically necessary' would leave women who have to abort between week 20 and week 24 feeling like they did something that's almost illegal.

koshkha wrote:

I still stand by my argument that a foetus isn't 'viable' if it can't survive on its own without intervention. We will have to agree to disagree on that one - you won't persuade me and I won't persuade you.

BUT I am sickened that as a man you presume to take a moral highground about the decisions that a woman might have to make or on what those 'pyschological(sic) grounds' might be.

At the end of the day the issue of abortion is about a woman's right to choose and not a man's. When men find a way to get pregnant and have babies then I'll listen to their arguments about what's right and wrong but until then, you are free to have an opinion and I'm free to consider that it's secondary to that of a pregnant woman who is faced with a choice like this.

It's not something that's ever happened to me but I am sure that v. few women would ever have a late abortion without some very serious consideration and I'm equally sure that a debate about 20 vs 24 weeks is statistically pretty insignificant due the the tiny numbers involved. A friend of mine had to take her dead baby to full term and go through a full labour and delivery already knowing that the child had no brain and was 'incompatible' with life. That was because the tests showed the problem too late for any earlier intervention.

Reducing the limit to 20 weeks would either force women facing uncertainty about the health of their unborn child to take a decision before they have the full facts and results of tests or, if the rules were changed to say '20 weeks but more where medically necessary' would leave women who have to abort between week 20 and week 24 feeling like they did something that's almost illegal.

While I have some reservations about judging when the viability of the foetus is taken from I agree with everything else you said.

I do think just as the biological father should have a responsibility towards the child they should have some input into the decision to abort (if in a stable relationship) BUT this should only be secondary and play a very small part in the overall decision. The overriding responsibility and choice should be with the woman.

koshkha wrote:

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BUT I am sickened that as a man you presume to take a moral highground about the decisions that a woman might have to make or on what those 'pyschological(sic) grounds' might be.

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The 'psychological grounds' were that she couldnt cope because the father had hopped it and she didnt have much money. Not reasons to abort in my book, and im surprised 2 doctors signed it off.

I feel it is wrong if a child is aborted when it is healthy and could have lived and Im not sorry for saying so. And plenty of women will agree with me.

Are we debating a particular case here? without going back and re reading the entire thread, I thought it was a general argument...

koshkha wrote:

BUT I am sickened that as a man you presume to take a moral highground about the decisions that a woman might have to make or on what those 'pyschological(sic) grounds' might be.

At the end of the day the issue of abortion is about a woman's right to choose and not a man's. When men find a way to get pregnant and have babies then I'll listen to their arguments about what's right and wrong but until then, you are free to have an opinion and I'm free to consider that it's secondary to that of a pregnant woman who is faced with a choice like this.


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I hate that argument. We sit and make judgment on this forum about many, many issues that will not directly EVER affect us.

I have as much right have a valid opinion to this issue as you have about issues that affect homosexuality. In fact, with your argument, I could still get a girl pregnant and be affected by it way more directly than you could to mine. How could we ever have jury's on trails if the right to have an opinion was solely based on having a direct experience of a situation?

And with your last point, that woman (in the most part) had the same responsibility to avoid that pregnancy as the man.

The abortion debate (in my opinion) is not about the right of a woman to choose, but the right of the unborn baby to live. But that will always be the fundamental sticking point between both sides.

drewboy wrote:

koshkha wrote:

BUT I am sickened that as a man you presume to take a moral highground about the decisions that a woman might have to make or on what those 'pyschological(sic) grounds' might be.

At the end of the day the issue of abortion is about a woman's right to choose and not a man's. When men find a way to get pregnant and have babies then I'll listen to their arguments about what's right and wrong but until then, you are free to have an opinion and I'm free to consider that it's secondary to that of a pregnant woman who is faced with a choice like this.


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I hate that argument. We sit and make judgment on this forum about many, many issues that will not directly EVER affect us.

I have as much right have a valid opinion to this issue as you have about issues that affect homosexuality. In fact, with your argument, I could still get a girl pregnant and be affected by it way more directly than you could to mine. How could we ever have jury's on trails if the right to have an opinion was solely based on having a direct experience of a situation?

And with your last point, that woman (in the most part) had the same responsibility to avoid that pregnancy as the man.

The abortion debate (in my opinion) is not about the right of a woman to choose, but the right of the unborn baby to live. But that will always be the fundamental sticking point between both sides.

Totally agree Drew.

My views are as follows. There seems to be a growing obsession with the rights of a woman to choose to have an abortion rather than the rights of the child to live. In the majority of cases women have the right to choose by practising safe sex and of course most women also know that having sex inherently gives risk to pregnancy as does the man.

For me it is not about "moral highground" but ethics. Abortion should be an option a last resort in my opinion in exceptional circumstances, not as a delayed form of contraception. I hate the fact that my opinion is scorned simply because I am a man and could never understand. Empathy is about putting yourself in someone elses shoes but you do not have to buy your own pair to know what they feel like!

Thank you Dave, as a woman I still agree with what you have said.

I am part of a baby/parent website and still I can't believe that there are so many people on there that say they had an abortion and morn the day every year. Sorry but unless you feel that now it was a mistake, morning killing their unborn child seems a bit sick to me.

I am pro-life and believe in the rights of the unborn, and even if a child that was born at 20-24 weeks had to be on life support or need help, the fact still stands that it can go on to live a healthy life.

I also believe in the rights of the father-to-be, and think they should be able to have a say or an opinion.

What do people think of the Department of Health trialing abortions at GP surgeries?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7128187.stm

Is it all becoming too easy to access?

A relative of mine was engaged to a girl who got pregnant and who
aborted the baby, despite his appeals to her that he would bring
the baby up on his own if necessary. He has never really got over
the loss and insists he will now never have children. I do feel that
the man has as much right to be part of the decision making process
as the woman if they created life together. Abortion should never be
used as an alternative to contraception.