Its evil...but necessary. (Abortion)

Member Name: Fairydustbitch

Product:	Abortion
Date:	12/03/06 (1670 review reads)
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Lets face it, abortions are horrible for all involved, as the taking of a life, even one that has no concept of itself as being a life, is awful. But in a society where sex sells, where sex is treated both as a commodity and a hobby rather than a way to make babies, what choice do we have? Do we ban abortion and watch women die from giving themselves home abortions while the population level shoots through the roof and there are even MORE unwanted children, or do we keep it legal and rack our brains for other ways to try and reduce the number of abortions taking place? Personally I’d go for the latter myself. My apologies for the length of this review, but its such a complicated topic.

About abortions

The two main types of abortion are spontaneous and induced abortions…obviously spontaneous abortions are concerned with miscarriage, which I wont be covering here. With regards to induced abortion, there are two main types…medical (also known as non-surgical or chemical) and surgical. Medical abortion is effective in the first trimester of pregnancy, although I believe doctors prefer to do this in the first nine weeks. It involves administering a drug (either through injection or in tablet form) which causes the womb to start shedding its lining. This is followed a day or two later by a vaginal suppository which causes contractions in the uterus. Essentially this form of abortion is an induced miscarriage, and it prompts a heavy and often painful period. With regards to surgical abortion, in the vast majority of abortions, this involves using suction to remove the embryo from the womb. There are other methods of surgical abortion used in the later stages (these are the ones which invariably are picked up on by pro-lifers, but in fact they make up a tiny percentage of all abortions, and some are now illegal) but as the two above are involved in the vast majority of abortions I will be concerning myself with them.

In the UK, a woman has to prove a case for being allowed an abortion. Abortion is legal under 24 weeks in the UK providing the woman involved can convince two doctors that having the child would harm her physical and/or mental health, or that having the child would harm the physical and/or mental health of any children she has. Abortion is legal at any time during pregnancy if doctors feel serious lasting damage could be done to the mothers physical or mental health, or if the baby is likely to be born seriously handicapped. At least, this is how the law stood when I had an abortion, I am not entirely sure if there have been recent changes to the system.

I had an abortion when I was sixteen, and the callousness of some people’s attitudes towards that shock me. I have actually been called a murderer before. Many of these people who call themselves “pro-life” seem to have no thought for the feelings and opinions of those already born.

I don’t think abortion is a good thing, lets face it, who does? However I am not of the opinion that young foeti should have rights, there is a certain point at which the brain and nervous system is developed enough to feel pain, and I think that is the time when abortion should not be allowed, unless the pregnancy is going to kill the mother. Before that, a foetus feels nothing. Of course we should not go about allowing abortions a free reign, nobody could argue that they are a good thing for anybody involved and obviously any life deserves respect. But to me a living, breathing, thinking woman who has opinions, love and hates matters more than something which doesn’t even have a concept of its own being. There are other ways to reduce abortions rather than banning them.


Some pro-life arguments and my responses:

1. Abortion is murder.

I’m going to get pedantic here. Most dictionary definitions state “murder” as the illegal killing of a human being, and usually malice or a similar word is mentioned. Abortion is neither illegal nor done with malicious intent, so by definition it is not murder. On a much less pedantic note, I feel “murder” is just a term bandied about by the pro-life movement to upset people. Use of colourful language like this occurs in all political issues, including euthanasia and animal rights, they are meant to get peoples backs up about the issue.


2. A foetus has a right to life.

What about the rights of the mother? What about the woman who cannot afford to take time off to look after herself? What about the woman who might have health difficulties as a result of pregnancy? What about the woman (such as myself) who never ever wants to have children and for whom even the thought of pregnancy is something she is almost phobic to? What about the rights of other children the woman might have? What about the woman who was raped? What about the teenager who’s parents would beat the life out of her if he found out she was pregnant, or throw her out to live on the streets? What about the millions of unwanted children that are already in this world? Do they not deserve love and attention too? A foetus is dependent on its mother, is part of its mothers body. To me the idea that you can tell a woman what to do with her body is repugnant. In my opinion a woman has far more right than a foetus.


3. If a woman didn’t want a child she should have kept her legs shut.

This argument is so juvenile I wasn’t even planning to waste my time on it, but seeing as there seem to be a whole lot of people spouting this argument (mostly men, of course) I thought I’d bring it up. Please remember people, that we are not living in the dark ages. It is not wholly a woman’s responsibility any more. Just because we carry the foetus, does not mean men do not have to take any responsibility…it is as much a mans responsibility to be careful as a woman’s. I find this attitude sickening as well as childish…anyone would think we were still living in the fourteenth century. Moreover, sex is not just about babies any more. The idea that a woman shouldn’t have sex unless she wants a child is again, pretty misogynistic…because lets face it lads, are YOU thinking of the pitter patter of tiny feet when you buy that girl in the sexy dress another drink at the bar? NO, you aren’t. So why should we be? The sad part is that some of you also seem to think “so what if she gets up the duff? Aint my problem is it?” Well I’m here to tell you now Mr it most certainly bloody well is. Take responsibility for your actions or I am coming after you and giving you a vasectomy with a sharp rusty hook. Sex is an expression of love to some people, to others its just a bit of fun. Nothing you say is going to change that. What about the couple who don’t ever want children, and are too young for a doctor to consider giving the women a hysorectomy? Are they supposed to stay celibate for the opinions of pro-lifers? And finally, what about the woman who was raped? Society places enough of a blame on rape victims without adding THIS into the equation. No woman asks for or even encourages rape. If a woman is raped it is NOT her fault, no matter how much she led him on or what she is wearing. Rape is rape, and no means so. Lets not beat around the bush on that one. And also, lets be realistic and grown up about this matter please.


4. If a woman didn’t want a baby she should have used contraception.

Newsflash: No method of contraception is 100% effective. I am living proof of that. I got pregnant whilst on the pill AND using a condom…fortunately my paranoia about such matters meant (I take a pregnancy test every six or seven weeks when I have a boyfriend) I could get a termination before things progressed too far. I was following the directions on my pill packet, I was not sick or ill in any way that would make my pill less effective, and I take my pill at the same time every day. And I still ended up pregnant. Mine must be a pretty rare case but it is unfortunately all too common for people to get pregnant whilst taking the pill. And condoms, well there is always a chance of them leaking or tearing. Until such time as a 100% effective method of contraception comes along,, this is not really a valid argument. Yes, EVERYBODY having sex should be very, very careful. But unfortunately sometimes careful is not enough, luck can be a right bitch sometimes. There is also the issue of certain types of contraception not working for certain people. Hormonal methods like the pill and the injection cause severe depression in some women not to mention there being a vast variety of side effects, and if you have had colposcopy (removal of abnormal cells in the uterus via burning or freezing) in the last year or so, the coil is out. Many people are allergic to latex (although of course you can get non-latex condoms) and there are tonnes of other reasons why certain methods of contraception aren’t suitable for certain people. So its not as simple as all that.


5. Abortion is horrific. Haven’t you seen the pictures?

The gruesome bloody pictures of aborted foeti are enough to turn anyone into a militant pro-lifer. But they are not all they seem. Many of these pictures are now decades old, of types of abortion that are now illegal under most circumstances (partial birth abortion being a prime example). More sinisterly, some of the pictures are actually of very late miscarriages, not abortions. Others still are completely fake (there is one picture of a human hand holding up two tiny little feet which are supposed to be an aborted foetus’ feet, when in fact on closer examination they are plainly dolls feet) or involve cutting and pasting in order to make the foetus look more human. These sickening pictures of dismembered, tiny babies are not what an abortion looks like at all. The vast majority of abortions occur before 16 weeks in the UK, a sixteen week or younger foetus would hardly be the size of your finger, and would have little in the way of developed organs…including a brain and a pain-receiving nervous system. Having had an abortion myself, of the medical (pill-induced) type, I can tell you what mine looked like…a period. A heavy and rather clotted period, but a period nonetheless. There were no fingers, no toes, nothing discernible from a regular period. Almost all abortions done in the UK are either of this or the vacuum aspiration type, usually performed around 12 weeks or less.

One particularly militant pro-life priest even used a stillborn baby to illustrate a point at a pro-life march...not only is this duplicitous, but its sickening and insensitive…that’s somebody’s dead child that “man” is waving around as a promotional tool. Not only is this manipulation, deceit and sometimes outright lying, but it is incredibly insensitive. How do you think a person who has had an abortion would feel on looking at these pictures? How about children seeing them? Because many pro-lifers do not care about this. Recently a pro-life organisation hijacked a web message board for children and posted pro-life photos all over it…pictures horrible enough to scar a young mind forever. How about learning some compassion for someone OTHER than a foetus?


Some of my personal “Pro-choice” arguments

1. You are not pro-life if you are pro-war, pro-death penalty or pro-gun.

Not a pro-choice argument as such, but one I wanted to slip in. Guns kill people. Obviously war and the death penalty kills people, the former often innocent people, and the latter, well, there is always the outside chance that a prisoner is innocent of his crime. I don’t really understand the mentality of pro-lifers who agree with George Bush. Apparently once they are out of the vagina they are no longer innocent and you don’t give a damn about them any more. What happens to your pro-life morals then? To me an Iraqi child who has their legs blown off because of a war that has nothing to do with them matters more than a dependent clump of cells…or maybe its just that some people don’t care about little children if they have brown or black skin? I know not all pro-lifers fall into this category, but if you are pro-gun, pro-death penalty and pro-war, and you don’t agree with abortion, call yourself anti-choice, anti-abortion, pro-embryo, pro-foetus, whatever, but not pro-life. Because you certainly are not.


2. You cant preach both abstinence and anti-abortion values.

You have to choose a lesser of two evils. I understand that many religious people feel that sex should only occur within marriage, and this is a perfectly valid viewpoint, however you do need to wake up and realise that preaching abstinence does not work on a large scale. Teenagers are hormone bombs, driven and curious about sex, and if you don’t teach them about safe sex, contraception, pregnancy and STI’s, then they will learn in the playground from someone much less knowledgeable, no matter what your opinions about the “innocence“ of childhood. Who has heard the myth “You cant get pregnant the first time you have sex”? How about “You cant get pregnant if you do it doggy style/standing up/in water/on your period”? Is THIS the sort of information you want your child to have? Because if you don’t teach them otherwise it’s the kind of information they will listen to. Teaching sex education does not encourage kids to think about sex. Anyone who thinks that a child wants to think about sex whilst learning about it from a middle-aged PE teacher is misguided…sex education is so embarrassing it almost turns you off the idea of sex. Here’s what causes sexual thoughts, and it aint pornography or sex education…its having a penis or a vagina. Its having hormones, which age 12 upwards are surging around your body, giving you sexual thoughts at the most inopportune moments. I know it many be hard for some people to believe, but the hard-on came before the hip hop video with the half-naked dancing girls. Abstinence SHOULD be taught as the ONLY way to 100% effectively prevent pregnancy and STI’s, but people need to realise that most teens are going to do it anyway…and if that’s the case, we should be sure that they are armed to the teeth with proper medical and emotional knowledge about all the relevant issues and how to keep themselves as safe as possible, not hearsay they have heard in the playground from their mates.

Pick one or the other, abstinence or anti-abortion. You cannot teach both without ending up with the unfortunate type of society where unwanted pregnancies are through the roof. Personally, I think Christians should realise that the lesser of two evils is something that does not end a life.


3. There are better ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies than by banning abortion.

The first is education, education, education. I pretty much covered this one above.

The second is improved contraception…continued progress in science allowing more and more methods of contraception, giving those who find current methods unsuitable more of a choice. Although it may be an unrealistic target, the search for the 100% effective contraception should NEVER cease. Contraception should remain free and less popular methods should be promoted so people know that they are there. Of course this is all coming out of tax-payers money, but if they had the choice many of us would rather their money went towards contraception than abortion…its certainly the lesser or two evils.


4. There are already too many people in the world.

This may seem like a callous opinion to have, but its true. All those pro-lifers who say that adoption should always be an option need to have a look at the world we live in. There are not enough prospective adoptive parents for all the unwanted children that are being born, lets face up to that fact. Obviously the procedure people have to go through to foster or adopt is so gruelling and time-consuming that people have that misconception, but the amounts of children in institutions, even in this country, attest that there just aren’t enough parents. Then of course a lot of couples want a baby, and more still want a healthy baby with no special needs. And that’s just in THIS country, look at the situation in China. Of course I would not say that abortion is a solution to population problems, but until that perfect method of contraception comes along, what choice do we have?


5. Abortion has to be safe and legal.

Did you know that there is information available on the internet on how to give yourself a “herbal abortion” by using certain vitamins and herbal supplements, some of which are extremely dangerous and toxic? Even those that are safer have the risk of causing an incomplete abortion that can trigger septicaemia. Whilst these methods might be just about doable in the hands of a qualified herbalist, I don’t think anyone could argue that they are a good idea, especially in this country where it is so easy to get a safe, legal and free abortion. But the availability of this sort of information suggests that women want the privacy and comfort of their own home whilst going through something traumatic as an induced miscarriage. It also suggests that women are feeling guilty about having an abortion, a situation that is worsened by pro-lifers. Do we really want to go back to the days where women were giving themselves abortions with coat hangers? Contrary to popular opinion, most “back street” abortions weren’t administered by sympathetic doctors acting in an illegal manner, but administered by women themselves…on themselves. If one person dies from an illegal abortion, its one person too much. Our society has come way too far to allow for the banning of abortion without dire consequences.


All in all, I think we need to be fighting for a society where abortion becomes a rarity, because it is a horrible situation for all involved. However doing this by banning abortion is going to make the situation, far, far worse. It may be a harsh opinion to have but losing the life of a foetus is better than losing that foetus and the mother after she decided to give herself a “home abortion”. So lets all put our heads together and think long and hard about how we can make the evil that is abortion as rare a situation as possible, but lets do it by continuing to improve our contraception and education, not by taking away the rights of a woman and stepping back in time by a century.

Summary: Ban abortion? Because it worked well with drugs...nobody takes them anymore do they?