Lowering of limit for abortion (sens, obviously)

OK, it's great that you have had an easy time with this yourself. It's cool that you weren't mucked around having to find transport, or 2 willing Doctors at some crappy village surgery, and have what seems like regular access to pills, condoms, an understanding partner, and also a wee bit of luck when it comes to one not splitting - fantastic.

But your earlier statement regarding "most" girls ... you're trying to tell us that MOST of them have the same experience as you, and they "choose" to ignore this wonderful setup they have which involves easy access to contraception/abortion, which just isn't true. I'm glad you later acknowledge it to be something which is personal and that not everyone experiences the same.

JK, that's it entirely- an issue of sentiment. I don't usually let sentiment cloud my logic, but I find it really hard on this topic. Even in the face of medical/scientific evidence as to developmental issues. This seems to be my achilles heel, no matter how many times I read and nod along with what Rache is saying.

I don't see easy access to abortion as a wonderful setup.

When i said most girls, i should have made it clearer that i meant most girls in the area i live. I didn't meant to upset you and apologise if i did.

I think you are being particularly hard on Ann_louise. I don't know if there is history between the two of you, or you're still bitter about your own experiences, however, I think she is right that a greater majority of women have good access to contraception and advice, and your own experiences are the minority view. And secondly, yes, I think countless young women do ignore good advice, bowing to the sort of peer pressure that has already been discussed.

After reading this I desided that I didn't really have enough evidence to back up some of the thoughts I had so desided to google. I have just found the most horrific site (American) on abortion (through all trimesters). It certainly is not nice and has made me physically sick.

I must say that I agree that those in need of an abortion for reasons such as drug abuse, ill health, mental health etc I don't think abortion is ever an easy option. I also don't think that woman should be forced to go full term in a pregnancy which is not something they want and could in the long term do more damage to their mental wellbeing.

No history between us.

Like i said, i apologise if i upset her or anyone else. I was just trying to put across my experience of a baby born very prematurely and also an abortion.

I think I take this issue too personally, so apologies if I come on here overly a-raging - the terrible experiences I had as a very level-headed teenager when it came to local sexual health services still causes me trauma if I think about it now, many years later.

I know that "most" of the girls in the area I grew up with didn't even really make such a decision like you describe (as I said, ex-mining, quite small, 1 GP surgery, 1 pharmacy, local hospital 45min drive away, high unemployment, kids parents frequently seperated, we mostly lived in coucil housing). It wasn't anything so concious as "bah, can't be arsed with contraception, I'll just get an abortion"... it was more a case of not even thinking about it, and if they did it was only ever a "go on the pill" consideration, which were handed out like candy at the local GP surgery amongst very little "overall" sexual health advice or instruction on use. Whilst they'd been in the sexed classes, I don't think it ever popped into any of my pregnant-in-their-teens classmates heads to ever really consider or fight for anything other than the most basic contraceptive procedure/advice.

ETA: No history between AL and myself, just a raw nerveleft over from my teens I think!

Well i am sorry you had such a horrible experience.

I'm going to bow out of this now as i think i've made my feelings clear as have others. (Nothing to do with the fact that i have loads of housework to do ?)

Sorry, I shouldn't have used that example, because I didn't for a moment htink you were being serious.

Mrs SA, sorry you had such a bad experience, it is wrong that sex ed sometimes is just one of the two extremes (ie "don't do it" or handing out pills without consideration), there has to be a better way, and this is what the government should be concerned with, not the time limit on the abortions, because like someone pointed out, there is a miniscule amount that are done for "social" reasons this late anyway, and most of those don't feel they have any other choice.

It is so sad, because there are women being forced by circumstance to continue a pregnancy they don't want, and there are women who are scarred from an abortion they may be have been able to avoid if they had been given better help and advice about the options they had, I really hope one day, we as a society will be able to get it right.

The American right is very good at trotting out horrific images and using them as a basis on which to remove women's right to choice. In the vast, vast majority of cases a termination is no more horrific than a period, and whilst I feel for the health professionals who have to perform procedures that aren't that simple (and it's clear from what JK has said that it's a very, very painful thing to have to do)... well, they've chosen to work in that field.

I'm very uncomfortable with late abortion - with all abortion to be honest - but I still support a woman's right to have one. As Sophie and Rache have said, the alternatives are forcing someone to have a baby or forced contraception and neither is acceptable to me. And whilst I do find the idea of someone having had 8 o 9 abortions utterly mind boggling, if someone cannot or will not use effective contraception, there is no alternative.

I think it's right that we do find these things uncomfortable - society should agonise a bit over issues this big.

I agree with Sophie on everything really. My stance on abortion doesn’t consider whether the baby will look like a baby or whether they could live without the mother- its really just about a woman forced to be a vessel for something she does not want to carry.

I’ll be honest- I am horrified at the way young (and older!) women take chances with their own bodies. It is easy to ensure you don’t fall pregnant (yes I know I’ll get loads of replies about contraceptive failure, but its really a minority) but, I’m not sure this is wholly connected to the abortion debate.

In a world where we have contraception which works 100% of the time for 100% of women, is easy for everyone to use, where no women are in abusive relationships and every woman has complete control of her sexual and reproductive life then maybe we don't need terminations.

As we don't live in that world, we should fight for women's right to choose, however distasteful it is to us. I am uncomfortable with the idea of abortion as well, but that's an emotional reaction.

Does it really take that much of a leap of imagination to understand how some women can't organise contraception? There are teenage girls in pretty much every school in the country whose lives are so chaotic that they don't know where they're staying from one night to the next let alone being able to remember to take a pill and count days, go to the GP etc. Women get pregnant whilst using contraception, and women get pregnant unexpectedly and don't find out until they're late on. For example, a friend of mine had no inkling until she was 30 weeks gone - she'd been told she couldn't have children, was being investigated for all sorts, just had no clue. In her case the baby was a much-wanted surprise, but it might not have been. Being unexpectedly pregnant isn't a sign that a woman is an idiot.

This is where I was disagreeing with Ann Louise, and I disagree with you. It's easy for women like us, healthy and in stable relationships with easy access to medical care, no money problems, no issues with chemical dependency etc etc etc. Life just isn't like that for a lot of women.

I'm pro-choice and pro-abortion and have agreed with most things Sophie has said thus far, but I don't agree that even the earliest of abortions is no more arduous than a period. An early medical abortion is essentially a forced miscarriage and most women I know who have been through this have found it painful and traumatic.

When I first opened this thread my instinct was to agree that the limit should be lowered, but in the face of the fact that the issue affects less than 1,000 women - and these the hardest to reach and most socially excluded - I really think now the law should be left well alone.

No, I do agree with you on that too- But I don't think the contraception issue is particularly connected to the abortion debate- I would take the issue of preventing pregnancys and that of termnating them seperatly and hope that the former would lead to less of the latter- with the obvious expection of those women you mention who will always exist as they simply will be able to access the help they need much of the time.

I would hate to think that if we managed to get into a situation like scandanavian countries- where there is more contrcapetive awareness, where there is far less teenage pregnany- that we would let that change the policy on abortion, simply because there are less to be performed.

That's a good point.

Exactly WSS.

I know what I would do in my current situation, what I would have done before my marriage is much more of a grey area. I also appreciate that in terms of education, opportunities, access to healthcare etc, I along with most others posting here are so privileged compared to those that fall into the 1,000 late 'social' abortions category. So while it would not be my choice now, and may not have been even before getting married (I honestly can't say what I would have done and any choice would have been a hard one), I want it to remain a choice. I'd rather hundreds of women used it as a contraceptive option, and it was available to one vulnerable woman who needed it, than the alternative.

Also agreeing with PL. I've known at least two senior obstetricians who've been unexpectedly pregnant. One went ahead, one didn't.

I'm sorry to use someone elses words but LouM has written exactly how i feel, but oh so better than i ever could.

So WLMS

I think I used to say something very similar.

Right up until I fell pregnant with Rhys - and while he was a happy surprise right from the start, a few years earlier I would have had to make a decision on the matter.

I'm a biologist, a medical writer, who understands how things work down there. And yet, I wouldn't consider myself to be in your (blame free?) contraceptive failure "minority".

As PL said, there is no perfect contraception.

A one off is a lot different than using it as a form of contraception and have numerous abortions or even numerous pregnancies.

A friend of my mums is now on her 7th child, all different fathers (she is 30). After the last one she said she would like that to be it but she was bound to get pregnant. I asked her if she considered the pill, she said she couldn't be arsed with that, too much hassle. I don't have anything to do with her. I don't like the way she treats her children, they do not have a good life. Her eldest had a pregnancy scare last year and has been sexually active since 13. Sure thats a whole different debate.

I'm not sure this is relevant to the debate. Are you saying she should have used abortion as a form of contraception?

Women in abusive relationships also get pregnant for reasons beyond their control. This happened to me twice. Whilst my ex husband didn't actually want a child, he would get very angry and offended at the idea that I might want to "protect myself from his child."

Before I met this man, I was a sensible, ambitious young woman. I had a caring, supportive family and knew exactly how to access the local support services. Then I moved away to a different city. My family weren't close by and, for their own reasons, wouldn't come and see me. I had a few friends, who were all driven away over time by my husband. My self esteem and self confidence were eroded hugely - at the time I didn't really understand quite how significantly this had happened. I was frightened at lot of the time and, whilst this will sound bizarre, I found I couldn't control the world around me so I just used to hope like mad that things would turn out OK. I started to lose my grip on logic. Essentially, my thought processes and decision making processes became child like. I shut myself down from what was happening to me.

I used to get knocked about, insulted and generally disapproved of if he found out I was taking the pill. There was no question of him using condoms. I used to hide the pills and take them intermittently. I didn't get pregnant over the course of a few months, and I began to believe that I wasn't able to get pregnant. To be really frank, I usually had more important things to worry about (such as whether I was going to be knocked around that day).

Eventually, I did become pregnant. I was bullied into an abortion (at 10 weeks) - and I mean literally, thrown down the stairs, called a *** and a slag in public, the whole works. I had that abortion because I honestly believed that I couldn't provide any sort of life or protection for that baby.

I can't tell you how horrible that experience was. It was devastating. It further reinforced my low self esteem - I faced condemnation from the medical services, my ex husband, my parents. It confirmed everything I hated about myself.

My ex-husband had a very insecure grip on his mental health, I think. He had a family who had similar issues and was brought up in an atmosphere of threat, violence and physical and sexual abuse. During one of his family crises, his step-father threatened to come and break my legs. I packed a bag and fled. I missed one pill and became pregnant again.

This time, I knew there was a new start. I told my ex (and my parents) to like it or lump it. It wasn't the end of my problems, but it was the start of the end. My son is now 11 and has had a happy life.

I realise that this post is uncomfortably personal. I would consider myself to be an intelligent woman who can look after herself. My point is that even though I had the good fortune to be born with these characteristics, in a certain situation I was overwhelmed and unable to look after myself properly. Heaven help the women who are not given these characteristics in the first place.

I think it's very easy to make assumptions about the way women manage their fertility when you are in the lucky position of being able to take control of your life. I don't think it's helpful to make assumptions that everyone who has an unplanned pregnancy has somehow been lazy or uncaring. I would think the number of women in this situation is tiny. For these reasons, the 24 week limit should stay as it is - even though, as a married Mum of 2 kids with a comfortable home and a number of choices, late abortions do make me feel very uncomfortable. Maybe I should wish that every women was as fortunate as I am now instead.

wow, Clairy. i think you are amazingly brave. and i'm sorry for everyone on this thread who has gone through difficult experiences and made terribly hard decisions ?

i struggle emotionally with the idea of 'late' abortion, by which i think i mean anything after around 12 weeks (not sure why i think of this as a cut off, as at our 12 week scan i definitely saw cub as a baby rather than a collection of cells. again, purely visceral, i think).

however, ultimately I am absolutely pro-choice and therefore firmly against lowering the 24 week limit.

Well said, Clairy ?

I've had a termination at 22 weeks. My baby was very much planned and wanted but we found out at 20 weeks that he had a severe brain abnormality and was unlikely to survive. If he had survived his life would have been very bleak. I was told that the limit did not apply to me and as I understand it under the new legislation I would still be able to make the same decision.

Having a late termination is not easy at all and I cannot imagine that anyone would have a termination at this stage without good reason (be it a medical reason or the chaotic/abusive lifestyles that other posters have described).

I am very much pro-choice although I never, ever imagined that I would have a termination myself, especially not at the age of 28 in a stable marriage with a baby that was desperately wanted and especially not at 22 weeks. I guess sometimes life does not turn out the way you plan.

I agree with a lot of what Sophie and JK have said. I particularly agree with JK's comments about the foetal development arguement. I saw my baby after my termination, dressed him, cuddled him, named him and had him blessed. He fitted in the palm of my hand but was to all intents and purposes, aside from his brain condition, a fully formed baby. I know of ladies who have lost babies at 16 weeks and they have cuddled, named and held their babies. If you use the "it looks like a baby therefore you should not abort" arguement you would have to put the limit way, way back.

I'd also like to echo P&AP comment about the fantastic job that people like JK do - it must be so difficult to support people through such a difficult time.

Just my two penneth on a very emotive topic.

I thinkwe should leave the law as it is is and leave it to the experts to ensure that the right decision is made in each individual case.

I hadn't noticed this before, I didn't want you to think I was ignoring it, and thank you. Sort of. You know what I mean ?

It's not really bravery - to be entirely honest, I see it as a duty to my own conscience to make the part I play as painless and constructive as it can be. To that end, I actually prefer to take on that part of our workload myself. Technically it's easy work, it's harder on the counselling and empathy skills, and not all our staff shine in that dept. If I do it, I know it's done sensitively and (blowing my own trumpet here) well. Similarly, when I was a midwife proper, I actively took on those who were bereaved and delivering, or facing bereavement when they delivered. It's an great privilege to be part of someone's life at such a pivotal time.

I expect I need Zeb's hairshirt now......

that has made me cry - thank god for people like you JK

clairy - every time you post about how your past was i have to pinch myself to remember that is how things were for you - you seem so together and driven and i have huge admiration for you

i also really admire how much of yourself you are prepared to put out there to help people and help people understand that these circumstances are not as easy to understand as they think

you have definitely opened my eyes