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Opinions sought from non-trolls

Flute

Flute here, not Lauren. I’ve just been speaking at length with my local MP about his position on abortion as it was reported that he is against government funding for it. He said that although he is personally against abortion, he is against any cuts or changes to the system and supports the right to choose. He is for the gathering of more information on the reasons why women chose abortion and tackling those, such as poor financial situation etc. Any comments?

11 thoughts on Opinions sought from non-trolls

  1. An abusive partner she doesn’t want to be tied to for another 20 years, lack of child care, no way to support a child, no desire to have a child, poor health, poor mental health, taking medications that will harm a fetus, fear, religious reasons, social reasons, family reasons, failed birth control, rape, not emotionally capable of dealing with adoption, afraid the child will grow up unwanted or abused.

    The thing is, we have to get the focus off the fetus. It’s all about a woman having free will. A living, thinking adult woman trumps a clump of cells every time. Pregnancy is dangerous. A woman risks her life when she carries a child. Being pregnant for even a few weeks can cause permanent changes in a woman’s body. All available methods of birth control are dangerous and unreliable. Anyone who thinks abortion is “easy” never faced the crowds outside a clinic on Saturday morning. You have to be pretty sure of what you are doing to voluntarily go into a building that might be bombed any minute to have an intimate operation, in many cases with only a local anesthetic.

    Men have no idea what women go through. They have no business having any kind of opinion or influence on the subject.

  2. I agree with what you’re saying. I guess what I’m looking for are the concerns related to gathering this type of information. Is it a good thing in that it may help some women who want to go full term but presently cannot, or is it a bad thing in that it attempts to quantify the unquantifiable and may be the thin end of the wedge to enforce stricter criteria on abortions.

    As a man, I entirely agree with you that utlimately my opinion on abortion is irrelevant and that I can never fully understand what a woman goes though during pregnancy, but it shouldn’t stop me from at least attempting to understand women’s opinions and to be an advocate for a woman’s right to choose.

  5. I think it’s ok to do research on why women choose abortion, unless the information gathered are used to make judgements concerning what’s good and acceptable reasons or not. A lot of people seem to think that the “only” reason to why a woman choose abortion is that the society/governent leave her no other choice, like every woman would of course want to have an unlimited number of children if they only could afford it. I guess there’s still an idea about that every woman’s main goal is to be a mother with a big M and that the only reason to why she doesn’t want to give birth to as many children as she physically can is material obsticles. But I guess I went off the track now.

  6. Morgaine: sex is consensual. If a woman really doesnt wish to become pregnant she should abstain. If she gets pregnant through consensual sex why shouldnt the decision to abort also need to be consensual?

    Flute: You seem like a man-hating man. I am a man too and if a woman aborted a child of mine without my consent then I would be justifably aggrieved. If you have no spine and would let a woman kill your progeny, that’s your choice. If a woman killed my progeny, then I would not stand aside and do nothing about it.
    It is not only the woman who feels an attachment to the baby, it is not only women who love their children. Making children, abortion etc as ‘women only issues’ is just pure sexism against men. As far as I understand feminism it is about men and women being treated equally and based on merit – it isn’t about rubbishing and denying men equality on issues.

  7. OK Monjo, you can have that one jab but thats it. If you or any anti-abortionists want to say their misguided piece I’ll put up a separate post. Any further trolling comments in this post will be deleted.

    I want to stick to my question and only get opinions from the pro-choice group. Is the gathering of statistics on abortion useful to women, or bad for long term womens rights. For example I summarised my MPs full response on my main blog and asked the same question. One example of a comment which is not dissimilar to Nico above is:

    I think this is a potential serious concern. It sounds all very well and objective and everything to say let’s get the numbers. The truth is that numbers are always profoundly decontextualised measures, and this can lead to bizzarre public debates, with every other religious or ideologically or biggotted or sexist motivated statistical projection battling their way to further inquiry and measurement, and so on … until you are basically sponsoring a “State Inquiry Into The Private Decisions Of Women In Unfortunate Circumstances”.
    cs

    Do others agree or disagree with this?

  8. Actually I am pro-Abortion. I just said the decision should be consensual rather than woman-only. I think a lot of women either do or do not get abortions based on family pressure. I knew one girl who got pregnant (for the third time) and clearly was barely coping anyway, yet for her abortion was a non-option as her mum would have disowned her.
    On the contrast a lot of women are pressured to abort by the father or by their family, I think young girls are especially vulnerable here “whole life in front of you”. I actually reckon abortion is higher amongst the middle-class than the working classes (the poor). Whether there’s any statistical evidence for that I will delve into later.

  9. “Pro-abortion” connotates far different terms than “pro-choice.” Language is important here. I prefer “pro-abortion rights” and “anti-abortion rights” myself as they tend to be more indicative of the actual debate.

  10. Sex is not always consensual and there are all too many women who have never known consensual sex. This includes not just rape but many forms of sexual abuse or by pressure to have sex through social, financial, or many other forms of power or control. Those are not free choices and cannot be until we solve the unhealthy power dynamic between men and women.

    I don’t see why its needed. There ought to sufficient statistics to answer your MP’s questions. Hasn’t this subject been studied enough? All thats needed is for him to do the reaserch and find the answers. I suspect that this is all a distraction and he isn’t really that interested. Lets see *him* get pregnant! That’ll grab his attention and wake him up.

  11. Ignore monjo, he’s just being a prat (yes I will ad hom you and don’t give a toss).

    Brenda, I think that my MPs intentions may be good, but this method is misguided. Even if he doesn’t misuse the cold, hard stats it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to see that someone would. I can almost see the start, “surely we must impose some restriction on the small percentage of women that have had multiple abortions” – and it’ll get worse from there.

    Luckily this idea doesn’t seem to be taking off, but it’s always worth preparing.

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