Tweeting an abortion

Dill

Person_one wrote: »

Why is that even brought up though? Is there anybody, anywhere in the world, advocating that contraception be skipped as you can just have an abortion? Its a constant straw man in abortion discussions.

Because it's relevant. Unplanned pregnancies are best avoided. Surely no-one would disagree with that.

Yes, there are some people who take the stance that they can just have an abortion if they get pregnant. It's a message we (as a society) give out, whether we mean to or not.

Age and maturity enable us to see that that is a stupid stance to take, but you don't have to be old or mature to have sex..

Dill

missbiggles1 wrote: »

It's perfectly reasonable to expect women who want to avoid pregnancy to use their contraceptive method perfectly unless they have other issues such as learning difficulties.

I was the scattiest teenager on the planet but taking the Pill was one thing I did do properly!!

Person_one

Dill wrote: »

Yes, there are some people who take the stance that they can just have an abortion if they get pregnant.

Who are these people?

Person_one

Dill wrote: »

I was the scattiest teenager on the planet but taking the Pill was one thing I did do properly!!

I couldn't take the pill for long, it made me ill. I had a condom break a couple of times when I was a teenager, had to take the MAP.

I wasn't perfect, nobody is.

missbiggles1

Person_one wrote: »

If you can find me a single human who always does things perfectly I'll concede that.

"Always doing something perfectly" is hardly the same thing as, for example, taking one pill a day at a certain time and using a back up method when appropriate.

For many women of my generation, pregnancy would have been an absolute catastrophe in many ways and abortion ( although just legal) wasn't readily available. I think you'd be very surprised how scrupulously we used our contraception method, even under the most difficult circumstances.

It's what you do when you know that disaster will follow if you don't.

Dill

Person_one wrote: »

Who are these people?

It was certainly the attitude amongst a lot of pubbers and clubbers when I was younger, and probably still is.

GwylimT

Dill wrote: »

It was certainly the attitude amongst pubbers and clubbers when I was younger, and probably still is.

Certainly wasn't when myself and my wife were young, maybe its down to the sort of people you were with? Son in his mid twenties had said he doesn't know anybody like that.

Person_one

missbiggles1 wrote: »

"Always doing something perfectly" is hardly the same thing as, for example, taking one pill a day at a certain time and using a back up method when appropriate.

For many women of my generation, pregnancy would have been an absolute catastrophe in many ways and abortion ( although just legal) wasn't readily available. I think you'd be very surprised how scrupulously we used our contraception method, even under the most difficult circumstances.

It's what you do when you know that disaster will follow if you don't.

For many women of your generation, it was. It didn't just not happen! I'm the great-granddaughter of a single teenage mother, and the granddaughter of a couple who had a shotgun wedding and a baby soon after.

There have been unmarried and teenage mothers in every generation of my family, in every decade of this century and the last. There was no golden age when women were perfect.

A woman who starts having sex at 16, or even 18 or 21, and remains fertile until she is nearly 50 has to manage her contraception for 30 or more years. She has to keep on top of it through all variety of illness, through bereavement, work stress, divorce, while looking after newborns, or teenagers, while travelling between time zones, while in all sorts of happy and unhappy relationships, while she has a great GP and when she can't see one for love nor money, while caring for disabled or elderly relatives, through poverty, unemployment and every other one of a thousand things that happen to human beings and might just distract them from taking one pill out of 30 years worth.

Who is helped by the idea that women who have abortions are just not being perfect enough?

Dill

Person_one wrote: »

I couldn't take the pill for long, it made me ill. I had a condom break a couple of times when I was a teenager, had to take the MAP.

I wasn't perfect, nobody is.

So you did take responsibility for yourself.

People here are so, so lucky. I think we often forget that. We not only have contraception, but it's free. (And better quality condoms can be bought online )

Thinking about women in countries such as Ecuador or Russia who have abortion after abortion because the Pill costs them about a months wages. I feel very sorry for them. They are not wrong to not want to keep having babies, but it can't be good for them or their bodies to keep terminating pregnancies.

We've got no excuse here in the UK, really we haven't.

Person_one

Dill wrote: »

We've got no excuse here in the UK, really we haven't.

Who needs an excuse? Why are moral ideas such as 'excuses' even coming into it? How is it relevant? Why does it matter when discussing access to legal abortion services?