abortion

Twas ever thus Greatnan - someone told me that once, back at the height of the "troubles", the only issue that united protestants and catholics in one of the main student's unions was that they were all anti abortion.

Northern Ireland does have abortion on the NHS but the gestational stage past which they aren't allowed is much earlier than the mainland and I believe the criteria are much more restrictive. Marie Stopes clinic just opened there.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19902778 Marie Stopes opens clinic in Belfast

JessM re there been more Downs Syndrome babies in Ireland, there are also more spina bifida babies born there. I was told by a doctor some years ago that in the past potatoes was a staple diet in Ireland, in fact that was the only thing poor families could afford. Very little meat was eaten and fruit and veg not all. This had an effect on the foetus with this result. Is this true? I don't know. Are there more spina bifida babies born in Scotland? One of my Scottish friends say that the same diet applies there.
I feel lowering the weeks to 9 for abortion is an extremely bad idea. However, aborting at 24 weeks when within weeks the baby is 'viable', this leaves me with horror. Obviously if it is a badly deformed baby or the mother is in danger I would review that view - however a lot of abortions are down to carelessness on the part of some women. I'm appalled that there are still 'accidents' these days. In my day as a teenager it was either 'no' or you risked it. No GP would give an unmarried girl any form of contraceptive. If you lived in London there was the Maries Stopes or Brook Street Clinic but if you didn't live there, tough. Now there is the pill,the injection, condoms [so important if these girls insist on one night stands], the cap and if you have to the Morning After Pill.

I'm amazed at the number of "accidental" pregnancies nowadays too. However, in places where contraception and sex education is freely available to teenagers, there are fewer teenage pregnancies than in places where contraception is not freely available. I presume that means there will be less need for abortions in those places as well.

As my GP said over thirty-five years ago when I asked for a rubella blood test "in case I got pregnant by accident", and with a sort of look on his face: "One doesn't get pregnant by accident."

We have one of the highest teenage pregnancy & abortion rates in Europe and we have had sex education for 30+ years and TV commercials for at least 10. It has dropped to the level of 1969 but it was still difficult for unmarked women to get advice in the late 60s. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17190185

In 1967 I simply went to my GP and asked for the pill. I was unmarried, but told him I was engaged. I had no ring. He gave me a prescription for Norynil 1. I was, in fact, getting married a few weeks later, but had no proof of this.

I was always utterly determined I would not get pregnant, and refused to take any risks. This was not a moral decision; it was simply preserving my freedom. If I had got pregnant my parents would not have seen me as immoral: they would have had a much worse judgement: they would have seen me as utterly stupid, and I could not have borne that.

There's an article (rather old but probably still relevant) here that attempts to explain in some part why teenage pregnancy rates are higher here and in the US than in other comparable places.

Yes it is interesting that in other countries their sex shops are more open about what they sell. Not sure about the states but I bet they are coy like us.
In my (now-ex, since i retired as a governor) school we had a high rate of pregnancy ten years ago. There was usually at least one student with a bump. We dealt with this by employing a school nurse who is able to help with things like access to morning only, pregnancy testing, giving free condom cards etc. Plus Brook clinic on site as city centre one not that accessible. It worked. High level of early sexual activity, but if they do get pregnant, they have access to help at a very early stage, via approachable adult.

This may sound pedantic, but the anti-abortionists (who are not merely anti-abortion but anti the rights of women over their own bodies) are not, as they style themselves "pro life." Calling themselves this implies that the rest of the population are "pro death." I'm old enough to have known contemporaries who had illegal abortions (safe abortions were only obtainable if you were rich enough to pay a private clinic). Before the 1967 Act was passed (three cheers for good old David Steel), a women's rights campaigner Madelaine Sims wrote that "if abortions were something needed by men or horses there would be no question of refusing them." That still applies today.

In 1965 I asked for the pill (after my first child) and was refused.
After this my mother-in-law, who was a doctor's receptionist, kept me supplied from the free samples they got!

In 1972 I visited my GP to ask for the pill. I was engaged to be married in 1973. He not only refused, but followed me into the corridor and continued to discuss the issue in the earshot of the people in the waiting room. I fled in embarrassment and instead went to the family planning clinic, where the all-female staff were helpful. I was 24 years old!

In the '60s, I didn't want to tell the doctor why I really wanted the pill, so concocted a story about irregular periods, knowing that she was likely to prescribe the contraceptive pill. Bingo! Mind you, I'm not sure that she was really deceived.

Thanks for the link, Bags. I note the article refers to the number of births to teenagers, not to the number of pregnancies. I find it is often a problem with this kind of issue. Having said that, I think attitudes are important. I worked in an area with a very high number of teenage pregnancies and mothers. While all the professionals who met to worry about what to do thought it was potentially very limiting on one's life choices to have a baby to bring up at 16 I'm not at all convinced the mothers felt like that. Joan says she was determined not to get pregnant and I think that was very strong motivation. Abortion was difficult to procure and possibly life-threatening and there have been a number of posts on the difficulty of getting contraception. Some of us played Russian roulette but I suspect most young women were too sensible.

I have always felt that sex education is Schools somehow misses the point in that it fails to recognise the 'heat of the moment' aspect of sexual encounters, when common sense and reason disappear. The best advice I ever had came from a slightly older member of my peer group who said 'never mix sex and alcohol' an early version of 'Don't Drink and **'. Our other shared wisdom was to wear our old navy blue school knickers over our scanties. The prospect of the embarassment of having the knickers revealed, over rode the temptation to go a bit further. Once a relationship was established, you could decide, calmly & soberly, in advance, whether to leave this 'chastity belt' on or off before a date. Very successful strategy among our 'set'.

As to abortion, until I was 40ish I had a fixed stance, basically - supporting a women's right to choose, while personally convinced that I would not do it myself, mainly because my DM had me after rejecting the offer of a termination because this was her 3rd pregnancy in 2 years. When I was 40ish, a friend confessed to taking the morning after pill following a burst condom incident. I had a total rethink. Doctor had stopped my prescription for 'the pill' (deemed to be too dangerous to continue after 20 years), DH's business was struggling, I had built up to a decent salary, we had two DDs embarking on degree courses to support + the increased risk to the baby from having older parents. I decided that if the 'worst' should happen it would be morning after pill if possible or early abortion if necessary, with no agonising and no one else told - my body, my decision.

I agree, Sussexpoet: the anti-abortion lobby call themselves "pro-life" but they never seem to object to war, and some of them favour the death penalty!

Another thing: some Catholic clergy say that a foetus is fully human from the moment of conception; however, medics say that quite a lot of conceptions abort spontaneously before the woman even knows she has conceived. But since the Church says that an unbaptised child can't go to heaven, surely every Catholic woman of child-bearing age who is having sex should have her menstrual flow baptised, just in case!

Just imagine: "Father, I've brought my tampons . . . "

There was a discussion about Limbo on another thread. I'm not RC but I think you'll find nobody believes this any more.

When I got engaged I remember visiting my family doctor (who had known me since I was a baby) after discussing my ailment he said he had heard I had just got engaged and asked if I wanted to go on the pill. This was in the late 60's.

I would think that the decision to have an abortion must be a very difficult one to make and one that should ultimately be the decision of the woman.

absentgrana, I agree wholeheartedly with what you said on the 10th. granny23 also makes sense. I once knew a girl of about 18 who did use abortion as contraception, with absolutely no qualms; by the time we met, she'd had 6, & pregnant again, plus 2 kids. She would lie through her teeth, & the doctors swallowed it all every time.
I began nurse-training in 1966, no choice then to refuse attendance in theatre on 'Evacuation of Products of Conception' days,[but listed as EUA, which I thought meant 'Examination Under Anaesthetic, in my innocence.] It put me off for life.

Lilygran Russian roulette is holding a revolver loaded with one bullet to your head after spinning the chamber and squeezing the trigger. I hope you and your friends were all to sensible to play that game. I think you must mean Vatican roulette.

Yes, absent I like that. But in view of how we thought of the possible fallout if the hammer fell at the wrong time, Russian would have been preferable.

Hi all, this is the first time I have written on here, I don't think anyone knows why somone has an abortion, but I can only imagine a woman must be really desperate to have one, why would she wait for so long to decide, surely the sooner the better,unless there is something is wrong with the baby.Having lost one baby naturally it is hard to understand , wanting to lose your baby. I do wish the medical profession would call all natural loss of a baby, miscarraige, and not an abortion in the early stages, that happened to me and it hurt so much to see abortion on my medical records, l was devastated for a long time, even after having my other two children, now adults, one with teenage children himself, but it still niggles at me.

JAB, the same thing happened to me - when I lot my baby at 25 or 26 weeks the medical term was abortion. I was upset when I saw it, but they told me it was the correct term and did not mean anything about a deliberate abortion. I knew my Latin: it just means 'out of the place' or 'from the place', but still.....

sussexpoet I agree about pro-life absolutely NOT meaning that pro-choice = pro death. In fact we pro-choice people are against death and misery - against the accidental death or injury of the mother during illegal procedures, and the misery of an unwanted child.

About the availability of contraception during the 1960s - it seems to me it was a sort of post code lottery. I was lucky - my family GP did not argue although he was a catholic. If he had done so, I would have searched elsewhere until I found a sensible doctor.

Jab I think most of the later abortions are not indecision but because abnormalities have been detected which were not showing up earlier, or are pregnancies which have only just been discovered. I suspect a woman lnows pretty soon if she does not want to continue with this pregnancy, and if she is offered a termination will perhaps agonise for only a short while before making a decision.

I've long had a belief that teenage girls have an incredibly strong desire to be pregnant without even knowing it even though they probably feel horrified at the thought of finding themselves pregnant. I was very young and immature when I left home to lead a hippy life, and did some very stupid things. One thing that I remember is writing in my diary one day 'might I be pregnant..and do I want to be?' The strange thing about that being that I'd never been someone who particularly wanted to marry and have children.