Bells
Staff member
But it does happen. My cousin went for her 18 week scan and was told that there were severe abnormalities with the foetus. After numerous other tests and scans, by week 21, it was found that the baby would not have survived to full term. She then faced the decision to keep going with the pregnancy and keep feeling the baby growing and moving, and knowing the whole time that it would be born dead, or to have an abortion. She opted for the abortion, and I can assure you this child was much wanted and planned for. What got me and frankly made me angry was that when she went to the clinic to see the doctor who was going to perform the abortion, she was confronted by pro-lifers who hurled abuse at her, not knowing what her situation was. I cannot even begin to describe how upsetting and distressing it was for her to have to put up with those people. Those people did not care what her plight was. As far as they were concerned, she was the enemy and should be hounded for a decision she had taken and had been advised to take by her doctors.madanthonywayne said:Well, that's a pretty rare situation. Many chromosomal abnormalities result in spontaneous abortions, but the women rarely knows about it in advance. Indeed, she often doesn't even know she's pregnant.
Only the woman having the abortion knows why she is having it. You or I could see it as something of convenience, but for her it could be something that is vital and possibly lifesaving. What you may term to be 'convenience' could be essential or as I said before, lifesaving, to the woman who is faced with the decision. It is not for anyone to tell her that she is wrong in her decision in something that will affect her, possibly detrimentally, for the rest of her life.She should have had her tubes tied, used multiple forms of birth control, or not had sex. This is the kind of abortion most people hate. Killing a child for convienience.
To many women having the abortion, the foetus is not 'a child' per se. I do not see my 14 week old foetus as 'a child' to be honest. Sure I will refer to it as 'the baby' etc, but it is not a child. Not yet anyway. It cannot survive outside of my body. I cannot hold it, see it, smell it, change its dirty nappy, feed it, etc, as one would a child or as I do with my one year old.And I am always amazed women would kill their own children.
But not everyone feels that way. I know when I was pregnant with my first, I was quite ill and at times dangerously so, and I had at one point been advised that an abortion might be an option for me to ensure my safety. And I will be honest when I say I thought about it. But then I decided against it. I sucked it up and put up with being in and out of hospital and scared out of my wits and I had a healthy son 9 long long months later. Luckily this time my husband and I have only had one really big scare which turned out to be just that, a scare, unlike with our first born where I'd have to be rushed to hospital at all hours in an ambulance with sirens wailing and the paramedic telling me that I may have lost the baby.. by the 12th time this occured, I'd just gotten to the point where I would just literally shrug and my husband and I would just say we'll wait for the scan before you book a theater for the surgery.Congratulations. I have four kids. When my girlfriend got pregnant in college, my first son could have easily been aborted. I could have done nothing to stop it, and probably wouldn't have objected much at the time. That thought makes me sick to my stomach. Another of my children has Down's syndrome. If I had known in advance , I don't know what I would have done. I very well might have opted for abortion. Again, the idea now literally makes me sick. These are children. They deserve the chance to live. You don't want the kid? Suck it up, put up with nine months of inconvienience, then put the kid up for adoption. Your nine months in exchange for a life.
But not all women want to put up with it. I am amazed that I did to be honest. You say yourself that at the time, had you known your child would have suffered from DS, you might have opted for an abortion. Hindsight and experience says a lot. Not everyone facing such a decision would go the way you have gone and kept the child if they had known, and many do not. You also claim that when in college you wouldn't have really cared if she'd gotten rid of your first born. Many college students may have an abortion where you and your girlfriend did not. You are looking at it in hindsight, but not everyone has that option. While you may be appalled that you realise you wouldn't have cared back then about the notion of an abortion, not everyone has that hindsight and had your girlfriend had the abortion, your opinion may be quite different to what it is now. But the issue is that you had the option to do so. Pro-lifers want to take away the option and the choice that you had back then.