Criminalising Pregnant Mothers who Drink

[kittyP]

Good for you, kittyP. You don't need to defend that decision.

Thanks.
I don't feel I am "defending" that decision. I am just trying to explain it and more than that, explain that is very common at least with the women I know.
It is just not that openly discussed because we are made to feel that it "should" be something that we "should" be ashamed of or at least have been "fucked up by" iyswim?

 

[bluescreen]

Yup. And it's common with women I know as well. Sorry if I get on my high horse with idealists who just don't seem to understand the realities. I just get angry with people who don't get it, though I'm lucky enough not to have been party to that sort of decision myself. And yes, it is largely luck. And no, people can't just waft away the right to terminate - the right without having to account to anyone for your decision - just by saying they're in favour of female equality everywhere in everything. As if: oh, baby, shrug, better get on with it. OK, I'm on ignore so he can't see this. (I think it's a he.)

 

[toggle]

It pertained to me saying single mothers being spirited away out of sight. You're impossible to have a discussion with. You're reactionary.

nope, i'm completely lost. you're making absolutely no sense whatsoever.

where did these forced abortions happen?

 

[toggle]

Honestly I don't know because I haven't done a large amount of research into historical practices, which is why I was interested in any sources you had.

I am aware of places like this, for example:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport...tal-that-city-pretended-didn-t-exist-1.274517

Could forced abortions have happened at this Lock Hospital? Given the articel above (and I worked with the author at one point) it seems entirely possible, given the attitudes towards the poor at the time.

friend studied policing prostitution and if he had turned up any evidence of forced abortions, then i'd know about it.

women who were prostitutes were crowded together, firstly by the trade being concentrated in certain areas, then by the requirements of the CDA. a large group of women, particularly vulnerable to pregnancy and you'd likely have some spread of knowlege of what poisions were most effective in ending pregnancy witn the least side effects. ie. would cause the abortion, while being less likely to kill the woman.

that's if the STDs didn't leave them sterile. notice how victorian middle class women had 8 kids or none? a lot of the 'none' camp were the women whose husbands brought something home from the brothel.

I made clear in a later post I was talking about family/partner coercion rather than a state policy.

so nothing on the scale of forced pregnancy. ie. state enforcement by attempts to deny access to information about birth control or access to safe abortion.

 

[toggle]

So the decision IS based on external factors?

Wouldn't it have been easier to just acknowledge that point when I first made it instead of pages of hissy fits?

because you're still failing to accept ti's a far more complex thing than you're trying to make out

I don't know what you mean by 'way of life' (drugs?) but plenty of women work whilst raising children.

and having kids changes everything. implying the decision is about whether ot work is another astounding simplification.

 

[bluescreen]

"pages of hissy fits" is pretty bloody insulting.

 

[bluescreen]

Trying to bend over backwards to understand Citizen66 here, I think what xe is saying is that if only life were as easy for a woman as it is for a man, having a kid would be no big thing.

 

[bluescreen]

And therefore xe is a feminist!

 

[maomao]

Forced abortions happen in China and North Korea though they're rare in China. What is true in China is that there's a culture of abortion as a method of contraception, especially in cities. Maybe not a first choice one but unmarried mothers very rarely have babies so unmarried pregnant women have abortions (in fact one Chinese city was talking about fining mothers who had children out of wedlock, which amounts to coerced abortions if not forced ones). This means men don't have to take responsibility for contraception because they know it's unlikely to have consequences for them. It also means a lot of women have to go through unpleasant medical procedures because of this. Wanting less abortions isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[purenarcotic]

KittyP appeared to be suggesting the relief was a positive. Therefore the pregnancy was a big negative.

Because for some people it is ffs. Not all women want to be mothers, not all women are 'maternal'. Some are but don't want to be at that time.

You say you want to give women the right to do what they want with their own bodies and then come out with a load of crap that can be read as immensely judgemental and patronising.

 

[Glitter]

Ah, now you're twisting the words. I said 'have the family I want', not 'have the children I want'. Family, as in partner and kids and life.

A kid with a dickhead means you're stuck with that dickhead as the father of your kid for life.

Stuck with?

Stuck in terms of what? It's confusing. You're not obliged to maintain contact if you don't want.

Have you read the Separated Parenting thread? Stuck with is a very appropriate phrase.

KittyP appeared to be suggesting the relief was a positive. Therefore the pregnancy was a big negative.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a pregnancy that was aborted would be considered a negative, do you?

Yes. My argument was it shouldn't be. Women should be given more support AND retain their right over their own bodies. This has given me pages of fucking grief. Only on Urban.

Because the right over your own body includes not having anybody living in it that you haven't decided tou want there.

Why should it ever be 'the wrong time'? That's linked with society and specifically western culture.

No it isn't. For some people it will always be the wrong time because they don't want children. Or any more children.

That's how it happens in the UK, yes. Other countries share childcare burdens across entire families. Here abortion is the answer. Any suggestion of any other model is eroding a woman's choice!!!

It doesn't make a difference whether you share the childcare or not. Lots of people don't want the childcare in the first place. And everything else that comes with having children. The responsibility, the worry, the physical effects. Some people might just want to be able to sneeze without pissing themselves.

Of course children make a difference to someone's life. People were denying that society affected a woman's choice in any way regarding abortion. I think we've buried that fallacy several times over now.

They weren't. They were denying that it is the only possible factor, which you seem to be arguing it is.

Sorry if this seems like a bit of an onslaught - I read the last few pages in one big go and quoted them as I went along. I realise that you're not trying to argue from an anti abortion pov and that you are trying to be pro woman in all this but you don't seem to understand the enormous impact pregnancy has on a woman. It's one of those things a man just can't understand because you are never ever going to have to experience. There's so much more to it than just 'having a baby'. Physically, emotionally and yes, societal factors. Some people just don't want that. They're more than happy with their lives as they are. Some people just don't want the disruption, others are scared it may exacerbate medical conditions. There are millions of reasons that people don't want children. Yet accidents happen. Mistakes are made. Contraceptives fail. So what's left?

 

[bluescreen]

Yeah, maybe I was extrapolating too readily from Citizen66's view of choice as self-centred, flippant, leaving a sour taste in the mouth etc (their words) to construe it as anti-choice. I am lucky never to have been in this situation myself but will resist anyone who denigrates the right to choice, particularly when it is cloaked in the language of concern.

 

[Red Cat]

I think Citizen66 s trying to put it in a broader social context. I don't think he's saying that it's as simple as any one social or economic pressure that contributes to women wanting abortions or that forces them to, although clearly that relationship does often exist. He's looking at childbearing and rearing in a neo-liberal capitalist society and wondering if it would be different in a more equal, collective, democratic society. A society very different from ours. I think. These are valid questions aren't they?

He's also criticising the use of the word choice as a liberal capitalist one. Not that familiar with his politics but criticism of the concept of choice is fairly standard from a left anarchist or Marxist perspective.

 

[maomao]

There are millions of reasons that people don't want children. Yet accidents happen. Mistakes are made. Contraceptives fail. So what's left?

I don't think he's argued that economic equality and gender equality would eliminate the need for free access to abortion, just that addressing these problems would reduce the need for it. I also believe that if women had completely equal status in society, men took equal responsibility for contraception, everyone had access to free contraception, free childcare, a right to decent housing and a better distribution of wealth so no-one had to worry about feeding or clothing a child the need for women to go through unpleasant medical procedures would be much reduced. I think it's also fair to say that addressing these problems would be a much better use of abortion campaigners time and be far more effective in reducing the suffering they claim to care about so much than campaigning for abortion to be made illegal. There are over 20 million abortions a year in China (2008, 13 million recorded abortion procedures performed and 10 million abortion pills, not morning after pills, sold). This is not a sign that Chinese women have more control over their reproductive systems than western women.

 

[Glitter]

I agree that he is looking at the broader context, which is why I didn't want it to seem like an attack, but I do think the broader context can often ignore individuals and their feelings.

 

[purenarcotic]

I think Citizen66 s trying to put it in a broader social context. I don't think he's saying that it's as simple as any one social or economic pressure that contributes to women wanting abortions or that forces them to, although clearly that relationship does often exist. He's looking at childbearing and rearing in a neo-liberal capitalist society and wondering if it would be different in a more equal, collective, democratic society. A society very different from ours. I think. These are valid questions aren't they?

He's also criticising the use of the word choice as a liberal capitalist one. Not that familiar with his politics but criticism of the concept of choice is fairly standard from a left anarchist or Marxist perspective.

They are very valid questions. Just the way it's coming across isn't how he intends I think.

 

[bluescreen]

They are very valid questions. Just the way it's coming across isn't how he intends I think.

I don't think he's argued that economic equality and gender equality would eliminate the need for free access to abortion, just that addressing these problems would reduce the need for it. I also believe that if women had completely equal status in society, men took equal responsibility for contraception, everyone had access to free contraception, free childcare, a right to decent housing and a better distribution of wealth so no-one had to worry about feeding or clothing a child the need for women to go through unpleasant medical procedures would be much reduced. I think it's also fair to say that addressing these problems would be a much better use of abortion campaigners time and be far more effective in reducing the suffering they claim to care about so much than campaigning for abortion to be made illegal. There are over 20 million abortions a year in China (2008, 13 million recorded abortion procedures performed and 10 million abortion pills, not morning after pills, sold). This is not a sign that Chinese women have more control over their reproductive systems than western women.

Is that really what he's saying? He's talking about a very different sort of society then, where abortion is almost a side issue. Let's hear that argument then on a separate thread. Meanwhile afaics he's just coming over all SPUC concern.

 

[Thora]

Having a baby is that bad, huh?

Of course having a baby you don't want is a bad thing. It would be horrendous.

I agree with your point (I think this is your point) that social/structural factors make it harder for women to have a baby they might otherwise have wanted in other circumstances - whether that's financial factors, housing, a lack of childcare, having to maintain a parenting relationship with a man they want no further contact with, or it being hard to take prams on buses.

But also, even with no financial or practical issues, motherhood is a huge emotional burden that someone might not want. It changes your life, and some people are perfectly happy with how their lives are without children. Not wanting to be pregnant because you're not keen on children, wanted to get a puppy, planned to go travelling or don't want to deal with morning sickness are perfectly valid reasons to terminate a pregnancy too.

 

[Red Cat]

Is that really what he's saying? He's talking about a very different sort of society then, where abortion is almost a side issue. Let's hear that argument then on a separate thread. Meanwhile afaics he's just coming over all SPUC concern.

Maybe not, I have extrapolated based on the thoughts I had when I read his posts and my assuming he wasn't SPUC.

I think about my own abortion over 20 years ago in the context of living in a very different society a lot. Which isn't to say that I think I made a mistake, just that I wonder how things could have been different.

 

[bluescreen]

Maybe not, I have extrapolated based on the thoughts I had when I read his posts and my assuming he wasn't SPUC.

I think about my own abortion over 20 years ago in the context of living in a very different society a lot. Which isn't to say that I think I made a mistake, just that I wonder how things could have been different.

Apologies for thoughtlessness here. I'm as guilty as Citizen66 of talking in the abstract as I have no experience of these things. But people I am close to have chosen to terminate.

I shouldn't try to guess where Citizen66 is coming from, just trying to read his/her posts on their own terms. Reading a lot of judgement there, despite the denial of it.

 

[maomao]

Is that really what he's saying? He's talking about a very different sort of society then, where abortion is almost a side issue. Let's hear that argument then on a separate thread. Meanwhile afaics he's just coming over all SPUC concern.

Hardly:

I agree to the woman's right to choose. But I do find abortion deeply sad. That's where I sit.

I don't think that's an unreasonable position to take, it's a personal one, and it's pretty much mine too. Being a man doesn't deny me the right to an opinion on, or feelings about, abortion as long as I'm not denying a woman's right to choose over her own body. And it's not unreasonable to recognise that among the many other advantages that a fairer society would bring for everyone would be a reduced need for abortion. It's also fine to say that education about and free access to contraception from all parties involved would reduce the need for women to go through invasive and unpleasant medical procedures.

 

[Red Cat]

Apologies for thoughtlessness here. I'm as guilty as Citizen66 of talking in the abstract as I have no experience of these things. But people I am close to have chosen to terminate.

I shouldn't try to guess where Citizen66 is coming from, just trying to read his/her posts on their own terms. Reading a lot of judgement there, despite the denial of it.

I didn't think you were being thoughtless. You haven't said anything to me that requires an apology.

By default, it's hard talking about complex issues, making ourselves understood. These days I tend to give people who aren't obvious wankers the benefit of the doubt, just as I hope people do me. Maybe that's naive.

I brought up my own abortion because I think of it now in much wider terms than I did at the time. My view that it was the only option available to me was surely inseparable from the pressures on individual women that result from the conflict between the idealisation and denigration of women and motherhood, emotional work, and children themselves. Specifically, the demonisation and scapegoating of single mothers in the 80s was powerful and very harmful, but more broadly, the social constructions of motherhood and how they contribute to the shaping of gender and our sense of ourselves as women are just as political as the more immediate and obvious social and economic pressures. The fact that childcare is unpaid and domesticated and taking place in small family units rather than being socialised and taking place alongside other work and play is obviously crucial too, but its social role and personal impact were not fully appreciated by me until I was actually doing it.

Of course, these aren't the factors that are up front in our minds when we make a decision in the here and now to terminate a pregnancy. Nor am I suggesting there was an ideal in the past, somewhere else in the world, or in the future. Just that it all forms part of the social picture.

I'm not very well and it's taken me ages to write that! I hope it makes some sense.

 

[ViolentPanda]

My argument: society should be more supportive of women.

Not just society, though. The law too needs to be unambiguously supportive in such matters (but never will be, because of the competing interests).

 

[bluescreen]

I didn't think you were being thoughtless. You haven't said anything to me that requires an apology.

By default, it's hard talking about complex issues, making ourselves understood. These days I tend to give people who aren't obvious wankers the benefit of the doubt, just as I hope people do me. Maybe that's naive.

I brought up my own abortion because I think of it now in much wider terms than I did at the time. My view that it was the only option available to me was surely inseparable from the pressures on individual women that result from the conflict between the idealisation and denigration of women and motherhood, emotional work, and children themselves. Specifically, the demonisation and scapegoating of single mothers in the 80s was powerful and very harmful, but more broadly, the social constructions of motherhood and how they contribute to the shaping of gender and our sense of ourselves as women are just as political as the more immediate and obvious social and economic pressures. The fact that childcare is unpaid and domesticated and taking place in small family units rather than being socialised and taking place alongside other work and play is obviously crucial too, but its social role and personal impact were not fully appreciated by me until I was actually doing it.

Of course, these aren't the factors that are up front in our minds when we make a decision in the here and now to terminate a pregnancy. Nor am I suggesting there was an ideal in the past, somewhere else in the world, or in the future. Just that it all forms part of the social picture.

I'm not very well and it's taken me ages to write that! I hope it makes some sense.

Yes, all you say makes sense. Would add to that the sheer agony of childbirth as something any rational being would seek to avoid, let alone the rest of it.
Sorry to hear that you're unwell, and hope you are better soon.
None of that detracts from the lucidity of your post - as if that needed to be said!

 

[ViolentPanda]

You keep saying that if only society were nice and accommodating these silly women would keep their accidental babies?

Hmm, I took Citizen66 to mean that society* places certain expectations on people. Expectations to conform to particular beliefs, values etc. Society being nicer and more accommodating being the case (we can dream, can't we?), I'm sure that an unknowable number of women would choose to "keep their accidental babies", just as an unknowable number wouldn't


*"Society" in this case meaning both "people in general" and "those who are close to you".

 

[bluescreen]

Hmm, I took Citizen66 to mean that society* places certain expectations on people. Expectations to conform to particular beliefs, values etc. Society being nicer and more accommodating being the case (we can dream, can't we?), I'm sure that an unknowable number of women would choose to "keep their accidental babies", just as an unknowable number wouldn't

*"Society" in this case meaning both "people in general" and "those who are close to you".

Fair dos, though that's not any sort of society I'd recognise now or at any time in the past 25 years. Perhaps it's different in Ireland? And it's probably different in eg strict Muslim communities.

Yes, an unknowable number of women would choose not to keep their babies and it would be presumptuous to guess at their reasons or judge them.

 

[ViolentPanda]

so nothing on the scale of forced pregnancy. ie. state enforcement by attempts to deny access to information about birth control or access to safe abortion.

Republic of Ireland and Ulster spring to mind, but even then, that's circumventable. IIRC the DDR considered a "no abortion" policy in the '60s in order to build back the population they'd lost before putting the "Antifascist Protection Barrier" up, but I don't believe they went through with it.
If by "forced pregnancy", what is meant is social/familial coercion of a pregnant women to carry the foetus to term, then of course it happens, but that's social (as opposed to societal) pressure, not state compulsion.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Forced abortions happen in China and North Korea though they're rare in China. What is true in China is that there's a culture of abortion as a method of contraception, especially in cities.

This was the case in the DDR too, although the motivations there appear to have been cost (cheaper to employ an extra gynae and a couple of nurses at each hospital than to set up a massive pharma factory or buy in oral contraception) and the ability of the state to socially manipulate women through using their medical history against them.

 

[trashpony]

I think it's really important to acknowledge that it's fine to feel no regrets at all when terminating an unwanted pregnancy. I feel there is a bit of undertone on this thread that it SHOULD be a traumatic experience which makes me very uncomfortable and is IMO just as unsupportive of a woman's right to choose as the SPUC mob (indeed it's a central tenet of their proselytising)

 

[equationgirl]

Forced abortions happen in China and North Korea though they're rare in China. What is true in China is that there's a culture of abortion as a method of contraception, especially in cities. Maybe not a first choice one but unmarried mothers very rarely have babies so unmarried pregnant women have abortions (in fact one Chinese city was talking about fining mothers who had children out of wedlock, which amounts to coerced abortions if not forced ones). This means men don't have to take responsibility for contraception because they know it's unlikely to have consequences for them. It also means a lot of women have to go through unpleasant medical procedures because of this. Wanting less abortions isn't necessarily a bad thing.

A South Korean friend told me that abortion is becoming more used as a method of contraceptive there too, especially in cities.