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I'm curious in the general feel here on the CF board about abortion.

I have not wanted kids for a long time. Hubby and I have decided to do our best to be CF, even doubling up on protection(depo-provera and condoms!). But still...accidents happen. Up until recently, I assumed that if I got pregnant, I would have the child. I have always been pro-choice, but also always pretty sure that I couldn't choose to have an abortion myself.

But recently...I've given it more thought. And I figured, why would I ruin my(and hubby's) life by having a kid I don't want? That is no way to have a kid...an 'oops'. I'm doing my best to avoid a pregnancy because I am terrified of having a child. But if I did get pregnant, why wouldn't I just exercise my right to choose? I honestly think, by now, that whatever guilt or weird feelings that may come from having an abortion will be more manageable than actually having and raising a kid I never wanted.

It's kind of a recent epiphany, and I think it's one my hubby came to a while ago, but he never pushed my decision. I actually feel happier about it all, because before I always figured 'accidents can happen' and then I was screwed for life. But now that I've decided I can and will use my right to choose(for as long as it's still available), I feel more relaxed about it all. I never agree with using abortion as birth control, but if you're doing everything you can(short of abstinence) and have an accident, why not choose to fix the mistake?

ETA: I've had two friends who had abortions, and I was so surprised, but now I realize they made the best choices for everyone involved. They were so young and just out of college...it really would have ruined their entire lives. Now I really see where they were coming from.

I've never understood the logic of compounding one mistake with another. If you don't want children, you don't plan for them and you don't feel that you would be a good parent, how will all that suddenly change just because you're carrying a zygote?

There are very, very few things permanent in ths world, but having children is certainly one of them. If it's not a responsibility that you want to take on, then you shouldn't have to.

I know if I was ever pregnant, I'd be at the clinic so fast, I'd leave a smoke trail. And I'd have no regrets about it either. Both facts that shocked my ex boyfriend, but too bad - my uterus, my life, my choice.

My husband and I recently had this conversation as well. It was triggered due to a coworker getting pregnant on the pill at the age of 36. She was more than a little upset considering it ruined her original wedding plans and they had to reschedule. However, fortunately, she was okay with having them (yes as in plural, it was fraternal twins). It was also partly to blame on a required switch in my form of birth control.

I have finally reached the point where I would consider an abortion for myself, especially if it was much later in life. However, this is still one of those things that I pray never becomes an issue for me since I am still sort of on the fence regarding that...

You are absolutely right -
and if we lose the right to choose, it will be a very sad day in America.
I defend this right as much as possible. It is sickening to have people call themselves pro-"life" and tell women what to do with their bodies.
I see the protesters on the streets with their signs - it is a lot of senior citizens. And I don't believe men have the right to tell a woman to carry a baby inside of her when they have no idea what it is like.

I have religious friends who say this is a "sin" and will vote with politicians who are against choice. They are not seeing the entire picture, or take the mother's health into consideration. And in cases of rape, they do not care about the woman, but only bringing the fetus into the world.
I would rather see more abortions than more abused kids, kids not wanted, the list goes on. That aside, women's rights need to stay as they are.

People also mistakenly believe if you are pro-choice, you are promiscuous and immoral. This is the most insane fallacy ever.

I agree with you Rogue. I used to say "I'm pro-choice for everyone else but I would have a child if I accidentally got pregnant." Now I realize, how can I be so sure, and if I'm glad it's a choice out there for everyone, shouldn't I also be glad it's a choice for me personally? I realized that was just a way I had of feeling ashamed when pro-life people said things like, "you evil person, how could you kill a child?"... my response would be, "Well, *I* wouldn't." Now I realize that was the wrong response, because I don't view it as killing a child and I have no idea what I would do if I found myself pregnant, so I am pro-choice all over the board, for other women and for myself.

I think everyone (women and men) should be responsible and use birth control, and that's what I've been doing since I was like 18. But if an accident happens, that's no reason to have a child if you don't want one/ feel ready for it. I would hate to have to tell (or hide the fact from) my child later that the sole reason I had it was because it was an accident and I was against having an abortion. (Although perhaps I would feel there were reasons to have it, in which case I would... but I would never make not-wanting-to-have-an-abortion my SOLE reason for having a child.)

Plus there are a lot of people out there who are NOT responsible about sex or relationships, who run around making babies with who knows who... I don't mean to be judgmental but I don't think those people would make the best parents or give a future child a stable life, so, while I don't agree with abortion being used as birth control, I still think, better to use it as birth control than have a lot of neglected or unhappy children being born.

Billiecat

One of the major things that bug me about a lot of 'pro-lifers' is that they don't really offer any alternative or assistance. If they think these kids should be born, why don't they take care of them? Or why don't they go work in charities for all the un-wanted, abandoned, abused children?

I do hate that some people use abortion as birth control, but really...those are not the people we want having kids anyway! So to me, I'd rather them have abortions every month than give birth to kids they can't or won't take care of. It's almost like telling a kid not to play with matches, but if they do and end up starting a fire, do you let them burn things down or do you put out the fire? It's one thing to teach responsibility by letting people realize their consequences, but it's another thing to allow those consequences to harm others irreparably.

I agree...I'd rather see abortions than suffering kids with parents who shouldn't have become parents.

Nadia's comment best describes my exact position on abortion:


I was raised Catholic and practiced (most of) Catholicism until two years ago. I could easily get off on an extreme tangent regarding how I feel about the Catholic church and its double-edged swords (in the case of being so adamantly pro-life, they deem abortion for any reason as a sin, even when the mother's life is in danger, yet preventing conception with any method besides rhythm is a sin, too). But for brevity and keeping with the topic, I'll just say that I'd most likely have an abortion, too, with the same caveat that Nadia used: I definitely would have to be in that position to know for sure.

I used to feel that if you want to have sex, you should be aware of its consequences and therefore be ready to handle an "oops," going through with having the baby. Not nice to kill God's creation. And I know of quite a few people who were mistakes whose parents I've thanked in my prayers for having them. My ex-boyfriend was one of them. Had they aborted him, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of meeting and dating him, which was a very nice period of 18 months.

But I've changed a bit, and I no longer think people should have a baby if they didn't want it. No sense in making at least three people go through a lifetime of something none of them wanted. I'd feel terribly guilty my whole life if I found out I was a mistake...I'd feel like my very existence as a human was taking away from two people who didn't even want me.

I'm sure some of those unions work -- ones where an accident happened -- and they stay together and everyone's relatively happy. But many relationships, if not most, break up, which now turns to a situation of single parenthood. And I must say that if I never wanted to have a kid in the first place, then had to raise it alone, I'd contemplate staging my own death.

The choice to abort frees us from having to deal with any of that, and I'm a firm believer in it.

If abortion is unacceptable to someone for religious or whatever reasons, what about adoption? There are plenty of great people out there desperately wanting a child to adopt. I realize it is a lot more emotionally loaded to carry a child to term than to terminate at an early date, but if abortion is just not right for an individual, I wish more would consider adoption rather than having an unwanted child and being a reluctant parent. Like many of you, I wouldn't know if I could abort until being in the situation, but I think I could give up a child for adoption because I know I don't want to be a parent. Of course, being married would make people really question why I was doing that, but I'd just have to deal with that, if I couldn't abort. Also, my parents are devout Catholics, and while I know they disapprove of abortion, I couldn't see them being thrilled about me putting their grandchild up for adoption. But I don't see them volunteering to raise their grandchild either, so they'd have to deal with it. They've never said anything negative about me being childfree, though.

By the way, Depo is VERY reliable as long as the shots are done on time, so Rogue, you really don't have to worry much about an accident. I've also heard it can take a while after coming off Depo to regain fertility, but of course I wouldn't count on that...there's always an exception!

Cindy

I know that I would head straight for the clinic myself. My SO would take me there while leaving black marks on the road!

All kidding aside, I know what I would do with my body and that is that. I know a few of my friends (some who do have children) that have had pill abortions and while they have different emotions about it, do not regret it.

That said, I do take every precaution out there to keep us from having an oops, so while there is never 100% foolproof way (other than sterilization) I do make it a point to know and understand every nuance of my body.