News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

@natasia
I completely respect your viewpoint and thank you for replying so politely, however, these are still your opinions and I still ascertain you have no right whatsoever to legislate your moral beliefs onto others, unless you can prove to me otherwise. Why do you think that your beliefs and moral standards should automatically trump the beliefs of others? I certainly don't believe that mine trump yours, and you are free to hold on to your beliefs and live by them, however and I would expect you give other women the same kind of respect, and allow them to make their own personal choices in life.

If you don't believe what you quoted is a justifiable reason for abortion, then don't get one for those reasons. What right would you say you had to tell individual women how to feel about their pregnancy, and what right would you say you had to legislate against their very personal experiences and decisions?


This is the exact kind of misinformation that leads to more abortions. Please be careful because it's an astoundingly bad piece of advice. The fact of the matter is no woman knows automatically when they are fertile, and the fertility period can be anything up to a week, not just one day. If women don't want to get pregnant the first port of call should always be birth control. ALWAYS. If any women are reading this, who think they can magically "tune in" to their body, they'd be wrong. Always use contraception if you do not want to get pregnant.


Exactly. If a women were to become pregnant, and fall into depression knowing that she had to have the child upon discovery of her pregnancy, and if coming to terms with being pregnant and having a child could cause mental health issues, for whatever reasons, then abortion should be allowed. How do we know if a woman is likely to suffer mental health issues being put through pregnancy and childbirth? We ask HER... that's how mental health practice operates, we ask the patient. Individuals thoughts and feelings need to be respected and woman knows her own mind, and her own capabilities better than any outside parties wishing to dictate morality to her.


Whilst I sympathise with your sentiment, I don't know how this would be workable. I also wonder what kind of man would force a woman he loves through a pregnancy and labour against her will? The consequences could be quite, quite grim.

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I would admit this is a bit off... I don't think there should be suggestions being made at all. Although I guess it could be difficult subject to broach as a doctor has to care for the physical and mental well-being of his patient. If the doctor suspects some kind of issue he has to tactically broach the subject, but at the same time I can see how such a suggestion could plant seeds. Tricky.

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Wikipedia states - with references - that the first measurable signs of EEG movement occur in the 12th week.


Interesting. I had no idea. Have you any idea why the check-list is there in the first place? I have an inkling it may because the doctor is under obligation not to assume anything, and as such acting "chirpy" when the woman has doubts could be seen as coercion on the part of the doctor. It's tricky and I really don't have an answer for it.

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To be fair, only 30% of all "traditionally ;-) " fertilised eggs actually become viable attached embryos and 70% are rejected by the "mother" as they have too many chromosomes. As far as I remember the viably of IVF embryos are lower than 30%, but I have to check that.

Just checked. Of IVF embryos only 7.5% become viable.

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Rape is violence and torture being forced on another unwilling human. However, we know for certain that both "participants" (for lack of a better word) are definitely measurably independent humans. For every woman with a negative experience of abortion there are two with a positive one. The thing is we shouldn't be working on anecdotes, we should be looking at studies.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10920466
Here's a scientific research paper from the university of California which states that most women do not experience psychological problems or regret their abortion 2 years postabortion, but some do. Those who do tend to be women with a prior history of depression.


I am a woman, and I've never been able to tell when I'm ovulating. Sometimes I can't even tell when I'm going to start my period. We are all different, I'm pleased that you know, it makes it easy for you.. but honestly I really don't.


I use the words "put through" because it would be the correct term if a woman is forced to continue with pregnancy she wishes not to have. As we are only discussing women who wish to have abortions but are denied them I can't see how this is loaded. I would use the exact same terms if a woman was forced into an abortion.... in that case she would be "put through" that also.

As the study above shows there are definite markers to those that will suffer psychologically after an abortion, and a history of depression is one of them. The thing is, as the study says, we don't know if the depression is caused by abortion, or if the underlying depressional tendencies (low self esteem, poor outlook on life etc) cause the regret. Either way the figures show that after two years, the vast majority are not depressed, and the majority do not regret the decision.


Quite, which is why I've provided an unbiased scientific study for you to read
archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=481643

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Again, the majority of women (taken from US studies) became pregnant through contraception failure, the majority of the rest of them did not use protection so because they were misinformed and/or ill educated (ie.... "you can feel when you're ovulating"). So in the vast majority of cases it's not about "not being careful". It's about contraception failure and dis/mis-information.

^^^
The study and figures are linked up there somewhere. Go find em!

I feel like I'm constantly repeating myself :(


Exactly.


Just seen this. What do you make of the beating heart they grew in a lab without a body?
youtube.com/watch?v=j9hEFUpTVPA

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I know, but there's this misconception that abortions are done because people weren't careful, but actually, this is only the case in a minority of incidents. Most of the women who abort have just been plain unlucky.

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You listen, yeah. But not everyone can, or has the ability to and this isn't about swimming every morning or measuring energy - this is about cold, hard facts. As you said we're all different, and saying that any woman can do as you do is not correct - it's also dangerous. If a woman reading this thinks that she can do as you, and gets preggers it's not going to be happy ending. If a woman's going to have sex the provably safest option is contraception. As the NHS states, your rhythm method has a realistic reliability of 75%, and that's after measuring body temperature etc.. for months on end, where as condoms and the pill are 98-99% effective, immediately. The advice you are giving may (not will) result in more abortions - something which nobody wants, so please be careful about what you say on a public forum. I'm not trying to take away from your personal experience, but seeing as we were talking about not getting pregnant and using contraception, I think the safest method should be advocated. I'm sorry if you felt that I wasn't being respectful to you, but your method is just more risky, and not everyone can realistically do it.


No, unlucky is you have PROTECTED sex and get pregnant. Not any sex, protected sex.

I'd say, that if you have a 1% chance of something happening to you, having taken precautions against it, that's pretty unlucky no matter what "it" might be.

If you go for an enjoyable drive, and plan to do so at the quietest point at night, don't speed, take all the precautions, indicate, check your mirros etc, and you still crash does this mean that you should "never have been driving in the first place" and "you were bound to crash" It just means you were unlucky, wrong place, wrong time, wrong box of condoms. Manufacturing fault.


Hungarian :)

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


No,thankfully. But if I do become pregnant I wouldn't mind having the option I'm very very careful, and have known all my life I don't want kids. Does not being pregnant make my opinion somehow less valid? And if that's the case, going back to the OP, can we just tell the men in the Sejm to shut the hell up?


I'd say yes, because how can we ever prove who had protected sex, and who had unprotected sex?

And even then there's the whole "where does the life begin anyway?", and "when do we assign personhood?" stuff, and the rather morally dubious "my morals trump yours" stuff too....

My stance is: Personal choice is personal.


I think that's something the whole of the world will agree on. See, abortion issues CAN unite us. ;)

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Are you now telling me why I should or shouldn't have sex? Really? Sex isn't just about getting pregnant, it's not just about mechanics, it's about a bond between you and the person you love.

It's perfectly easy to separate pregnancy from sex... that why we invented contraception in the first place. I don't see where you get off on telling people not to have sex, and how they should see it! That's just not on. If fertilization is the most important part or consequence of sex to you, then so be it. It isn't mine, and I'm not going to be bullied into seeing it as such, and I'm not going to feel bad for having sex out of love, but not wanting kids at the same time. Many women feel the same.


I'm sorry. You've lost me.

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Ah I see... well that's my point... how do you go about proving who was sensible and unlucky, and who was uneducated, or misinformed, or just reckless? We can't.

If you're going to start handing out abortions on whether or not you think someone took precautions or not there are only two things we can do:

1)Believe all of them, in which case they get an abortion anyway,
or
2)Believe no one, in which case some of the sensible women that took precautions may just be forced through pregnancy.

I think I prefer option 1. But that's because I don't want kids, and I don't want to be forced though pregnancy. I can't think of anything worse. It actually gives me the creeps just thinking about being up the duff.

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Actions and consequences again... we've discussed this already. Don't make me talk about all the actions you could take and all the consequences I might dictate you live with.

The bit in bold is particularly charming. Where do you guys get off on dictating the private lives of others? Really! I'm kind of flabbergast! Mind your own business!

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It doesn't make it any less "charming" to be honest. And it's still dictating your personal morality onto others private lives. And I still don't understand why people get off on it...


No one's talked about killing newborns. Where? Show me?

@polonius
Careful. You're starting to sound like a misogynist.

What would you class as "leg-spreading", and does it count for men too?

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I didn't say that. You said:


I'm simply asking who doesn't have a problem with killing newborns? Who has said such a thing?


That's utter rubbish. What kind of a crappy term is pro-abortion anyway? I've said numerous times morality is not a black and white issue of "good" or "bad", "pro" or "anti". What I've said is that morality or "good and bad" "pro and anti" is incredibly difficult to legislate, and there is a morality issue in legislating (or forcing) unprovable moral opinions on another. Is this another of those emotive like "killing babies"? Pro abortion makes me sound like I want every woman to go out and have abortions. I don't, and I'm not going to box myself into any framework of thought by giving myself labels, if you wish to categorise the world, then you do that, but be aware; I'm an individual whom a label might not fit. I've already said that I want people to use contraception, the abortion procedure is (as it should be) a safety net.


Oh my God! Where do you infer this stuff from? I've made clear already in the thread that pregnancy and childbirth are personal and individual experiences, I don't think pregnancy and children are bad. I think pregnancy and children FOR ME would be bad, and by that logic, out of the 6 billion people on the planet, it's not unfesable that some think the same way as I do.. There is a difference, can you see it?

I think I am starting to see how your logic works.

You say:
Pregnancy and children were good for me ---------------------------------------------------------> therefore pregnancy and children are good things for everyone... so I will legislate it, no one must have an abortion.

You *think* I say:
Pregnancy and children are bad for me-------------------------------------------------------------->there fore children and pregnancy are bad things....... so I will legislate is and everyone must have an abortion.

What I actually say is:
Pregnancy and children are bad for me, but they are good for you --------------------------->therefore you do what you want, and I do what I want. Personal choice is personal. I don't force my wishes on to you, and vice versa.


I don't think you understand or respect that. If you did understand or respect my personal choice to fly off to the UK (with British citizenship), you'd also respect the personal choices of women,(young, poor or otherwise) of Poland, who do not have the option or the money, and are effectively having once form of morality forced upon them, who are made to go though pregnancy and labour (against their wishes - because we're talking about one group here), and are then given a choice of a) look after the child or b)stick it in an orphanage.

Poland has 80,000 children in orphanages - the highest in central Europe, housed in about 350 orphanages. With limited staff, the amount of attention these kids receive must be close to zero.

activechildaid.org/statistics


I asked this on page one. There still hasn't been an answer.


I am grateful that you would take on the child, and for some women you are right, the child and responsibility is the issue, in which case, more men should be as you are. There are far too many man that do a runner. However, for some women the issue around the whole "pregnancy thing" is the pregnancy itself, rather than the child or the responsibility.

If you got a girl unwillingly pregnant, and you wanted the child to look after the child, but for her pregnancy was the issue, would you also be willing to go through hormone replacement treatment for 9 months, have your body slowly contorted, and at the end of that 9 months have one of your orifices expanded to the size of a saucer and have a watermelon pushed through it? In solidarity obviously. Because if being pregnant is to be an issue for someone, I don't see how anyone would be willing to force the mechanics of it on anyone.


Thanks. I'm happy for you being here. I feel like I'm blowing against a sandstorm, putting up with all this speculation, and inferring is quite irritating. Thankfully, I realise that my opinion, whilst seeming to be a minority on these message boards it isn't that isn't that of the minority in Europe.

Just for balance.

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Yes, Spain changed its law in 2010. think it costs more than 50 Euros, because EU health insurance is only limited to emergencies, and it's not seen as an emergency procedure. I'm not sure.

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It doesn't suit me better. It's just more of the same boring, groundless emotive language - it's kind of dull now.

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Your emotive language is groundless, yes, because as I said, for the 3rd time, over 70% of fertilised embryos are naturally rejected by the womb, so not everything is going to a "newborn to be". How can you kill something that you cannot prove was alive in the first place?

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if I'm on a life support machine and the EEG of my brain is negative I'm not. My heart would still be beating, but I'd be dead.


I'm sorry, but once again, the thing growing inside a woman is personal to a woman. Some women give the foetus personhood from the moment of conception, and others don't. It's not up to you who gets to decide what a pregnancy is for an individual woman, and if it is a child or not.

I'm not bleating. I'm not a sheep in some far away field. I talk and think like a rational person, so stop dehumanising me - I don't think you even realise that you do it.

I'm really sorry about what you went though. How horrible for you. There are definite issues, as I have already said surrounding the mental health of women and abortion, and personally I think more research needs to be done on this issue, some kind of psychological analysis by professionals, not just a check list/tick box from a GP. Clearly, you had given your foetus personhood from the start of your pregnancy, and it's terrible for you that this wasn't picked up on, or taken more seriously by the so-called professionals whose care you were in. Its also terrible that you had been coerced into your termination. This should be illegal, and there needs to be rigorous checking by unbiased medical professionals to ensure that a woman makes a decision independently of others. If a woman becomes pregnant, the support network needs to be there for the abortion procedure to really be the final safety net.

However, as tragic as your experience is, your experience does not equate to the experience of other women. I've already given you the links to the university research papers, which do show, contrary to your experience, that the majority do not regret their decision - these are papers which discuss the experience of thousands of women, not just yours. Whether you choose to acknowledge them or not is up to you, but by denying them, you are denying the very real experiences of other women.

You seem to be projecting your very personal, and very tragic circumstances onto other women, and equating the foetuses inside of them into the child which you lost, but they are not your child - and it is not your duty to protect them. In your circumstances your viewpoint is admirable, but other women are not you. Their feelings are not your feelings - you really should acknowledge that.

Big love to you natasia. I'm really sorry about your experience.

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Again, if I'm on a life support machine and my EEG is negative I'm not, even if my heart is beating. At the moment I'm alive, but that's not because my heart is beating - it's because you can measure my brain activity and my conciousness.

A heartbeat is a metabolic reaction by a particular muscle group, you can grow a beating heart in a lab nowadays. What makes a person a person has much more to do with neurology, the formation of the brain, and the capacity for independent desires.

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ORLY?


Well I don't have a "baby" inside of me.

But metaphorically speaking... to a certain point, yes it is. A foetus cannot survive without the mother up to a certain point, and before a certain point there is no EEG in a foetus.

When someone is on life support in a hospital, and the higher mental functions are inactive (wheel's turning, hamster's dead) we normally ask the relatives of the person if they wish to switch the support off. It's a personal choice for them and very dependant on whether they (the relatives) consider them alive or not. Some say yes, and some say no.

It certainly isn't up to strangers.

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Alive in what sense?

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Could you quantify not dead please?


There is no such option in Poland. And yet, women living in Poland have some of the highest abortion rates per-capita in the whole of Europe. Do you think people are being more careful or less careful?

An estimated 150,000 polish women got an abortion in 2010, in a nation of 30million ish.
An estimated 189,000 abortions took place in Britain in 2009 in a nation of 60million is.

Per capita the abortion rate in Polish women is nearly twice that of the UK. So much for being more careful.

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Just here to say, there are still plenty that disagree -just most can't be bothered. I think everything has been discussed to death now. Neither sides are going to agree. However, in the western world, you guys are in the minority, and with education and the abililty to use reason over our rather base and biological "disgust" mechanisms, our world has actually got more moral.

No one has any right to dictate their morality onto others, morality is not black and white. They tried it with slavery, with womens rights, with homopobia and prejudice, and reason is winning. People "do unto others...." more in our modern epoch than ever before. The fact that you all feel the need to dictate your world view onto others, is quite arrogant. I'm off, you can continue the back slapping contest.

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It's really not worth providing facts here. Especially not to university papers, or health organisations. Facts get in the way personal opinion, and this should be wholeheartedly ignored.

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I don't think anyone has made that point.


That's not what I said either.


I have no idea. There is no scientific consensus on it.

What I do know, is that if a person is on life support, and their higher brain functions are non-existent (vegetative states), then the family are asked if they wish to continue the life support.


Would you be willing to tell families who turn off the life support machines of their vegetative relatives, that they are murders and that the person is still alive, and that they are KILLING them? Or would you let them make their own damned decision?

Higher brain function controls the following:
Frontal Lobes
Parietal Lobe
Occipital Lobe
Temporal Lobe

Must we assign personhood to something which cannot and never has been able to form or store memories, has no emotions, no spontaneity, no recognition, that doesn't respond to any kind of stimuli, has never been able to and cannot recognise faces, or objects, or make sense of its surroundings, see, hear, or interpret any kind of audio-visuality? That if on a life machine, some would class as dead.

I honestly can't. Perhaps you can - and you have every right to. I'm not trying to change your personal perspective. What I'm asking is why should your perspective be legislated? How would you like it if I tried to legislate mine on you? I don't think you'd like it.

Didn't Jesus once say do unto others........?

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bit.ly/U5jhiv

Educate yourself my friend.

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I didn't mean to patronise you, but it's quite easy to do a google search, and I've been working all day.

Everyone is shouting here. Including men. I don't think they've had abortions either. We've already discussed the mental health of women regarding the issue.

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Because it's not about me. It's about the personal feelings of the individual. I've already said that like, a million times. And I hate people trying to force their morality on others as if morality is set in stone - it's not that I'm defending abortion per se, I'm defending freedom of choice - and freedom of belief - especially on grounds without evidence. I'm defending the freedom for a woman to feel however she damn well pleases about her pregnancy - no matter how distasteful others might find that feeling.. It's not for me to dictate, and it's not for you either.

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Anyway. I've said all I have to say on the matter. I'm off. You guys can all congratulate yourselves - or whatever it is you do now...

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I said no such thing. I said that there are markers, and that all women need to be properly psychologically vetted and counselled before they go through such a procedure. And it should be for a doctor to decide.


I've linked to scientific university papers, wikipedia, and documents which are directly linked to the findings of the world health organisation, and the countries own internal figures from various ministries and departments. How are they questionable. Would you prefer me to pull the figures out of my arse as you are doing? You've provided no figures, no studies, you've talked about your opinion and given anecdotes, you haven't quoted anyone but yourself.

Where life begins is a real philosophical question. It's hardly nonsense. The great philosophers have been discussing it since time began. We base our modern laws on philosophy and science. From my perspective, you guys seem to be avoiding all the difficult questions, or just don't want to broach them, or are just plain uncomfortable discussing them. There's no corners. I haven't done any back-pedalling, I haven't changed any goalposts. I haven't used emotive language. I haven't tried to force my view onto anyone. There's no corner here. It's not a F*king boxing ring.


I'm not patronising you because of your experience. It's just you seem to think that your experience is the be all and end all, and anything else is a "dodgy paper", even if it is linked to real, scientific, university and NGO studies. I'm not asking you to believe me. I'm asking you to look at the studies.

Goodnight.