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Life in a Shoe Discusses Abortion


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I agree! I always feel weird when I'm pregnant and refer to it as a baby since I'm extremely pro-choice. Yet talking about my fetus just seems awkward and something I have to remind myself to do (I like to use the word fetus just to annoy my MIL sometimes). Even when I know it's just a ball of cells I still find myself using the word baby. I'm also very glad to have yet to have a miscarriage since I'm not sure how I would handle it.

I'm very pro choice too and I HAD to find out the gender so I could "bond" more. But I say all the time, its not my choice, its the other woman's. KWIM? Not my right to decide what another woman does to her body.

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I'm very pro choice too and I HAD to find out the gender so I could "bond" more. But I say all the time, its not my choice, its the other woman's. KWIM? Not my right to decide what another woman does to her body.

I am pro choice. I have not been put in a position where I have to choose. I dont think that abortion would be my choice. I think that pro choice is more pro life then the people who claim to be pro life. We care about the life of the women and child.

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I am pro choice. I have not been put in a position where I have to choose. I dont think that abortion would be my choice. I think that pro choice is more pro life then the people who claim to be pro life. We care about the life of the women and child.

Exactly. EXACTLY.

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I have often read/heard people talk about ectopic pregnancy as if there was some sort of option regarding treatment. This is not really the case. If you have an ectopic pregnancy here is what can happen

scenario #1 - the ectopic spontaneously dies (so the baby dies), the mother lives

scenario #2 - the ectopic grows, ruptures the tube or uterus and the baby dies and the mother might die (she will die unless she has immediate surgical intervention)

scenario #3- the ectopic pregnancy is terminated with medication or KCl injection or with surgery (so the baby dies), the mother will then live

scenario #4- the ectopic pregnancy grows outside the uterus - RARE, RARE, RARE but if it does happen the baby MIGHT live and the mother MIGHT live (will need surgical intervention to survive - and the surgery is tricky and risky - so a big MIGHT)

scenario #5- the ectopic is surgically moved to the uterine cavity - I've never seen this work and I don't know of anyone who even tries because the success rate is so dismal so generally the baby dies, mother lives (unless she suffers a surgical complication - which does happen)

As you can see the baby almost always dies - saving the baby is not a realistic option when there is an ectopic. The only life that might possibly be saved in the case of ectopic pregnancy is the mother's. Fundies are not thinking either clearly or logically when they think that an ectopic pregnancy might possibly result in a live baby. Ectopic pregnancy should be removed from the abortion debate.

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There are some cases where an ectopic pregnancy is viable. But if the blastocytes implant inside of the Fallopians or some other organ that cannot easily stretch enough to accommodate the pregnancy then it will expand and expand until that part of the mother ruptures. The mother in England with the triplets had a fetus that I believe implanted on the outside of the uterus and was just sort of floating in between the organs in its own embryonic sac so it was protected. Like any other pregnancy the organs shifted to accommodate the baby. Plus in England there is the NHS so the mother didn't have to worry about paying for medical care and it sounds like she was constantly monitored in a way that I doubt even insured women in the US get.

I think the woman in England's fallopian tube ruptured, and then the pregnancy kept growing in her abdomen, with the placenta spreading from the shards of tube to her internal organs. She was very lucky she didn't bleed to death when the tube ruptured, because the doctors missed it when she went to the hospital in pain. She was also very lucky she didn't bleed to death at any point after that, because placentas aren't meant to be attached to anything besides a uterus, and if they were made to detach for any reason, her abdominal organs would have just bled and bled since they can't make their arteries contract like a uterus can after birth.

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I agree! I always feel weird when I'm pregnant and refer to it as a baby since I'm extremely pro-choice. Yet talking about my fetus just seems awkward and something I have to remind myself to do (I like to use the word fetus just to annoy my MIL sometimes). Even when I know it's just a ball of cells I still find myself using the word baby. I'm also very glad to have yet to have a miscarriage since I'm not sure how I would handle it.

I'm 6 weeks pregnant- my first pregnancy. It's a bit of a surprise (I went off the pill 6 weeks ago to start tracking my cycles, thinking it take me YEARS to get pregnant due to my PCOS diagnosis...), but it is very, very wanted. I know it's still a cluster of cells the size of a lentil bean, but in my head, it's already my baby, and I am terrified of losing it.

I am as pro-choice as they come, and being pregnant has only made me more pro-choice. It is my choice to keep this baby. It is also my very good fortune to be in a position where I can keep it, physically, emotionally, and financially.

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I'm 6 weeks pregnant- my first pregnancy. It's a bit of a surprise (I went off the pill 6 weeks ago to start tracking my cycles, thinking it take me YEARS to get pregnant due to my PCOS diagnosis...), but it is very, very wanted. I know it's still a cluster of cells the size of a lentil bean, but in my head, it's already my baby, and I am terrified of losing it.

I am as pro-choice as they come, and being pregnant has only made me more pro-choice. It is my choice to keep this baby. It is also my very good fortune to be in a position where I can keep it, physically, emotionally, and financially.

Yeah having children has made me MORE pro choice as I believe that childbirth and parenthood should be 110% on a volunteer basis ONLY.

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Yeah having children has made me MORE pro choice as I believe that childbirth and parenthood should be 110% on a volunteer basis ONLY.

QFT.

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I am pro choice. I have not been put in a position where I have to choose. I dont think that abortion would be my choice. I think that pro choice is more pro life then the people who claim to be pro life. We care about the life of the women and child.

I agree! I don't think I would have an abortion myself but I've never been pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy. However I really strongly feel that other women should be allowed to make the choice about what is best for themselves.

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I agree! I don't think I would have an abortion myself but I've never been pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy. However I really strongly feel that other women should be allowed to make the choice about what is best for themselves.

I also agree with this. ;)

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My first pregnancy was ectopic and had to be terminated. I was devastated. Because of this experience, I made sure I didn't think of my second pregnancy as a baby until I was past the point of most miscarriages. It wasn't until I saw the ultrasound at 16 weeks that I actually started thinking of him as my son. I know I was doing it to protect myself from the crushing disappointment I felt after my first pregnancy. Even the ultrasound at 8 weeks when I first saw the heartbeat didn't make me think of him as a baby or a person. So, to say that a person is formed as soon as sperm meets egg is, in my opinion, not correct. I certainly didn't think of it as a person at that point in time.

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I agree! I don't think I would have an abortion myself but I've never been pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy. However I really strongly feel that other women should be allowed to make the choice about what is best for themselves.

I chose to keep my baby and both my husband and I are happy I did; for just as many reasons as we had reason not to keep our little one. And I'm more pro-choice than ever now because I got to choose for myself what was best for our family. And even though I now have 4 boys, he's definitely the sweetest. :)

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It always shocks me a little when women who have miserable pregnancy experiences (like Zsu's hyperemesis) are anti-choice. I have had hyperemesis with every pregnancy, starting as early as the day the embryos implanted. My most recent pregnancy was the result of fertility treatment and surgery, and it was agonizingly painful on top of being pukey. There is no way in hell I could suggest that a woman be FORCED to go through that kind of misery. My baby was SO wanted - 5+ years of trying kind of wanted - and by the third trimester I was almost counting the seconds until they could remove that child from my miserable body. My daughter nicknamed the baby "EJ", in reference to Bella's pregnancy in "Breaking Dawn", because of how painfully active he was and how horrific the pain was - it was that bad.

There is no way a person who was truly pro-life would make a woman go through that if she didn't want to; my baby was happy, but I had no quality of life whatsoever. That was my choice, though; if I were to get pregnant tomorrow and be told I had to go through all of that again, right now, like it or not, I might end up taking a hot bath with a razor blade. There is no way that an abortion would be harder on me, physically, than that kind of pregnancy. I'm ecstatic to have BabyKay, and for me, he was worth it all, but no one in the world has the right to force that shit on someone.

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It always shocks me a little when women who have miserable pregnancy experiences (like Zsu's hyperemesis) are anti-choice. I have had hyperemesis with every pregnancy, starting as early as the day the embryos implanted. My most recent pregnancy was the result of fertility treatment and surgery, and it was agonizingly painful on top of being pukey. There is no way in hell I could suggest that a woman be FORCED to go through that kind of misery. My baby was SO wanted - 5+ years of trying kind of wanted - and by the third trimester I was almost counting the seconds until they could remove that child from my miserable body. My daughter nicknamed the baby "EJ", in reference to Bella's pregnancy in "Breaking Dawn", because of how painfully active he was and how horrific the pain was - it was that bad.

There is no way a person who was truly pro-life would make a woman go through that if she didn't want to; my baby was happy, but I had no quality of life whatsoever. That was my choice, though; if I were to get pregnant tomorrow and be told I had to go through all of that again, right now, like it or not, I might end up taking a hot bath with a razor blade. There is no way that an abortion would be harder on me, physically, than that kind of pregnancy. I'm ecstatic to have BabyKay, and for me, he was worth it all, but no one in the world has the right to force that shit on someone.

The thing about pregnancy is that you sometimes have no idea if medical complications can arise. There's an inherent risk. Sure, MOST of the time in developed countries, things go reasonably well, but they can also go horribly wrong without warning.

On my "birth board" when I had my daughter was another woman with severe hyperemesis. She ended up being hospitalized, and the resulting $200K hospital bill caused a huge amount of stress and conflict with her husband.

There's no way to know in advance if you'll have to go on bedrest.

There's no way to predict if your anesthesia will wear off in the middle of your c-section, as it did with a friend of mine.

There's no way to predict if your anesthetic will paralyze your diaphragm while the staff somehow forgets to give you oxygen, leaving you grasping for breath and hyperventilating through the c-section, which is what happened to me.

There's no way to predict that your c-section incision may not have been sewed up perfectly, leading the recovery room nurse to scream when she sees it and leaving you with a painful wound that keeps bleeding out for a month (also me).

There's no way to predict if a doctor nicking your uterus during birth will lead to internal bleeding that in turn leads to severe brain damage, as in this case:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -them.html

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Yeah, but in my post, I do mean women who DO know, with little doubt, that any future pregnancy is probably gonna SUCK. Who do know what it's like to get hit with all of the complications that most people don't bother to think about. Those are the ones who amaze me by being anti-choice.

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Yeah, but in my post, I do mean women who DO know, with little doubt, that any future pregnancy is probably gonna SUCK. Who do know what it's like to get hit with all of the complications that most people don't bother to think about. Those are the ones who amaze me by being anti-choice.

I wonder if it's a martyr complex? Sort of like, "I went through hell for my baby, so you can suck it up too"?

Anyway, I wasn't disagreeing with you. Just saying that I think that pregnancy needs to be a voluntary choice because there is an inherent risk of serious complications, including death.

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My first pregnancy was ectopic and had to be terminated. I was devastated. Because of this experience, I made sure I didn't think of my second pregnancy as a baby until I was past the point of most miscarriages. It wasn't until I saw the ultrasound at 16 weeks that I actually started thinking of him as my son. I know I was doing it to protect myself from the crushing disappointment I felt after my first pregnancy. Even the ultrasound at 8 weeks when I first saw the heartbeat didn't make me think of him as a baby or a person. So, to say that a person is formed as soon as sperm meets egg is, in my opinion, not correct. I certainly didn't think of it as a person at that point in time.

I have had two extremely high-risk pregnancies, with bed rest, sewn shut cervix and lots and lots of medical intervention-y shit. I knew with both my pregnancies that they might not work out. I also didn't think of the pregnancies as a baby until well into my second trimester. And actually, I didn't even start getting excited at all until it reached viability stage.

If I was in a position where I needed to, I would have no problem terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester. I just don't think a tiny embreo that essential has a parasitic relationship with my body and cannot function on its own is a human life. It's part of my body and if I don't want it there, I am going to serve eviction papers. I don't see people being all up at arms about giving tumors personhood rights, nope, they chop em out right quick. While I totally understand people who are aching to have children and are excited from the moment the pee test pops positive and are devastated if it doesn't stick, that's just not me. But I'm sure as hell not going to project my experience on them, and I'm not going to start to feel like I'm "doing wrong" because wouldn't fee bad if I needed to have an abortion.

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I have had two extremely high-risk pregnancies, with bed rest, sewn shut cervix and lots and lots of medical intervention-y shit. I knew with both my pregnancies that they might not work out. I also didn't think of the pregnancies as a baby until well into my second trimester. And actually, I didn't even start getting excited at all until it reached viability stage.

If I was in a position where I needed to, I would have no problem terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester. I just don't think a tiny embreo that essential has a parasitic relationship with my body and cannot function on its own is a human life. It's part of my body and if I don't want it there, I am going to serve eviction papers. I don't see people being all up at arms about giving tumors personhood rights, nope, they chop em out right quick. While I totally understand people who are aching to have children and are excited from the moment the pee test pops positive and are devastated if it doesn't stick, that's just not me. But I'm sure as hell not going to project my experience on them, and I'm not going to start to feel like I'm "doing wrong" because wouldn't fee bad if I needed to have an abortion.

Same here. If I get knocked up anytime in the next 6-8 years, I'm definitely having an abortion. I will have kids exactly when I want them, and at no other time. It's nice to hear so many people say they're pro-choice despite the fact that they'll keep any pregnancy they end up with, but there isn't as much acceptance in our society for folks like us who would feel fine about aborting. More of us need to speak up.

ETA I'd probably feel fine about having one in the second trimester too, though I might have trouble after 16 or so weeks depending on what the hormones were doing to my head.

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I wonder if it's a martyr complex? Sort of like, "I went through hell for my baby, so you can suck it up too"?

Anyway, I wasn't disagreeing with you. Just saying that I think that pregnancy needs to be a voluntary choice because there is an inherent risk of serious complications, including death.

I definitely think this is it. I lurk on pro-life boards, and there is so much martyr complex ego masturbation going on- these women have no sympathy for the fact that we all have different thresholds and expectations for quality of life, as well as for the fact that some women don't have the support a lot of them did during their difficult pregnancies. They also seem to think consent to sex equals a consent to pregnancy, and consent to a "normal" pregnancy is consent to any pregnancy, even a life-threatening one. And think about it, in our culture, parents, especially mothers, are SUPPOSED to sacrifice, almost to the point of ridiculousness sometimes. The pressure to be selfless is HUGE, to the point where it can be hard for any mother to put herself above her child, or a pregnant woman before a fetus. If you don't sacrifice as a mother, people think there's something wrong, and often raising children involves sacrifices. But no one should mandate those, EVER.

I've never been in a position to have to make any choice, but I know right now I would almost certainly abort, simply because my anxiety meds are known to cause birth defects, and I'm not in a position to go off them at this point in my life. My health supercedes any fetus's existance, and I'm not sorry for saying that.

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I wonder if it's a martyr complex? Sort of like, "I went through hell for my baby, so you can suck it up too"?

Anyway, I wasn't disagreeing with you. Just saying that I think that pregnancy needs to be a voluntary choice because there is an inherent risk of serious complications, including death.

Ah - I didn't think you were disagreeing, I just wasn't sure if I worded myself clearly. We're in the midst of a rampant stomach virus here, and Mama's a lil sleep deprived. The martyr complex makes total sense. "Look at what I go through for these precious blessings, all because God wants me to!"

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