The abortion thing

[siead_lietrathua]

Everyone run for the hills, freedom is afoot!

you do realize that forcing people to not be able to have insured medical treatments because of the bosses religious believes is the OPPOSITE of freedom right? because last time i checked the point of a republic was to protect the freedom of the minority from the opinions of the majority, which includes protecting people from one-another's religious beliefs.

oh, and the jehovah example doesn't fail. you just didn't get it. the POINT of it is that no-one should be able to influence their faith on another person's medical choices. the jehovah one would never pass because enough people realize that blood transfusions save lives. but the POINT is that it is just as stupid to for a boss to restrict an employee's healthcare coverage on birth control as it is to restrict their ability to have a transfusion based on nothing more than religion and shitty religion 'science'.

and hey, for someone who seems to be so against government control (that tyrannical government letting people have access to unrestricted medical coverage) and someone that is so for business rights (or at least their 'right' to control their employees medical care despite their employees not sharing their faith) you seem to not understand what side of the coin leads to actual tyranny.

i'm not even gonna touch the rest of the post. gk covered it more than adequatly, and frankly i can't take many more facepalms without getting a bruise.
(nephews in town = loooots of facepalms)

[Estil]

For the same reasons people who are pro-choice insist on speaking as if abortion was not the same as killing a baby, as if that were the only possible option, even though around 1/2 the population disagrees with them. For the same reason that someone who is pro-choice will insist on speaking about abortions with me as if it were not equal to killing a baby, even though I 100% disagree with them. When you are sure that the your particular answer to question 1 is correct, there is no option A.

The moral of that story is that there are not two sides to every story, there are at least two sides to every story. I am very much pro-life myself but I certainly don't fit the "far right religious pro-death penalty" stereotype at all.

[mathnerd]

Getting back to the original topic. I hate the idea that abortion is sometimes necessary, but I could not in good conscience argue to make it illegal again. In my perfect world, people would have the education and access to birth control to make the procedure unnecessary in most situations. But we don't live in my perfect world, so abortion needs to stay safe, legal and accessible.

Many of you know most of my reproductive history. I've been pregnant seven times. For those keeping track, yes, this is an increase from the last time I detailed my history. Pregnancy number one was a set of twins I lost at 18 weeks. Number two was a singleton I lost at 16 weeks. Number three was another set of twins. Baby B demised at ten weeks and I delivered my first living child at 36 weeks, and he is now 16 (and healthy except for a genetic bone disease unrelated to prematurity). Number 4 was another singleton born at 32 weeks and is now 14 and completely healthy. Number 5 was born at 24 weeks and fought a six month battle to survive and is now 13 but has some prematurity related health issues that are extremely minor, and also has the genetic bone disease his oldest brother has, though more severe. I had my tubes tied at that point. Number 6 was an ectopic pregnancy in 2013. Number 7 was another ectopic pregnancy last August.

I fought hard for my kids. My youngest living child nearly killed both of us, but it was my choice to fight. I could never argue for a law that would force women to go through what I went through to have my children. To be honest, it was pure hell, but it was what I wanted. My instructions to my doctors with my youngest was to wait until they had to deliver the baby in order to save my own life, and hopefully I would be far enough along that the child stood a fighting chance. I was lucky. My doctors did what I asked, but it was a close call for me and him. Both of us survived.

Fast forward 11.5 years later and my decision was different. After the positive pregnancy test, but before I knew it was ectopic, I agonized, but decided that my living children needed their mother and I could not risk another pregnancy, so the best choice was to terminate. I still wasn't feeling great about my decision, but the ultrasound my doctor did took the choice away from me. We decided on a non-surgical option for resolving an ectopic pregnancy since it was still early enough. That night I called the man who contributed the other half of the genetic material for the pregnancy to happen. I actually thought about not telling him at all, since there weren't any other options, as ectopic pregnancies aren't viable. During that conversation we talked about the what ifs involved if it had been viable. Remember, even though pregnancies are so very dangerous for me, I still hate the idea of intentionally ending a pregnancy. This man is really quite extraordinary and helped me come to terms with my original decision to terminate no matter what. There are times when pregnancy is just not an option and he helped me come to terms with the fact that I'm not an evil person for wanting to protect myself and the children I already had. At that point, I tried to get my insurance to cover surgery to redo the tubal, since obviously it had failed. Unfortunately they wouldn't, and I wound up repeating the nightmare just under a year ago.

Since then, my cycles have not been normal, so last month in preparation for an emergency appendectomy I uttered a phrase that would have been inconceivable to me 20 years ago. The doctor was getting my history, so of course she had to ask when my last period was. I gave her a date that was six weeks prior. She gave me a concerned look, but I responded by telling her "my periods have been irregular for nearly a year now, but if I am pregnant, you are welcome to abort it while you are in there". I kind of shocked myself at how easy that was to say. But I have to be realistic. I had horrifically complicated pregnancies in my 20's. At nearly 40, the chances of me surviving another one are basically zero. It's the right choice for me. I would be devastated if the law was such that I could be forced to orphan my children just because birth control failed. For the record, I wasn't pregnant, so it wasn't an issue, but the idea terrifies me.

So that was pretty long winded. The short version is that women need to be trusted to make decisions that are the best choices for them. As my own history illustrates, it's not the same decision every time, but it's downright barbaric to take those choices away. While I still hate the idea of abortion as a form of birth control, I don't think it's wise to put undue restrictions on the procedure. I don't think a bunch of lawmakers are in a position to weigh millions of different personal situations and come up with a set of times when it's acceptable and when it's not, so it's best to leave the decision to the women and their doctors (and hopefully with their partners as well, but I'm not naive enough to think that every woman has a loving and supportive partner). Even though I would much rather see easy, affordable and accessible birth control eliminate the need for abortion as birth control, I think that it's a sad but fair price to pay to insure that women who need it for medical reason maintain safe access to the procedure.

Oh, and for the record, I'm still fighting with my insurance company to get approval for that redo of the tubal. Or a uterine ablasion. Or a partial hysterectomy. Or something. You'd think two failures in 18 months would be enough to convince them that something needs to be done (I react badly to hormonal contraceptives, so that's not an option), but you'd be wrong. Sigh.

ETA: I see a lot of typos. I'm typing on my phone and having trouble fixing them, so forgive me until I get a chance to get to my laptop and take care of them. (And I think I got them all, but I probably missed some. Sorry.)

[s_stabeler]

for the record, I was talking about a late-term abortion on the grounds of foetal health- in cases where the mother's health is endangered, I don't think there should be a limit. So I wasn't saying it should be the only justification possible.- so in your situation, mathnerd, I agree it was up to you and your doctor.

for what it's worth, I generally do believe in giving the mother the benefit of the doubt if the situation is unclear- and I wouldn't call it murder regardless- I just think that a late-term abortion should require justifying.