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A friend of mine asked me for help, now I'm asking you for some
Shanadeus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
She is staging a protest and is asking me to help her spread this particular blog:
link removed - ceres
Problem is, she's planning on having a bunch of abortions as part of this protest.
I don't really have any objections as I'm all cool with abortions but it does sound like a very stupid way of killing yourself or at the very least damaging your reproductive system.
On the other hand she is telling me that she has everything under control and have read up on the dangers so I can't really say that she's ignorant (and she's really not, I've always considered her quite intelligent actually) of how potentially risky this whole idea of her is.
Anyway, what should I do about this?
Should I refuse to help her out or help her carry this thing through?
link removed - ceres
Problem is, she's planning on having a bunch of abortions as part of this protest.
I don't really have any objections as I'm all cool with abortions but it does sound like a very stupid way of killing yourself or at the very least damaging your reproductive system.
On the other hand she is telling me that she has everything under control and have read up on the dangers so I can't really say that she's ignorant (and she's really not, I've always considered her quite intelligent actually) of how potentially risky this whole idea of her is.
Anyway, what should I do about this?
Should I refuse to help her out or help her carry this thing through?
Shanadeus on
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I'm fairly sure it's unethical to repeatedly impregnate yourself so that you can abort the fetus just because, but that's more iffy. I'd recommend against it either way.
P.S. If anyone says anything in this thread that is not an advised course of action for the OP, expect points.
edit: I removed the link from your post.
That being said, As a protest, I think think this really hurts the pro choice stance rather than help it. Its not about making the beginnings of babies to abort them all willy nilly. This just reinforces the idea that pro choice supporters are very unattached from the value of life. I'm sure she could do this while understanding the risks to her heath, but overall it sounds like a stupid idea.
But this is dangerous and stupid for any number of reasons even putting that aside, just the effects on her physically could be serious.
It seems like a very immature response to the pro-choice/pro-life debate that's just aimed at offending the other side without achieving anything positive. Actually it seems a lot like internet trolling taken to an extreme.
Whether to get involved is ultimately your choice. If you're male and she's asking you father these babies/fetuses/whatever you justify them as, you should think extremely carefully about it though. I suspect this is the kind of craziness that will have many pro-choice people face-palming.
You should politely inform her that this is a horrible fucking idea.
I'm pro-life, but I understand the general position when it comes to abortion for most pro-choice people is the Bill Clinton line: "Safe, legal and rare." From a purely PR move, a stunt like this seems pretty harmful to the pro-life cause. Morally, this is indefensible on so many levels.
What's your conscience telling you?
Rigorous Scholarship
Yep. Their argument is "women have abortions frivolously." So an actual woman having abortions frivolously provides them with invaluable ammo, since it can't just be laughed at as a strawman anymore. Way to betray the sisterhood, sister!
Is your friend an actual straw woman? Because that must be quite a fire hazard.
[edit]I got warned for giving no advice
You can claim no one is getting hurt but boy are you damaging your cause and going to get your ass in trouble.
This is the worst idea.
I really don't think there's anything else I can do but any suggestions would be welcome.
How much do you want her to know of your disapproval? Because it would be easy enough to say 'yeah, sure, whatever', throw it away, and hope she comes around to doing the same. If you're looking to try to talk her out of it, that's a whole other ballgame.
edit: also, I don't understand .... it's not like you can have an abortion -at- a protest .... how is she planning on making her real life (?) abortions a part of this protest as she couldn't possibly get pregnant, discover that she is actually pregnant, have it confirmed by a doctor, and then abort the baby so many times
....
I'm not sure how to phrase this .... am I making sense? Do you get what I'm going for here?
You should tell her to talk to her OBGYN before doing this, internet research is, well... internet research.
If she is anti-abortion, I don't see how doing the thing that you're protesting against is in any way helpful.
I have no idea if it's even possible to talk her out of it but if anyone here has some arguments or some websites on the dangers of her plans then that'd be pretty helpful.
The proposed protest involves having as many abortions as is humanly possible and is actually, at least according to the link, supposed to support the Pro-Choice movement by showing that abortions are natural.
No, I am not putting the link back up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041702519.html
What sort of help does your friend want? And how exactly does she plan on doing this? Is she going to try to induce the abortions herself? Is she going to be going to a doctor? Has she talked to her doctor about her plans?
Where does she plan on finding all these willing temporary fathers? There will be a line around the block once word gets out.
Advice her to see her OB-GYN and get some materials from planned parenthood that deal with the effects (both mental and physical) of abortion. There are far better ways to stand up for a woman's right to control her body than this.
She told me that she had it all planned and on the blog she talks about how she's done her homework out but I honestly doubt she brought this up with a doctor. She has a boyfriend that is according to her willing to do the impregnating and she's bought a bunch of those morning after pills that she plan to take after having sex every couple of days or so for what she called the "first phase".
I have no idea how she's going to go on about the actual abortions but I from reading her blog it sounds like she's going to go to the public health service in the UK (the NHS) and request them.
From when the link was still up, it sounded like she intended to let the pregnancies go on progressively longer as she went.
I don't admit to knowing a whole lot about the process of reproduction on the woman's side, but doesn't it usually take something like 3-6 months or more to get pregnant normally, even when you're actively trying?
And let's assume that she gets pregnant every month by some miracle. How long does she plan to wait before she gets the abortion? A month? Start of the second trimester? Even assuming she only waits a month and "tons of abortions" means "a dozen abortions" then this is still going to take a matter of years. Also, aren't there all sorts of crazy hormones and such that start kicking in when a woman gets pregnant? I can't imagine starting and stopping that kind of hormonal roller coaster would be any amount of fun.
In short, it sounds like a whole lot of trouble for a result that will probably have little if any actual benefit to her cause and might end up actively harming it. Were I you, I would absolutely refuse to help, and if possible I'd attempt to convince her that spending years doing this would be a bad idea. And certainly explain how pro-lifers would read her actions if you think she might respond to that.
I have no idea what Phase One means, but it sounds absurd.
Frankly, this friend of yours sounds like she's clinging to a very fine thread of reality.
There isn't much logic to her proposed 'protest' (if you can even call it a protest, seeing as how what she appears to be 'protesting' (no choice) isn't law)
Edit: There was a punk band called Crass, originally they were going to call themselves Stormtrooper but (thankfully) Eve Libertine, I think it was, told them that name was stupid, and they came up with Crass. They were a great punk band, but the name stormtrooper would just...In punk, it's easy to become a parody of yourself, and become something lame and immature like metal or whatever. And I think she might want to think about that. It's a super interesting concept, to get pregnant with the intention to have an abortion, but I think she needs to ask herself if this is the right kind of message she wants to send. I should say I'm pro-choice, but I don't think abortion is a subject you should take lightly, there's a lot of room for self-inflicted damage. And I don't mean physical damage. As a protest, as a performance art, I do find this really compelling, however, and would love to see her blog.
Maybe on average, sure, but not necessarily. A woman can get pregnant after a single evening of unprotected sex. I speak from experience.
Yes. I'll be honest, this woman sounds a little nuts as it is, but absolutely, this will cause havoc with her body in all sorts of ways, physically and emotionally. As has been said many times, this is an awful plan for a variety of reasons.
OP: Your advice to her should be that this is a dangerous path that could have serious, unforeseen consequences. I have no idea what research she's done to come to the conclusion that this makes sense, but I feel confident that it was insufficient.
Abortion should be done responsibly, just like sex. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread, later receiving a warning, a comparison of this to guns. People try to make guns illegal, someone goes down the street shooting their gun off. It's a protest, but it will probably end up expediting the process of making it illegal because people obviously cannot be trusted to handle things in a mature manner.
If I were you, I would not encourage her and would do everything in the world to keep her from doing it. Again, nothing good will come of this.
Also, taking the morning after pill absolutely cannot cause an abortion. Conflating prevention of pregnancy (even post-coitally) and abortion is what leads to bills that try and outlaw birth control. By definition, pregnancy doesn't start until implantation which occurs at least a week and up to two weeks after intercourse. Her conflating the two ideas on her blog (I don't know if she does, never saw the site) is actually working against the pro-choice movement.
I've never had the need to take them, but it's my understanding that the morning after pill isn't exactly pleasant. Don't know how neutral this site is, but it does say that "nausea, fatigue, and headaches are among the most commonly reported Plan B side effects." And it claims that no one really knows what the consequences of overdosing would be, besides likely vomiting, nor how to treat it. I'd imagine that taking it every few days for a month or so would put her at high risk at finding out for the rest of us.
I don't think she'd be likely to keep up her protest after that, but I don't really understand the type of person that would choose to protest that way either. O_o
And, in fact, shows that she has NOT done her research.
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My fiancee took Plan B once, and she described it as the worst period she can imagine. Cramps, nausea, worse than normal bleeding, pain, tenderness, and mood swings that have made me forgive every bout of PMS she's had since. I've heard of it changing a woman's cycle, causing missed periods.
Every woman reacts differently, just like normal birth control, but in any case, definitely not something you take because you want to, and I can only speak as a witness to the aftermath.
Taking it twice in one month is supposed to be "safe" but ratchet up the side effects severely. This girl's plan sounds like it'll result in doing that.
You should definitely talk to her, and you should definitely talk to her boyfriend. How she could get anyone else on board with this is beyond me.
The boyfriend probably heard, "...Blah blah blah - We're gonna have a buncha sex - Blah blah blah..."
Maybe explaining to him in more detail what's going on would help?
All the hormone fluctuation really won't be good for her, either. This is also a pretty expensive plan. According to Planned Parenthood, a first-trimester abortion costs between $350-950. Second- or third-trimester abortions are definitely more expensive than that.
This is really ill-thought-out, and I'd advise you say something about the (1) cost (2) pain and (3) terrible PR to your friend in hopes of getting her to stop this course of action pronto.
I skimmed a bit and caught you guys are in the UK, or at least she is? I'm pretty sure the money won't come out of pocket for her, but she should seriously consider the kind of resources the clinic will have to go through each time she aborts in terms of time and money that would better be spent on someone who needs it, rather than on someone bent on proving a point in pretty much the worst possible way.
All that not to mention personal bodily harm.
You need to tell her how bad an idea this is.
Not only all of this, but getting an abortion just because she can to say "See, its all good!" sounds pretty damn offensive to every person who had a life changing experience when they had an abortion.
OP, if all this isn't enough to get her to realize how terrible of an idea this is, you should really consider removing her from whatever program she messaged you over. She really doesn't seem like somebody sane enough to keep constant contact with.
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