Experiencing my own abortion and photographing the result was a sobering experience.
For of course you did not experience your own abortion. You experienced the abortion of your child.
Who is not, of course, around to tell us what it was like.
My mother had an illegal abortion some 30 or so years ago……Soon after, I took a friend to a clinic for an abortion……A year later, I was facing the same procedure.
It’s pretty tough getting this contraception thing through to you, isn’t it?
11 responses so far ↓
1 JuliaM // Jul 10, 2012 at 10:03 am
Well, we shouldn’t be hasty. Contraception isn’t 100% effective.
Or she might come from a long line of careless people…
2 PaulB // Jul 10, 2012 at 10:10 am
Competent use of contraception is not an adaptive trait.
3 Martin Davies // Jul 10, 2012 at 11:35 am
Some people seem to use abortion, whether legal and approved by a doctor or not, as a means of contraception. Not a choice some would make.
4 Steve // Jul 10, 2012 at 11:40 am
And she says the pro-life people are “vile” and “grotesque”…
PS – I knew it was going to be The Guardian even before clicking on the link.
5 John B // Jul 10, 2012 at 12:03 pm
And don’t millions of woman World wide have abortions every day – you know the ones where suddenly a lot of blood appears in loo instead of pee or in the hole in the ground – where “God” has decided that little fertilised egg has no right to be, or a developing foetus is malformed and “God” thinks it should not be.
Of course these are called a “miscarriage” and being “natural” are OK, but in fact the correct name is abortion irrespective of who is doing it.
Tim adds: No, sorry, you’re wrong.
Abortion has a specific meaning. The deliberate removal of a foetus from the womb before term. Thus RU 486 and a Caesarian section are both abortions. A miscarriage is not.
6 Surreptitious Evil // Jul 10, 2012 at 12:31 pm
John B may be wrong, Tim but, according to the OED, so are you:
Even if a C/S results in the death of the child, it wasn’t the intention therefore it isn’t an abortion. RU486 may be an abortion – if it is being used emergency contraception then we don’t yet have a fetus therefore, strictly, it isn’t.
7 dearieme // Jul 10, 2012 at 12:35 pm
I assume that the expression “spontaneous abortion” is quite old. No?
8 PaulB // Jul 10, 2012 at 12:36 pm
In medical terminology, abortion is as John B says. Doctor-speak for “abortion” in Tim W’s sense of the word is “termination”.
9 David C // Jul 10, 2012 at 6:30 pm
The comments on the Guardian piece seem to come overwhelmingly from a simplistic ‘choice is right’ angle, with no comprehension of the moral complexities of the issue. But I suppose that’s what we’d expect from the Gruniads.
10 Martin // Jul 10, 2012 at 11:03 pm
Tim,
Well said.
Bill,
You might be right – I have a younger sister whose cause of death was listed as ‘spontaneous abortion’ on her death certificate. That was in 1973.
11 So Much For Subtlety // Jul 10, 2012 at 11:58 pm
PaulB – “Competent use of contraception is not an adaptive trait.”
Yeah but it is usually part of a package deal where you also can’t use financial planning competently as well as a whole range of other features of modern life. And I would hazard a guess that the incompetent use of power tools outweighed any benefits from incompetent use of birth control.
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