One other thing. Both parents need to carriers of 'the' CF gene for the child to get CF. You don't risk it if only one is a carrier. So unless your partner has the gene that's a null and void comment. Glad it wasn't your only one.

Severin
Thanks for your follow-up. I can understand why my analogy hit a nerve and I did not mean to offend. As you know I advocate for choice.

I re-read the article to try and analyse why I had a problem with it.

StG hit on it when he said it is the blogging and tweeting aspect of it that did not sit well with me. I did not find the article demystifying, only uncomfortable in the way such a personal subject was handled.

A close friend had an abortion and it was a painful decision for her and she has always regretted the decision. She was pressured by her parents (typical of the 70s). However her experience is not everyone's I am not offering it as a template.

The seemingly casualness of the blog ignores this aspect of abortion and not everyone finds the process as straightforward as the author which is her right.

It is a difficult topic because there are so many influencing factors - such as late terminations, lifestyle choices, medical reasons, rape, etc.

Houlley
Was that you staying on topic? What makes you think I use toilet paper!

Thanks pelican,

This probably disturbed me the most though...

>>>"I think “I don’t want to be pregnant” is one of the best reasons there is for having an abortion (along with “I don’t want to be a parent” and “I’ll probably die”)"<<<

Yeah, so get your tubes tied?.

Having an abortion is a private and personal decision, seemingly like when to have any medical procedure, like no more than having a decaying tooth removed?

The world doesn't want to know about your tooth removal. It is a private and personal thing. Right?

So is abortion is such a private decision why are you shouting it out so publically? If it is no big deal then when do you want us to hear about it?

Have your abortion, personally and privately like your own personal and private decision. Otherwise you are just looking like an attention seeker. Well, maybe you are.

The only other thing I get from the article is that if you really didn't want another pregnancy you should have considered tubal ligation. But you should have kept that private and personal as well.

Doug like some others I've found this thread somewhat confronting but at the same time I get why the author choose to be public about it. She points out in the article that for the most part the only discussion of the experiences of having an abortion most of us hear are from that very small number who have later become anti-choice/pro-life (pick your preferred term).

I've known women who have said that they have had abortions but I've never heard much about their experience. There is value in broadening the understanding of what women experience and that will only happen as more women choose to relate their own experience. I don't want to see that grow to be an annual abortion pride march but I do think that women choosing to relate their experiences (both good and bad) will help others make more informed choices.

It is a private issue but it's a private issue which is often the subject of public debate. It's an issue where all too often most of the available information comes from vested interest groups.

Twitter the experience does seem to trivialize it but maybe that's part of what it takes to start to shift it from being a secretive thing.

I had a vasectomy a couple of years ago, I knew other men who had had one but it's not something I'd ever really heard much about and a vasectomy carries a lot less social baggage than an abortion. There are some really good reasons for people to be able to talk about their experience.

R0bert

RObert, I would agree with you, except that one argument used by those who favour 'freedom of choice' is that abortion is a private issue between a woman and her doctor. That was the basis for the Roe vs Wade 'pro-abortion' victory in the US Supreme Court. (This decison has also been called into question anyway).

But in the issue of abortion, if not the legal ramifications, has been argued as a privacy matter, in which the state, (the state comprising its citizens, the governments and other instruments of power such as law enforcement and the courts) have no place in a woman's reproductive (or non-reproductive) organs, then that privacy should be respected as a two way street.

As for those who say that what a person does with their own body is completely up to them, and no-one else: well, fair enough, so long as the person is capable of making informed decisions and providing informed consent, then they should be able to do what they want.

So, continuing that argument: no-one over the age of maturity should be forcibly made to undergo medical treatment to attempt to stop them from committing suicide. Suicide is a choice about what to do with their own body.

Also there should be no laws against the use of any substances of addiction.

Lets keep all these issues private.