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[kingyummy]

Hi,
I'm new here. I'm 29 and I've had 2 abortions: one in May 2000, when I was waiting to find out if I'd got into university, and one in 2005, shortly after I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
I've made some bad decisions in my life, but my abortions were not among them: they were two of the best decisions I ever made in my life, and I'm not

Comments

[kingyummy]

It is true that you have to get approval from a doctor - two doctors, in fact - but as long as you meet the criteria, they give you clearance to make your own decision.

You don't have to consult your own GP, thank God: the first time I got pregnant, I went to my GP and he was an absolute bastard to me. When he said "What can I do for you?" and I replied "I'm pregnant, and I don't want to be," he said "Oh you STUPID girl. You stupid, stupid girl." Girl?I was 25 years old.
Needless to say, the second time I found myself pregnant, I did not consult him. There are doctors at all NHS Family Planning clinics, who can do pregnancy tests and talk to you about the options; and in my experience they really do go through the options thoroughly: "have you thought about keeping the baby? have you thought about adoption? what barriers are there to those courses of action?"
But ultimately, they recognise that you have the right to decide what to do with your own body, and they respect that. I think their chief concern is that women not be bullied into having abortions by partners or family members.
They do question you closely, to make sure that you know what you're doing and that you're not being pressurised, but as long as you're of sound mind, they let you make decisions about your own body.

The second time I got pregnant, I had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I was still reeling: not only was I still extremely fragile, emotionally, having barely survived a severe episode of depression in January/February which very nearly killed me, but I was trying to come to terms with the fact that the illness I have is not only incurable but hereditary, meaning that any children I ever did have would be doubly cursed.
In addition to all that, my sister, who is desperate for a baby, had been trying to conceive for nearly a year, and had recently miscarried.
I had only been with my boyfriend for a couple of months: I could not stomach the idea of telling my sister that I had got pregnant, accidentally, while using birth control, as she struggled to cope with miscarrying a longed-for pregnancy.

In general, I think that doctors in the UK are a lot better at looking at the whole picture: they look at the whole situation in which their patient exists before they make a decision; and they're not idelistic.
And most important of all, they understand that their religious beliefs need to be left outside their consulting rooms if they're going to provide the best care for their patients.