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This works both ways love

Most of us will be familiar with the “12-week” rule – the longstanding social convention that dictates that women mustn’t tell anyone they’re pregnant before the 12-week mark, “in case something happens”. It’s time to talk about the insidious effect it has on women who suffer a miscarriage early in their pregnancy.

An estimated 650 babies are miscarried every day in the UK, with the vast majority occurring during the first trimester. Most of these losses will be suffered in silence, because it’s considered so socially unacceptable to reveal that you’re pregnant before 12 weeks – let alone that you were pregnant, but now you’re not. It’s baffling that in 2019 we seem so wedded to an anachronistic superstition……

Yes, but we’ve also got rather a lot of people saying that in the early stages it is nothing but some gob of meiotic cells that can – possibly should – be done away with. With no more consideration than a blowing of the nose.

Anti-Cakeism sorta demands that either it’s something to be mourned and not killed or it’s a nothing that can be excised at will but not noted.

29 thoughts on “This works both ways love”

  1. Who says the 12 week rule is that you mustn’t tell *anyone*? I thought the rule was that you don’t tell *everyone* just close family. The reason being that having a miscarriage in those first 12 weeks is when it is most likely and it is really really painful to have to go round all those people you’ve told and have to tell them that actually now you aren’t pregnant anymore.

  2. I’m hugely pro choice and I agree with you. To strangers, ie me, it has no intrinsic value so dont talk to me or expect me to care or validate it.

    That’s the deal. Otherwise, well, the consequences are profoundly uncomfortable.

    It’s one thing I hate about my side. Refusal to own this moral issue and state it’s a necessary evil. None of this cavalier ‘it’s a bunch of cells’ then expecting me to acknowledge the ‘death of a child’ next.

  3. I sneeze in threes

    It’s a quantum fetus. If you want to keep it was a baby, if you didn’t it’s just a blob of cells.

  4. It is not having it both ways. Those who do not want a baby do not see the foetus as a potential human being, but merely as an unwanted bundle of cells to be discarded. However, those who do want a baby invest a great deal emotionally in a foetus as soon as they know they are pregnant. Prospective parents start thinking way ahead about possible names, things they’ll do with the child, planning the nursery. When there is a miscarriage, the loss of the potential human is very painful and it can impact on the enjoyment of future pregnancies.

  5. As The Mole says, this ‘superstition’ exists precisely so women don’t have to explain to all and sundry that they’ve just lost a baby.

  6. Nothing in the Guardian makes sense until you understand that they believe Britain’s social attitudes were frozen in 1954, and have not budged since.

  7. As others have said, it’s not a social convention, it’s a choice made by women for the sake of their own privacy. If they have a miscarriage — and they happen more now that women are getting pregnant later in life — then you don’t want to have to tell all those people that you’ve previously told you were pregnant.

  8. @DocBud

    Yes that’s the intrinsic and extrinsic value distinction.

    That means however any stranger urging me to recognize, listen or talk about miscarriages is breaking the extrinsic pact. I dont regard fetuses as babies, hence I’m pro choice. The flip side of this is I dont care more recognize your loss so stop trying to talk to me about it.

    Perhaps I might consider someone close to me’s miscarriage as sad but that because it has extrinsic value to me and them.

    Conclusion here is.

    Support abortion? If yes stop trying to get strangers to talk about the spontaneous abortion of your clump of cells okay.

  9. My wife and I went through that experience twice and I cannot say that much “suffering in silence” took place although I don`t recall that we felt any need to talk about it to anyone else.
    You will be pleased to know that today we are the adoring parents of three healthy boys .. (well one young man I should say )
    What I notice about this comment is the whole woman-centric assumption is that no-one else is there, involved and going through the experience
    That is not the case …….where is the father in all this ?

  10. I know lots of people who didn’t tell all and sundry about when they were taking their driving test.

    It’s not an awful social construct. It’s just so you don’t then have to tell all and sundry if you failed.

    That’s about the level of it.

    But the Guardian want to make something of everything if it shows that society is awful.

  11. @ pomofaced

    “Refusal to own this moral issue and state it’s a necessary evil.”

    I guess there’s a debate to be had about whether it’s necessary.

    I’ll admit I was fairly uninterested, it not having been an immediate issue for me, but vaguely pro-choice until I became aware of the sheer numbers. 8 million and counting in the UK since it was legalised, over 50 million in the US since Roe v Wade.

    That’s a lot of potential humans.

  12. “…….where is the father in all this ?”

    Pretty much the same place as in the abortion case.

    “That’s a lot of potential humans.”

    It’s OK, we know where there are plenty more.

  13. @Pomofaced

    “To strangers, ie me, it has no intrinsic value so dont talk to me or expect me to care or validate it.”
    +
    “…..and state it’s a necessary evil.”

    The milk of human kindness flows strongly in this one.

  14. What 12-week rule? Is this something else that solely exists in the imagination of Guardian journalists? To avoid the social awkwardness of a 1 in 1000 possibility?

  15. @Recusant

    Hey man, I own my necessary evil. Do you own your evil of forcing women to give birth against their will?

    Do you punk?

    No one comes out of this untarnished, so piss off.

  16. If a friend’s much loved dog dies, I don’t personally feel anything for the dog, but I am able to empathise with my friend and offer them comfort in their loss, and MrsBud thinks I’m a sociopath.

  17. “…….where is the father in all this ?”

    We didn’t have a miscarriage, our little lad was born in the hospital but there was almost a zero chance that he would survive more than a few minutes at most so we had a priest on standby to baptise him (Mark) as soon as he was born. MrsBud had a snooze and I headed to downtown Jo’burg for a job interview which was remarkable due to the fact that while we were sat there, the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court bombing occurred about two blocks away. First we heard the limpet mine go off, followed by the car bomb.

    Although I do occasionally think about him, I cannot wish that he’d survived anymore because 14 months later we had our first daughter who has had two daughters of her own, which would not have happened had Mark survived.

  18. Dennis, He Who Has Never Done Blackface (Unfortunately)

    Why does every Guardian article start with “We must not…”?

  19. “That is not the case …….where is the father in all this ?”

    Guardian readers are selfish, irresponsible children, and most feminism is a version of that.

  20. wonder where they are getting the figure of 650 a day, there’s roughly 1,800 births a day and abortion rate isn’t far off at 560 a day, so miscarriages and abortions combined account for roughly 30% of pregnancies.
    Though the high rate would tend to reinforce the reason for people choosing to wait 12 weeks, guess the change is the millennial need to over share everything

  21. @Pomofaced

    “Do you own your evil of forcing women to give birth against their will?”

    Who would have thought that sex can lead to pregnancy? It’s a wonder. There again, it was their will/choice.

    “Do you punk?”

    Hello, Clint. I was a punk, but moved on forty years ago. If you look out of the basement window you might see that things have moved on since the Seventies. I’ll now “piss off”.

  22. Why does every Guardian article start with “We must not…”?

    No idea, it is very misleading because their intention is always “You must not…”

  23. “You will be pleased to know that today we are the adoring parents of three healthy boys…”

    Why should we be “pleased” that an idiot like you has managed to reproduce?

  24. We went through it once as well, rough time. My wife found help through online forums and went onto help support others which highlighted the difference in the NHS across the country.
    Subsequent pregnancies are very stressful with worry of same happening, some NHS areas offer additional scans etc. while others treat it same as any other pregnancy and very little is offered in terms of psychological support.

  25. @The Mole October 8, 2019 at 8:18 am

    +1 on anyone vs everyone

    @Hector Drummond October 8, 2019 at 9:43 am

    +1 same as one doesn’t tell everyone they meet “I have the clap” “I have constipation/diarrhoea”

    @Pomofaced October 8, 2019 at 9:44 am

    +1 on don’t know, don’t care

    @Newmania October 8, 2019 at 9:52 am

    The father is often unknown in certain communities; in others he’s a “wanker”

    @Andrew C October 8, 2019 at 10:08 am

    Driving Test fail – perfect analogy

  26. “It’s baffling that in 2019 we seem so wedded to an anachronistic superstition……”

    Well, you may be but *we’re* not.

    I’ve never heard of this ’12 week rule’.

    “Most of these losses will be suffered in silence, because it’s considered so socially unacceptable to reveal that you’re pregnant before 12 weeks”

    1. Is this person saying that these women can’t talk to their husbands?

    2. Miscarriages are extremely common. Its not even uncommon to get pregnant and miscarry so early you didn’t even know you were pregnant. Women can deal with this and the idea that the ’12 week rule’ prevents them from telling anyone else that they’ve miscarried . . .

    The things people will come up with to try to sell yet another ‘women are treated horribly’ article.

  27. The things people will come up with to try to sell yet another ‘women are treated horribly’ article.

    ======
    Got to fill up those column inches with something.
    There was a bit on QI where there was a day, back in the 30’s I think, where the BBC evening broadcast said that there was no news that day, and played music instead. Take a hint Grauniad, if you’ve nothing wothwhile to say then leave the space blank.
    Or bring back a Page Three Girl.

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