We know there are a lot of strong feelings on the issue of abortion.

Both sides, pro-life and pro-choice, are passionate about their cause.

But more than sitting resolutely behind fences and covering your ears, it might do some good to listen to the other side, and try to see where they are coming from.

In that sense, the Reddit thread started by Aborted_in_SG is a much needed glimpse into the mind of someone who experienced an abortion.

Reckless

She didn't make any excuses over how she became pregnant in the first place.

In her own words, her and her boyfriend were just "really stupid and irresponsible".

Here is her description of how she got pregnant.

How I got pregnant: accident of course. Boyfriend and I used to use condoms but I developed some sort of allergy to latex so we stopped using them.

He never finishes in me, but we also had a lot of intercourse during my fertile period, which was when I miraculously got knocked up. In short, we were completely reckless.

How she got the abortion

They eventually decided to go through the private clinic route, although they tried the polyclinic at first (More on that later).

The pricing for the procedure didn't really differ much for the two routes.

Why private clinic over public hospital? Isn't that more expensive?: No, it's not. It's like the exact same price, around 2k.

It's impossible to find an abortion for under 1k now, even in a public hospital. With a referral from a polyclinic, an abortion at KK Hospital is $900 to $1500 just for the procedure alone. Antibiotics, consultations, ultrasound scans, etc are all separate charges.

The one huge difference though, was the waiting time between the two options.

We initially wanted to go the public route as we thought it would be cheaper, but since their earliest appointment date was a month later (and time is of the essence in this situation), we looked up private clinics that conduct abortions and found the price to be pretty much the same but MUCH faster.

If you call on a Friday, you can go for the consultation and scan on Saturday, then Tuesday is the actual abortion procedure. And you go back for a checkup one week later, that's all there is to it.

Payment method

While you can use Medisave for your abortion, there are drawbacks to it.

For both private and public routes, you can use your MediSave. Up to $900, if I'm not wrong. The problem is that's not anonymous. If you don't wish for anyone to find out, especially your parents, you shouldn't use MediSave.

And that was it, in terms of the abortion procedure.

But, let's go back a bit into that process. Remember the respective waiting time for both the private and public route?

Yeah, that was probably due to the counseling session she went through as well as the mandatory 48 hour waiting period after the counseling session before someone can get an abortion.

Counseling

In Singapore, mandatory pre-abortion counselling is required before the procedure for all patients seeking abortions.

The pre-abortion counselling started in April 2015 and is extended to all pregnant women seeking abortion, regardless of their nationality, education status and the number of children they have.

But let's look at the difference in counseling between the private clinic, and the polyclinic.

Private Clinic

Private clinic counseling was easy, I just watched a video on how abortions are done and the risks behind it.

Polyclinic

The polyclinic immediately sent me to a different room to be counseled. It was just some old lady telling me that my baby can feel that I don't want it and it's sad, and it can feel all the pain and sadness and I need to apologize to it if I decide to go through with the abortion.

They told her to say sorry to the fetus, and that the baby could somehow intuitively understand the concept of abortion.

And whichever side you stand on, we hope you can at least acknowledge that the statement is scientifically untrue.

Which is a big deal, because she was in a polyclinic, where we assume, science kind of matters.

Anger

Now, some of you might be angry at the girl, even a largely liberal conclave such as Reddit had its fair share of detractors chastising her actions.

Take this radiologist, who started off his comment all cheery like this.

"Hey, doctor here! I'm not a gynecologist but I'm a radiologist so I have great experience with pregnancy."

By the end of the paragraph, he was basically calling her a murderer.

"Abortion used as a contraceptive method is barbaric, you people try to romanticize abortion as a way of feminism, or liberalism, but it is not, this is not a contraceptive method, this is just plain murder, you as a person are the owner of your own body, but the fetus is another body, is another person, as I told you, this is a moral dilemma for doctors everywhere, I'm not religious, I'm not from the USA, I'm just a doctor stating mine and many others opinion on this serious topic, please stop making abortion an option for unplanned parenthood, it is not."

So, the anger is quite palpable.

The arguments revolved around different iterations of the same gripe, namely that she was being irresponsible.

And that is why she should not get any sympathy.

What if you got aborted?

You're ruining abortions for those who really need it.

And those are common refrains when the topic of abortion is brought up.

But, a rarely seen part of that conversation is the replies by those who went through the procedure.

Here are her responses to calls of irresponsibility.

And at the end of the day, instead of labels such as murderer being thrust upon those who do abort.

It is perhaps useful to keep our eyes on the true divide, and work from there.

Articles you should also check out since you're here:

Not an art person? Here’s how you can still enjoy the Singapore Biennale.

6 times S’pore toyed with food and made a global impact

Top image from Wikipedia

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.