If unwanted pregnancy happened in my community, your advice?

[MoradM]

Hi.

First of all I would like to say that no, my partner is not pregnant.
But I posted this in this section because I want the opinion of everyone, the users AND the staff. I've had a pregnancy scare (but turned out to be just OCD and nothing else), so I am interested in hearing your opinion.

I live in a community where unmarried pregnancy is a cause to literally kill.
Suppose two unmarried couple from my community have had accidental pregnancy.
How would you advice them to deal with it, other than the option of secret abortion?
How would you advice them to reach out to their parents, and tell them

Father, mother, I did a serious and deadly mistake.

?
What do you think they should do? How should they react and deal with it?
Should they reach to their parents first, or reach out to other entities before that?

[Sam W]

Hi Morad,

Just to clarify, when you say cause to kill, are you referring to a law that says that the penalty for unmarried pregnancy is death, or to a practice that's common in the culture?

[MoradM]

Hi Morad,

Just to clarify, when you say cause to kill, are you referring to a law that says that the penalty for unmarried pregnancy is death, or to a practice that's common in the culture?

No, not a law, but rather something in the culture. I'd say 70% of parents would just force them to marry right now and not do harm. But there can be furious parents that might actually just do it. Anyhow, the most expected reply from (especially the female) parents would be violence, in one way or another.

[Sam W]

I think this is one of those situations that's very tricky to discuss in the hypothetical , because how to approach it would depend very much on the individuals involved. Of the couple, they'd need to decide what consequences they'd be willing to face and how likely they are to occur, and what they'd be willing to do to avoid them (I know you wanted advice other than try to end the pregnancy, but some people would view that as their go-to). They'd also need to look at their families and support networks, and determine who would be the most likely to have a violent reaction and who would likely be more level headed, and then go to the level headed person first for guidance.

[Heather]

I think it'd also be pretty remiss not to talk about making choices in advance when having sex in a given culture or community involves dangers to someone's life.

In other words, that when we are not talking about sexual assault, but consensual sex, that it's probably wisest to think very carefully about engaging in sex at all. Sex can be great, sure, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of the time, it's not going to be worth literally risking your life or survival over.

So, avoiding unwanted pregnancy altogether sounds like the very best plan to me, even though I (perhaps obviously) don't agree with cultures that make it deadly, by choice, for people to engage in certain kinds of consensual sex, be that people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual, or people who are not married, or engaging in sex outside marriage. The very best way to do that is by just not having the kind of sex that puts you at risk. For people just wanting to avoid pregnancy, that's actually a pretty minimal thing: it's just not having ONE kind of sex. For LGB people in similar situations per cultural dangers in some areas, that's obviously a much larger sacrifice, since it means not having any kind of sex.

Again, this is an infraction of someone's liberty in the first place, but if the choice is no sex or death, I think no sex sounds a lot better to me. Or, at least, no sex until I can move somewhere where it is safe for me, or engage in it in ways I am sure are as safe as possible (per pregnancy, that'd mean access and use of more than one method of contraception, or, getting married, etc).

I'd also add, as Sam did, that I am not sure why you would remove abortion from the equation. Legal or not, abortion is always a valid choice with an unwanted pregnancy, and one usually around half of all people facing an unwanted pregnancy will and do choose.

[MoradM]

but if the choice is no sex or death, I think no sex sounds a lot better to me.

That is a clear point, wise, and logical.
Thank you both for the wonderful replies!