Timing is everthing
With election mania about to take hold in the Republic, news of 17 year old Miss D, who is 4 months pregnant and seeking an abortion is very possibly the worst kind of news for any politician versed in the art of equivocation. With the facts of the case so simple, and yet so stark it will be very difficult not to be able to take a definite stand. This is possibly the reason that the case is streaking through the Courts at the moment, with a decision expected next week.
The law in Ireland on abortion remains unclear and cowardly. The Irish solution to an Irish problem is to export it, in much the same way excess adults were exported generation after generation. At present, abortion is legal if there is a clear risk of suicide on the part of the mother, but the abortion can not be carried out on Irish soil. Miss D appears to be taking a very brave stance by stating she is not suicidal, but she does not wish to carry to term a baby that will be born without a functioning brain, and who will die within hours or days of birth. Update The Attorney General has now decided that the Unborn Child in this case is entitled to legal representation tomorrow and senior counsel has been appointed. From the RTE report:
She said it had been made abundantly clear to her that unless she was considered a suicide risk she would not be given permission by the HSE to travel for the abortion. Miss D said she was not suicidal.
She said she believed she would be arrested if tried to leave the state. The teenager added it seemed inhumane to expect her to carry a baby to term in circumstances where it had been condemned to death once born. She said the life of the baby was not in question. The diagnosis of anencephaly and the life expectancy of the baby is not disputed by the HSE. She said she was shocked by the extent to which the HSE had chosen to ignore her wishes, and to treat her as if she had no right to personal autonomy. Miss D said the situation was wholly unacceptable and she could not believe that she was prevented from exercising rights that any other 17-year-old in the State would have to travel for a termination simply because she was in the care of the HSE.
Delta Omega – in the Natalie Evans case, where the embryos had not yet been implanted, the father’s right to choose was upheld by the courts.
Teach
You have moved me to further comment.
Your experience makes your position ever more poignant.
Your salient point was the girl’s right to travel.
Is there an honorable lawyer out there with the wit, wisdom and nerve to bring this to the European Courts?
Let this be a matter for the Union to decide.
The legislators of the Republic have cowered for too long behind of the fear of the local, only for them to be bailed out by European legislation.
Why should this be any different?
Wilde Rover: Are you saying the Irish should have no control over hteir own country but should be dictated to by faceless mndarins in Europe, as opposed to Westminster? So, no dmeocracy or right to choose on anything for the Irish?
Sorry, mixing my legislative with my judiciary.
Makes for a terrible hangover.
You dont like the term baby killer Joe? This is what ‘pro-choice’ people campaign for:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/diagram.html
Isn’t there a UK law that prevents people from travelling to SE Asia to rape children?
If the woman didn’t have her right to travel freely within the EU withheld from her would this thread even be here ? About 6,000 Irish women travel each year to the UK to terminate their pregnancies.The only reason this poor woman got a thread was because the HSE thought they have the right to stop her from travaling,otherwise this would not have even went to court never mind getting a thread on here !
“Isn’t there a UK law that prevents people from travelling to SE Asia to rape children?”
If a child was raped and got pregnant, would you refuse her an abortion?
“Wilde Rover: Are you saying the Irish should have no control over hteir own country but should be dictated to by faceless mndarins in Europe, as opposed to Westminster? So, no dmeocracy or right to choose on anything for the Irishâ€
My point has always been that there should be a few paddies of all hues there making sure the faceless mandarins are too off their faces because of the mighty craic to realize all the strokes that are being pulled.
When the Fenian & Orange Bastards finally start working together they will say “why the hell are there so many Paddies, and, come to mention it, Scots, around the place?â€
Four Votes Good Two Votes Bad Party.
Isn’t there a UK law that prevents people from travelling to SE Asia to rape children?
Posted by Cahal on May 02, 2007 @ 03:00 PM
Foreign travel orders can be imposed to restrict or prevent a known sex criminal from leaving the country for up to six months if they are deemed to pose a threat to children abroad. But just one order has been imposed since the law came into force in 2003.
“A lot (many?) of the people who are against abortion try to portray people who disagree with them as being pro “baby killingâ€.
I know very many people (the majority of my acquaintances) who are pro-choice.
I have yet to meet anyone who is pro-abortion.”
Yeah, it’s so much easier when you hide the horrific act behind a much nicer term. There is extreme cognitive dissonance going on with regard to abortion. A pregnant woman will talk about “the baby” and if there is a miscarriage they will talk of “losing the baby”. Medical advances bring the limits of viability further down, so you might be saving an earlier pregnancy in one room and terminating it in the next. Is it only a baby if you want it? You don’t need to bring God into to show how it’s wrong.
“I think Bill Clinton put it across well when he said “Abortions should be safe,legal and very rare—
The problem is that it degenerates into abortion on demand, abortion for convenience, abortion as an alternative to contraception.
joeCanuck: The issue is whether or not a woman has the right to control of her own body. <<
This is overly simplistic and is one of the many things that piss me off about the pro-choice lobby. The issue surely is when does the baby obtain the full rights of any citizen? Ireland currently regards the moment of conception as the point at which the child obtains full rights. To remove it from the mother is thus murder under Irish law. Other countries think differently.
Obviously there are circumstances where abortion may be necessary in Ireland (the current case in point) but to provide abortion on demand and to go as far as the current UK law would IMO be wrong.
In too many instances abortion is being used as a form of contraception.
Would the person censoring this discussion please explain why my pro-abortion post was removed?
Here it is again:
“I’m pro-abortion, used to be against it. Pro-choicers finally convinced me they were right and I was wrong, but some of the arguments I’ve heard from the pro-choice lobby are shallow (sentient life, when is a human not a human), and at times obscene (it’s a parasite feeding off a host). Call it what it is, killing of an unborn child, legalise it and be done with it. It’s their own children they’re killing, not mine, so what’s it to me.”
“Call it what it is, killing of an unborn child”
Can you explain how a collection of cells with no functioning brain and no lungs is a ‘child’ by any stretch of the imagination?
When exactly does this ‘child’ form? Before conception, at conception, a few weeks in, when it starts to look a bit human? Be precise.
sevenmagpies:When exactly does this ‘child’ form? Before conception, at conception, a few weeks in, when it starts to look a bit human? Be precise.<<
That’s exactly the debate. When do the cells become a child and thus assume full human rights? Not whether a woman has a right to choose. Once agreed, no one then has a right to choose murdering a healthy child no matter how “inconvenient” it might be for the mother.
Miriam Stoppard does a few good graphics on pregnancy if you need any help.
Ah, sevencells. We’ve done this before countless times, and while I’m happy to see some of your cells are still functioning despite any signs of sentience, I’m not going to join you yet again on this tragic roundabout. I’m pro-abortion now, the reason doesn’t matter much to me, other than the pro-choice lobby convinced with their arguments of compassion, that no woman in this world wakes up one morning and thinks to herself “I really must go and get pregnant so I can have that ‘abortion experience’ all the girls were talking about over their lattes at lunch yesterday”. Kill them all, let God and the microbiologists sort them out, what’s it to me.
“I’m not going to join you yet again on this tragic roundabout.”
Presumably because you still can’t come up with a coherent response and your usual standards of ignorant abuse aren’t really getting you anywhere.
“Kill them all, let God and the microbiologists sort them out, what’s it to me.”
A curiously bleak and inhuman argument. I think I’ll just leave you to wallow in that one, thanks all the same.
“That’s exactly the debate. When do the cells become a child and thus assume full human rights?”
Currently about 2% or less of abortions take place after 20 weeks. The current limit of viability is around 23 plus, barring some rare miracles.
Even if a ‘child’ was given full rights at 20 weeks, intervention would presumably still take place after that point if the mother was at risk or the fetus was fatally compromised.
[i]That’s exactly the debate. When do the cells become a child and thus assume full human rights? Not whether a woman has a right to choose.[/i]
No, it’s not. It’s all about the right of a woman to choose whether or not she wishes the life inside her body to continue or not. It’s about women as creators, about the life we, women, bring into the world, and whether or not a woman has the right to choose not to bring life into the world.
Arguments about sentient life, when is a human not a human, when does a collection of cells become a human, are just pro-choicers last desperate bid to grasp at straws when the ‘moral’ argument beats the pro-abortion argument down.
Gram, you say:
“when does the baby obtain the full rights of any citizen? Ireland currently regards the moment of conception as the point at which the child obtains full rights.”
If this is so, then from a legal point of view, isn’t every abortion (in Ireland) murder?
This does not square with your further comment
“Obviously there are circumstances where abortion may be necessary in Ireland “.
joeCanuck:This does not square with your further comment
“Obviously there are circumstances where abortion may be necessary in Ireland “.<<
Joe, I didn’t say I agreed with the law in Ireland.
delta omega: “why do the pro-choice lobby always bang on about the woman’s right to choose. What about the rights of the father?”
In most instances, it’s because the father doesn’t have any rights, in either direction, as a practical and legal matter. If the girl wants the baby and he doesn’t, generally, barring wild differences in wealth and, ergo, access to legal representation, he is on the hook. Likewise, if he want the child and she doesn’t, short of managing to have her declared incompetant, he’s thin on options there as well.
The only time I’ve seen the extremes of this equation was my acquaintance with a gentlemen who, through his parent’s money and in the defiance of all evidence to contrary, was court absolved of being the father of a child. The girl went ’round the bend as a consequence of this merry-go-round and was committed. The boy’s parents then sued for custody of their grand-child, succeeding, again, due to the differing levels of wealth.
Jan Erik’s example is the exception that proves the rule and requires grand extenuating circumstances that would have been a paradox — a viable fetus outside the womb, implantable upon requrest — a generation or two ago.
Fair enough Gram
Not all pregnant women talk about their foetuses as babies. I know I am one person, but I didn’t think of my ‘baby’ as a baby until towards the end of the pregnancy. Some of this is semantic – losing a foetus sounds rather clinical compared to losing a baby. And for women looking forward to having a baby, their loss is real and sad. In the early weeks, I thought of my little zygote as a potential person, not a baby. Had I miscarried, I would have been unhappy, but the thought of losing a foetus pales into comparison when I consider losing my child.
I am also for abortion on demand. Let it be convenient and cheap. Just because a service is available doesn’t mean women will clamour to use it; most abortions are not on teenagers, but women who are older, many of whom already have children. I have yet to be convinced that women use abortion as a contraceptive; who would like to provide some figures to back up that emotive and offensive claim? I am pro-child, but I am pro-parent as well. Fathers have rights, but those are superceded by the mother. That’s unfortunate, but if men could carry babies, their rights would be paramount.
“Just because a service is available doesn’t mean women will clamour to use it; ”
Evidence elsewhere suggests to the contrary.
“Fathers have rights, but those are superceded by the mother. That’s unfortunate, but if men could carry babies, their rights would be paramount.”
In which case, take your corresponding responsibility and don’t get pregnant then. Before someone pulls the rape argument – what percentage of abortions do you think that would be?
Animus: “I am also for abortion on demand. Let it be convenient and cheap. Just because a service is available doesn’t mean women will clamour to use it; most abortions are not on teenagers, but women who are older, many of whom already have children.”
As a matter of accuracy, the “morning after” pill is an abortifacient.
What we really need is a population that understands their options and is sufficiently responsible to act on that information.
Yeah, women are solely responsible for getting pregnant, right?
Kensei – please display some of this evidence.
Dread – quite right. The more we pretend that abstinence is the best policy and prevent good sexual awareness programmes from being offered, the more we can expect unwanted pregnancy and STDs to increase.
Animus: “The more we pretend that abstinence is the best policy and prevent good sexual awareness programmes from being offered, the more we can expect unwanted pregnancy and STDs to increase. ”
Comme ci, comme ca. Abstinence, if excercised as a choice, is more effective than the pill, barring immaculate conception. Abstinence and chastity are, in and of themselves, simply other choices — just clubs in the golfer’s bag. The problem is striking the proper balance between the admittedly oppositional positions of those involved in the argument. Just as you don’t use a driver to putt with, not every approach is going to work in every situation. Abstinence / chastity, as applied in some African HIV prevention programs, has been a smashing success… among Western teen-agers, not so much. There is no one answer. What is needed is an education that covers as many options as possible and an society that provides the cultural impetus for the educated to make use that education.
Frankly, I’m not sure that a national level policy on sex education is really desirable construct, insofar as it is inevitably politicized and made palatable to the more intereseted members of the party then in power. As a result, we end up teaching only one side of the story, regardless of who is in power.
Animus: “Yeah, women are solely responsible for getting pregnant, right?”
Obviously not. However, if the woman is going to have the lion’s share of the authority, should she not, logically, also bear the lion’s share of the responsibility?
Also, if the woman, wanting a child, lies to the male before lying with the male, shouldn’t he have some sort of “opt out” clause, if the woman is to have the free and unfettered right of abortion?
“Before someone pulls the rape argument – what percentage of abortions do you think that would be?”
Do you think the pregnant rape victim cares about percentages Kensei?
Kensei: “Before someone pulls the rape argument – what percentage of abortions do you think that would be?â€
joecanick: “Do you think the pregnant rape victim cares about percentages Kensei? ”
Can we all accept that there will be some small percentage with extenuating circumstance and move along?
“Yeah, women are solely responsible for getting pregnant, right?”
Well seeing as how you are saying that YOU control the outcome, and it solely down to YOU what to do with the resulting pregnancy, then it’s YOUR responsibility. Shit one, but I’m not making the rules.
“Kensei – please display some of this evidence. ”
What something like a fifth to a quarter of a million terminations in the UK in a year and probably about 1-1.5 million in the US isn’t enough? Google it, it should be staggeringly easy to find.
“Do you think the pregnant rape victim cares about percentages Kensei?”
No, but it’s an edge case. It needs discussed, and maybe special provisions, but it’s not one where you make the whole policy on it.
You have a terribly cynical view of relationships, kensei. Women don’t control the outcome, but they should have final veto on a decision. Obviously it’s better if people discuss what they would do in a situation hypothetically before looking at a positive pregnancy test. We know that a high percentage of girls are coerced into sex before they are ready; that doesn’t sound like the ideal of women being in control. In an ideal world, women and men share responsibility for contraception and sexual health. In this one, that’s not the case.
I asked for evidence that abortion is used as contraception. You have provided nothing. How many of these abortions are due to contraceptive failure, due to misuse or forgetting to take pills? How many due to plain ignorance? You Google it – you’re the one making the inane, unsubstantiated claim.
I agree that women should take responsibility for contraception, but that men should take responsibility if they create a child. Men also have an obligation to use contraception. I’m sure you agree that non-payers should be legally prosecuted and jailed. There are far more women left holding a baby than men; presumably you think this is perfectly acceptable, based on your previous comments.
Dread – I agree that a whole raft of tools is necessary for sex education. But the message currently being taught in schools north and south tends to be abstinence, waiting until marriage. That’s irresponsible, unrealistic and proven to fail (in the US people who take virginity pledges tend to keep the pledge for less than a year). How many women do you think ensnare a man into having a baby against his will? People lie, men and women lie about all sorts of things, their fidelity, their intentions, etc. An opt-out clause is a “logical” idea for an illogical species.
Animus: “I agree that a whole raft of tools is necessary for sex education. But the message currently being taught in schools north and south tends to be abstinence, waiting until marriage.”
No, that’s what the US gov’t is paying for. Other lessons are being taught, much to the occasional scandal of school systems — Massachusetts is good for about one a quarter — where children are taught other lessons in fairly graphic terms and the parents find out ex post facto. A medium, happy or otherwise, needs to be found and applied.
The biggest problem is that its a political football. Each side’s rhetoric is written by the most radical segments of the party, creating a less than useful enivronment where the answer *MUST* be one of the two poles.
Animus: “How many women do you think ensnare a man into having a baby against his will?”
Enough to maintain the ugly stereotype, if nothing else. I personally know some and and aware of a few more, which is enough to give it anecdotal support, if nothing else.
That said, whether or not its common is not the question.
If, as you seem to reccommend, we are to vest virtually all the power in the woman, should not the man be given some level of protection?
Likewise, if the woman is to have this authority, should she not also have some corresponding responsibility in this scenario of a similar magnitude?
Kensei: “What something like a fifth to a quarter of a million terminations in the UK in a year and probably about 1-1.5 million in the US isn’t enough? Google it, it should be staggeringly easy to find. ”
That is evidence there are abortions occurring, not of their causation / rationale.
Hint: If you look at the disproportionate distribution of these abortions in the US data, you might find some support. Jesse Jackson used to note that there were 11 black badies aborted for every 10 born, refering to abortion as a “genocide.” This was, of course, back when he bought his suits off the rack and prior to being given a seat at the children’s table amount the Democratic circles of power.
Animus
“I have yet to be convinced that women use abortion as a contraceptive; who would like to provide some figures to back up that emotive and offensive claim?”
It’s pretty well accepted that over 50% of US abortions are perfomed on babies whose mothers have terminated another baby at some previous time. Many women have killed three or more of their babies.
As for the arguement “when does a fetus become a person”. Surely the onus is on the pro-abortion lobby to figure this out. Until then, let’s err on the side of caution, lest we kill a few thousand babies by accident.
My own opinion is that a foetus becomes a person at birth. I suspect, Cathal, you’re not happy with that. Killing a baby is one thing, killing a foetus another, hence a non-interventionist policy upon foetuses who are born (or die naturally) prior to 24 weeks gestation. So for the sake of comfort, let’s say viability is 24 weeks (accepted medical norm is 26, but let’s give the benefit of the doubt). I would say the onus is on the pro-life lobby to prove that killing a foetus is equivalent to killing a baby, and by proving ‘personhood’. Many people who are in favour of abortion are not encouraging it, and many are uncomfortable with abortions being taken after 24 or 26 weeks.
A staggering number of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion (otherwise known as miscarriage) and the woman is never aware. Should we be lighting candles for every late period – just in case it was a “baby”?
Cathal – I would love to see your source for 50% of abortions in the US. I don’t believe your figure at all, sounds made up. Please quote me a source.
DC – I am not advocating that women should maintain power, only that they get final veto over the matter of whether to carry a pregnancy to term. There is a difference between acting as a partner and making the final decision. Surely we all have experience of this as partners in relationships? Sometimes compromise is not possible and someone loses out. In most instances, there is not that much at stake (where to go to eat, what car to buy) but in the case of unwanted pregnancy, there are huge stakes.
Animus, I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from calling me a liar.
Here is the source. From the Guttmacher Institute. Yes, the guy who founded Planned Parenthood.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/11/21/or29.pdf
And I quote “Among U.S. women having abortions in 2002, about one-half had already had a prior abortion.”
Let the slaughter continue.
I should also point out, the 50% being refered to is describing women who have had AT LEAST one prior abortion. Many have had several.
What kind of person has two, three or four abortions, never mind one.
“48% of women in 2000–2001 were obtaining repeat abortions, including 29% who were seeking their second abortion, 12% seeking their third abortion and 7% seeking their fourth or higher order
abortion”
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/11/21/or29.pdf
“You have a terribly cynical view of relationships, kensei. Women don’t control the outcome, but they should have final veto on a decision. Obviously it’s better if people discuss what they would do in a situation hypothetically before looking at a positive pregnancy test. We know that a high percentage of girls are coerced into sex before they are ready; that doesn’t sound like the ideal of women being in control.”
No, I’m simply applying your logic. You want the rights, but you want to delegate responsibility. I don’t believe you should have it both ways.
Pressure does not equal coercion, unless it is rape. The girl can always say no, or insist on contraception, or ensure she has been taking contraception. If an unwanted pregnancy resulted in an alien style chest buster out of the chest, then I’d guess coercion wouldn’t work so well. Life is shit, but there it is.
“In an ideal world, women and men share responsibility for contraception and sexual health. In this one, that’s not the case.”
No, in an ideal world rights AND responsibilities would shared. You’re right: in this one, only the woman matters apparently.
“I asked for evidence that abortion is used as contraception. You have provided nothing. How many of these abortions are due to contraceptive failure, due to misuse or forgetting to take pills? How many due to plain ignorance? You Google it – you’re the one making the inane, unsubstantiated claim.”
Yeah, there have been a million and a half instances of contraceptive failure and rape in the US in the past year, after you take out all the people that keep the baby.
Forgetting isn’t an excuse to take a life. Ignorance isn’t an excuse to take a life.
If it was your own life you’d be a damn site more careful. Google that.
“I agree that women should take responsibility for contraception, but that men should take responsibility if they create a child.”
You’re the one taking the right away.
“Men also have an obligation to use contraception.
“I’m sure you agree that non-payers should be legally prosecuted and jailed. There are far more women left holding a baby than men; presumably you think this is perfectly acceptable, based on your previous comments.”
It depends what you mean by acceptable. Yes, men have their responsibilities and should pay up. It’s unacceptable women are left on their own. Nope, it’s not an acceptable reason to abort the child.
It’s difficult to say when a foetus becomes a person, especially when we struggle to define what a person is. In the past the US Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are persons in the legal sense, while African-Americans born into slavery were property, not persons (Dred Scott). We are able to demonise grown-ups, so it’s hardly surprising if we fail to empathise with babies, especially before they can be felt by the mother.
Certainly within ten days of conception any identical twins will have separated into unique human beings. After that things happen fast. By day 12 the neural plate (the foundation of the brain)will have formed. By day 19 the heart will start beating. Within ten weeks of conception most of the action is over and there is a functioning brain and central nervous system, although the lungs are nowhere near the development required for independent life using current technology.
At this stage (ten weeks post conception) babies will be kicking and instinctively walking, although they will still be too small for the mother to feel them do this. This shouldn’t be surprising, since we know that walking is a hard-wired response. Anyone who has had a child might have seen the midwife checking for the walking and crawling reflex within a day or two of birth. Many pro-choice scientists are in favour of limiting abortion to within ten weeks of conception because of what a baby is capable of doing towards the end of the first trimester.
It’s also inaccurate to say that abortion is merely about a woman’s body – if this were true there would be no need for a placenta, protecting the child from rejection by his or her mother.
To me, based on the scientific evidence, it seems clear that a foetus is a human being – a him or her – and we need to consider the rights that child might have as well as the rights of the mother carrying her. Compassion shouldn’t be focused exclusively on either the mother or the child.
We should also be grateful for the fact that we live in societies that frown on gender-driven abortion. In China under the one-child system the ratio of males to females at birth is 119:100 (it should be 103:100). In some regions it is 130:100. In India, according to the Indian Medical Association,roughly half a million girls are aborted each year because they were the second or third daughter of an upwardly mobile familty that had yet to have a son.
On the other hand, we should also remember how closely correlated abortion in the West is to poverty. The book Freakonomics argues that abortion has reduced the crime rate in the United States, using the following reasoning: poor people commit crimes, poor people have abortions, therefore the more poor people have abortions the lower the crime rate. Unfortunately it takes about 10,000 abortions to eliminate a would-be murderer from the population. The authors suggest that using abortion as an instrument of social policy would be a conclusion of Swiftian, rather than Darwinian, proportions.
Animus: ” I am not advocating that women should maintain power, only that they get final veto over the matter of whether to carry a pregnancy to term. There is a difference between acting as a partner and making the final decision.”
Ah, but the power to destroy is, definitionally, power over the whole. Regardless of the polling data, hers is the only vote, in your opinion, that really matters. It is sleight of hand at best to suggest that this is the practical outcome of your position. As you describe it, hers is the only vote that actually matters, placing all the authority in her hands, although, strangely enough, not all the responsibility.
Animus: “Surely we all have experience of this as partners in relationships? Sometimes compromise is not possible and someone loses out. In most instances, there is not that much at stake (where to go to eat, what car to buy) but in the case of unwanted pregnancy, there are huge stakes. ”
Precisely… and yet, despite your using the term “partnership,” there is an inappropriate correlation between authority and responsibility, one you seemingly endorse. The woman has, ultimately, all the power and only a share of the responsibility, in your view.
For Cahal, Kensei and hovetwo, A couple of points you may want to consider;
1) let’s drop the baby murdering crap, it’s not a baby, the general accepted definition of when it becomes a baby is 18-24 weeks (and I’m being generous here, let’s not talk viability), even hovetwo admits to 10 weeks and then contradicts himself. By his own logic you should allow aobrtion to 10 weeks. following your logic any mother who misscarried due to say being involved in a car accident should be done for manslaughter? or murder? who about those who smoke during pregnancy? child abuse?
2) why force a woman to have a baby that for whatever reason she doesn’t want when she doesn’t have to? isn’t it far better to have a baby when you want it?
3) Leading on to the Freakonomics arguement, as stated its a Swiftian reasoning but the drop in crime happened, it illustrates one of the benefits to society of legalising abortion. Given the UK stats (see later) there were 18.6 less genuine murders in 2005 thanks to abortion.
4) Are all the anti-abortionist happy to stump out the extra tax to bring up the poor unfortunates they force woman in bearing. Oh right, don’t think so. nice tidy solution to someone elses problem that doesn’t affect you in any way. Neat.
5) Do you realise just how sanctimonious you sound? it’s all the womans fault if only they weren’t so man bad woman out there. It’s a very easy position to adopt when you don’t have to bear the consequences. Strange how the big anti-abortionist are all men on this thread. And it completely ignores the reality of the situation at present.
6) Yeah, cause there woman everywhere having baby’s for fun, they’re queuing up to get knocked up just to terminate, get a grip, this crass opinion shows how little understanding of the problem you guys have.
7) No one is saying abortion is great but it’s a lot better than forcing a woman to have a baby she doesn’t want, on so many levels.
And finally some stats from the Dept of Health, in E&W there was 186,000 abortions in 2005. Must be a lot of baby killers out there, they must all be evil. 67% of which were before 10 weeks, 89% before 13 weeks, so really, lets put the baby killing myth to bed. About 0.5% were after 20 weeks, before 24 weeks, so 930.
As a side note the abortion rate in england is 17.8% per 1000 woman aged 15-44. In Scotland it was only 11.9%. Wonder why that is, maybe Soctland is a much more moral place? (joke)
65 in N.I. and 1,164 travelled from NI to England, but chances are there are much more than that cause it’s based on given address at the clinic.
I wonder how many from Ireland were in that 186,000? Still as long as Cahal and Kensie can sleep easy knowing that Irish woman aren’t as evil as those in England and Wales then everything is hunkydory.
If anyone is interested here’s a decent link
http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/AbortionTimeLimits
sorry I cant hyperlink
Cahal – Did you read the rest of the report? Repeaters are MORE LIKELY to experience contraceptive failure and MORE LIKELY to have children already. Not exactly the feckless creatures who are just counting on abortion INSTEAD of contraception. I didn’t call you a liar – I said I didn’t believe you.
All of you – how do you come to agreement on an issue like abortion when the partners disagree? Coin toss? If the woman is forced to live with most of the consequences, shouldn’t she have the final vote? If a woman wants her partner to have a vasectomy, the man should make the final choice. See how this partnership thing might work in practice? Not everyone gets the controlling vote all the time, but a balance must be struck.
I don’t think anyone doubts that a foetus is human (it’s tautological) but my fingernail clippings are human and no one is trying to put them back.
No one has responded to my earlier post about spontaneous abortion (miscarriage). Should we be mourning these ‘babies’?
Animus:No one has responded to my earlier post about spontaneous abortion (miscarriage). Should we be mourning these ‘babies’?<<
Ok then. Many women and men are greatly effected by miscarriage and do mourn. The vast majority of miscarriages occur before 12 weeks and in many cases before the woman is aware she is pregnant.
There is a vast difference between miscarriage and abortion.
Yes, Gram, but my point was that a miscarriage at 5 weeks isn’t the loss of a baby. And I also stated in my earlier post that many pregnancies end in miscarriage prior to the woman knowing she even has a zygote. My somewhat flippant post asked whether or not we should light candles for these ‘babies’. They aren’t babies, and when people mourn for miscarried foetuses, they mourn the loss of potential as much as the individual. When a person dies, you mourn with your memories of that person. When a miscarriage occurs, one mourns the lack of what was to be, and now cannot be. There is a huge difference in that as well. Earlier posters have suggested that babyhood begins at conception, I am merely showing that it is not the case, not that abortion and miscarriage are equivalent. In terms of morality, I do equate them the same, but that’s because I am a liberal heathen who believes in self-determination.
Gram, and there is a difference between abortion, stillbirth and early neonatal death. And as is the case here you would appear, along with Cahal and Kensie, to prefer stillbirth or early neo natal death to abortion? why? what is benefit? it makes no sense whatsoever. Its perverse.
Jocky, I wish you luck in your effort to return this discussion to the specific, immediate agony of a seventeen year old human being who has already had enough bad luck for several lifetimes.
The fact remains Miss D planned and wanted to carry her pregnancy to term until she learned the foetus she was carrying had no chance not only at life but at consciousness, no ability, capacity or chance of experiening life, love, or (the one mercy thing I can identify in this unfolding tragedy) pain.
Is it necessary to have photographic hyperlinks to the day by day physical, emotional and psychological suffering of the very non-hypoethical Miss D before the sanctity of her life also becomes an issue?