Assembly buries head in sand
Before they discussed the AWB, the Assembly had a lengthy debate yesterday on the Department of Health’s draft guidelines on termination of pregnancy. The motion, proposed by the DUP’s Iris Robinson and Jeffrey Donaldson both of whom made reference to this petition, opposed “the introduction of the proposed guidelines on the termination of pregnancy in Northern Ireland; believes that the guidelines are flawed; and calls on the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to abandon any attempt to make abortion more widely available in Northern Ireland.” After the second half of the debate the Assembly resolved, without a recorded vote, in favour of the motion. Leaving the Health Minister to re-draft guidelines which took 3 years to draft and which the Department, after a lengthy court battle, had to be instructed by a High Court ruling to produce. However, despite the expressed concerns of various MLAs during the debate, the legislation involved is a reserved matter and, as such, the proposed guidelines do not, as some argued, change the legal position here on this issue.The MLAs resolved the following
Question, That the amendment be made, put and negatived.
Main Question put and agreed to.
Resolved:
That this Assembly opposes the introduction of the proposed guidelines on the termination of pregnancy in Northern Ireland; believes that the guidelines are flawed; and calls on the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to abandon any attempt to make abortion more widely available in Northern Ireland.
Sending the Health Minister back to the drawing board.. [Have the NI Human Rights Commission got anything to say? - Ed]
Middle-class 4-star petrol,
If both joeCanuck and I have an issue with your putting words into our mouths, don’t you think there’s the faintest possibility you did just that?
You didn’t address the words I wrote and which you quote above. You addressed your own inferences.
middle-class **** says: “Rory, as regards “Herselfâ€, this is not an issue to be a coward on.”
Coward, moi? and there was I thinking I was simply being disarmingly modest.
However I remain in total confusion as to what your position is on freedom of choice. Would you or would you not deny in law that choice to terminate a pregnancy which many women would feel constrained to make anyway regardless of law, as in former days. Essentially it seems to me it is a question of whether women are to be criminalised for the social consequences of their being women in today’s society or whether we provide all the necessary health and social care required to help them at times of great crisis in their exercise of their womanhood.
If you would condemn them in some (or indeed any) circumstances then go ahead but if you do you will have to contend with strong resistance from me and others like me who would not have the woman’s choice denied whatever the priggishness of our personal take on morality.
“And the primacy of the female is the reason for emphasis on the primacy of the individual in providing the reason around the definitive decision.”
Lacanian structuralism arrives on S O’T
snakebrain,
Thanks for the heads up. There I was thinking it was Cardassian imperialism.
Abortion.
I tend to be drawn unwillingly to these debates. I do not like pushing my views down other people’s throats (well except my assorted prodiban views) but I feel a twinge of moral cowardice as a fundamentalist if I do not take up some sort of position.
Abortion is a most horribly difficult debate. One can, however, hide behind weasel words, something which I try to avoid. I am pro life. I am opposed to the vast majority of abortions. I am well aware that in GB the majority of abortions are performed for reasons which cannot be seen as entirely medical.
Of course there are exceptions. There are examples (very, very few) where the woman’s life is at risk and in that case I personally see no particular problem with it (incidentally the possibility that the child could be saved if the mother was allowed to die is so rare that I suspect one would struggle to find a genunine exapmle in a western health care system).
The anencephaly case is a further example. I discussed it with Elenwe. She said she would not have an abortion but to be honest if I were the woman I might well.
These rare case do not, however, make good law and should be decided on a case by case basis which appears to be the current state of affairs in Northern Ireland.
I certainly feel that evangelical christians must be extremely careful about condemning those who have abortions.
I find The Raven’s contribution quite moving and distressing. I would not condemn them for their decision but would condemn our society which looks so askance at young unmarried women having children when we see endless acceptance of premarital sex. On this note, I as a fundamentalist Christian must remember that society looked askance at the Virgin Mary when pregnant with our Lord, and though obviously I believe in the virgin birth, I doubt may in Nazareth would have at the time. I would also condemn our society where having a child makes it extremely difficult for a woman to continue her education and can frequently limit her career advancement.
On the previous comments, however, a few points.
In terms of joe canuck’s comments on a foetus feeling pain. I am unsure, until recently we were told that they did not feel pain till quite late. Now the time frame has been rolled back. Will it be rolled back further in the future? I also fail to understand exactly why not feeling pain etc. makes ending a human life acceptable before a certain point? Essentially when does life begin? If we are not allowed to experiment on human embryos after 2 weeks why can we abort them much later?
The suggestion that very few Northern Irish doctors would perform abortion is also interesting. In the event of abortion being on the same basis as that in GB; this might cause a considerable problem for health authorities here.
Finally tucked away in Iris Robinson;s comments was the following:-
“I am also informed that under paragraph 2.13 of the draft guidelines, which mentions forced abortions, in the cases of children who do not really want abortions, health professionals have the overriding right to insist that those children have abortions. It will cause all of us a great deal of concern to know that parents are not to be included in such decisions.”
The above suggestion is really quite concerning. Any comments?
Turgon,
Some excellent observations there. A fine contribution. I too believe that each case should be seen individually. Being a fundamentalist you may even hanker after a presentday Solomon. But where to find him or her, eh?
I’m in two minds about those forced abortions. On the one hand, I feel every person is entitled to her own free choices.
On the other, I feel that since there are so many unplanned kids born to kids, if the numbers can be cut before birth, it could only be to the benefit of the young and grossly unprepared mothers and to society at large.
Dawkins,
As ever we tend to end up having rather civilised debates. This really should stop. Could you denounce me for soemthing and then I could start to shout about hell fire?
On the children and forced abortions. I would have thought that unless there is a very significant risk to the life of the girl / young woman and if the mother did not want an abortion but genuninely could not care for the baby then adoption would seem to make a great deal of sense.
Just for the record Turgon, I didn’t say anything about a foetus experiencing pain.
At one extreme we have people saying that a person exists from the moment of conception and at the other end, some saying that the foetus only becomes a person at birth. The Canadian Supreme Court adopted the latter position, saying that a foetus had no legal rights.
I fall somewhere between those two camps but, to be honest, I just don’t know where.
I consider myself very lucky not to be a woman who has to face that sad decision for whatever reason.
On a minor point, I don’t think our understanding of the horizon after which a foetus can feel pain has changed in recent decades; the development of the cortex and central nervous system have been well understood for some time.
The threshold of viability has come down in recent years thanks to improvements in medical technology; but not to the extent that is sometimes assumed and the whole subject is clouded by politically motivated claims and couterclaims by those on both sides of the abortion debate.
I appreciate the fact that any cut-off point is imprecise, but I also have enormous difficulties seeing an embryo as a human (let alone, to be more metaphysical, being in posession of a soul).
To use a post-natal parallel – there are difficulties in defining any sensible cut off point between childhood and adulthood, but that doesn’t mean that we should say that children of three should be allowed to buy cigarettes, children of five be allowed to vote or even 15 year-olds be allowed to drive.
Turgon,
Chortle!
I hear what you’re saying of course. Call me a callous bastard if you wish, but my feeling is that every kid should have a reasonable start in life and not be put up for adoption. I mean: the poor child could end up with Madonna or worse.
I feel there are too many unwanted and unloved children in the world as it is, and if it’s in our power to prevent more of them, why not make this decision? I could argue that in my testicles there reside a couple of million potential little Dawkinses (excuse the crude biology) but I see no good reason why most of them should be born.
Indeed, it would be most irresponsible of me to try to realize my FULL potential as a father. I leave that kind of thing to the Saudi princes.
“That’s right, anyone who supports any relaxation of the current abortion law is a Nazi and a mass muderer! And of course, anyone who responds to being called a Nazi and a mass murderer is a ‘snob’.
And why is this Auschwitz taking place…”
If you start from the position that a foetus is as human as a grown person from the moment of conception, then 200,000 killings a year is about as horrifying as you can get. I don’t think the language is helpful, or the context comparable, but I can certainly understand the anger and horror behind the words.
“That’s right, flighty little floozies getting abortions for frivolous reasons because of their debased lusts leading them into trouble. They were probably drunk when they did it as well.”
The numbers don’t lie, Sammy. There simply aren’t 200,000 women that have abortions because of rape, or incest or health issues. The fact is that for many, it’s an abortion of convenience – either for personal or career reasons, or because abortion is being treated as a stand in for contraception. More abortions are happening because it’s easy to get them, and the morality behind rejecting them has collapsed in the UK.
Are there a lot of tough cases and moral dilemmas in this issue? Yes. Is this an easy topic? No. But let’s address the issue honestly – there are a lot of abortions of convenience.
I am strongly pro-life. From a Christian perspective, its inarguable – the foetus is human, it has a soul: I’ll avoid commenting on the state of Anglicanism as evidenced by Sammy as it should be self evident. But even from a strictly humanist approach there are still a lot of reasons, most of them covered before. The one that bugs me though, is that as a father I have responsibilities towards supporting the child, but I have no say in whether the child gets to live or not?
The only thing that pulls me back a bit is that 1. there are a lot of tough cases and there should be
a lot of compassion for the mother as well and 2. abortion doesn’t begin and end when the state allows it. Banning it can lead to a lot of nasty, back street abortion and desperate cases. I am interested in lowering the number of abortions overall, and this can mean, perversely, some amount of liberalisation and a lot of education, alternatives and cultivating a sense of responsibility. However, with the easy access in GB, I’m not sure that would help so much here.
Rory
“I remain in total confusion as to what your position is on freedom of choice.”
I would constrain it to strictly limited circumstances, as described above.
“Essentially it seems to me it is a question of whether women are to be criminalised for the social consequences of their being women in today’s society.”
Lobotomised pseudo-progressive dribble. If we’re honest, and strip out that nonsense, it’s a question of whether women should be allowed to have an unborn child killed on grounds of expediency or convenience. In my view, they should not. The threshold should be set much higher than that.
“If you would condemn them in some (or indeed any) circumstances”
You haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said. I would never condemn a woman who choses a termination, but I wouldn’t permit the choice as broadly as GB does.
“you will have to contend with strong resistance from me and others like me who would not have the woman’s choice denied whatever the priggishness of our personal take on morality.”
In this society, that choice is broadly denied; or are you talking about women other than Irish women?
Again, with your boring “morality” nonsense. I think I’ve explained in detail that my position has no basis whatsoever in “morality”. Why don’t you try another argument? That one’s so weak it’s embarrassing.
joe Canuck,
Sorry for misquoting you. I think the comment about not being a woman is very fair. People regard it as trite but men do not have to face the consequences of sex (children) in the same way as women have to.
Sammy Morse,
Like kensei I have some problems with this comment “I also have enormous difficulties seeing an embryo as a human (let alone, to be more metaphysical, being in posession of a soul).”
If you believe in a soul then clearly the provision or not of a soul is in the gift of God. As such why should the a soul not be created at conception? My first child was four weeks premature. Does that affect when he was given a soul?
Your parallel regarding driving etc. is a completely straw man. Driving, buying alcohol etc. is completely different from decisions regarding abortion.
The pro-life group seems to be keen to take advantage of someone else’s poor family planning.
The reasoning for abortion is that it is unwanted and possibly if they had had better planning in terms of contraception, whether it failed?, or perhaps the morning after pill or male pill, then the vast lot of the dabate would be focused on more complex issues, as those with better foresight and education would have reached for the pill and cut out all this talk raised above.
I don’t see why people’s carelessness and lack of education should be turned into someone else’s advantage in the form of stated right-to-life over that of their own, which is that such development would or should have been pilled-out a few more months ago, or stopped with better protection.
Contraception is legal, you are talking many many potential opportunities to have children cancelled out as a result of this. As Dawkins says people’s full potential remain unachieved through many ways.
DC
“keen to take advantage of someone else’s poor family planning”
Do you really think we’re “keen to take advantage” of others’ misfortune? Do you really think I walk past a pregnant 4th-former in Lenadoon and offer up a silent prayer for all the babies saved in Holy Catholic Ireland. Wise up.
Why is there such a need to demonise the intentions of people on the other side of the argument? You don’t see me casting you as some slaughterer of the innocents, do you?
“I don’t see why people’s carelessness and lack of education should be turned into someone else’s advantage in the form of stated right-to-life over that of their own”
It shouldn’t. But that’s not what’s happening. We’re not saying the child’s right to life should take precedence over the mother’s. We’re saying the child’s right to life should be taken into account alongside the mother’s.
In fact, what you’re saying is that person A’s right to life should be entirely defeasible, at the complete discretion of Person B, by virtue of the inconvenience person A’s life would cause to person B.
If you want to talk about rights, take into account the rights of all concerned.
“As Dawkins says [A WORRYING START] people’s full potential remain unachieved through many ways.”
In terms of being prevented from achieving your full potential, I don’t think failing the qualifying, getting injured before a big sport’s competition or being turned down for promotion are really comparable with being killed in utero.
Sammy
“I appreciate the fact that any cut-off point is imprecise, but I also have enormous difficulties seeing an embryo as a human (let alone, to be more metaphysical, being in posession of a soul).”
Why do you think the child’s stage of development is even a relevant consideration? Scientifically, it cannot possibly be anything other than human. As such, why should it be afforded some measure of protection for its human rights?
“In fact, what you’re saying is that person A’s right to life should be entirely defeasible, at the complete discretion of Person B, by virtue of the inconvenience person A’s life would cause to person B.”
No it’s a case of understanding person A’s life, along with many others, are subject to contraception and belated-contraception in the form of abortion, which is to say that unintentional conception is subject to the conceivers as it is they who submitted to the act for other purposes than to have children.
Some conceivers would opt to keep on their conscience, others do not, those that do they do, and those that don’t should be supported in their decision in line with those that want to.
Sometimes it’s easy to think that a noble act is being done but to rationalise it, it should never happened in the first place, unless you want to piggy-back on irresponsible people’s misfortunes through lack of education and understanding of one’s body.
And that’s the high handedness approach, retrospectively applying your views on conception to others who do not follow your train of thought and can accept the need to abort without drowning in a moral sea of guilt by rationalising thought on the fact that it should never have came about.
If you believe in a soul then clearly the provision or not of a soul is in the gift of God. As such why should the a soul not be created at conception? My first child was four weeks premature. Does that affect when he was given a soul?
Isn’t it wonderful how religion makes people twist themselves into confusion ?
Your parallel regarding driving etc. is a completely straw man. Driving, buying alcohol etc. is completely different from decisions regarding abortion.
Not at all. Sammy’s point was that describing a foetus at a child is like describing a child as an adult. Is pulling up a sapling the same as cutting down a tree ?
“Not at all. Sammy’s point was that describing a foetus at a child is like describing a child as an adult. Is pulling up a sapling the same as cutting down a tree ?”
In terms of the life of the tree, yes. In terms of how easy it is – no the tree is much harder.
How about that?
Comrade Stalin
“Is pulling up a sapling the same as cutting down a tree? ”
It ends the life of the plant, just as aborting a foetus ends its life.
“I would never condemn a woman who choses a termination, but I wouldn’t permit the choice” says “middle-class **** ”
You may have a right to condemn or praise as you wish, “middle-class ****”, as has anyone the right to take any notice or not of your condemnation but what you do not have is a right to give or withold permission to any woman over control of her body and a foetus in her womb is inseparable from the woman’s own body until it is delivered, miscarried or aborted.
” If we’re honest, and strip out that nonsense, it’s a question of whether women should be allowed to have an unborn child killed….. “
See, you’re at it again, “…whether women should be allowed…”. Allowed by whom? Allowed by you? How many women do you own and how much total control over them do you have that you can tell them what they will be allowed or not allowed to do with their own bodies.
Sometimes I begin to wonder whether this kind of thinking of imagined control over the rights of womens’ bodies so prevalent in many men is not a reaction to their resentment at having been caught masturbating by their mummies in the night and told that they must stop doing this wicked thing or they would go to Hell.
I do hope this wasn’t the case for you.
Rory
“what you do not have is a right to give or withold permission to any woman over control of her body”
Indeed. The State has that right. Here, the State exercises considerable such control.
“and a foetus in her womb is inseparable from the woman’s own body until it is delivered, miscarried or aborted.”
That’s simply, scientifically incorrect. Many children are separable for half of their time in the womb.
“See, you’re at it again, “…whether women should be allowed…â€. Allowed by whom? Allowed by you?”
No, not by me: by the State; by the law.
“How many women do you own and how much total control over them do you have that you can tell them what they will be allowed or not allowed to do with their own bodies.”
I don’t own any women. I can’t tell them what to do. But the State can, through law. The State gives me a vote, and by that vote I can influence who makes the laws. And as a result of the exercise of my vote and many others’ votes we have governments in this country which have placed strict (or maintained) limits on what women can do with their own bodies and other bodies within them.
What part of this don’t you understand?
Jesus, I just read the rest of your post …
You just told me everything I need to know about you. And all because you haven’t been able to defend your position intellectually. I’ll not be responding further to any more of your bigotted tripe.
Sammy, is that what you mean by “spittle-flecked”?
It might help to re-focus the conversation if I point out that the actual topic is the Assembly’s rejection of guidelines to health professionals on the existing law.
Guidelines they had to be forced to consider in the first place.
Pete,
Any idea of what,if any, steps are open to the Judge, now that the Assembly has more or less told him to stuff it.
Joe
The ruling hasn’t been over-turned.
The NI Health Department is still bound by it.
And they can take forever, bringing revised guidelines which the Assembly keeps rejecting?
I’d suspect there’d be a contempt of court ruling at some point.
But I’d need to consult with my legal advisors on any more detail.
“It might help to re-focus the conversation if I point out that the actual topic is the Assembly’s rejection of guidelines to health professionals on the existing law.”
Because you said might would it be okay to drive home a few more derogatory comments before returning to Axis of Evil Robinson and Jesus Jeffrey’s comments?
It’s just MCT is a part of the heads in the sand brigade in terms of denying the reality that people go elsewhere after having reached their ultimate decision.
So, Middle Class ****, now we have it. You won’t control any women yourself but you will elect those of like mind to legislate so that the state can control them on your behalf by proxy.
That still indicates to me an irrational Freudian fear of women having individual control over their own bodies and completely ignores the fact that women, as the sorry history of back-street and self-induced abortion has shown, will take back that control in any case, whatever the state dictates when their plight becomes intolerable.
I prefer compassion before control.
“So, Middle Class ****, now we have it. You won’t control any women yourself but you will elect those of like mind to legislate so that the state can control them on your behalf by proxy. ”
That’s a pretty succinct encapsulation of democracy, there.
If anyone wants to actually see what the Assembly members said they only have to go to
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/record/reports2007/071022.htm
where they can see the exellent speeches in full, without the left wing facist twist put in by some of the posters here.
Also there were well publisized legal flaws with the guidelines, IE: they got the LAW WRONG.
How could anyone defend them when they actually MISSED OUT half of the 1945 statute by MISTAKE and then gave the OPPOSITE advise.
Doctors could be prosecuted if the law is improperly stated, or does that not bother anyone?