Sunday, May 11, 2008
Cross-bench support
In an unprecendented move, a joint letter has been sent to all MP’s from the party leaders of the four largest NI parties opposing the Lib Dems proposal to extend abortion to Northern Ireland.
Fair Deal @ 11:21 AM
PeaceandJustice, re. Gerry Mc Geogh you could equally say the Labout party in Britian is anti the death penalty and has no problem going to war against in Iraq which has lead to the death directly from bombing by Britain and her ally of thousands and of peole over a fecking lie. Republican violence in Non Iron probably has the moral edge there.
Re. Abortion - this is a classic example of an Irish solution required for the problem as perceived in Ireland - the sooner Police and Justice are transferred to Non Iron then the solution most favoured in Non Iron can be choosen - and this is probably the issue that will force the DUP to get a move on with the transfer.
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 07:56 PMDebbie,
It’s wonderful that you have used your conscience to decide to be anti-abortion… more power to you.
Now let’s extend that right to every woman in Northern Ireland. It is an utter disgrace that so many girls/women have to go to the mainland in order to have an abortion.
I am constantly embarrassed by our God bothering politicians (teaching creationism is another example of their sheep like thinking). I’d like to vote for a liberal at the next election, but i’m not sure where i’ll find one.
Come on! Where is the talent amongst our politicians??
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 08:17 PMWell given that even Alliance has had its ups and downs over gay marriage in Lisburn, I guess Pete you’re stuck with the hard left.
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 08:49 PMGiven that the subject of abortion can be political suicide in Ni,when are our (mainly male) politicians going to show leadership and lead public debate on the subject? As far as I am aware even inparty they do not debate this subject....which is more nuanced and complex in todays age than pro/anti life labels allow. I was sick today at Donaldons self righteous pontificating. Incidentially,I consder myself prolife but believe that the people of Ni have more compassion not to say common sense than his ilk.Most of all, why have journlists tended not to comment on an all party,all male panel of representatives speaking for all when the views of over 50% ie women are rendered invisible?
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 09:10 PMGrannieTrixie,
I may be wrong but guess that the anti-abortion split is equally distributed between the sexes.
I presume this is also the case in the ROI where the matter has been opinion polled a few times for referendums and I dont remember it just being males that were ‘agin’ it.Northern Prods are not as different from the rest of the Irish as they like to pretend - which this issue illustrates - and is a fact that they are confronted with by the British mainlanders when they go there.
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 09:37 PMGranni Trixie,
‘Most of all, why have journlists tended not to comment on an all party,all male panel of representatives speaking for all when the views of over 50% ie women are rendered invisible?’
That is politics in NI for you. But there are some women in there and they don’t seem awfully shy to me, yet I don’t hear them screeching about it. I do not simply see this as a gender issue. Should we impose a 50-50 gender rule on our politician so that the views of the electorate can be heard. Far from it, if 50% of the population are women then that is being reflected no matter the gender of the politician they vote for. I do not vote along gender lines, and feel my vote is being heard.
I don’t recollect 50% of the population voting for the womens coalition - do you?
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 09:42 PMOur local mens club want the issue hushed up and decided elsewhere, and our pliant local media seem willing to oblige them. Disgraceful.
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 09:42 PMGaribaldy,
I think that the imposition here would come from the Liberal Democrats - who have no elected reprsentatives in NI - and Westminster. By all means make the case that laws should apply throughout the UK, but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of the electorate votes for parties opposed to extending the Act here. (I assume Alliance is also opposed, but don’t know)
Alliance has no policy on abortion. Elected representatives vote according to their own views, and the electorate may of course judge them on that as they feel appropriate. I believe the exact same position is taken by the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems whenever abortion ever comes up across the water.
What’s weird about this is the way that it’s been done. A bunch of lobbyists have been able to persuade the party leaders here to take time out from their other activities to write this letter.
So it is not shadowy unelected churchmen, but voters voting for politicians opposed to extending the act which is the issue here.
I am not convinced it is that simple, and that’s to do with the fact that we’ve never had a proper debate here about abortion, accounting for all of the details mentioned by people above. What we’ve got at the moment is a rather pathetic cop-out; we delude ourselves by believing that we’re in the moral clear by not having abortions on our local soil and therefore that we somehow don’t have to take responsibility for trying to keep the rate of abortions down. I’m pro-choice but I believe that one abortion per year is one too many; it should be the last ditch resort and we need to be doing a lot more than we are now to stop it. Maintaining a pious legal situation preventing it from taking place on our soil is the equivalent of draining our sewage into a neighbour’s garden.
Dec, I’d be inclined to agree, I do not see abortion as a form of contraception (to argue as such would seem a bit sick to me), and I would prefer a situation where abortion is agreed following a consultation with a family planning physician who explains all of the alternatives first.
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 10:30 PMTo be honest I am not altogether sure if personal morality should be the stuff of political policy. If politics is the art of the practicle I see the abortion debate as a false dichotomy because in NI, even if the ‘67 Act is not extended, women are just a flight across the water away from England; that raises all sorts of questions regarding discrimination against those who cannot afford such trips and whether abortions are the preserve of those who can. In a wider sense, if abortion was illegal in the rest of the UK, it is still a false dilemma given that a ban on abortion does not lead to no abortions, it leads to blackmarket and potentially unsafe abortions; in that sense I would rather the procedure was legal and safe than illegal and performed by some shyster with a coathanger. For the reason of the practical implications of the moral positions I find it very hard to settle on a position in terms of abstract morality and, anyway, I do not think that is a realm for political parties. That is speaking as an SDLPer too.
Posted by on May 11, 2008 @ 11:11 PMI would love to know where the evidence comes from that most women who travel to Great Britain for abortions are poor downtrodden wee girls. I have known a handful of women who had abortions and every one of them was well into their twenties, in long term relationships (one of them was a married woman in her thirties), well educated, had full access to whatever birth control they so desired and had the abortions simply because having a baby was inconvenient for them at that time. That is their right but can we please leave aside the emotive propaganda?
Furthermore exactly how much more sex education do we need for our young people? I had precisely no sex education when I went to my all boys Catholic school thirty years ago but you wouldn’t believe it, not only did every single one of us fully understand the link between sex and pregnancies so did all our equally undereducated girlfriends, and that is why we didn’t get any sex and funnily enough there were virtually no teenaged pregnancies either.
I remember reading about William Wilberforce’s campaign to have slavery outlawed and I was amazed at how so many rational, indeed liberal people could actually give intellectual support to the concept of slavery. They fully accepted the notion that black Africans weren’t fully humans so there was no problem with enslaving them, the abolitionists were derided as cranks and god-bothering nutters who were trying to impose their religious viewpoints on the liberties of others.
The abolitionists campaigned long and hard and eventually won, now we have difficulty understanding how it took them so long, how was it that decent, otherwise liberal, people could not see the horror of what went on with slavery and who could not seem to see the obvious humanity in a black slave.
Thank goodness we don’t have people like that any more eh?
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 12:42 AMCS,
The main NI political parties have always had a policy on this. Although in fairness in the case of the Provos it has and still continues to be unclear exactly what they want. It’s too simplisitc to say this is the result of lobbyists. I suspect the leaders all would have happily kept quiet had not the issue been raised at Westminster in this way. The very unanimity of the statement demonstrates that they know how the voters here feel.
And as for the idea that we’ve never had a proper debate raised by yourself and others. To be honest I find that very patronising. It’s hardly like we live in a hermetically sealed bubble isolated from discussions on abortion that go on throughout the rest of the world. What is there to be said that people can’t access easily? Sure we have extreme and misleading propaganda put out by one side or the other, but people are capable of making their own minds up. And most people are against it. Even among those who take nothing to do with religion, large numbers oppose abortion. It’s a societal attitude heavily influenced by religion, but that extends far beyond the religious.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 12:43 AM“To be honest I am not altogether sure if personal morality should be the stuff of political policy.”
Are you conflating personal morality regarding sexual promiscuity with the right to life (and what age life begins)? The scientific view is that a genetically unique individual is created at fertilization, so fertilization is the beginning of life. Others have a cultural agenda for separating the beginning of life from the right to life, claiming, usually, that, as the child is dependent on its mother’s womb for survival, it should not have a right to life is independent of the will of its mother. The culture that promotes this view is one that seeks to promote the lifestyle of the mother above the right to life of her child, e.g. the child may be discarded if it conflicts with the mother’s lifestyle choices.
Essentially, the status of the child and its right to life is culturally denigrated to no more than a ‘parasite’ and the ‘host’ is free to remove the parasite much as she would a wart on her backside or an ingrown toenail. The unborn child is seen within this culture as a completely worthless entity until such times as it pops out of the womb, whereupon it is magically transformed into the most beautiful thing in the world, being surrounded by fawning relations and doting well-wishers who are strangely unaware of how narrowly it escaped being sucked out of the womb by a vacuum tube and discarded into a surgical bin with a few dozen other children of a less fortunate ilk.
We need a consolidation the right to life of the unborn child within international law as being an inalienable right that is subject only to specific infringements, and is not subject to domestic political expediencies or the cultural vagaries and voter groups that determine them.
“If politics is the art of the practicle I see the abortion debate as a false dichotomy because in NI, even if the ‘67 Act is not extended, women are just a flight across the water away from England; that raises all sorts of questions regarding discrimination against those who cannot afford such trips and whether abortions are the preserve of those who can.
The issue is whether or not abortion should be extended, not the affordability of abortion. To argue that it should be extended to make it more affordable misses the issue.
“In a wider sense, if abortion was illegal in the rest of the UK, it is still a false dilemma given that a ban on abortion does not lead to no abortions, it leads to blackmarket and potentially unsafe abortions; in that sense I would rather the procedure was legal and safe than illegal and performed by some shyster with a coathanger.”
Banning child pornography also led to some of that enterprise going underground. People are expected to comply with the law. Arguing that a law should not be passed because some people will refuse to comply with it is nonsense - it is also why we have the criminal justice system.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 01:36 AMNothing demonstrates the stinking hypoceisy of the religious classes more than this issue.
If people genuinely opposed abortion, then why not lobby to prevent people traveling to mainland Uk to have one?
They know that by limiting abortions in Northern Ireland they are simply moving abortions across the water, so we can see that this issue is less about preventing abortions as it is about easing their own consciences and making sure they can heap a little extra grief and hardship upon vulnerable women at one of the most difficult times in their lives.The republic is no better.
It sickens me.Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 02:14 AMThe right to life must be extended to the unborn child.People here are putting up straw men in the argument about women dying after illegal abortions,because women also die after legal abortions.Why do people want abortion-in many cases they do not want to face up to parental responsibility .It cramps their lifestyle or their career might suffer,they don’t mind killing their unborn child because of the financial implications.If they are so concerned -put the child up for adoption,-but don’t kill him/her.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 02:50 AMTAFKABO, your attitude is predicated on the repugnant premise that society should accord the unborn child the same rights as a disposable sanitary towel, simply because that denigrated status better serves the lifestyle of a particular social group.
You don’t need to be religious to hold the opinion that human beings - especially the most vulnerable human beings, the unborn - have a right to life that must be protected from those who seek to violate it.
The problem of unwanted pregnancies, with very few exceptions, is a problem that is created by a failure to use contraception. In that respect, most of these problems can be solved by educating the ignorant to avoid engaging in behaviour that is likely to be detrimental to their lifestyle and, indeed, to their health, i.e. unprotected sexual intercourse. Women need to start acting intelligently. And if they are unable to do that, then I don’t see that logically or morally follows that unborn human beings should be deprived of their right to life and denigrated to the status of a disposable inanimate object just to accommodate the stupid and the reckless and their lifestyle choices.
By the way, the Abortion Act permits abortion within the legal time limit of 24 weeks in situations where, for example, continuing with the pregnancy carries a greater risk to the mental or physical health of the woman than not continuing with it. It isn’t a licence to kill the unborn because, for example, you think having a child will damage your career prospects or seriously curtailing your clubbing, or whatever. However, it amounts to a licence to kill for any reason simply because those who use the service make a claim that their mental health will suffer if they continue with the pregnancy, with no attempt made by the State to determine if that is a truthful statement or not.
As Harry Flashman said, culture denigrated black people to the status of non-humans because that facilitated slavery - and we are doing the same to the unborn to facilitate liberal lifestyle choices. That is why the right to life of the unborn must be taken from the realm of domestic politics and the vagaries of local cultures and placed into international law as an inalienable right. Any society that accepts an agenda that promotes the view that an unborn human being should be treated like an ingrown toenail is seriously flawed.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 04:46 AMGaribaldy,
I know that the DUP and SDLP are pro-life, but I’ve never heard the UUP mention it, and as you say, Sinn Fein are somewhat ambiguous (a bit like they are with any other domestic issue). As I say, you’ll find that the parties in the rest of the UK don’t have a policy. I imagine in the free state it’s too much of a hot potato to touch.
And as for the idea that we’ve never had a proper debate raised by yourself and others. To be honest I find that very patronising. It’s hardly like we live in a hermetically sealed bubble isolated from discussions on abortion that go on throughout the rest of the world. What is there to be said that people can’t access easily?
I guess it is patronizing, but that’s the way I see it so there’s no point in me trying to defend myself on that front. My opinion on abortion used to be exactly the same as Danny O’Connor’s was, and that was before I realized that much of what I’d been told was the result of indoctrination and misleading propaganda by the Catholic church, and most of my peers were all repeating the same propaganda. And of course we live in a hermetically sealed bubble, look at the state of the place, and look at the state of the people we elect to represent us. We’ve got several generations of running away from hard decisions under our belt, and that’s exactly what’s still going on here.
Dave,
Please go away and come back when you are willing to actually talk like an adult. I do not regard an unborn child as an “ingrown toenail” or anything else of the sort. I am merely pointing out that this ban on abortion is hypocritical. If we’re going to put our efforts anywhere, it should be understanding why unwanted pregnancies occur in the first place, and how we can do more to stop them.
.. the same rights as a disposable sanitary towel, ..
.. Women need to start acting intelligently. And if they are unable to do that, ..
Let me guess, Dave. You don’t have a lot of contact with women in your life ?
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 06:52 AMComrade, could you expand on your point about propaganda?
One aspect which is always overlooked in discussions about abortion is the characterisation of it as a “women’s issue”. The result of this is that the potential father is excluded from the debate and, quite literally, excluded from the law. Under the law in GB, a woman may abort a man’s child without his consent (indeed, without even informing him). That cannot be right.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 08:25 AMThere’s little point getting into the debate over whether abortions are right or wrong, either one accepts a woman’s right to be the ultimate arbiter over her own body, or they don’t.
My point, and notice Dave in his reply to me completely missed this point, is that if one genunely opposed abortion they wouldn’t simply be happy to take measures which don’t prevent abortions as much as move them across the water.Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 08:32 AMIt would be impossible to police the movement of pregnant women abroad ( that would require legislation in ROI or they would travel from there) so it is understandable why those who want abortion outlawed in Non Iron dont suggest it - they only want a law which is enforeable.
The question of when a foetus becomes a person is a moral rather than a scientific one so it is unlikely ever to be a consensus on this. Ireland (North and South) is more religious than most European countries and therefore the religious arguements are likely to carry greater weight. This should be a matter for the plain people of Non Iron and the onus will be on those in favour of abortion to convince what is probably currently a big majority against it to change their minds. However the likely decline in religious influence belief will probably enventually lead to legalisation.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 08:43 AM“My point, and notice Dave in his reply to me completely missed this point, is that if one genunely opposed abortion they wouldn’t simply be happy to take measures which don’t prevent abortions as much as move them across the water.” - TAFKABO
Perhaps you should try reading what you are commenting on? It usually helps:
“That is why the right to life of the unborn must be taken from the realm of domestic politics and the vagaries of local cultures and placed into international law as an inalienable right.” - Dave
Now, that makes it pretty clear that the right to life of the unborn child should be a universal right, doesn’t it? Ergo, that removes the option of travelling “across the water.”
“Let me guess, Dave. You don’t have a lot of contact with women in your life ?” - Comrade Stalin
See below:
“Please go away and come back when you are willing to actually talk like an adult.” - Comrade Stalin
“The question of when a foetus becomes a person is a moral rather than a scientific one so it is unlikely ever to be a consensus on this.” - It was Sammy Mc Nally what done it
It isn’t a moral question at all. The legal issues are mainly about when the unborn child is viable (capable of living outside of the womb) and under what circumstances its right to life can be rendered null and void. It is a human being at fertilisation - which isn’t the same issue as the legal former issues. Rights transcend morals - very few of what is in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are dependent on morality.
It is, however, wrongly depicted as a moral issue by those who seek to violate the right to life of the unborn, with the agenda being to then claim that morality is an idiosyncratic code which should not restrict the behaviour of others but simply restrict the behaviour of those who hold to that particular moral code. That is just clever propaganda.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 09:08 AM“The problem of unwanted pregnancies, with very few exceptions, is a problem that is created by a failure to use contraception.”
Wow. “Few exceptions” would probably be fulfilled by instances of rape alone. I’m assuming therefore that you’re familiar with some new kind of contraceptive that never fails.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 09:18 AMThis is interesting in the wider UK context. In respect of Scotland, abortion is reserved to Westminster to prevent a situation where MSPs could outlaw it in their jurisdiction thereby exporting the problem to E&W;. If Westminster wouldn’t allow this situation to arise with Scotland why should it tolerate it to continue with Northern Ireland?
Until someone provides evidence that extending the 1967 Act would lead to an increase in abortions amongst NI women I think the campaign against extension is knee jerk politics of the worst order.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 09:21 AMCan someone who doesn’t think the extension should apply to Northern Ireland explain to me what is achieved by forcing women to travel to mainland Uk for abortions?
What purpose is being served here other than petty vindictive spite?Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 09:41 AMDave,
I take your point about viability and rights - though some do put forward the ‘only a cluster of cells’ arguement.
Underpinning most debates on human rights is the moral view of those deciding on their implemetation and interpetation and this is clearly the case with abortion where there is a conflict of ‘rights’ the woman’s right to choose and the child’s right to life. Science can not decide which is the worthier and to say soemthing has a moral basis is not per se to denigrate it though some may of course choose to do so where they identify those moral views with a particular religious ideology.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 09:42 AMTAFKABO,
Your arguement could equally be applied to many aspects of social legislation which may vary across national boundaries. (It is a seperate arguement as to whether travelling to the mainland is similar in many ways to travelling across national boundaries)
Legislation perform a number of functions one of which is to indicate to citizens that the state(let) views a particular activity as unacceptable.
Posted by on May 12, 2008 @ 09:52 AM
