Can we agree that women are entitled to bodily autonomy?

LadyMary u are not only patronising but seemingly unable to apply any intelligent thought to a complex issue other, just your own simplified opinion.

In law a baby is not a person until it has fully been expelled from the body, I believe the umbilical cord has to be cut- but the baby is no less human. Would it be ok to kill the baby as the head is expelled from the vagina merely because it doesn't fit the legal definition of a person.

No, in NI you are also only a person once born.
How hard of thinking must you be to not be able to grasp this simplicity.

No, in NI you are also only a person once born.
How hard of thinking must you be to not be able to grasp this simplicity.

it's so not basic! As we have heard in NI the law is different. So if you disagree with this it suggests that legal definition is not (iyo) the be all and end all. Who do you think decides the law and do you think they must be right? And what training/ experience do you think they need to get there?

Seriously, folks this is very basic stuff. Before you are born you are not a person. After you are born, you are. This is on a par with water is wet and grass is green. Get a hold of yourselves and go and ask a grown up to explain it to you.

It is a legal fact though.
You might feel it's a moral grey area but I think it's not legally speaking.

it's not fact, just repeating this is a poor argument. there is no difference between the baby physically or mentally just before birth or after. Nothing has changed why is it not human? Please don't just keep saying "fact" cos that's just silly

Lady, where have you got this 'fact' from?

Its not just wishing that they would look after their bodies. It is wishing that they would look after their unborn baby for the baby's sake, not just for the mother's.

Being BORN confers personhood. This isn't opinion, it is simple fact.
There is no debate to be had on that, it just IS.

'You can keep your morals out of my choices though' - very thoughtful response, thank you.

Ladymary- that's ridiculous, yes everyone has a birthday- but I was a human before I was born, I was alive. Ur saying that at 40 weeks pregnant that a baby isn't human just because it hasn't passed out of the vagina? Again does a vagina confer personhood. It's not fact you e stated it's your opinion.

but I certainly don't think its morally straightforward at all

Your feelings on the morals of it all are your own affair. They are personal to you, you can make whatever moral choices and judgements you like.
You can keep your morals out of my choices though.

Yes but it always gets complicated when someone (could be me) says but what about the baby's right to bodily autonomy. The response is then they don't have that right until they are born and of course legally that is true, but that does not mean it is not morally very murky in my opinion.
The baby at 40 weeks inside the mother and the baby at 40 weeks outside the mother may have no difference in their own level of consciousness, the difference is purely in relation to their mother. Again, Im not saying I think the law should change, but I certainly don't think its morally straightforward at all.

Yes I completely agree with this.

Also if a man doesn't want his pregnant partner to smoke or drink whilst pregnant are we saying that that is wrong? He can't order her to not drink or smoke and to snatch the cigarette or glass out of her hand would be wrong, because ultimately it's her choice, but to express a preference because he is considering the health of the unborn child ..?

Only women can make and sustain life, inside and outside of their body. It's not unfeminist to celebrate this process and to understand that the lines do get a bit blurry.

I'd like to know how some of you don't think an unborn baby is a human until after birth

We think it because it is a simple fact. The day you are born is the day you become a human person. When asked how old you are you count from the day of your birth. Before that you are a potential human person, part of, dependent on and crucially inside an actual human person.

Does this actually need spelling out?

Yes but it always gets complicated when someone (could be me) says but what about the baby's right to bodily autonomy. The response is then they don't have that right until they are born and of course legally that is true, but that does not mean it is not morally very murky in my opinion.
The baby at 40 weeks inside the mother and the baby at 40 weeks outside the mother may have no difference in their own level of consciousness, the difference is purely in relation to their mother. Again, Im not saying I think the law should change, but I certainly don't think its morally straightforward at all.

The importance of ensuring bodily autonomy is a well trodden path in human rights .See for example this essay by former Court of Appeal Judge sirhenrybrooke.me/2015/10/12/my-talk-about-the-conjoined-twins-case/

I wholeheartedly agree that women are entitled to bodily autonomy and it is shocking that in so many circumstances we don't get it.

I've just come over from the very long trans thread in AIBU. I was struck by the similarity between TAs trying to argue women out of their right to impose boundaries and that thing some men do when they try to argue us into having sex with them.

• 'No.'
• 'Yes but ...'
• 'No.'
• 'But what about ...'
• 'No.'
• 'You're mean'

We should be allowed to just say 'no, these are our spaces, these are our protections, these words refer to us' etc. and have that respected. We shouldn't have to continually justify ourselves and explain over and over why these things are necessary and important, and deal with endless straw men, convoluted hypothetical examples and name calling.

Women are often advised to be very wary of men who won't respect some of our boundaries because it's a very good sign they don't really respect any of them and they are likely to push and push and wheedle and if that doesn't work just take what they want anyway.

I can't work out whether TAs simply can't see what they are doing when they argue like this or whether they know damn well and are doing it because it has been a successful tactic in other contexts.

In the context, given that the Republic of Ireland and the north of Ireland have different health care systems and laws and are actually two completely different countries, it's not really accurate to conflate the two.

Northern Ireland is a part of the UK where women do not currently have bodily autonomy.

Neither do they have that in the republic of Ireland but it is not part of the uk.

I'd like to know how some of you don't think an unborn baby is a human until after birth, does the vagina have some magical power that confers personhood upon the "foetus" passing through? Do you think it is acceptable to end the life of a child fully formed and capable of life outside the womb? I find the idea barbaric.

sorry apologies from me too for being England- centric. You are right Slow.

Are we not allowed to look at things and say they're not all black and white? I really don't think pregnancy is so straight forward as people want to think.
I believe a woman should have the right to an abortion for whatever reason she has. But if she's happy to be pregnant and wants to continue to be pregnant (i.e. She asked the music society to find her a violinist to hook her up to and went to bed each night hoping t wake up next to a violinist) I don't see why it's not acceptable to also think that that woman shouldn't be intentionally and with full knowledge harming the foetus by smoking.
Of course I wouldn't want it law because it would be crazy to legislate how many sips of wine or puffs of smoke a woman could have before it became illegal. Or whether intentionally coming into contact with second hand smoke is illegal. It doesn't mean I won't judge - in the privacy of my own head - a woman from potentially harming her unborn child when she chose to carry that unborn child and continues to make that choice (by not terminating) everyday.

Yes you are correct. Mainland Britain centric. I stand corrected and apologise

It is still incorrect to say that it doesn't happen in the uk. The uk is one of those countries. In part at least.