Jailing a mother of three - WTF

Surely, on a women's rights board, we'd tend to look at issues in terms of how they affect women and girls?

Neither biology nor the ability of the State to coerce its citizens have changed in the last 150 years, so no it doesn't need updating. The Tory attack on child benefit for third and subsequent children is a more subtle example of the State trying to control who has children and how many, in this case deterring the poor from having children.

If the baby was that close to term why didn't she have it and then give it up for adoption? Did she thinks the pills were some sort of magic that would mean the pregnancy hadn't happened? She planned it knowing it was illegal and deliberately killed a near term baby, if someone else had caused the baby to die by some violent act, we would want them severely punished, just because it was her baby (and the father's of course) it doesn't make it somehow acceptable.

You wouldn't be "criminalised" if you arranged an abortion during the legally permitted period.

How is it different to if she'd given birth and murdered the child - then it would almost certainly have been prison. I can't see a difference really.

Well I have plenty of autistic people in my family.

You’re also citing a writer who wrote ‘The Origins of the Family…’ in 1884 and the actions of two mid-twentieth century totalitarian governments - on a feminist board in 2023.

Have you considered that materialist feminism 101 might need updating?

I'm autistic. I struggle with written humour so don't be surprised if I don't detect a joke.

Shock horror. Not only feminists inhabit the women's rights board.

Not all feminists agree on every tenet of feminism.

Feminism isn't the only lens to which one looks at what are moral and ethical issues in society.

It's strange one has to explain this anywhere.

No actually as an onlooker it could have some comedy value, but I would not seriously suggest you do it ;-)

And if my contraception fails, I should not be criminalised for taking matters into my own hands.

I mean of course I understand that you DON'T want one. You have been clear.

Also @TeaAndStrumpets are you seriously suggesting that I have a baby as an experiment to see what might happen? Because that's really not valuing the child as a human being whose rights are paramount from birth. It's a person, not an unwilling experimental test subject to see if I change my mind!

Every part!

Good job we have state- funded contraception , isn't it?

Which part of "I don't want one" did you fail to understand upthread?

The "you'll change your mind when it's yours" bullshit is the most patronising bollocks.

The urge to reproduce is innate for many people (not me, and not some of the other regulars on the new childfree and childless board) and at the same time the State exploits women's reproductive labour to generate new citizens.

Romania's Decree 770 and its consequences show what happens when the State thinks women aren't having enough children. China's one child policy and its consequences show what happens when the State thinks women are having too many children.

I am having to explain this materialist feminism 101 stuff on a women's rights board in 2023. World-ending asteroid now please.

I do not think we should alter the laws we currently have in UK around abortion. They work well for most women most of the time.

I agree with this.

And the point about not forcing someone to remain pregnant is why I am pro-choice, but we must also realise that nobody (except in cases of rape) 'forces' a woman to be or remain pregnant. Nature does that. Where we can intervene to prevent suffering and allow women a sense of autonomy in providing abortion as an option, I believe that's the right thing for us to do as a society. But ultimately, as we're often reminded on these boards, we are a sexually dimorphic species, and that means accepting that nature is what it is. We can and should do all sorts of interventions medically that can improve quality of life, give people choices etc but the absence of that is not 'forcing' anything on anyone. It's just harsh reality. And it's also reality that a full term, or very near full term foetus is a viable human life and should be treated as such.

There is a balance between rights and at the later stages of pregnancy this is rightfully weighted more towards what is essentially a baby no different from the ones in the NICU. I disagree as much with late-term advocates and their principle of bodily autonomy as the only ethical consideration as I do with the 'Christian' fundamentalists who take the principle of right to life as the only salient one, on the other extreme. Both result in very ugly and dehumanising arguments, policies and practices IMO and neither are of any benefit to women who are often in an incredibly tough situation and need proper support rather than a pill in the post or a slogan about foetal rights.

Perhaps you should have a baby and see what happens.

But pregnant women can and do bond with their unborn child, they don't generally see themselves as mere vessels, they have an important job to do.

Psst, they don't always feel that. And that you feel like that shouldn't mean criminalising someone else who didn't feel like that. You understand that some other women don't feel the same way about motherhood as you do, right?

Sorry for my lack of education. The urge to reproduce is innate in a society, however much you want to blame it on government.

What we need to do is treat women (and men) with compassion, help the needy, educate our children so they are rational productive members of society.

We are only human but we muddle on.

I think that women should have on demand, free, as early as possible and as late as necessary access to medically-assisted abortion throughout pregnancy.

I will accept as a bare minimum compromise an arrangement like (if my reading of the legislation is correct) the Northern Irish have, where early term abortion is on-demand, later abortion is regulated, and, crucially, women taking matters into their own hands have committed no offence.

Spot the person who didn't read Engels. The State relies on exploiting women's reproductive labour to create new citizens. No new citizens, no country.

“You seemed to have missed the point being made which was that pregnancy even for those women that want to have a baby can be difficult and deeply unpleasant. To force that onto women who don't want to do it and don't want to have a child is the point to consider.”

I agree, wholeheartedly, because I am a mother, that no woman should be forced into motherhood.

However we have responsibilities as adults, to live with the consequences of our decisions.

The rights of people need to be balanced. We should not be giving one group more rights to life than others. After viability there is an arguable point that morally as a society and culture we regard this human life as worthy of respect, that we value the life of a baby about to be born. We don’t accord the unborn child any legal rights in the UK which I agree that we shouldn’t. The main legal rights must remain with the woman who is experiencing the pregnancy. Our abortion laws are a good compromise in my opinion.

In the UK

women have access to free contraception from their GP or from sexual health services.

we have access to free emergency contraception (morning after pill) we can also buy it over the counter at most chemists.

we have access to free abortion, which although subject to legal restrictions is in practice pretty much available on demand up to 24 weeks.

At some point when a woman has missed all these opportunities to not be a “vessel” she just has to face the music. She had choices. As others have argued, how far do we take this? Should mothers have complete ownership of their children to decide if they live or die, to abuse or mistreat them, to sell their labour or sell them full stop? Until what age?

Other posters have also asked would you put doctors and nurses through this? On one ward desperately trying to keep babies alive on another actively killing them, because late term abortion would involve actively killing the baby and then the mother going through labour and birth. Doing this in the case of a baby having a medical condition incompatible with life ex utero is one thing but to do it to a healthy baby goes against the reason most become health professionals in the first place. As a society we must make this decision about balancing the rights of mothers and babies and how much we value the vulnerable and value human life in general.

I do not think we should alter the laws we currently have in UK around abortion. They work well for most women most of the time.

So, about the "should a doctor have to do what you say?" question.

IANAL but I think that Northern Ireland already has decriminalisation of abortion whilst at the same time having regulations that stop a doctor from carrying out late-term terminations.

Back in 2019, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/22/section/9 repealed https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/crossheading/attempts-to-procure-abortion

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/apni/1945/15/section/25 explicitly exempts the pregnant woman from the offence of child destruction, as does https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/503/regulation/11/made If you look at section three of that last linked law, you'll see that doctors aren't allowed to carry out late-term abortions even though the woman can legally give it a go herself.

So had the woman from Stoke been from Strangford instead, she would not even have been prosecuted, never mind be in jail.

More importantly for those who are worried about traumatising medics, we can stop jailing women without forcing doctors to carry about late abortions on demand.

The covid trial was not fraught with problems at all. It was a successful trial that improved the situation for women. That one or two outlier extreme cases would result in claims that the whole trial was problematic is a symptom of how women are more harshly judged than men.