Jailing a mother of three - WTF

And I am adopted and agree completely.

Why am I not surprised you previously had equally absolutist fervent views in the other direction...

I went from lexically prioritising the baby's life to lexically prioritising the woman's bodily sovereignty, shortly after realising that the "even if she was raped" stance meant allowing the State to continue to deny her the bodily sovereignty that the rapist had denied her. At the same time, I was becoming aware of Irish women who were traveling whilst seriously ill because they weren't ill enough to qualify for a "life of the mother" termination. I made the rape carve-out, then a few weeks later two things hit me (and it felt like a physical blow, I was going up the stairs and stumbled from it): 1) that the right to end a pregnancy shouldn't be limited to rape victims and 2) no doctor should fear prosecution because he carried out an abortion to improve a woman's health. The law is a blunt instrument and it's not good for dealing with complex medical decisions.

I waited a few weeks to be sure that I was sure, then set up a standing order to Abortion Support Network.

Being adopted does NOT prevent trauma, the potential impact of separation from the birth mother even at new born is a well researched and known topic. I'm an adopter.

A baby up for adoption gets adopted. They don't generally stay in care being traumatised.

She was over 75% of the way through the pregnancy. She could have put the child up for adoption

Amazes me that people still trot out adoption as the easy peasy solution. It isn't a solution. As though a childhood in care, with all the trauma that goes with it, is better.

I pity this woman and her existing 3 children. She must have been utterly desperate.

You've not mentioned being trapped in a hospital for 12 weeks, in a foreign country, with the risk to the woman's body posed by preeclampsia so severe that it was monitored twelve times per day and the risk to her of infection caused by ruptured membranes. Which is far worse than the cat being in the cattery. Although the cost to her was considerable for that. Not every woman is rich enough to take that kind of hit.

Abortion is often as much about having no money as it is about other factors.

Meant to add that agree with public debate, but feel uncomfortable that the pro life lobby is extremely well funded, which could impact the debate by their influence and platform to drive their agenda.

I hope the current abortion laws aren't changed as a result of this. The stats demonstrate that the majority of abortions happen before 10 weeks, with a tiny amount up to birth for highly valid medical reasons, I think I recall in one year the amount was 247 so a tiny percentage. So the evidence is that women in the last 60 years are making good decisions about their pregnancies.

All the available evidence in the public domain suggest this woman did break the law. However, I hope this case was considered with the nuance it required.

1. That she was under no pressure to do and make the decisions she did.

1. Her mental state.

1. Her other children.

4 what we're the barriers to her accessing a timely abortion on demand.

1. Someone uptrend noted that she would have passed the 24 week cut off at the start of lockdown. However I think if there were considerations around the impact and restrictions of lockdown term that also should be considered.

I did see that there was a call for the abortion laws to be looked at. Which gives me concern given the involvement of the (well funded american) pro-life lobby a chance to wedge their foot in the door an influence public debate.not that debate shouldn't be had, but

I don't know, what she did seems more like panic than careful planning to me.

What we know is she'd split up with her partner and got pregnant with someone else. Maybe she thought the father would be raising the child with her, then that fell apart, too late for a legal abortion? And then it was the first lockdown, maybe she'd thought she could cope with another child before that happened but once shut in the house 24/7 with her kids, one with special needs, with school, childcare, SN provision all shut she realise she wouldn't cope but it was too late and she panicked?

Plus with covid regulations she would have had little chance of accessing any support, medical appointments etc and if she could only her exP would have been allowed to look after the kids while she went and how would she explain where she was going to him at a time when even cancer care was getting cancelled?

We don't know what went on or why she didn't do something else but her behaviour looks more like burying her head in the sand and then panicking, than a carefully considered plan. For a woman who had previously carried and birthed 3 children to think she could get out of this situation by taking abortion pills at 30+ weeks wasn't thinking clearly.

14 weeks notice vs the death of a child.

Your arguments about working notice and cats in catteries type inconveniences are the type of shocking comparisons people have referred to.

"It's more valuable because it's older" does not make sense.*

Because it experiences more pain, is more responsive to the world, is aware of her mother's voice, could now be born and live, is harder to kill and suffers more.

It makes sense to most people.

Why am I not surprised you previously had equally absolutist fervent views in the other direction...

AND I don't get jailed if I walk out of my job tomorrow and refuse to go back.

So basically, "your baby could survive a delivery now, but we aren't going to give you one in case it doesn't survive or it causes disability, so you'll just have to stay pregnant for the next fourteen weeks even though you might not want to". Is that it? Have I got it right?

FFS. I work less notice than that if I want to leave my job.

@Brokendaughter I'm very glad that your child, who you clearly wanted and still want, survived and is thriving.

Sadly, not everyone feels that same joy.

Because it becomes a viable life of its own. After a six week gestation it is not a viable life on its own.

I’m not sure about that. If it had been as carefully considered, planned and executed over a matter of weeks as this was, she could well be facing prison.

The baby stands to lose its life.

That differs from a six week baby how?

"It's more valuable because it's older" does not make sense.

Actually if she'd given birth and then killed the baby, she'd most likely not have been imprisoned. Whatever your views on the abortion laws in this country, a legal system which punishes a late term illegal abortion more severely than the murder of a new born baby isn't right.

I'm sorry...you've repeatedly ignored any suggestion that there's a balance of rights when it comes to, you know, actual babies

Because there isn't a balance. You can lexically prioritise the unborn baby or you can lexically proritise the woman. Attempts to "balance" invariably infringe upon the woman's right to treat her body as her own, aka bodily integrity, aka bodily sovereignty.

Lexical prioritisation of the baby has some really unpleasant consequences, like forcing rape victims to give birth and making doctors have to decide whether a woman is sick enough for them to avoid prosecution for ending a pregnancy that is killing her. Claims to balance the woman and unborn baby, as Ireland's Eight Amendment claimed to, invariably prioritise the unborn baby in practice, as Savita found out.

Lexical prioritisation of the woman avoids all of those unpleasant consequences.

Having a time limit where you switch lexical prioritisation part-way through pregnancy doesn't make sense because the key fact remains the same: A is using B's body for life support.

Am I talking a foreign language here? Because it feels like it.

mentioned that 'self-abortion' would be difficult at 36 weeks because the baby might breathe

It's an unpleasant reality.

used really dehumanising and weird language about pregnancy ("it uses the woman for life support")

How else do you describe it? Are you going to slam Judith Thomson for using similar language?

bus fares

As an example of the consequences of not being legally a person yet.

imaginary police robots

Clearly, you've never heard of "thought experiments^. The "trolley problem, also by Judith Thomson, is a well-known example.

The "lost future" argument you just outlined was one of the reasons why I was vehemently anti-choice (to the point of "not even for rape cases") throughout my early twenties, a stance that I am now thoroughly ashamed of (and no I was not catholic, always been atheist). Its flaw is that it prioritises the baby's future over the mother's bodily integrity, her present, and her future.

You've gone from one extreme to another, swapped one set of absolutes for another and you appear to be unable to allow for the reality that both positions are ugly in different ways. Because life is more complex than you allow. I imagine your 'not even in the case of rape' phase was only possible because you wouldn't or couldn't look with empathy at the reality of a person in that situation. Now you either can't or won't acknowledge the humanity of a full-term child.

The 'lost future' comment is not an argument per se. It's a normal expression of sadness that a child, an actual child not a potential child, has lost their life and therefore also their future. This is a normal way of thinking and nearly always comes up if someone dies very young.

For me, as the baby becomes a viable life, it becomes a life. This is with the exception of the baby having significant health issues that would impact that viability upon birth.

We also know nothing about the baby's father who may have been looking forward to the birth of his child.

PPs have told me repeatedly that how the adults feel doesn't count.

But most importantly the child didn't get to live their life because of her actions.

This differs from a 12 week termination how?

The "lost future" argument you just outlined was one of the reasons why I was vehemently anti-choice (to the point of "not even for rape cases") throughout my early twenties, a stance that I am now thoroughly ashamed of (and no I was not catholic, always been atheist). Its flaw is that it prioritises the baby's future over the mother's bodily integrity, her present, and her future.

If the "lost future" argument is prioritised over bodily integrity, the woman cannot have an abortion at any stage.

My oldest boy was born at 33 1/2 weeks.
He weighed 4lb 4oz.
Because of how little he was, they kept him in an incubator for a couple of weeks before he came home, but there was nothing wrong with him other than being small.
He was one of the bigger babies in the preemie unit.

He's now in his 30s, a productive, healthy, happy member of society.

That poor baby was murdered, at an age where he could very likely have survived outside the womb if he'd been delivered.

What that woman did was not about abortion rights.
She abused abortion rights to murder a child.

This was a planned murder. even if she thought it was 'only a 28 week old baby.'

I've seen 28 week old babies.
They are little people too, almost ready to be born with about an 80- 90% survival rate.

The other children she has are better without a child murderer for a mother.

A woman is now in prison for an act that she wouldn't even been arrested for if she had been in Northern Ireland at the time. If you're not angry about that, there's frankly something wrong with you.

I'm sorry...you've repeatedly ignored any suggestion that there's a balance of rights when it comes to, you know, actual babies, mentioned that 'self-abortion' would be difficult at 36 weeks because the baby might breathe, used really dehumanising and weird language about pregnancy ("it uses the woman for life support") and given us the real argument-clinchers in favour of unrestricted abortion access: bus fares and imaginary police robots, and you're suggesting there's something wrong with other people on this thread?

The law prioritises the baby over the women in late term pregnancy not because it considers babies to matter more than women, but because if what's at stake for the two of them. The women will suffer some pain and inconvenience carrying the pregnancy for another few weeks (and in this case her affair would have been uncovered) The baby stands to lose its life. That's the reason its rights are placed above those of the woman, not that the baby is considered more important. Indeed, it's permitted to abort up til full term if the mother's life is at serious risk - showing that the mother is considered more important if only one may live.