Bid in Lords to overturn move to decriminalise abortion for women

Someone can only be killed if they first have lived independently of their mother.

And 24w fetus' will only live with huge amounts of intensive medical intervention. A generation or so ago, such deliveries would have resulted in a late term miscarriage.

An unborn child does not count in mortality statistics because those statistics are predicated on 'personhood' - which offically begins at birth......but to suggest that a baby is not alive until it is born is clearly a ludicrous proposition.

I can only imagine it is because they have never carried a pregnancy to term , or else for them it is entirely theoretical and predicated entirely on the concept of 'My Body, my Choice' with no room for the nuance of ethics.

Babies born after 24 usually survive. I don't understand what you mean by this statement.

A still birth at term does not count towards mortality statistics because it has not been living, so it's not correct to say they were alive.

I've always been pro abortion but I can't come to terms with women being allowed to 'abort' a child who would otherwise survive. Presumably to stop the child surviving it is actively killed before being aborted? It's obviously a deeply emotive issue but my daughter was born at 36 weeks and she was obviously a little human being at that point. Early abortion involves the removal of a clump of cells with only the potential to become a human being. I understand there is a massive range of opinions about abortion but I'm surprised there are so many who don't have a problem with abortion up to birth.

Don't be ridiculous! Of the course a foetus, and later a near full term baby is alive.

Until born, the fetus isn't alive. Abortions do not and cannot kill unless it goes horribly wrong and the potential mother dies.

It is a moral issue because it involves the taking of life. To say that women have no moral responsibility for their actions just because it involves their bodies is quite extreme in my view.Having had both terminations and live births, I'd say that has altered my persepective on the matter.

Can someone please explain to me why this is a bad thing? I can't get my head around it being ok for a woman to abort at any gestation.

Most of the friends I know who have had abortions ( I've had two myself) had them because their partner did not want a baby. Though, In all cases they took place within the first twelve weeks of gestation. There are plenty of men ( including husbands) who want the sex but don't want responsibility for the consequences

It’s not a moral issue because there’s nothing immoral about a woman having complete control over her body.

But that logic would stop us legislating on basically anything. There’s always an extreme scenario one can point to.

This, and if “pills by post” is so unchecked, who’s to say a woman’s partner couldn’t order them in her name and give them covertly to cause an unwanted abortion?

I don't agree that the plan or intent is to ban abortion altogether. I would certainly not support that if it was the case. But there has to be a limit on late term abortions unless there are profound medical reasons for termination. It is not acceptable in my view to terminate a baby that could potentially survive outside of the womb. Lots of babies are now being born at around 24 weeks and surviving. It would be a horror show to terminate such a wll developed, and healthy, baby.

In my mind it is analagous with the assisted dying/suicide debate - in terms of its moral magnitude.

You don't agree with what? That is is being specifically orchestrated to ban abortions altogether?

One man put a device in his shoe what 20 years ago and they changed the rules across the whole planet, and you think they won't use one instance of this going wrong to just ban them entirely?

I don't agree. Once past a certain stage of foetal devlopment the moral issues become more pronounced and the decison far more difficult.

There are also men who demand and pressure women into getting abortions they'd rather not have.

The issue of abortion so late into the pregnancy is specifically so that at some stage, they can ban abortions altogether. This is how they remove women's rights whilst appearing to support them.

It is not about decriminalising abortion per se, but about late term, self induced or illegally procured abortions.

Well the majority of MPs and lords didn’t agree with you or Lady Faulkner and saw how telemedicine offers many women a lifeline. Both decriminalisation and retaining telemedicine have passed decisively and the amendments failed.

I feel like there have been two cases where this medication was used to intentionally terminate full-term, healthy babies. In both cases, the mothers lied about how far along they were.

It seems a sensible step to prevent abuses like that.

Completely. From the people who actually claim to understand the meaning of women’s bodies. Pills by post gives women more choices. Any woman who wants to see a clinician in person can, but it’s not compulsory. It is particularly important for women whose moves are monitored by men who also use pregnancy to tie her to them. I cannot understand why anyone who says they support women would
oppose this.

So it’s not stopping women having abortions? It’s saying a pregnant woman should have an in-person consultation before lawfully being prescribed medicine for the termination of a pregnancy at home?
Is this driven by the woman who said she thought she wasn’t that pregnant but was beyond 24 weeks?

There’s two things.

One is the decriminalisation of abortion.
The other is removing pills by post