to not want a teenage boy telling me abortion is a sin and should never be legalised?!

[ThisMomentusDay]

I never really know how to feel about abortion, i don't think i could ever have one but thankfully i've never been in a position to have to consider this so it's a very easy thing to say isn't it?
As such i'm very much sitting on the 'pro-choice' fence!
It's such a personal choice for a woman and not usually one taken lightly.

Yesterday on the street there was a stall set up with a petition to the Taoiseach (PM) to not have any sort of a referendum on legalising abortion in Ireland. Fair enough i thought, freedom of speech, right to protest etc.
Untill i was passing and a teenage boy below the voting age (and possibly the age of consent) tries to hand me the leaflets. I looked across the street and on the 4 corners of this junction there are teenage boys handing anti-abortion leaflets out to (mainly) women!

It really annoyed me, (especially as it was very obviously a catholic group and i think the church has done enough damage to the state and should stay the hell out of politics) but i just refused the leaflets and kept walking.

AIBU to have thought 'what the hell has it got to do with you?'

oh sorry maryz no it was to catgirl the one who cant read when someone gives them a link to a possible group these teenagers belong to and then thinks it is the person who posted its' link

maryz im glad your son has and can voice his opinions and beliefs well, and it was me who asked if protestants opposed the abortion rights too as the OP ASSUMED the group were catholic :rolls eyes at assumers!!

Well done that boy! He's standing up for freedom of speech, for his beliefs and for unborn babies who have no voice. The irony is, the mothers should be protecting and fighting for those babies, not a teenage boy not even of voting age!

I'm sorry Tallulah you asked me to look at this link saying if I read it I would see that they understand and could argue the point.

*If you read the link that someone put on the first page catgirl then you would see they understand and could argue the point with you very well.

here is the link again

www.youthdefence.ie/who-we-are/*

I looked at the link and saw in it no evidence that it meant they understood the issues or would be able to argue to point.

I didn't ask if you were anti-abortion.

Nor did I say they were little boys told to stand at street corners and hand out leaflets.

Perhaps you are the one who should learn to read?

standing up for freedom of speech? No, he is part of a political religious group trying to control the female population of an entire nation. You realise they are taught to shout at passersby and harangue women?

Fighting for babies, what sentimental twaddle.

and I've reported your post tallulah, you'll note the rules on personal attacks.

No 14 year old bot understands both sides of the abortion debate. Its something they can never truly appreciate nor understand.

A tiny group of cells is not a baby. It has the potential to be a baby but it's not a baby. A baby is a foetus that's been born. The vast vast majority of abortions are early term.

Referring to a tiny group of cells as a bay is incredibly emotive and unhelpful IMO

Thank you MsTeak. I reported the post myself. I don't mind a heated debate but I won't stand for a mindless attack.

at tallulah's name calling, very unnecessary

SirGin, if you leave it be , that' bunch of cells' will most probably grow to become a newborn, a five year old, a teenager etc.
Where is that five year old now, should be here, she/he is not, someone killed her off when she was very small still

My son is 16 he is intelligent and articulate and couldargue for or against the issue quite easily if he needed to in a school debate, even so he has been bought up to know that whatever his opinion might be others are equally intitled to theirs and that an oppinion is just that an opinion! Abortion is killing babies ffs because you don't agree with it it is wrong? What about the right for a women to choose? You can't be in another womens shoes so what right do you have to judge? What a bloody stupid insensitive thing to say!

mysterynotsolved.

Well we don't call a toddler a teenager do we ? Calling a foetus a baby is emotive.

Obviously it's where the line is drawn between a group of cells and a human life. I remember a few years back a Christian couple defied medical advice to let their very very premature baby die and the child was kept in abject pain and suffering for a few months just to prove their faith. It was disgusting.

If we do away with all medical intervention and medicines lots of people would be dead. But we allow this intervention why not with abortion ?

For me loveis - that's the key thing. Your son could argue both sides of the debate. Whatever his own view is, he has sufficient understanding that he could argue either side intellegently. I think when you can do that you are able to freely form your own opinion. I do not believe the boys in the OP could argue both sides (although of course I haven't met them so its just my belief) and because of that I don't think they have freely formed thier opinion.

I've met loads of them, trust me, there understanding of their own side is weak, they are unaware that there is any other side. Just read the site, their stance is that anyone who doesn't agree with them clearly hasn't understood what abortion actually is. As far as they are concerned, there is anti-abortion, or you a murdering madwoman. Nothing inbetween.

Yes. There was a poster earlier who said if you don't believe abortion is killing your own child you must be brain washed. I actually think a lot of women do see an abortion as killing thier own child but still have one. I think this the reason so many women agonise over the decision and feel wracked with guilt afterwards. I was astonished the poster seemed to lack any empathy of how difficult a decision an abortion is for a lot of women and that they took that decision lightly because they didn't "get" what they were doing.

there must be a study somewhere tho on how if a group of teenage boys or anyone else protest loudly and agree with you as opposed to same group protest loudly and disagree with you - what effect does your agreement or not to their view have on your opinion of their ability to understand the issues...

Disagree with their views all you like but they're as entitled as you to have a view...

no they aren't. They don't have a uterus. How are they as entitled as me to a view on what grows in mine?

Feel the same way about this as I do about young, healthy people expressing strong opinions about end of life care.

Of course they're entitled to an opinion. As long as they're made to understand that it's made in ignorance of the full range of feelings and experience that shape people's decisions about this issue in real life.

"The irony is, the mothers should be protecting and fighting for those babies"

Those people who are the most removed from the experience of raising children, and the consequences of continuing with a pregnancy or not, are going to be those who feel they know most about the moral issues involved and to shout the loudest.

Isn't it almost always the way?

A enjoying your posts on this thread MsTeak

Thank you. It's a subject I care hugely about.

Not sure if everyone remembers from the OP that these young people weren't simply campaigning against abortion, they were campaigning against any referendum on the subject of abortion being put to the Irish people.

So basically they were campaigning against the people in their own country having the opportunity to vote on their personal view.

Why should their personal views be given the time of day when they are actively seeking to remove the opportunity for others to express their viewpoint in a meaningful, democratic way?

Maryz I think we probably all agree that they have a right to their point of view. But surely the young men described in the OP were doing exactly what you're saying we shouldn't do: telling other people (women who have not sought their opinion) that they're wrong (to have abortions) instead of respecting other people's points of view (their right to choose).
That's in addition to attemping to legislatively deny other people's chance to express an opinion on the topic, as SardineQueen so eloquently points out.