To think abortion law is a tough nut to crack?

[chandellina]

so the Telegraph has revealed doctors allowing abortion on sex-selection grounds. I see a couple threads on In the News expressing disgust over this, a view shared by many, I'm sure.

But as far as I understand you can have an abortion on demand for just about any reason - not feeling able to cope, not feeling financially secure, too young, too old.

So even if you were terminating for gender, couldn't you just give another reason? And if you believe in a woman's absolute right to choose - why require a stated reason at all?

My point is that the law seems very flimsy, and why be moral about sex selection and not other things - like terminating because a pregnancy interferes with a desired age gap between children, or it otherwise not being "the right time." I know there are cultural issues involved too with gender selection, but those probably are also in play for women coerced by family not to have a child out of wedlock, etc.

thoughts?

So it goes

I would like an abortion. I am a grown woman and that is what I want. I really really don't want to go through pregnancy and birth and have a baby.

You can't have one.

Oh. Oh well then, it that case I am proud to go through pregnancy and birth an have a baby and give it away.
Or. Oh right. Oh hold on. I've changed my mind anyway. Whoopee!!!

The whole anti-abortion debate is based around ideas that women are stupid, that they are selfish, that they don't know their own minds, that they change their minds the whole time. ie it comes from a place with a very low opinion of women.

women have the legal right to have a termination in the uk - that is fact

termination can happen up till birth for medical reasons

It is none of my business why women need one - legally they are entitled to if they fit the criterea

I am 100% pro-choice

my own moral ethical feelings about abortion apply to ME and me alone - not every other woman on earth

I would like to see abortion on demand

Bumbley: For those who think pro-life means that people think a woman doesn't have rights - no, it just means that people think the foetus also has rights as a human life.
You've posted that twice now. In response to your first posting, I asked why you thought the foetus's rights trumped the woman's. Genuinely curious.

As I was jumped on earlier, I'm now back to try and explain my opinion on this more clearly.

I think that an unborn child has as many rights as the mother. It is equal. I feel the absolute maximum time allowed for abortions should be 6-8 weeks. And only then, when it can be proved that continuing with the pregnancy will have a severely detrimental effect to the Mother. I can see that the mother would be in substantial difficulty if she had been raped, or if she was still a child herself. In cases like that, it would not neccesarily be in the child's best interests to be born, and that is what is important. It might be, but it might not.

Where you see the rights of the foetus as equal to the Mother, you have to look at who would be harmed most. It has to be taken on an individual case by case basis, and it shudo take a lot more than any two doctors having to agree to it, simply because it is ending a life. That cannot ever be taken lightly, and I feel that at the moment, it is take far too lightly. Even if the mother has agonised about it weeks, she is not the only person that deserves consideration, and that is why I think doctors and psychologists need to be involved in allowing a termination to go ahead.

I am all for women having autonomy over their own bodies, but abortion isn't just about one person. It's about two, and somebody needs to advocate for the one that can't do it themselves.

I also think that there are worse things that happen to people than having to carry and deliver a baby they don't want. People are diagnosed with life limiting and debilitating conditions every day, and there is nothing they condo have done to have prevented that. Women who are pregnant with a child they don't want could have done something to prevent it in the vast majority of cases, so I don't really see why it is so horrific to make women go through pregnancy. It's not anywhere near as bad as many other conditions that people have to suffer, infant many people enjoy it. No one enjoys having MS or other conditions that are life long, and pregnancy only lasts nine months.

When I say that I think the rights of the foetus are equal to that of mother, I think it also has to be considered that we are not comparing one persons life with another persons life. We are comparing one persons life with less than one year for the other person. We are comparing one persons life with another persons happiness. They aren't comparable things.

It is wrong to end life just because of a year of discomfort for someone. It is wrong to end life because it might affect someone's happiness. And that's what abortion as it stands is doing.

If a Mother is going to really be so badly affected that it will have an extremely detrimental effect to her whole life, then I wouldn't entirely disagree with aborting what is basically a ball of cells. But when it gets to more than a ball of cells, abortion is just plain killing and its wrong.

why is a 'life' born of rape or less than 6 weeks 'old' less of a life

that's a very subjective stance - surely all life is life - or it isn't - choose a side!

I hate wishy washy pro-lifers who hedge the disabled/rape thing - according to you surely they are still 'babies'

I think I'm just going to hang around "liking" gordie's posts.

"A year of discomfort" as a description of being forced to carry and birth a child you don't want

It's a it more than "discomfort".

I don't think it's less of a life tbh, but it is more of a potential life than an actual life. And it's about weighing up the risk to one life to another.

Its a big deal, and I'm not saying abortion should never be allowed, just that it should be something that happens rarely because of how horrific it is. I find it truly abhorrent that babies can be killed in utero just because a women decides she doesn't want to go through pregnancy.

Whatever you want to call it, it's nothing compared to your life being ended completely is it?

Woolly, it wasn't intentional - I'm posting from an iPhone with no wifi at the moment!

I didn't say the foetus' life trumped the mother's - they are both human life so they are equal. If you start weighting the value of different lives you get into very dangerous territory.

Those may be your beliefs Kitchen roll but you are not all about women having autonomy over their bodies. You cannot be in favour of this and want to force someone to continue with a pregnancy.

'I don't see why it is so horrific to go through a pregnancy' I don't see how it is possible for anyone with the slightest understanding of the history of abortion, the impact of pregnancy and childbirth and a modicum of empathy to write that sentence. I will clarify it for you, what you mean is that even if the woman finds it deeply horrific you couldn't care less because there will be a baby born and that is what matters to you. The woman is reduced to a vessel and her subsequent fate is largely irrelevant. It is indeed a position that has been adopted rather more institutionally by other counties and institutions and it shows profound contempt for women.

I would like to see abortion on demand until term too.

I am in touch with a woman who is carrying a child with medical issues. None of the professionals involved in her care told her she was eligible for an abortion until term due to the child's medical condition. They are failing her, especially as she thought she didn't have rights. She still isn't going to go ahead with the abortion but at least she knows it is an option if she so chooses.

We must put the viable life that already exists first IMO. Foetuses, in criminal law at least, aren't classed as viable until they've taken their first breath. Therefore in this country an abortion should be available until term.

less than 0.01% of terminations are 'late' most take place before 12 weeks - then between 12-16 weeks

many post 20 week termination are of wanted pregnancies and are awful for those involved

also viable? without medical intervention you would have to go past 30 week to get to 'viable'

you are happy for less 'viable' 'babies' to be 'killed' though

Thanks be to god the pro-lifers won't ever get their way on this.

Even this govt (who, as we all know are just so pro-women) don't think the laws need changed.

Amen to that.

im confused, if it is always detrimental to a womans health to make her carry a baby she doesnt want, then why is it ok to make her carry a girl baby/boy baby she doesnt want?

So, KitchenRoll, sorry to harp on about this, because I've asked before on this thread, but in this utopian scenario you outline above, do you accept that there will be women who fall outside the '6-8 weeks' rule you'd like to see and that some of them will inevitably decide to risk an illegal abortion? Are you happy for these women to put their lives at risk? Are you happy for them to be fatally injured because they do not think they can go ahead with a pregnancy? If so, what about the children they may already have? Happy for them to be orphans? Sorry if this sounds melodramatic, but these are the facts of life and death in many countries where abortion is illegal.

I think that a lot of 'pro-life' people enter this debate convinced that there is a 'happy ending' option. That all you have to do is tinker with the law and the dates and where does life began and wham! There's a lovely tidy law that everybody will work within and the women unable to abort will just manage.

Well, no that's not how it is. There is no happy ending in this issue. There is only what we can live with, accepting it isn't perfect.

I can't live with raped women unable to abort because of timescales
I can't live with women living in poverty and distress because they were unable to abort
I can't live with relationships placed under intolerable pressure because of a lack of access to abortion
I can't live with women becoming parents when they don't want to because they were unable to access abortion.
I can't living with women dying because they couldn't access a safe abortion.

I don't like abortion - but what I like and what you like is totally irrelevant here. I didn't choose an abortion but I am beyond glad that I had the choice. Unless you have had an unplanned pregnancy you cannot possibly ever begin to understand what faces women in that situation. If you have had an unplanned pregnancy then you know and you chose for you. Extend others the same courtesy.

Great post NorthernLurker.

well said NorthernLurker

As a very mentally unstable eighteen year old, I'm very glad for both myself and my unborn child that I made the choice I did.
I am very glad that my friend in a similar position got to choose for herself.
I still have mental issues but in the intervening twelve years I have had the time, experience and a (mostly) supportive enviroment to learn how to deal with them.
They have still impacted on my children, especially my daughter.
I dread to think how a child I was forced to have at eighteen would have been affected.

Women would not have to have unsafe abortions, they would be making a choice to.

What I would rather see is support in place so that women are counselled throughout their unwanted pregnancy and are in a mentally fit state to hand their baby over to SS when it's born. There is no good reason why this can't happen.

The pro choicers on here make it sound like pregnancy happened unexpectedly to some poor innocent women who are victims of circumstance. Rape victims aside, they are adult women who consented to taking a risk fully knowing the consequences that could well occur.

As for women having autonomy, do you think it's ok for women to smoke 40 a day during pregnancy, do you think it's ok for them to down a bottle of wine every night, do you think it's ok for women to snort a few lines of cocaine each day when they are pregnant?

Or do you feel that it's something they should stop doing because they are harming their child who will have to live with the effects on their health for the rest of their life?

not read the thread. I am personally against abortion, by personally i mean, i wouldnt have one (im 95% sure of this as i know it is easy to say unless you find yourself in that position - i was twice, two unplanned pregnancies, DD1 - when i was 19 BUT i had supportive parents and then 15 years later with DD2, not the best timing as just finishing my PhD, but supportive partner etc etc, had things been different for me, i cannot hand on heart say i definately woudlnt have terminated).

I do not think that women should have the absolute right to choose, ultimately they should, but i do think they need to justify their decision principally to protect their own mental health. I think that there should be access to counselling for those who need it, without this justification women who are emotionally vulnerable are going to miss out on any support that is available.

As to whether abortions should be offered on the grounds of gender selection, well, thats a no brainer really - absoutely not. UNLESS there is the possibility of sex-linked abnormalities and then that becomes a whole other debate and dependant on circumstances.

My own feelings on abortion are very vague so i certainly wouldnt have to make the "rules"

frida I didnt read your post before i posted, and i totally understand your position, however, do you think, if you don't mind me asking, that you should have had to give a reason or just been able to say you wanted a termination without question. I hope that you did get support at the time, i ask this because i think that if you didnt have to justify (perhaps the wrong word) you might have been left to flounder without support and your MH suffered as a consequence.

*here are people here who are seriously arguing that if abortion was allowed to term, there would be women taking up the option of very late terminations for no good reason?

These are the words of people who don't like women. Really they*

Shit, after the femininsm post I wasn't going to click on this but.....

My work overlaps with child protection. There are some seriously evil people who harm their own children. Some of these people are women. I am a woman. I don't hate women any more than I hate men. Some women would terminate to birth.

A fetus capable of life outside the womb should have the right not to be destroyed. Before 24 weeks it should have no rights.

Sardine, going off in a tangent but after the truely horrific murder of that poor woman;
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/22/bouncer-murder-pregnant-nikitta-grender?INTCMP=SRCH]
Obviously the murder of the sentient woman is most shocking but
What do you think of the child destruction charge/conviction?

Ahhhhhh.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/22/bouncer-murder-pregnant-nikitta-grender?INTCMP=SRCH
Obviously the murder of the sentient woman is most shocking but
What do you think of the child destruction charge/conviction?