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?

fb, actually there is a cut off point so that even if they do take a breath and are under a specific gestation they will not be resuscitated etc. I think they have a better law wrt this in the US. - Born Alive Infant Protection Act iirc

The only requirement there should be for termination is that the woman wants a termination.

Having to grovel and make up excuses is a nonsense. Of course its unpalatable that some babies are aborted due to gender, but what is the true alternative? Witholding abortions from women who are asking for them? Wouldn't they just lie anyway?

Haven't read the whole thread but have to say my opinion on this changed dramatically after watching a documentary fronted by the pregnant daughter of the founder of Brookes Advisory (or similar; apologies can't remember). What struck me was that women really aren't informed about the choice they make at the point at which the vast majority of women make them. The argument has become distilled into an argument about the ability to make a choice for yourself or NOT; rather than about the rights and wrongs of terminating a pregnancy.

I had a termination in my early 20s, and I can't say that it would have changed my decision, but I most definitely - as an example - wasn't aware that at 6/7 weeks the foetus had a heartbeat. Over and over I was told it was just 'a bundle of cells', and of course this makes it much easier to distance yourself from what you are doing. I still massively regret the fact that my younger self didn't know what it was exactly that I was terminating...

"No, but having the procedure explained to you and having the opportunity to ask questions is otherwise how is it informed consent?"

Well that already happens, with your doctor.

So no need for compulsory counselling as a delaying tactic and to try to guilt women out of the choice they have made.

"For me the abortion limit should be reviewed as medical science evolves as foetus/ babies are surviving with increasingly lower gestational age."

The gestational age of viability isn't getting ever lower, though, is it?

I mean apart from pro-life lies about babies surviving from 22 weeks, the actual, medically agreed age of viability is 23-24 weeks and has been for a while.

Isn't it the case that many experts believe the age is not likely to be reduced any time soon?

So, no woman should be allowed to have terminations, because (apparently) some women abuse the service?

So, no woman should be allowed to have children, because some woman abuse their own, going by the above argument.

Why is a bundle of cells with a heartbeat different from a bundle of cells without one in terms of its value?

"actually there is a cut off point so that even if they do take a breath and are under a specific gestation they will not be resuscitated etc."

Yes, and that is done for humane reasons - to avoid resuscitating a baby that has a very poor prognosis.

do people who blithely talk about the age of viabilty actually know anything abotu the quality of life of a child born at 24 weeks? or 29? or 34?

Its not good. look it up. Look up the girl who was born at 2o something weeks to a midwife and states explicitly that it would have been better if the hospital had allowed her to die peacefully instead of doing the heroic measures that kept her alive, but have left her with a great many disabilities. The discussion is very similar to that of euthanasia when quality of life at the end of life has deteriorated so much that heroic measures are more for the relatives, than the person who is actually being affected.

AThing, it's not exactly treating it as a human with a right to life though is it? You cant say on one hand, if it breaths it is a human life with rights and then say but we're still going to withold that right to life anyway because you are 22+6 weeks gestation not 23 weeks.

fb, I have looked up those stats and plenty of those babies born at 23/24 weeks have a perfectly fine quality of life with limited disabilities eg. Asthma which some full term children have! Equally some full term babies have poor quality of life due to other disabilities - are we allowed to judge what their quality of life is/is going to be and decide that they're not worth caring for?

Going back to the point about pro lifers condoning abortions when there is a disability or there has been a rape.

Personally, I don't believe that ending a life is ever ok. But I'm not so closed minded that I can't see how damaging it coud be to a woman to be forced to carry a baby in those extreme circumstances.

Like I said before, I don't have any answers, but I certainly don't believe that a good solution is to allow terminations as freely as they are available now.

I don't see how I can end up accused of trolling because I'm basically not comfortable with foetuses being killed. I don't see how I can be accused of woman hating either. That sort of extremism is the sort of crap that usually comes from staunch pro lifers, and it doesn't come across as any better coming from people who are pro choice either.

Like I said right at the start of the thread, I personally think I fall somewhere in the middle because I think this is a debate with a huge grey area in the middle of it, where there is no one right answer. It boils down to ending life, and I don't think something as serious as that can ever be a black and white argument.

As for me being known to have 'interesting' views on other threads my views are mainly based around the fact that I believe strongly in personal responsibility and I'm not as liberal leftie as the majority on MN. It might make me in the minority on a particular Internet forum, but it's really not all that wierd.

Of course it's treating it as a human with a right to life.

Or are you suggesting that when my Granny decided not to have my Granda given iv antibiotics, but to let him die instead, that she was treating the man she loved for 65 years as less than human?

"I personally think I fall somewhere in the middle"

I can assure you that thinking that if a rape victim fails to take the morning after pill she should be forced to carry and give birth to her rapist's child is not "the middle".

Nor is wanting to use unhappily pregnant women as unwilling gestational carriers for the childless "the middle".

There are pro-life arguments that don't dehumanise women, but they ain't two of them.

AThing - that is a differnt argument. Presumably your Grandad had some other life threatening condition rather than your Granny just deciding that he couldnt have antibiotics to treat something that would have saved his life? Are you saying that basing whether or not to resuscitate on what day of the week you were born is acceptable?

I have even heard of people aborting 38 week foetuses because they have a hare lip or some other small problem, that is just straight out wrong

Sorry to be pedantic, black...but it is CLEFT lip. I find hare lip a very offensive term (and yes, I have a cleft lip)

That's why she said 'somewhere in the middle' - just as some pro-choicers don't believe in abortion to term, some pro-lifers have varying opinions along the scale of no abortions ever and abortions whenever.

'fb, I have looked up those stats and plenty of those babies born at 23/24 weeks have a perfectly fine quality of life with limited disabilities eg. Asthma which some full term children have! Equally some full term babies have poor quality of life due to other disabilities - are we allowed to judge what their quality of life is/is going to be and decide that they're not worth caring for?'

Precisely. dd was born at 42 weeks and is severely disabled.
That 'Ethic' proffessor once said disabled babies should be able to be 'terminated' (he is too sqeamish to say killed) up to one month after birth. Clearly in case some slipped through the screening net.

Like sevenfold said. The law should allow abortion on demand regardless of gestation/gender etc or the limits and conditions should be the same for all. Currently the limits are all about viability and whether the baby feels pain.

Withholding treatment is completely different to actively ending life.

Havent read all the thread but iv had 2 abortions in my life. One at 18 and one at 24.
the one at 18, i was far too young i was with my knobhead of an ex - enough no excuses needed!

For the one at 24 i had had my DS2 a year before, i suffered from extremely bad post natal depression. I didnt want to go through that again, i was hospitalized with Hyperemesis for 5 days. I lost 2 stone in 3 weeks i was ill. The pregnancy was making me feel shit, my depression came back and i was suicidal. I hate myself for getting pregnant - i was on the pill but also on Asthmatic steroids and Anti-Depressents.

I am pro-choice and i dont agree with abortion after 16 weeks. I was 10 weeks with my first abortion and 9 weeks with my second one.

I dont agree with abortion because of the babies gender.

Some people wont agree with my reasonings but frankly i dont give a shit, the way i felt on my second abortion id have swallowed a whole load of tablets because thats how down adn depressed i was and if a dr was going to tell me i wasnt in the right category for an abortion and couldnt have one, id have stabbed him with his letter opener. Thats how down i was.

Pro-lifers have no idea until it happens to them.

God im away with the fairies today.

Some people wont agree wtih my reasonings in my first post, i meant to say.

So has anyone said why we need abortion to be available to 24 weeks? If medical abortions are allowed to term then the whole anomaly scan thing doesn't come into it and before someone jumps on me with 'woman's choice' very few pro-choicers actually support the idea of abortion to term for any reason so it really just is a case of picking a gestation where the woman's choice doesn't matter anymore. 24 weeks is what has been settled on for that at the moment but it does seem a bit late for a woman to be deciding on an abortion for what is deemed 'social' rather than medical reasons at that stage of the pregnancy.

Thing is, the Telegraph is fundamentally anti-abortion anyway. I know reporters who have been put under pressure to put an anti-abortion spin on stories (also on the Mail). Clearly what these doctors did was wrong, and illegal, but the Telegraph is using it to make a wider, anti-abortion point.

Are they 'fundamentally' anti- abortion edam? Really? Or just anti the laws as they stand? The two are very different.

Yes, fundamentally anti-abortion. Reporters are put under pressure to spin any story on abortion. Both in print and in online interviews.