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?

How can you base a definition of 'life' on a statistic?

Yes but Edam, do you really feel happy living in a society where your 'worth' is determined solely but how wanted you were when you were in the womb?!

So we have established that a 22 week old foetus/baby is capable of feeling pain then winny?

Remains - when we're talking about a 22 or 24 week baby, they aren't really "independently viable" without intensive, painful, medical intervention. Are you also appalled that some parents of babies born at 22 weeks choose not to have all that intervention and instead let the baby die?

The pain argument is quite simply one of the weakest, most ridiculous things I've ever read!

1. If a premature baby is denied treatment because it would be 'painful'....would being aborted not be slightly more painful?

1. If babies can be aborted at 22 weeks, because 'they are not real people that can feel emotion or pain', then why does it matter if the treatment to save a 'wanted' baby is painful or not?! As a 22 week baby cannot actually feel anything right?

MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

Exactly remains...

I do think foetus's should be anaethetised before abortions - I assume at 24 weeks the mother is given a GA so the foetus would be knocked out too?

"it would make sense that the cutoff date, if it is based on the prospect of the baby being able to survive independently, is based on the EARLIEST date that a baby has survived because that means that life (defined technically by law) has actually been possible from that date."

No, it would make sense for it to be from what is medically to agreed to be the date of viability, not determined by some statistical outlier.

I would describe myself as pro-choice I think, but I do struggle with the viability argument and the idea that a foetus becomes a real person at the point at which it could survive outside the womb.

To me, it seems that the point at which someone becomes a real person should be an objective thing and the same for all cases everywhere. However, it depends massively on which country the foetus is in and what era in time as well. 100 ago, a 26 week foetus would have been unlikely to survive outside the womb and in some countries would still be unlikely to survive today because of lack of medical assistance. Does that mean that someone's worth and their right to life depends solely on the time and place it was conceived and gestated? Surely the moment that a human foetus becomes a 'real person' should be the same everywhere?

Or are we talking about foetuses which are capable of independent life without assistance, in which case viability would be much higher than 24 weeks?

Not really AThing, that 'statistical outlier' is a life - which means that life IS possible from that date. That's the problem with trying to define life with statistics - there are always going to be those nuisance outliers

No Rita, at 24 weeks the normal method is to inject saline or potassium into the babies heart causing a heart attack. Then when it's dead it can be delivered, normally the next day.

At 24 weeks there will not be a GA for the woman.

Or I'll go along with the earliest ever viability date, as long as the deal is that the baby is removed from the mother and then we just see whether it survives or not.

If you're going to force a woman to continue to carry a baby she doesn't want, I think something that has been agreed by the medical community (viability) is better than the earliest ever date someone claims a baby managed to survive.

I think the law is generally fine as it is, though I would support abortions to term for all women who want them. And I write that sat here, 8 months pregnant. I have told MN before that I went with a friend for her abortion at 10w, when I was also 10w. I understand that not all womens circumstances are identical, and I trust each individual woman to be capable of making the right choice for herself.

I'm not entirely against gender selection abortions either. Not because I support the idea! But because carrying a baby of the "wrong" gender could well be detrimental to the womans health (mentally if she does not want it) or wellbeing (if it is her family that have the problem).

FWIW I have suffered with AND this pregnancy. There have been times I have been verging on suicidal, but not wanting to harm my foetus has been more important to me. If I were being forced to carry a child I did not want, I would be dead now. Simple as.

By the way, being a bit nosy - I am curious what the prolifers who approve of abortion for disability only think of euthanasia later in life?

Rita, I don't think the GA that the mother gets would anaesthetise the baby. I'm just thinking about babies being born by Caesarian after the mother being given GA...I think in most cases they inject the foetus in the heart (which I imagine would be painful) but some are still born alive which obviously creates all sorts of ethical issues...

The outliers aren't a "nuisance" to me because I don't have some weird fetish about A LIFE.

My grandfather, since you asked, did not have a condition that would have killed him. He had a cold. It killed him because the infection he got wasn't treated with antibiotics.

He had advanced Alzheimer's. If that cold hadn't killed him he could have lived for years. It was A LIFE - a life of confusion, distress, and a complete inability to take joy from anything. It was a life that had no value to him any more and it was a blessed relief for everyone who loved him when it mercifully ended.

Remains, I think the private clinics do use GAat 24 weeks.

Yes I've just been reading that.

Sorry Rita, you were right. If the baby is essentially being 'cut out' then you would be under a GA.

If you take the drugs to induce early labour you would be awake just like giving birth.

"the idea that a foetus becomes a real person at the point at which it could survive outside the womb."

No, the idea is that a foetus becomes a person (not "real", it's real already) when it is born.

The viability argument was made well by larry earlier.

If the claim is that you can't legislate rights for something that only has life dependent on a person, what do you do when that dependence is not absolute?

e.g. if a woman at term wanted to terminate a healthy baby, why should it be OK for her to make that choice when inducing labour would rid her of the pregnancy, but the baby would still live unless steps were taken to end its life?

Arguably you are giving her the choice to end the life of a foetus she is carrying just because it is inside her, regardless of its ability to survive outside the womb.

It's not about the foetus's worth, it's about whether they have a life independent of the woman carrying them.

AThing, sorry about your grandad- - friend of mine's mother has Alzeimers at the moment and it really is a horrible disease.

I'm not sure what you mean about a 'fetish with life' tbh - I think the definition of life does usually have a partin the abortion discussion.

Remains, I think if you look on the Marie Stopes and BPAS websites you'll see that the later term abortions are performed under GA.

On that note I'm taking the DC to the park.

I actually feel physically sick after reading about surgical abortion at 24 weeks.

I think abortion is a topic where each side finds it very difficult to understand the POV on the other. You either believe it's a baby that has a right to life, or you don't.

Contrary to some earlier posts, I do not 'hate women'...I just don't think some humans have more of a right to life than others. I do not think it's ok to abort disabled babies anymore than 'healthy' ones.

Fundamentally I don't believe in abortion. However, at the very very least I would like the limit decreased to substantially less than the point where the baby can actually live. I still believe that 12 weeks gives a person 3 months to make a decision. There will always be people who won't have made a choice by then, but that is happening now! I have read about people having an abortion on the last possible day on this thread, and about women wavering inside the clinic. Some things in life need deadlines. And for me that would be 12 weeks. But I appreciate most people on this thread don't feel like that.

AThing, wrt your post of 14.13 does that mean that premature babies (post-24 weeks) who are put into incubators are not actually alive/viable because they can't survive on their own?

Oh and bumbley, it was these 2 I had confused in my mind. When labour is induced you would give birth normally but then have a D&C under a GA.

'Late abortion (20-24 weeks)
There are two options for a late abortion carried out at 20-24 weeks. Both require an overnight stay in hospital.
Surgical two-stage abortion:
? stage one stops the heartbeat of the foetus and softens the cervix
? stage two (carried out the following day) removes the foetus and surrounding tissue
? each stage requires a general anaesthetic
Medically induced abortion:
? similar to a late natural miscarriage
? the medicine prostaglandin is injected into the womb, making it contract strongly (as in labour)
? contractions can last 6-12 hours
? you will remain awake during the procedure and may be given medicines to control the pain
? D&E may then be used to ensure that the womb is completely empty'

Here's another scenario a young girl of 12 abused for several years falls pregnant if she does not miscarry should she be forced to have her abusers baby if she doesn't find out in the short time limit some are advocating.

I would really like to know what people think of the following hypothetical situation:-

You are a patient in hospital recovering from routine surgery. When you wake from the anaesthetic, you find that one of the surgeons has attached one of your kidneys to the patient next to you via a long plastic tube (hypothetical!).

This has been done because that patient went suddenly into complete kidney failure, and is now completely dependent on your kidney to filter his blood or he will die.

The surgeon explains that this will only be necessary for a few months while they find a transplant for the patient, but that there are significant risks of complications for your own body, and even a small risk of death.

Do you have the right to demand the patient be detached from you, even though it will result in his death?

The hypothetical situation describes a situation where you were given no choice. But even if you had initially agreed to the attachment, would you have the right to change your mind?

I'm genuinely curious to see what people think (whether for or against)...