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?

I never said it was nay of my business FFS, it's a debate that I'm taking part in! Its reached 29 pages so oddly enough, I'm not the only one with an opinion. It's a thread on a website, not a picket outside a clinic. Wind your neck in.

Why is it my business if my neighbours hack each other to death? Because sometimes, to have a healthy, functioning society we have to involve ourselves in what other people do. If we didn't what sort of a society would we actually have? One where anyone could do whatever they wanted, utterly regardless of the wider consequences.

NO society can function where people are totally self interested. There would be no NHS, no welfare state, no law and order. There would be anarchy.

resorting to petty insults - boom - you just lost the argument !

but it's not legally hacking anyone to death - it's no murder - it is LEGAL

be interested in helping society by doing good things - no limiting access for women to safe legal proceedures

mot pro-lifers are pro death penaltiy, anti sex education and anti sex unless it's procreation - which speaks volumes

Most? Where do you get that from? I suspect you are wrong, but even if you're not, most does not mean all.

Oh yes and claiming we go round calling women 'dirty sluts' isn't pretty low?

"mot pro-lifers are pro death penaltiy"

Not so.

It depends on the flavour - Catholic pro-lifers, an utterly toxic group, are at least consistent on this point and oppose the death penalty.

Oh and for your narrow minded information.

1. I am passionately anti death penalty. I have written on behalf on many a death row prisoner in the US to their state governors calling for clemency.

1. I am a passionate believer in sex education. For warned is for armed as they say. If we teach young people how to avoid getting pregnant accidentally we can avoid healthy babies being destroyed.

1. We believe that unborn babies do have rights... We're not all nuns though ;)

i didn't say you did - most if from my many many years of being involved in the pro-choice movement - 26 year + and having many encounters with SPUC and Life etc - plus their own reps views

there are good and bad women - abortion is just one way they identify the loose immoral ones :)

NB for your information that is whay I said MOST not all :)

when I say 'pro-lifers' I am not specifically dressing you you see - it is in the wider context of the debate

I just don't know where you get these ideas 'immoral women'?! I don't know anyone who thinks like that!

I do not agree with abortion, as i have said upthread, i know there are situations where abortion is the best solution sadly. Why does opposing the killing of babies make me an over emotional woman hater?

fundermental Christians for one - people who think GIRLS alone should be taught abstinance, people who spend far too much time worrying about what women choose to do with their bodies :)

and I have already told you where my ideas come from - experience :)

just because you don't think that way doesn;t mean you are the norm - or is it coincidence that these organisation contain more men than women and men tended - until very recently, to front them

No desperate it makes you confused

You know we are normal people :( you seem to have us all down as raving nut cases.

I'm sat her with my 17 month old daughter who has come out with chicken pox...watching Dancing on Ice. I doubt many of us spend our time making voodoo dolls in Marie Stopes' image.

The ones who have spat at me, hit me, screamed in face, tried to run me over, stalked women I worked with and told me 'children pregnant through insest should wear their bump as proof of the crime' probably do Remains :)

Yet more insults being thrown at pro-lifers I see. It's a shame that some pro-choicers are unable to make their argument without resorting to name-calling.

I'm anti-death penalty as well but I guess I was brought up as an 'utterly toxic' Catholic so perhaps that is why.

I have said this a few times on this thread but I'll say it again. I think people who disagree with abortion but who make exceptions for abortions to term in cases of disability are not talking about any disability - they are talking about disabilities that are incompatible with life so they are seeing it as euthanasia for the baby. Personally, I think the doctors have got that wrong a few too many times (from people's stories I know in RL and those that have shared their experiences on this thread) for me to put total faith in them in that respect. I think very few people would support abortion to term of a baby with a club foot or another minor disability that was not incompatible with life.

I'm still not sure why people are assigning this arbitrary value of 24 weeks as when life begins ie when the foetus actually starts to have some rights considering that we know that life is possible from before 24 weeks. It's a bit wobbly imo.

so a baby is only a bay if it's compatable with life - so before say 30 weeks it's not a baby - it can survive without medical intervention - sorted !

The pro-life movement is profoundly misogynistic.

There are people who are anti-abortion who are not, but consciously identifying yourself as "pro-life" is indicating that you are a fundamentalist when it comes to foetus rights, and that you want to curtail the normal human rights of women to defend them.

Yes...but it every large movement there will always be the odd ones who will use the movement as an excuse or a front to indulge their natural tendencies.

Look at the 'anarchists' who always come out on world trade day, a decent number of them just come for the chance to smash the windows in McD's.

Please don't think that the vast majority of people who are pro life would EVER go round spitting in people's faces

confused gordy? No, i don't think so - i said i am against abortion, which i am, so no confusion there. I then said that I recognise that there are circumstances where abortion is the kinder option. I did not outline what those circumstances are because its not black and white, but no, i am in no way confused. I am very sorry that you had such a horrible time though, those people were definately confused and probably derranged.

Way i see it is this, pregnant women are encouraged to talk to their baby, they get emotionally attached to the "foetus" are they wrong?

gordy, the opposite of "zealot" is not "confused."

Athinginyourlife. See I disagree with that (There's a shock!)

I would normally describe myself as 'anti abortion' but I often feel that comes across as harsher sounding than 'pro life' which to me, sounds more positive.

Not all Catholics are utterly toxic, just the pro-life ones.

The ones that don't want the Irish government to legislate to allow abortions for women whose lives are at risk if they don't have one.

They pretend to be all concern for women, but when a woman's life is in danger they want the foetus to be protected and the woman to die.

it is if the person doesn;t know if they believe a life is from conception or not - or only in some cases is isn;t but most t is