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?

Gordy,

We are either discussing law or morality.

It is no more likely that unconditional abortion up until birth will become law than that an unconditional right to assisted suicide will become law. And you know why? Because both are clearly, in most people's minds, morally wrong. And, in general, law tends to follow perceived morality.

Viability is, a dangerous criterion as it will continue dropping. And, are we talking independent viability or assisted viability. I think the only way to formulate a reasonable criterion is to decide at what point a foetus acquires its "humanness". That will remain subjective but, with modern scans etc, it can be seen that a 24 week old foetus (for instance) has many demonstrably human characteristics. And, by comparison, a 10 week foetus has very few if any.

"AThing - abortion is allowed in Ireland/NI if the life of the woman is in danger."

In the Republic of Ireland it is far from clear that this us the case.

The Supreme Court judgement in the X Case (where pro-lifers tried to prevent a pregnant 15 year old, who had been raped repeatedly by a family member, from travelling to England for an abortion) affirmed that women had the right to an abortion where their life was in danger.

But that judgment was in the 80s and there is still no legislation governing what should happen in this kind of situation, or what the legal position would be of a doctor who carried out such an abortion.

Lobbying by pro-life pressure groups has been influential in making sure the right to life of women living in Ireland remains compromised.

"Viability is, a dangerous criterion as it will continue dropping."

Who says it will continue dropping?

And even if it does, why does that make it a dangerous moral argument?

I wonder how many women abort late to spite their partners in comparison to how many late pregnancies are ended by DV?

I would be interested to see the figures on that.

Because you can't base your definition of 'life' on a statistic or a random number. If a foetus isn't considered a life before 24 weeks then what are babies born at 22 weeks that survive? Many people have pointed out that the number of 'social' abortions at that late stage are very small so why exactly are we allowing them when clearly the boundaries of life are starting to get a bit blurry around then?

AThing - do you live in Ireland?

Adifferentname for this - you dismissed my question earlier so perhaps you don't want toanswer it but I think it is quite relevant to consider the alternative. You may have felt unloved/unwanted but the alternative that you are arguing for would mean that you are dead and that your current family wouldn't exist at all. Would you actually prefer that? Also bear in mind that a woman does not have to keep a baby/child so a better life is possible for the child- it doesn't have to be a choice between dead or miserable. How can you argue for a woman's right to choose and then criticise a woman for choosing to keep a child? It doesn't really make sense.

Bumbleymummy - the alternative that you are arguing for would mean that you are dead and that your current family wouldn't exist at all. Someone that never existed in the first place could not be 'dead'. That argument is really scraping the barrel and makes no sense at all.

Also bear in mind that a woman does not have to keep a baby/child so a better life is possible for the child- - This makes a massive assumption that there are queues of people just waiting to adopt, whereas the reality is that tens of thousands of children grow up in care.

" If a foetus isn't considered a life before 24 weeks then what are babies born at 22 weeks that survive?"

Who has ever said that a foetus isn't "a life"?

The argument is that, although alive, it isn't capable of sustaining that life without a woman's body.

This isn't simple.

And arguments about when life "begins" seek to make it so.

If a foetus is a "life", then so is a zygote, the existence of which isn't even known to the not-yet-pregnant woman.

You want to give them personhood too?

The same right to life as the women whose bodies they are not even embedded in?

Because that's the pro-life dream - all women treated as incubators with restricted rights in case they are a container for "a life".

These accusations of hating women if you don't support abortion to term are offensive.

I never suggested late abortion is common or would be if freely available, but that the right could be abused or hurtful to both mother and child.

Laws can protect against rare occurrences such as murder. If no such law was in place would there be more murders?

Athing,

As I postulated earlier in the thread, what if it becomes possible to create an artificial womb to sustain an embryo almost from conception. Would that be an argument to outlaw abortion?

Also, what is "moral" about viability. A child with leukemia is not viable out of a positive pressure room. Should we be allowed to kill them?

But what if a woman wanted to abort her baby weeks before birth to spite her partner

Are you FUCKING KIDDING?

My jaw is on the floor with that one. FFS.

"Yes, it's very important that we legislate for what evil, vindictive bitches women are.... That's just how women are"

AThing - nobody said that "women" (that homogenous group) are "evil, vindictive bitches". What I said is that women are individuals. We are not all one way, and we are not all the other. You can't base legislation on an assumption of universal decency. If we did that there would be no laws against child abuse, rape or murder.

What you're saying is that no woman would conceivably "want the foetus they feel kicking inside them destroyed in order to hurt a man."

I presume that you've never heard of a single case in which a woman has killed her child, or one in which a woman has killed a baby, or has inflicted horrific abuse on a baby, or has allowed someone else to abuse or kill her baby.

By your [complete lack of] logic, to acknowledge that that has ever happened, or could ever happen, would be the same as to imply that it's the norm, and that women are, in general, vindictive bitches.

Fucking hell is right.

larry

"As I postulated earlier in the thread, what if it becomes possible to create an artificial womb to sustain an embryo almost from conception. Would that be an argument to outlaw abortion?"

I did a whole post in response to that point of yours earlier in the thread :)

My argument was basically that the entire moral framework of pregnancy would change, and that abortion rights would have to a a different ethical basis.

"Also, what is "moral" about viability. A child with leukemia is not viable out of a positive pressure room. Should we be allowed to kill them?"

Viability comes into a moral argument about abortion because it also implies independence of another person's body, and it's the dependence that makes this tricky ethically.

I'm sure you're not suggesting that a woman should have the same consideration in law/ethics as a positive pressure room.

OneHand

"What you're saying is that no woman would conceivably "want the foetus they feel kicking inside them destroyed in order to hurt a man." "

I'd thank you to stop telling me what I'm saying, particularly when you are wrong.

By your logic, a woman could conceivably have a late term abortion in order to create an interesting sculpture for her garden, so we need to legislate for that too.

Can we deal with the actual issues here rather than projecting our fear of women's innate vindictiveness into the argument.

Bear in mind that making something illegal doesn't actually stop it happening. Murder has always been illegal. Accepting and enshrining in law that it is up to the pregnant woman to choose what happens within her body wouldn't mean that all pregnant women started aborting all over the place because it's Such Fun and Proves What A Feminist You Are. It would just mean that those women who wanted and needed abortions could access them quickly and safely.

Mind you, I would also like to see a flip-side to this law WRT viable/non-viable premature babies. It should be up to the mother to decide whether or not a premature baby is resuscitated if it's born at 22 weeks and is alive; not the HCPs. Because it should be, in every single circumstance going, UP TO THE WOMAN what happens. She might want to take medical advice and listen to the opinion of her partner or other family members, but they do not have any rights to veto her choices.

Athing,

I do feel at some point a woman needs to take responsibility for her pregnancy. She has got pregnant and she has had 24 weeks to ask for an abortion and obtain one legally. If she has become pregnant and failed to ask for an abortion by 24 weeks, at that point I feel that she ought to be made to carry the life inside her for a further 16 weeks. As I, and I think most people (female and male) believe, it is a trade off between the rights of the woman and the rights of the foetus. And, as I have also said earlier, this is not a comparison of a woman's right to life versus a foetus's right to life. It is a comparison of the foetus's right to have a chance at life versus 16 weeks of being forced to endure an unwanted foetus inside you. Enduring labour is an irrelevant argument as, from 24 weeks onwards, one way or another, the woman will have to give birth, be it naturally or via c section.

Most feminists will argue that if a man has sex with a woman and she becomes pregnant and chooses to keep the baby, the man has to take responsibility for his role in the pregnancy,regardless of whether he wants the baby to be born, due to the fact the no one made him have sex with the woman and he could always remain celibate. In a sense, at this point he has lost autonomy over his DNA.

And, as I have also said, the idea of complete bodily autonomy for either sex is a myth, as soon as one asks the medical profession to get involved.

Pregnancy through rape complicates things and should probably be dealt with separately. But, again, it should be done balancing the rights of the woman versus the rights of the foetus. Clearly, if it was a mental health issue for the woman, maybe aborting a healthy foetus up to birth could be allowed, although I still think allowing the woman a c section whenever she chose and the baby being adopted is probably a more ethical solution for both parties.

SGB,

If a baby is born and viable, why should the father not have an equal say in whether it is resuscitated?

SGB - making something illegal doesn't actually stop it happening

I made this point upthread. According to the World Health Organisation:
"...approximately 68,000 women die annually as a result of complications of unsafe abortion; and between two million and seven million women each year survive unsafe abortion but sustain long-term damage or disease (incomplete abortion, infection (sepsis), haemorrhage, and injury to the internal organs, such as puncturing or tearing of the uterus). They also concluded abortion is safe in countries where it's legal, but dangerous in countries where it's outlawed and performed clandestinely. The WHO reports that in developed regions, nearly all abortions (92%) are safe, whereas in developing countries, more than half (55%) are unsafe.[8] According to WHO statistics, the risk rate for unsafe abortion is 1/270; according to other sources, unsafe abortion is responsible for one in eight maternal deaths."

Any argument to restrict abortions needs to address this, but seldom does. I have yet to hear a 'pro-lifer' acknowledge that (a) making abortion difficult or illegal will not result in every pregnancy leading to a healthy baby, that (b) women will continue to seek abortions, whether lawful or not, or that (c) women (many of whom will already be mothers) will die as a result. Research proves this. I would like to see a pro-lifer acknowledge these things and tell me why they think returning to 'the good old days of backstreet abortion', which would be an inevitable outcome if access to abortions was denied, is a positive alternative to what we already have.

Because the woman carried the baby in her body, so if the couple are not in agreement, she gets the final say. Or would you think it's fine for the man to be able to say the baby should not be resuscitated and his word carry, because he's the man?

AThing I would thank you to stop telling me that I have a fear of the "innate vindictiveness of women", particularly when you are wrong and not using any logical means to reach that conclusion.

Yes, we should legislate against a woman wanting to make a foetus sculpture. Just like we legislate against someone wanting make a dead-adult sculpture.

By legislating against murder.

We don't pass a law for every conceivable motive, you know. Nor should we make something legal based on some misguided view of universal female / maternal nobility.

SGB,

Not at all. I think the presumption should be to resuscitate should either party wish for it. There should be no resuscitation only when the man and woman were in accord on it.

This is another issue of rights vs responsibilities. If, in the modern world, men have equal (in every sense) responsibilities towards their offspring (which, by the way, I think they should), they also deserve equal rights over it.

"Someone that never existed in the first place could not be 'dead'"

Woolly, are you now saying tht foetuses don't exist? Anyway, my point stands - the alternative is that the person and their family don't exist if you prefer that word.

A thing, plenty of people have said that a foetus isn't a life - that it doesn't become a life until it is born/has taken its first breath etc.

Also, no one is projecting our fear of vindictiveness - we don't need to imagine these scenarios. Women have killed babies at birth or older children. We don't live in a nice rosy world where everyone values the life of a child so I think it is possible that a woman would choose to abort at a late stage of pregnancy for a non-medical reason - most of us may not understand that at all but then we don't understand infanticide either and it happens.

Woolly, a few people have actually acknowledged that and have said that not all women who seek abortions now would seek a abortion if they were putting their life at risk.

Haven't quite managed to get through all the pages, but some posters seem to have very fluffy and naive ideas of adoption, as a thing that poses no particular problems and that anybody can do.

I think it is worth looking at historical evidence. Before abortion was made legal, did abortions not happen? And before reliable abortion methods existed at all, is there any evidence that unwanted infants were not conceived? DId all unwanted children end up happily adopted by suitable parents?

Of course not. What you get is plenty of evidence of infanticide, exposure of infants and child abuse by unsuitable foster parents.

And abortion is the solution to that cory?Infanticide and child abuse happen even with abortion being available - its not really addressing that problem is it?

Abortion is not available in Ireland if the womens life is in danger. Cancer sufferers have been denied abortions in Ireland even when pregnancy will hasten their disease and kill them.

You don't think thats an example of women hating?

larry

" If she has become pregnant and failed to ask for an abortion by 24 weeks, at that point I feel that she ought to be made to carry the life inside her for a further 16 weeks."

I have no problem with that, I agree it's a reasonable compromise (as long as the health of mother and baby are not at issue) that attempts to balance competing rights and dependencies.

But the reason 24 weeks is justified as the point at which that limitation begins is because it that is the medically agreed start of viability.

Otherwise why pick 24 weeks?

Why not 37 (term)?

28 (start of 3rd trimester)?

21 (how pregnant I am right now)?

If personhood begins when a baby is separated from its mother and draws breath, then the theoretical point at which that is likely to happen if separation is forced is significant.

"We don't pass a law for every conceivable motive, you know. "

Quite.

So why bring women's vindictiveness into the argument?

Either it's irrelevant, or it's emotive and manipulative, playing to the tendency in society to believe in women's spite as a force that needs to be considered when formulating policy.