Irish abortion laws

[crumpet]

In all the publicity about the gay marriage referendum Aibu to wonder why there hasn't been mention of the abortion laws? Have I missed discussion on this?

Bumbly you are so backward its quite frightening. You are so invested in the unborn you seem to forget there are living breathing women and mothers who are affected daily by the 8th amendment. Families going through heartache. Women suffering with their mental health.
Why do you not care about these women and families? What has led you to be so unemotional and cut off from reality when it comes to a woman's right over her own body. You have more sympathy for an embryo or foetus than a woman who may already be a mother and what about her children her partner her brothers and sisters.
I will never understand the anti choice forced birth campaign but I would really like to know what's behind it all.
Rip Savita and all women who have and will be let down by Irish law

Bumbly is that Classic pro-lifer, solely concerned with the unborn, not a thought or consideration given the those actually born.

I find that the 'pro life' movement seems to think so little of the women and girls who are forced to continue with an unwanted pregnancy. Unfortunately it does come down to misogyny, women and girls viewed as good for nothing more than incubating babies.

lucybabs - your posts are so brave. I am so sorry you were so badly let down by our country. It is not good enough.

I do believe the tide is turning though. There are few in society who would genuinely sanction the situation you endured at the hands of our state. Really just a small but very vocal minority - often (but not always) also determined to terrify more reasonable or open to reason folk with scary religious based dogma.

Anyway I do hope and believe that soon people in your situation will be allowed to choose to terminate and have that care provided free of charge and close to home, like all other women in the uk. I also hope and believe this will happen in the ROI once they figure out how to deal with the 8th.

I personally also hope that both legislatures step up at the same time and address the provision of abortion holistically. I think a sensible regime allows for a limited welfare principle in respect of a foetus once it reaches a gestational point where it can feel pain. But this must always be second to the rights of the mother to her life and her health. The mother should also be listened to when she is saying what is impacting on her life and health. She will be after all uniquely qualified to comment.

Basically I think and I think most other people agree that it's time that women were shown a bit of compassion but more importantly respect, and entrusted, with medical advice, to make the best decisions for themselves and their families - existing and potential.

Sabrina - why should I need to enlighten you? you said you'd read it

The part of key causal factor 2 that mentions the legislation is to do with what the doctor thought it meant which was incorrect (see finding from High court) - " The law does not require the doctors to wait
until the mother is in peril of immediate death."

The doctor was in the wrong. After I quoted from the findings you said 'you've omitted something' (the quote from the diagram) implying that you think it means something else.

key causal factor 2:

Failure to offer all management options to a patient experiencing inevitable miscarriage of an
early second trimester pregnancy where the risk to the mother increased with time from the
time that membranes were ruptured .

The options were available - the doctor didn't offer them.

Anyway, enough time wasted. We'll agree to disagree. You think the law killed her, I think it was the negligent doctors not offering a procedure that was legally allowed to be offered to her.

Classic 'pro-lifer' respecting every human's right to life. I know you don't agree with that.

Classic 'pro-lifer' respecting every human's right to life.

Where woman != human

"Where woman != human" returns FALSE

They're equally human.

^The purpose of this investigation is not to carry out a legal review of the law in Ireland in relation to a situation where a clinician has to consider whether a termination is in the best clinical welfare interest of a patient. This investigation is concerned with establishing in so far as is practicable the clinical circumstances in which a patient in hospital died in a tragic
and untimely manner. The investigation team is satisifed that concerns about the law, whether clear or not, impacted on the exercise of clinical professional judgement. The investigation team did not have the remit to attempt to review this aspect of Irish Law.^

Page 69.

I also believe women = human.

Savita was not treated as such - her 17wk old foetus who had no chance of life, but with a heartbeat, was put above her own welfare. She was refused the termination she requested.

Yes, better medical management could possibly have still saved her - but the root of all of it was the abortion laws - outdated, misogynistic and unclear.

I really dislike that 'agree to disagree' thing.

Nope, we will keep arguing against beastly inhumane regimes and viewpoints actually, we won't just 'agree to disagree'. Especially when what you mean by that is 'please just be silent now'.

The reason these threads are circular is because it reaches a point where any reasonable and rational person would accept/concede a point, and yet that just doesn't happen. A fundamentalist type viewpoint on the rights of a foetus blinds other considerations. That is the thing with fundamentalism, it shuts people of from reason, compassion and sense.

Anyway. This debate don't be shut down, the pro choice lobby won't be silenced. Neither on MN nor in the real world.

'Off' not 'of'.

It's also worth noting that, from the HSE report:

International best practice includes expediting delivery in this clinical situation of an inevitable miscarriage at 17 week with prolonged rupture of the membranes and infection in the uterus because of the risk to the mother if the pregnancy is allowed to continue.

The law prevented that best practice. You can blame the doctor's interpretation of the law - but the fact the law exists to be (mis)interpreted, and will have an affect on clinical decisions is the relevant point here.

Anyway. This debate don't be shut down, the pro choice lobby won't be silenced. Neither on MN nor in the real world.

Hear, hear. (Although I'm off out now, will look in later.)

They're equally human.

If I'm only as human as an organism incapable of independent life and which depends on, and depletes, my body to stay alive, then I'm not really very human at all, am I?

Sabrinna, that doesn't go against anything I've said. We know that the doctors said they were confused about the law. That doesn't mean that the law didn't permit them to carry out the procedure. They were legally allowed to act .She was at risk. They did not act.

Th root of it was the doctors not realising that she was at risk.

Jus, I don't mean 'just be silent' but everything has been said. It's just going around in circles.

"any reasonable and rational person would accept/concede a point"

Like the doctors could have performed an abortion in accordance with the law but didn't?

Bathtime - yes, you are.

Like the doctors could have done that, but the law is vague and confusing, and they are doctors not lawyers, so they felt that they couldn't.

Is the point. Well, one of the points. Please see what I have said re respect and compassion and trust for women, and the recognition of their rights, for other important points.

Also please re-read what lucybabs addressed to you above.

If that doesn't inspire some compassion and a rethink of your hardline approach I just don't know. I pity you.

Findings from the X case:

" The law does not require the doctors to wait
until the mother is in peril of immediate death. "

Why were they waiting? Sorry but it's a cop out to say they didn't know they could act. The investigators found that she was at risk. They found that she wasn't adequately monitored. Her waters had been broken for over 24 hours with increasing risk of infection and apparently the doctors didn't consider her 'at risk'.

This is what their 'plan' was: "The patient’s vital signs and the fetal heart were to be monitored and the plan was to induce labour when the fetal heart stopped. " Except that they weren't monitoring the foetal heart (Savita requested that they didn't and they didn't change their plans) and they weren't monitoring her.

I've never understood why people say that we shouldn't have laws wrt this - we should just 'trust women'. Why have any laws at all then? Why not just trust everyone to do what they think is best/what makes them happy? Take a not our life/not our problem attitude?

Most laws don't dictate what competent adults can and can't to with their own bodies.

"
If I'm only as human as an organism incapable of independent life and which depends on, and depletes, my body to stay alive, then I'm not really very human at all, am I?" What an incredibly cold thing to say. This is a human baby you are talking about, not a disease or a parasite.

And suggesting that repealing the 8th is akin to embracing full blown anarchism is hysterical.

It might sound cold mac and no one is suggesting it's the sum of what a pregnant woman feels for a foetus, but it's part of the scientific reality of what an embryo/foetus is.

lucy - I don't have more sympathy for a foetus. It's about thinking/respecting that life begins in utero and therefore treating it as you would a life outside. I realise that many people don't agree with the idea that life begins in utero but maybe if you look at it from that perspective you can have more of an understanding of where people are coming from.

"And suggesting that repealing the 8th is akin to embracing full blown anarchism is hysterical."

I'm not saying that. Just wondering why 'we should trust women' comes up in respect to abortion law but no other law.

jus, it doesn't it make 'inhuman' though.