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AIBU?

To think unborn babies should be counted as disaster victims?

126 replies

pudding24 · 13/07/2017 21:46

I've just read that an unborn baby (7 months) was killed in the Grenfell fire disaster - thankfully the mother was not.

I've also just read that an unborn baby of 7 months was killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and yet the official death toll is 6, not 7 or '6 + one unborn child'.

AIBU to think that - especially in the third trimester - the likelihood is that that baby would have been born and led a full and wonderful life, and therefore they are just as much a victim and should be included in counts and reports?

OP posts:

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grandOlejukeofYork · 13/07/2017 23:09

grand - actually, no, we could let the parents decide. We just don't. There's no impossibility to it

There is. Laws cannot change depending on how you feel. That isn't how law works.

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ShakingAndShocked · 13/07/2017 23:10

'Think about what you are suggesting for a minute before taking out those little violins.' Irrespective of your views on the subject matter...

....that is a fucking disgusting and disgraceful comment to make in the context of an OP which is clearly referring to a woman doubtless still clutching her now empty bump - not a discussion in the abstract, but vis a real person who until a few weeks ago would have been feeling her unborn son/daughter kicking away inside of her.

Truly vile.

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grandOlejukeofYork · 13/07/2017 23:10

LRD, I don't know what kind of utopia you live in, but I do believe it is in the clouds.

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:11

No, really?

You sound exactly like the people who said we could never criminalize marital rape, because it was all too complicated.

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JemDoughnut · 13/07/2017 23:13

I agree with LRD.

I worked in a hospital and had to handle 'miscarriage tissue' and it always made me sad regardless of my view on what is and isn't a life, because to the person who miscarried, their partner, their family...they had suffered a loss.

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grandOlejukeofYork · 13/07/2017 23:14

Fuck off. How fucking low can you get? I'm defending the main law that means you can have legal abortion and THAT is what you choose to throw at me?

You should be ashamed to use the word feminist in your username.

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:18

the foetus knows nothing, feels nothing

That's not true at all.

Abortion is not legal in most places regardless of time. Later stage abortions tend to be restricted, even in the UK, for a reason.

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:19

No, I'm not ashamed. And swearing at me doesn't convince me more.

Laws change. They change because people think about them, instead of sneering and saying 'ooh, that can't happen'.

Do you not think about women at all here? There's a woman who has lost her much-wanted baby.

Abortions that happen after 24 weeks are gut-wrenching. I know, because I know people who've had them. I know someone who had to terminate a pregnancy because her baby was going to experience extreme pain, be essentially crushed as she went into labour, and then die.

She didn't abort that baby because she didn't want it or because it 'wasn't a person'. She aborted because it would be unimaginably cruel to put a baby through that pain only for it to die - in more pain.

Abortion rights are women's rights. That extends to realising that a woman who has carried a baby may very well feel that it is a person. The current law, that a pre-term foetus is not a 'person,' is the sort of shitty law we have under patriarchy. But we could hope for better. Saying we can't is the sort of wishy-washy lib-fem stuff that makes change slower and harder on women.

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grandOlejukeofYork · 13/07/2017 23:20

The knows nothing and feels nothing was, I believe, talking about self awareness rather than capacity for pain (the poster can correct me if I am wrong?)

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grandOlejukeofYork · 13/07/2017 23:23

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:24

Even not in the context of pain, later stage foetuses can recognise their mother's voice, they respond to sounds, they suck thumbs, etc.
In many ways a born baby is still very much a foetus too. Humans are born earlier than most animals in proportion to their size.
They just lack an umbilical cord.

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:26

grandOlejukeofYork

You do realise that later stage abortions are not legal unless in special circumstances?

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grandOlejukeofYork · 13/07/2017 23:28

Sorry, going to hide this thread. I was an abortion activist in countries where it is illegal, for the main reason that foetuses have legal personhood.
You really haven't a clue what the reality is, you can have your theory but people die because of these laws.

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DesperatelySeekingSushi · 13/07/2017 23:29

Tempting though it is to report your abuse of LRD, with you calling her a nutjob and telling her to fuck off, I'm not going to because I want your posts to stand ole. They say far more about you than a deletion could.

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Lurkedforever1 · 13/07/2017 23:29

I don't think there is a happy medium. On the one hand, if you want the baby, or hope to carry to full term, then it's a baby during pregnancy in your mind, and the loss should be acknowledged. On the other hand, terminating a pregnancy you simply don't want to continue to term with is just removal of some cells, and the words victim, baby, and unborn child are hugely inappropriate and imply termination is wrong.

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:29

There's a big difference between all foetuses being considered a legal person and later stage foetuses being in a grey area.

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DesperatelySeekingSushi · 13/07/2017 23:30

Shame you aren't an activist for mental health then, "nutjob" is fucking shameful.

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:31

There's a big difference between all foetuses being considered a legal person and later stage foetuses being in a grey area

where is the line though? you would have to pick a time a day a month where an unborn was not a person and then they were.

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Sienna9522 · 13/07/2017 23:33

Boom very well said!

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RhiWrites · 13/07/2017 23:35

I'm reading The Handmaid's Tale right now. You really can't call a fetus a person.

But to describe the death as a loss and to include them in memorials does seem appropriate and kind.

But thin end of the wedge is very bad. There are so many places where women can't access abortion services because there fetus = person.

I understand that expecting mothers and those with the tragedy of miscarriage will see this differently. But in the law we have to preserve the legal status of a fetus as not yet legally a person.

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:36

Don't you think about women? Changing the laws in a way that would ruin abortion rights for all women does nothing to help any poor woman who has lost her baby, but would ruin many lives.

Um ... no, it wouldn't. You have been conned by the libfem idea that laws can only change in certain, small ways.

There is no reason why we couldn't accept both that it is sad when women lose much-wanted babies, and that women need safe abortion.

But that would clearly blow the minds of many lib-fem types, who can't understand that pregnancy is a complicated business, and that women can both need abortion, and love and hope for the lives of their foetuses.

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:38

I mean, FGS. I can love my grandmother and be devastated at her death. I can also love my grandmother and give the go-ahead for her life support to be turned off.

If, as a civilized society, we can more or less accept this, we could surely accept the same for foetuses.

Except, we won't, so long as people keep assuming that women's emotions around pregnancy are irrelevant, and that abortion should only be available on sufferance and after much guilt-tripping.

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:39

Grey area is the clue. :)

There will never be a clear line while in the womb. It will always be grey, and shift according to opinions and sensitivities. But at least we can acknowledge that later stage foetuses are not just collections of cells, nor completely independent bodies.

If their presence endangers another life or their own lives aren't likely to succeed it makes sense to end that pregnancy. But, all else being well, if someone ends that pregnancy it shouldn't be legal, IMO. If against the mother's wishes then I'd support it being considered murder or a casualty, as if for a legal person.

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user1497480444 · 13/07/2017 23:41

I think fetuses DO have legal recognition and protection. The death of a third trimester fetus through violence is called "child destruction" , and is a crime of similar weighting to murder if done deliberately.

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:42

There is no reason why we couldn't accept both that it is sad when women lose much-wanted babies, and that women need safe abortion

we already do that though and the law works fine as it is so why do yuo think we need to change the law to do that?

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