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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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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:45

mary - well, I'm not sure we do accept it's sad, as this thread bears witness. This thread is all about the idea that women shouldn't get uppity and demand too many rights, because it'd be wrong to let them grieve and have legal abortion.

The law doesn't work fine.

The law needs to better protect women.

Meantime, society needs to better support women.

We need to be in a situation where a woman who loses a wanted 7 month foetus can grieve for that foetus however she chooses, including on a published list of lost lives - and where a woman can have a safe abortion. We don't currently have that.

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BoomBoomsCousin · 13/07/2017 23:48

LRD I worry about official recognition of fetuses as persons in part because of this experience of your friend's: "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."

She didn't abort the baby because she thought is wasn't a person, but she was able to abort because it wasn't officially a person. Once fetuses are given official status in the eyes of the law, they obtain rights that others can seek to enforce.

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:48

I don't understand what you are arguing for. It looks like you are saying the other posters are wrong and that unborn babies should be legally people, but that doing that wouldn't affect the abortion laws?
So how would that work, its a person if we want to have it but not a person if we don't?

I really don't get it.

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:50

But there are many instances where parents or guardians can decide for a legal person.
Including to remove life support.
Why shouldn't it happen to a foetus?

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:52

because having an abortion isn't anything like removing life support from a breathing person, I guess.

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:52

So how would that work, its a person if we want to have it but not a person if we don't?

Reminding that abortion is only legal in special circumstances in the UK after 24 weeks.
A woman can't simply decide to abort after that.

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BoomBoomsCousin · 13/07/2017 23:53

Lewji if as a parent you decide to remove life support for your child and the doctors disagree, they can go to court to get a judge to decide what is in the best interests of your child. Is that what should happen with every late term abortion?

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coddiwomple · 13/07/2017 23:53

No such thing as an "unborn baby", let alone an "unborn child". No such thing as an "unborn baby", let alone an "unborn child".

absolute nonsense, what are they then?

They are babies, they have right to be protected - not talking about abortion, but about medical experiment? more and more third trimester babies would survive if their mother was made to give birth prematurely.

A baby you are carrying is not nothing, having a stillbirth is not nothing, the little person you hold in your arms is not nothing even if he is dead.

Some truly disgusting comments on this thread

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:53

what about before 24 weeks though? are you saying you think it should be a person from 24 weeks but not before?

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:54

because having an abortion isn't anything like removing life support from a breathing person, I guess

Not exactly like, but it could be considered equivalent. Or to euthanasia (legal in some countries).

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:54

Not exactly like, but it could be considered equivalent

I don't see how?

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:54

boom, of course, I worry too. But, the point is that laws change. If we continue only to argue for women's rights within the law, we won't ever get many rights!

mary - I am arguing that it would be nice if laws changed substantially. I would like to see a legal situation where we didn't have to choose between screwing over women who need abortions versus women who have lost much-wanted foetuses.

It's not actually impossible.

The reason I mentioned marital rape is that, back then, one common argument was that we couldn't decriminalise marital rape, or women would lose the legal protections of marriage, because what else was marriage but the right of a man to a woman?

Thank god, we've made progress. Very few people would now think that there is a binary decision to be made between marital rape, or legal protection of assets within marriage. But back then - and we're only talking 1991, not the Dark Ages - people made exactly the sorts of arguments made on this thread. 'We can't allow that because it would endanger this'.

Women need laws to change - not in tiny increments, but substantially.

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BoomBoomsCousin · 13/07/2017 23:55

Also, aspects of late term abortion are not exactly analogous to removing life support, and could be construed as going beyond what is allowable for doctors to do to a person.

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:55

are you saying you think it should be a person from 24 weeks but not before?

Why are people insisting on black and white?
Having legal rights is not necessarily being considered a full person in legal terms.

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Chestervase1 · 13/07/2017 23:56

LRD why couldn't the person you refer to have had a cesearean section. How would the baby have been crushed by labour.

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:56

mary - I am arguing that it would be nice if laws changed substantially. I would like to see a legal situation where we didn't have to choose between screwing over women who need abortions versus women who have lost much-wanted foetuses

how would that look though? how would you have a law that allows for abortion but also counts a foetus as a murder victim?

I'm sorry for all the questions but I'm trying to understand.

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:56

mary, have you ever had an abortion or seen life support withdrawn?

I've done both, and both were my decision. I felt they were very similar.

You may disagree, but I'm not speaking from a position of ignorance here.

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:56

Why are people insisting on black and white?

Isn't that what laws are. in general?

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marymarytoocontrary · 13/07/2017 23:57

mary, have you ever had an abortion or seen life support withdrawn? yes and sort of yes. and I don't see how they are at all the same, to me personally.

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BoomBoomsCousin · 13/07/2017 23:58

LRD I don't see how women's rights are enhanced by changing the status of fetuses, especially because the status of fetuses in the eyes of the women carrying them is not consistent.

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:58

chester - the baby had a condition where the bones break at the slightest touch. It's fatal at or shortly after birth, no matter what you do. If I understand rightly, even Braxton Hicks/normal movements would have caused fractures.

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 13/07/2017 23:59

boom - fortunately, I'm not arguing for changing the legal status of a foetus.

I am arguing that, in a situation such as the OP describes, it would be humane to include the unborn child on a list of those who are mourned.

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Lweji · 13/07/2017 23:59

Why are people insisting on black and white?

Isn't that what laws are. in general?

Sigh.
A law should ideally be black or white.
But a law can recognise that situations aren't black or white.
A law for 3rd trimester babies can give them more rights than earlier stages and less than a born baby. Surely you can understand that?

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marymarytoocontrary · 14/07/2017 00:01

A law for 3rd trimester babies can give them more rights than earlier stages and less than a born baby. Surely you can understand that?

yes, thank you I can. But i thought the argument was about whether it was a person or not, and you haven't said how that can be a grey area. It either is or it isn't, it can't sometimes depending on lots of other things, can it?

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marymarytoocontrary · 14/07/2017 00:03

I am arguing that, in a situation such as the OP describes, it would be humane to include the unborn child on a list of those who are mourned

.but you were arguing against ther other posters who hadn't disagreed tiwh that?
I'm getting more confused not less.

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