To think late-term abortion rules may need tightening up?

[FestiveNut]

Should people be able to abort healthy fetuses in a low risk pregnancy past 20 weeks gestation?

I read a very sad story concerning this earlier. I considered myself pro-choice in all circumstances but this thread has caused me to question that.

Should the threshold be lowered?

I lean towards pro choice but the psychological argument is a tricky one - ending a potentially long life to avoid a short period of mental trauma.

15 years later the child won't even be an adult, yet the psychological trauma will likely be a distant memory.

Is there not a waiting list to adopt healthy new born babies?

No, there isn't. There are far more babies and children in care than there are readilt available carers. On the occasion where a baby must be removed from the mother straight after birth (usually if the mother is a heroin addict in my area) the baby goes to emergency carers, whoever is qualified/suitable to look after it until a time where a more permanent home can be found. It's not like Friends where new mummy and daddy help the woman give birth and trot into the sunset with babe in arms.

It's not a walk in the park but it's better than killing a fully formed baby in my opinion, and that of the majority of people. The vast majority of women are perfectly capable of getting an abortion within the legal limit, which is already one of the highest in the world.

@GunpowderGelatine SocialService whisked away new borns from dangerous parents. If you just refused to nurse or have anything to do with the child, the hospital would have to intervene. Surely if planned adoption mother would have a plan in place?

15 years later the child won't even be an adult, yet the psychological trauma will likely be a distant memory.

You can't possibly mean the mother's psychological trauma will be a distant memory, can you? I mean, that's absurd. Trauma can persist for decades. So what on earth do you mean?

@GunpowderGelatine in fact there is a MASSIVE waiting list to adopt babies, and babies with no health problems (I.e. alcohol/drug exposure or severe neglect) are incredibly rare.

Babies that are just not wanted or that the mother thinks would be better off adopted are rarer than hens' teeth.

I've known of 2 incidences of 20+ weeks late abortion. For no medical reasons, just the boyfriends did not want the baby. It's all about a womans choice but by that stage the baby should be respected enough as a human being to have a chance of life. What's the difference between 21 weeks and 25 weeks? The baby is fully formed, it can feel pain, its not a bunch of cells it's a tiny little person. It sickens me to my stomach and if you dont want a baby, DO NOT CREATE ONE, there is the womans choice.

Have lifted this from The Spectator, which states only 500 children a year are adopted, with 73,000 children in the care system (this articulated the issue re newborn adoption far better than I could):

when an unwanted baby is born, the overriding ethic of the authorities is that the child should stay with its mother, even if she can’t cope or doesn’t want to. Every effort is made to persuade and support her and help her to look after her child. Many children spend years in short stints with their natural mother, interspersed with periods in foster care, some good, some bad. Years of court hearings and this ‘pass the parcel’ existence can, and does, damage a lot of those children. And with every year in care, children are less and less likely to find someone to adopt them.

GunpowderGelatine

Your feelings about the effect of it do not make it any more or less natural than the state of having 5 fingers do they ? Therefore to say the natural biological condition you find yourself in is forced upon you is hyperbolic. Who is going to actually force you to give birth ? God ? So I give you a 0/10 on that one since we are marking. Hyperbole only usable by one side obviously.

Again repeating ad infinitum that a foetus is not a baby does not persuade people their instinct is wrong and it is very much ok to kill the thing that is decidely not a baby despite the obvious similarity that renders it largely indistinguishable from one, on the mothers whim. You know all this of course which is why this is utterly pointless.

@GunpowderGelatine How about using the baby vital organs for transplant if they could do that would you be ok with that?

@HavelockVetinari do you have a link to show there's a massive waiting list for babies waiting to be adopted?

@ElonMask I really can't continue to engage with you if you insist on pushing the ridiculous analogy that being pregnant is like having 5 fingers

And once again please report baby killings to the police. Thankfully the law doesn't agree that abortion is "killing a baby" and your use of such emotive language only highlights your inability to form a coherent point

@Neweternal - I'm not an expert in organ donation so unsure how it works. But once again, if that was an option, it would be 100% down to the woman carrying it, and no one else.

It sickens me to my stomach and if you dont want a baby, DO NOT CREATE ONE, there is the womans choice.

2 people create a baby yet it only falls to 1 to deal with the consequences. Take your misogyny elsewhere.

The baby is fully formed, it can feel pain

With all due respect a 25 week old foetus is not fully formed and is not capable of life outside the womb without intensive care, the ability for them to feel pain is also questionable due to the brain being very immature and underdeveloped.

You can't possibly mean the mother's psychological trauma will be a distant memory, can you? I mean, that's absurd. Trauma can persist for decades. So what on earth do you mean?

No doubt it can persist for decades, but you'd have to be really fucked up by the experience to wish 15 years later that you'd had an abortion instead.

Generally, though, people experience much worse trauma (losing loved ones in horrendous accidents etc) and are able to grieve and resume a reasonably normal life within a few years, even if the experience leaves a lasting effect.

Gun, you have been wonderfully patient but please stop engaging with that poster.
They are strawman/hyperbole city and only want to frustrate you

@username1724 This is exactly the experiences I've heard about boyfriends not wanting the child and mother feeling vulnerable and pressurised. I raised this issue and was dismissed although if a mother wishes one due to domestic violence it's different. The chances are abortion is used as domestic violence, it about power and control and that is the ultimate control for a man.

Ok but Cosmic what if the woman was giving birth, and as she crowned she bludgeoned her baby, is it an abortion or murder, hmm, HMM??!! See because of this VERY SITUATION WHICH WOULD NEVER HAPPEN it throws the whole pro choice stance into question . Honestly did you think you'd get away with women having control over their bodies? Pfft. Only women with cancer/a billion children/a vampire baby/a 'handicapped' baby (never fucking use that word whoever did) inside them are noble enough to be granted an abortion by the great minds of MN

2 people create a baby yet it only falls to 1 to deal with the consequences. Take your misogyny elsewhere.

Are you saying the father doesn't deal with any consequences?

At least a woman can choose whether she ends up a parent. There are loads of guys supporting children who didn't wish to be parents but had no choice after a contraceptive mishap.

Are you saying the father doesn't deal with any consequences?

Unless they're the pregnant ones no they don't. Maybe emotional consequences, but with the greatest of respect, tough, it ain't their body and they won't be affected a fraction of the way the woman is

At least a woman can choose whether she ends up a parent. There are loads of guys supporting children who didn't wish to be parents but had no choice after a contraceptive mishap.

Yeah lucky lucky women having to Male that choice

Promise me you won't tell anyone, as I don't want to cause unrest, but there are two ways of ensuring that men don't become fathers. Vasectomy, and abstinence. As I said earlier I know it's horrifying to think of men not sticking their dick in everything that moves but there you go, I trust your mind is suitably blown

While it is dependent on a woman her life and choices 100% trump the foetus/baby.

A baby is 100% dependent on the adults (principally the mother) until they’re well
beyond the first year. By this logic, the mother (or those responsible) should have the right over the baby’s right to existence until the dependency was over. Indeed, infanticide was common and accepted practice in many earlier cultures.

@Oakenbeach I think you know perfectly well that I meant physically dependent, sustaining life only from the woman. If the mother of a 1 week old baby dies, the baby does not.

But still it's fun to be obtuse isn't it!

Have lifted this from The Spectator, which states only 500 children a year are adopted, with 73,000 children in the care system

And the vast majority of the 73,000 are older children. Tragic as that is, it has no bearing on the adoption of babies.

Scott have a word with the poster that feels this is all on the womens shoulders DO NOT CREATE ONE, there is the womans choice. apparently creating a baby is all the womans choice.

A woman should always be able to choose what happens to her body.