Abortion limits lowered part 2

[CosmicCanary]

I messed up the last one.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3458517-To-think-late-term-abortion-rules-may-need-tightening-up

The limits should not be lowered in my view.
I am pro choice to the point where it is the womans choice as long as her body is required.

I just don’t know how anyone can terminate a healthy pregnancy past 12 weeks, it must be very distressing

Because I don’t want a pregnancy and therefore take precautions. Due to the birth control i’m on periods are irregular etc. I can say hand on heart I wouldn’t even need to consider anything other than an abortion in case of an accidental pregnancy - if that needs to be after 12 weeks then so be it.

this silly argument that a baby is a foetus until it has left the birth canal is just theoretical nonsense

In the "silly argument" and "theoretical nonsense" that is the law, foetus is generally taken to mean the embryo from 8 weeks post fertilisation to birth.

I'm sorry if you don't like that but it is what English law states. There's plenty of things I don't like about the law too but my personal opinion doesn't change a thing.

It's more illogical to only allow abortion up to some arbitrary date.
You are either pro choice or you aren't.

@bumbleymummy
We've done this- you don't have to give birth with some methods.

Iirc ‘partial birth abortion’ is illegal. For very good reason. So no, there is not an alternative to giving birth at that stage.

The law says a baby is a person after birth in England. It is not a legal person when inside you. However it is protected to some extent by abortion law before birth. However the law does not say at 24 weeks it becomes a person.

@bumbleymummy
So is to term abortion atm. We are discussing changes in law.
It could be used- it is in the USA. To term abortion is legal there.
They have other issues blocking access on a state level though.

Was there really and need to start a PART 2 on this?

As a pp said, the law is fine as it is. All this is going to do is bring on the extremists who think aborting at full term is just fine! (Obviously for the attention, and to try and shock.) Coz the fact is NO-ONE would do this in real life.

Hiding the thread now because it's stupid and pointless.

It was outlawed in the US in the mid-2000s. Iirc someone was jailed for using the procedure since. It also carries its own risks so it’s not a ‘risk free’ alternative to giving birth - and at what cost? The life of a fully developed human capable of surviving outside the woman.

Was there really and need to start a PART 2 on this

Gosh who knew it was compulsory to respond to a thread one didnt think necessary.

I remember the case of Kermit Gosnell in America, whose clinic provided late terminations. He was convicted of the murder of 3 babies born alive after attempted late abortions. Truly horrific stuff.
I sincerely hope that abortion to term of a healthy foetus/baby for non medical reasons are never allowed here.

MsLucyLastics post from yesterday at 02:03am sums up what I came here to say, more eloquently than I could have put it myself.

I try to be pro choice but I can’t say I’m fully pro choice if that means “as late as necessary, regardless of reason”

The law may not recognise unborn babies as people, but it’s self evident that biologically they are babies, and babies well into the third trimester are pretty much newborns.

It’s a horrible thing to think of, aborting a baby so late, but it’s not just my emotions that make me disagree with those of you saying women should be able to abort a pretty much term baby.

You can’t make a comparison to any other situation or make any arguments relating to men etc because pregnancy is a unique situation in which one life resides inside another. I don’t think it’s right to say women’s rights always triumphs because there is another living being involved too.

I hope the limits aren’t extended, by that point the baby is viable and the woman could have an operation to remove the live baby. There is going to be trauma either way so why kill the baby?

What an upsetting subject.

Darien that’s fucking awful

I shouldn’t have clicked on this thread it’s horrible :( To be honest I’m shocked that people are so adamantly okay with declaring they support any stage abortion for any reason. I understand the reasoning but in reality, there is another life at stake which is innocent to any horrors or traumas the poor mother may be going through. How indecent to disregard it completely.

I think it's terribly telling of a society when a women gets a longer jail sentence for doing something to her own body than men who strangle women to death and inflict terrible internal injuries upon her and call it "consent"!!

@bumbleymummy
It's still performed they just have to inject the foetus first now with potassium chloride.
The risks are lower than other methods. I didn't say risk free.

@CourageCalls here here

@CourageCalls That the thing she isn't doing it to her OWN body. No she's looking after numero uno. These arguments comparing this to homosexuality and rape I don't get. How about comparing your full term foetus to a new born baby instead?

If you take medication orally how can that not be doing something to yourself? You are putting something in your own blood stream.

I'm not arguing that's it's right by the way just that we hugely disproportionately punish women whilst let men murder and rape with less come back (in many cases). Women are held to a much higher moral standard which I think clouds a lot of our judgement when taking about abortion.

My own view is that I could never go through the above procedure however it's not for me to tell other women what to do with their own bodies. I would like to see abortion decriminalises it helps no one to jail vulnerable women who most likely have mental health issues. This doesn't mean that hospitals will suddenly be giving out to term abortions. Doctors will still be the gate keepers to access services as it should be.

I believe I had read before (however I couldn't link the statistics maybe someone else can??) that countries such as Canada that have decided to decriminalise haven't had an increase in late term abortions.

CourageCalls
Absolutely.

“we hugely disproportionately punish women whilst let men murder and rape with less come back (in many cases). ”

I think the difficulty is proof in murder and rape cases. If they are found guilty then they are punished accordingly (although I agree jail terms should be much longer than they currently are). In a case where a woman is taking abortion pills late on in a pregnancy then it’s not difficult to prove what she was doing.

Canada still require approval by doctors iirc and they typically don’t give permission at later stages.

itsbetterthanabox to term abortion is generally not legal in the States. I believe only a handful of States have no law against it; but you’ll not find a clinic that will actually do it unles unless you have a medical need. For the vast majority of States, it is currently mandatorily set to “viability” as per the Supreme Court. Access differs by state however. (some have waiting periods, have to see the scan, need an ER within X number of miles)

I am firmly in favor of late-term abortions for medical reasons; I just wish those who bleat “early as possible, late as necessary” to think about the implications of that slogan.

Back in the 70s, you had a few people actually “survive” abortions; generally children of teens being brought by their parents at a far later date than they told physicians, who didn’t have access to ultrasound scans to confirm. In one case, a nurse witnessed a fetus still breathing on the medical waste pile after the procedure, she grew up to be healthy; while another case had slight cerebral palsy. Not surprisingly, these two are prominent pro-life advocates. I don’t agree with their politics, but you can definitely understand where they are coming from!

These cases really don’t pop up today because of advances in scanning technology (at least, in the developed world) and general refusal to do the procedure past the point of viability unless there is a medical need. But I think the above cases do demonstrate the horrors that can happen if terminations of healthy late-term fetuses are legalized.

confused. A lot of people who think they are having an abortion at a late date could end up with a live baby, couldn't they?

You are definitely confused if you think that's the case!

Why the fixation on termination? People have been asking this throughout the two threads. Why is a live delivery not acceptable to you?

Because women shouldn't have to be mothers

Forced birth’ makes no sense as early posters have explained. The woman will have to deliver at this stage, regardless.

See my answer above.

Delivering a baby does not mean you have to be a mother.

Delivering a baby does not mean you have to be a mother.

Oh ok, are you volunteering to adopt them all?

‘Them all’ ? I thought women would never choose to have late term abortions for healthy pregnancies anyway.