The Abortion Overton window

[MrsTerryPratchett]

There's already been a few and there will be more.

Following the American decision regarding abortion, campaigners and trolls will be trying to move abortion provision in other counties, including the UK, into a 'debate'. Our right to safe, accessible, free healthcare isn't a debate. As soon as people start behaving as though essential healthcare for women is debatable, we are in a dangerous place.

Please consider, when opening threads about abortion at the moment, that the aim is to move the Overton window. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window#:~:text=The%20Overton%20window%20is%20the,as%20the%20window%20of%20discourse

I'm not enabling voting because that would rather feed into my point.

Really? How odd. I wonder what happened to the lethal injection that all foetuses are given at 22 weeks and later. Since you say it was a "late" abortion.

Must have been an illegal back street one then seeing as that isn't how terminations, late or otherwise, are carried out.

I have reported the post. It's total nonsense, just anti-choice propaganda aimed to guilt women into not exercising their legal rights.

It's the online equivalent of standing outside a clinic with a placard with a picture of a dead foetus on it.

Blessed be the fruitCAKES, in the case of the Trump-appointed supreme court judges!

If it’s not alive, why does it need a “lethal” injection?

How can it be “dead” if it was never “alive”. Surely it’s just waste tissue removed from the body of the woman?

this is bloody cool

twitter.com/EmergencyBod/status/1541697664789643264?s=20&t=O0TvZ819u-Ut2kmvg09u6Q

And the U.K. religious right have now been emboldened - here’s Tory MP, Daniel Kruger today saying women don’t have bodily autonomy.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10961557/amp/Tory-MP-Danny-Kruger-says-doesnt-agree-women-absolute-right-bodily-autonomy.html

Not all pro choice arguments hang on the belief that it was never alive

As I've said to others, think long and hard about what you're trying to achieve.

Don't have an abortion if you don't want to, stop trying to coerce others out of their freedom of choice.

If you must then consider how you can proactively support women who feel unable to continue pregnancy due to financial, socioeconomic & interpersonal reasons, such as threats of violence from their partner or family.

Or are you one of those types who fervently believes women should remain pregnant at all costs, but lost all interest when an actual human child is born into unimaginable conditions?

Perhaps I meant lethal in the sense of "damaging/destructive", hmm?

If your going to lift unsubstantiated shite from an evangelical anti-choce website at least cite your sources.

If that many women oppose to late stage abortions in New Zealand it just means that no one will choose to have a late term abortion. Literally no one flippantly choses to have a late term abortion, it's usually only in extreme circumstances.

Also, how down syndrome effects people is a wide spectrum, you can have high functioning individuals who are independent, or you can have an individual who is non verbal, deaf, incontinent, severe learning disability, aggression and requires 24 hour care, meaning the mother likely has to give up her life to care for her child into old age.

I have worked in child and adolescent inpatient psychiatric LD wards, there have been many down syndrome children in those wards who's life will be in full time care.

I am not saying their life is less valuable, I'm saying it's a mother's choice if she is ready to potentially commit the rest of her life to having no career, being a full time carer, then worrying in older age who will care for them when your gone.

Those who feel able, great! I personally have seen how hard it can be, so wouldn't.

By extension, should we be able to euthanise children born with severe disabilities then?

At the choice of the mother, of course.

Very obvious troll post.

If a child (or an adult) has no quality of life, and is only alive due to invasive intervention, sometimes this intervention is removed to allow a peaceful passing.

This is always at the discretion of a team of experts. Parental wishes can be taken into account but can be overruled (see Archie Battersbee).

Again - don't get an abortion if you don't want to. Stop trying to coerce women out of their freedom of choice.

For the third time - why aren't you putting all this time and energy into supporting pregnant women who feel unable to keep their children due socioeconomic reasons, and deprived mothers whose children are growing up in severe disadvantage?

No, obviously not and you know that.

Why not though?

I favour euthanasia in certain circumstances.

I hold middle of the road (in the UK at least!) views on abortion.

For that reason I would like to know why abortion to term for disabilities is OK but euthanasia shortly after birth is wrong.

Rather than just dismiss as troll posting, why not debate the issue?

No. But the American healthcare system, so beloved of Republican 'pro-lifers', will do pretty much that if the mother is poor.

No, because from the moment of birth the mother's bodily autonomy is no longer at stake. Someone has to care for said child, but it can be anyone.

As I said earlier in the thread, I could see two sides to the arguement and was undecided. I do think the rights of the foetus change as the pregnancy progresses and these need to be balanced with the greater rights of the woman.

Having read this and other threads, and seen how far the pro women's rights advocates want to go, I have been convinced that, certainly in this country, the laws shouldn't be changed to allow later abortions. The balance now seems about right and further changes will be the start of a slippery slope to inhumanity.

^ I think this is the most sensible and reasoned post I’ve read so far on any of these threads.

No, because from the moment of birth the mother's bodily autonomy is no longer at stake. Someone has to care for said child, but it can be anyone.

And this is the heart of it. The reason the 'debate' is so harmful is because what you are debating is whether MY body belongs to me. When it is the only thing that truly does belong to me.

Following with interest. I tend to think abortion for any reason up until birth is going too far and that the UK has it right on the whole. Treating it as an issue of women's bodily autonomy is complex, because a foetus becomes sentient at some point. Barring rape, most women know sex carries a risk of pregnancy, so has decided to create the foetus at some point. Obviously we all make mistakes, but I think up to 12 weeks or thereabouts is enough time to correct the mistake, except for later diagnosis of medical issues.