To find it utterly chilling that Tory MP Danny Kruger has said that he doesn’t believe women should have absolute right of bodily autonomy?

[AngeloMysterioso]

During a House of Commons debate yesterday Danny Kruger, MP for Devizes said-

“I recognise the degree of distress and concern felt by many members in the house on the supreme courts decision… I probably disagree with most members who’ve spoken so far about this question.

“They think that women have an absolute right to bodily autonomy in this matter, whereas I think that in the case of abortion, that right is qualified by the fact that another body is involved.

“But we can disagree on that question, and I offer to other members who are trying to talk me down, that this is a proper topic for political debate, and my point to the front bench, is I don’t understand why we are lecturing the United States on a judgement to return the power of decision over this political question to the states, to democratic decision makers, rather than leaving it in the hands of the courts.”

(underlining is my own emphasis)

Telegraph - Women do not have ‘absolute right of bodily autonomy’, says Tory MP Danny Kruger

Daily Mail - Prue Leith's religious Tory MP son Danny Kruger says he doesn't agree that 'women have an absolute right to bodily autonomy' in debate over US abortion ban - and British MPs should not 'lecture' US over their democratic process

Evening Standard - “Women ‘don’t have an absolute right to bodily autonomy’, says Tory MP Danny Kruger”

Spectator- “In defence of Danny Kruger”

AIBU to think this is rather terrifying, in light of what’s just taken place in the US and the fact that, with BJ’s Tory leadership hanging in the balance there are rabid pro-lifers like Jacob Rees Mogg ready to take his place?

If an MP were to stand up in parliament and say that it would be far more chilling than anything Danny Kruger has to say on the matter.

I judge Prue Leith for a disappointing courgette recipe she wrote. I don’t judge her for her son’s views.

I don't agree with the woman with "Not Yet Human" written on her bump, nor do I agree with those who are against abortion in all circumstances.
I don't find what Danny Kruger said all that shocking though.
Under current law after a certain stage of pregnancy the foetus has rights as well as the woman, and these have to be balanced.
I think a lot of people take a more nuanced stand and I find the dualistic argument of extremes unhelpful.
Also it's nothing to do with Prue Leith what her son says. Do you expect to be responsible for what your children say and do when they are 50.

@AchatAVendre

As you well know, it is never prosecuted.

"Never prosecuted" is not the same as "there is nothing pejorative in law", which was what your nonsensical post said. And "never prosecuted" is also incorrect, see page 16 of this paper for a list of some recent prosecutions: www.bma.org.uk/media/1142/bma-paper-on-the-decriminalisation-of-abortion-february-2017.pdf

And as you also well know, it is not illegal for women to travel overseas.

Don't see what the relevance of that is? Doesn't make any of your post factually correct.

You're remarkably keen to make people believe this is already a done deal, aren't you?

That what is a done deal? I support the gist of the current English abortion laws, and the only people proposing changes to it are the fringe lunatics. I am quite keen to point out that scaremongering about the strength of religious objections to abortion in England only serves to obscure the actual challenge to women's rights that we currently face (which comes from the angle of disability discrimination).

What are your thoughts on the following:

(a) Criminalising men for walking out on their children
(b) Criminalising men for not paying child maintenance
(c) Criminalising men for vitiating consent to creating a pregnancy (i.e. lying about their legal status and coercing a woman into becoming pregnant with him on the basis that he will marry her or stay with her
(d) Criminalising men for behaviours that have been shown to damage the quality of their sperm and create a higher risk of birth defects e.g. drinking alcohol, having a high BMI, recreational drugs use, etc..

Please answer each point, individually, in turn. The issues that I have outlined affect far, far more children than does the issue of late term abortion. I can't think why this isn't being debated in parliament, rather than abortion.

There is no answer that I could give to those questions that would make your original post factually correct. You seem to enjoy taking a very righteous stance without bothering to understand the salient facts.

Orgies? Really? Or have you just confused that with her being the mistress of a man who’s wife was a very close friend of her mums. If you have it’s quite some leap.

I agree. We have a pretty good compromise position here in the UK that works for the mainstream majority and keeps the extreme positions either side at bay. Long may it continue.

Religion needs to be taken out of politics.

It is the same problem with Assisted Dying. No-one should be able to impose their religious views on other people.

Before someone gets it taken down, here are the current first sentences of his Wikipedia entry:

'Daniel Rayne Kruger[3] MBE (born 23 October 1974)[4] is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gilead in Wiltshire since 2019. He has since become an official representative for the importation of American culture war politics to the UK where it is not welcome, particularly heavily misogynistic rhetoric, such as the notion that women do not have any rights to their own bodily autonomy.'

Lookleft AchatAVendre As you well know, it is never prosecuted.

"Never prosecuted" is not the same as "there is nothing pejorative in law", which was what your nonsensical post said. And "never prosecuted" is also incorrect, see page 16 of this paper for a list of some recent prosecutions: www.bma.org.uk/media/1142/bma-paper-on-the-decriminalisation-of-abortion-february-2017.pdf

Nearly all the cases cited concern the illegal supply by other persons of abortificants.

There only appears to be 2 cases listed involving a woman who self administered and illegally obtained abortificants within current UK law (N. Irish law, which all of the other cases concern, has changed). That of Sarah Catt, who was 38 weeks pregnant and full term:

Sarah Catt (2012): A 35-year-old North Yorkshire woman, Sarah Catt, was over 38 weeks’ pregnant when she took misoprostol purchased over the internet. She had sought an abortion some weeks earlier from the BPAS (British Pregnancy Advisory Service) but had been informed that she was over the legal time limit for an abortion in her circumstances.

She stated that she had acted alone, burying the body and refusing to disclose its location. She pleaded guilty to procuring her own miscarriage under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.

In a subsequent appeal hearing, Sarah Catt’s sentence was reduced from eight to threeand-a-half years. The appeal judge, Lady Justice Rafferty, noted that the initial judge had declined to adjourn for the preparation of a psychologist’s report. A post-sentence psychologist report concluded that Sarah Catt had a ‘maladaptive coping style’, lacked maturity in relation to emotional demand, and during five pregnancies had either concealed the pregnancy or presented too late for termination.

Extremely harsh sentence and very unusual not to request psychologist's reports initially in those circumstances but its not really indicative of what the point you want to prove - the woman was virtually full term. This is a case at the very end point of all limits and thats why it was prosecuted.

The other cases is that of Natalie Towers (2015): A 24-year-old woman from County Durham pleaded guilty and was sentenced, at Newcastle Crown Court, to two-and-a-half years in prison for unlawfully procuring her own miscarriage at 32-34 weeks’ gestation.50 She had bought abortifacients online. Her barrister reported that she had been suffering from a depressive episode at the time and was emotionally unstable.

So one woman suffering from a serious psychological disorder at 38 weeks pregnant and one woman suffering from depression. Two prosecutions which I have to say might not be prosecuted in the present climate at all, certainly not that of Natalie Towers. But two women at the end stages of pregnancy is really not indicative that women have to be particularly worried about being prosecuted successfully, certainly less so than rapists. And we all know that many rapes occur.

The other case law noted involves the supply by other people of abortificants and an interesting one about a doctor attempting to supply abortificants unknowingly to make his pregnant partner abort. Various other doctors investigated and not prosecuted for aborting babies on the basis of sex and disability.

And isn't it appropriate that the psychological term for thick people thinking that they know a lot more than they really do (OK, I'm paraphrasing a bit!) is the Dunning-KRUGER effect?

under his eye

lookleft You're remarkably keen to make people believe this is already a done deal, aren't you?

That what is a done deal? I support the gist of the current English abortion laws, and the only people proposing changes to it are the fringe lunatics. I am quite keen to point out that scaremongering about the strength of religious objections to abortion in England only serves to obscure the actual challenge to women's rights that we currently face (which comes from the angle of disability discrimination).

I don't live in England. I do live in the UK.

Can you try and write without the patronising and insulting adjectives, as I think it would help the way you come across.

@FishfingerFlinger @AchatAVendre

My illustration about what you'd say to a pregnant woman of 8 months is in relation to SexyLittleNosferatu stating:

"Pregnant women are not incubators. Pregnant women have the right to do as the wish with their body, regardless of whether you like it or not. When you start trying to regulate what they can and cannot do, based on your own moral judgements of what is and isn't reasonable, then you start down a slippery slope that we would never get back up"

I don't believe that pregnant women have the right to do as they wish with their body because there's another human involved...and I don't believe we'd be so blasé about such issues if they actually involved someone close to us.

And laws originate from not just my own moral judgements - but the moral compass and judgements of the general public or society...therefore it's totally reasonable for such issues to be debated and discussed.

If illegal abortions are never prosecuted then there wouldn't be two recent occasions where illegal abortions had been prosecuted. You are literally arguing against your own point.

Feel free to ignore me if my tone upsets you. I only engaged because you'd told that other poster she was incorrect, when in fact she was completely correct, and I think misinformation needs to be corrected.

No, the good folk of 1861 covered all their bases. The full wording of the offences is:

"s58 Every woman, being with child, who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, shall unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or shall unlawfully use any instrument or other means whatsoever with the like intent, and whosoever, with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman, whether she be or be not with child, shall unlawfully administer to her or cause to be taken by her any poison or other noxious thing, or shall unlawfully use any instrument or other means whatsoever with the like intent, shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable F2 ... to be kept in penal servitude for life.

s59 Whosoever shall unlawfully supply or procure any poison or other noxious thing, or any instrument or thing whatsoever, knowing that the same is intended to be unlawfully used or employed with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman, whether she be or be not with child, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable F2 ... to be kept in penal servitude"

"But Corbyn ...."

The older the get, the less time I have for women who enable misogynistic crap like this. This tosspot will have a considerable cohort of dim women who voted him in. Most likely who'd never be affected directly by these matters either.

You either have red lines in your conscience, or you don't. Mine is to never give a vote to anyone who is happy to stand for a party that despises women.

But they will vote for him. I’m in his constituency and he has a safe spot. It’s disgusting

Stop telling me what I am and am not doing (and dropping the insults would be wise as well). It has not been prosecuted in recent years and it has hardly been prosecuted at all going back.

scoobycute My illustration about what you'd say to a pregnant woman of 8 months is in relation to SexyLittleNosferatu stating:

As above. You have gone so far off on a tangent that you are no longer discussing the issue at hand. Making up fictitious pregnant women and imaginary statements that you think posters on a forum might say to them is a bit...esoteric.

I think if you want to lecture people, you need to find a group of people willing to listen you

I really don't see the UK following the US on this issue

It will if we don't nip this shite in the bud now. This is an opinion now being expressed openly, probably as a result of what has happened in the US, and in the major medias, not just some backstreet knobber shouting loudly. He's been given a voice. He wouldn't have been given that voice prior to Friday.

@LetitiaLeghorn Well said, I agree with you.

Also, there is debate whether to reduce the abortion limit as babies are surviving being born at 22 weeks gestation, calling into question the ethics of (very rare) 24 week abortions.

I realise the thread has over on from the smoking discussion but would like to point out that any current ban on smoking is applied equally to men and women. If pregnant women were to be "banned" from smoking on the grounds that it's detrimental to the foetus would there not be an argument that a ban should be implemented on smoking in the presence of a pregnant woman?

It's the absolute thin end of the wedge but interestingly as pp have said there never seems to be voices calling for "sensible" measures that would curtail the freedoms of men when it comes to guarding that pregnancy, only women

I think more people agree with him than don’t either you support full autonomy or your don’t there is no grey area

Danny Kruger is using very clear and emotive language

but it’s still the same argument as many put forward

ask the majority of people do you feel a women should be able to have a termination at/after 30 weeks most will say no

I do not agree but I’m not horrified it’s how the majority feel but would rather not think about it

it won’t become such a political issue here we do not have a fanatical religious right

I am quite keen to point out that scaremongering about the strength of religious objections to abortion in England only serves to obscure the actual challenge to women's rights that we currently face (which comes from the angle of disability discrimination).

I actually don’t think it’s that scaremongering. Yes religion is on the decline, but doctors and nurses are still allowed to opt out of providing abortion care on religious grounds. To me that’s disgusting in a country that provides abortion in our health service and where it’s legal, but I understand that people need the right to religious beliefs as much as I don’t like it. I do think it’s significant that quite a high number of MPs are anti abortion based on religious grounds (at least that’s presumably their reasoning). This whole thing is very close to home for me as I was actually denied care for a medical abortion gone wrong in the U.K. because all of the gynes on the ward were religious objectors (and the ward manager treated me like shit too). I had to wait in hospital 2 nights away from my breastfed baby until a doctor was on shift who would perform a d&c. The more anti abortion views are seen as acceptable in public life the more we will have situations like this occurring. Obviously my life wasn’t in immediate risk (but I had had sepsis in child birth only 7 months prior and my bloods were showing infection, so really waiting 48 hours put me at quite a bit if extra risk). This was 3 years ago.

Of course people are talking about it at the present time - it's in the news. How often did most of us talk about Russia and Ukraine before it was in the news?
The idea that the US supreme Court has given him a voice is ridiculous. It implies he never expressed his opinions before which is just not true. He's only been an MP for three years and he's already voted on several abortion issues. It's true that there is no will in the House to make significant changes to present abortion laws in England and Wales (don't know enough about Scotland and NI) and so the matter rarely gets discussed, but when issues are brought forward, such as changes to cut off times in light of changing medical capabilities, they're debated openly. In fact it's one of those issues which is usually conscience led rather than party.

This is not a new opinion

most people believe women should only have a termination under certain conditions

supporting women to have autonomy over their body is not the majority view and I doubt it ever will be