Disability And Abortion: The Hardest Choice CHANNEL 4

[Wouldloveanother]

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11155443/DOMINIC-LAWSON-Doctors-stop-pushing-mothers-aborting-disabled-babies.html

I’m planning on watching this in the next few days, but I’m getting increasingly concerned about the amount of anti-choice activity going on under the guise of ‘disability equality’.

@buzzbuzzybuzz No, I don't do the mind reading thing, as I said!

Canada has no time limit. Abortion there is simply regulated in the same way as any other medical procedure.

https://www.actioncanadashr.org/news/2022-06-24-why-we-dont-need-new-abortion-law-canada

It seems to work OK and their stats look pretty similar to ours:

https://www.arcc-cdac.ca/media/2020/07/statistics-abortion-in-canada.pdf

The next argument is usually, 'well if nobody would use it anyway, what's the point in changing it?'

Two good reasons:

1. No woman would be placed in a position where she was up against a hard deadline and had to make a rushed decision

2. It would end what some see as discrimination against disabled people because of the different time limits we currently have

MN numbered list feature is total pants 😂I didn't even try to use it, it just did half of a job automatically.

@LangClegsInSpace Yes, I see it is decriminalised in Canada. But it seems similar to Alaska, where in practice no clinics offer abortion after 23 weeks and 6 days. Or has that changed?
www.ctvnews.ca/canada/what-is-the-legal-status-of-abortion-in-canada-1.5890266

One thing I found interesting in the programme was the two presenters discussing the results of the poll they commissioned.

Unless I misheard, around 1/4 of the public think there should be no time limit. That's a lot higher than I thought it would be and I suspect it's substantially higher than it was just a few years ago. I wonder if it will be like same sex marriage which had low support for years then reached a kind of tipping point and suddenly the vast majority were in favour, or at least neutral, and now nobody can quite remember why there was a fuss in the first place.

Discussing these results, the male presenter said 'at least they think we're equal'

My understanding is that late term abortions in Canada take place in hospitals not clinics and the data is separated by location.

There are certainly problems with access in Canada, as there are everywhere, but the law (or lack of law) in itself does not appear to be a problem. I don't believe it would be a problem in the UK and I think it would solve the two problems I posted above.

The article you linked to argues that because there is no law, there is no legal right to an abortion. This is technically true, however:

'the right to an abortion doesn't exist in Canada in the same way it is enshrined in Roe v. Wade.'

We saw how that worked out.

Another way of looking at it is this: If there is no law, then there is nothing that can be chipped away at. We wouldn't have private members' bills seeking to lower the time limit every few years.

When R v W was repealed, WHO made a strong statement that abortion is healthcare. We should start treating it as healthcare instead of as a matter for criminal law.

That doesn't mean a woman with a healthy 39 week pregnancy could demand an abortion and the doctor would just say 'ok then', any more than they would agree to cut off her leg, just because she asked. Doctors are duty bound to act in the best interests of their patients (for the avoidance of doubt, the patient is the pregnant woman). It simply means that doctors would be able to act in the best interests of their patients, at whatever stage of pregnancy, without the additional constraints of strict time limits and fear of prosecution.

And it's worth remembering that while we have the Abortion Act, this does not give women the legal right to an abortion in the UK.

The Abortion Act simply says that performing an abortion within a strict set of criteria will not be illegal.

Take it out of criminal law altogether. Treat it as healthcare.

@LangClegsInSpace I still am not sure, but have read a couple of articles that state women in Canada must travel to America for abortions after a certain date, though this may have changed. Also, isn't it now the case that if a woman's doctors decide there is a risk of grave injury to her mental/physical health a late abortion will be granted? Admittedly, the doctor has to be persuaded of a serious threat rather than a mild one, but I can't see how it is much different to the scenario you propose where a doctor acts in the best interests of the patient. Do you think the current requirements for termination after 24 weeks are too high?

We're currently facing a cost of living crisis, an NHS that is slowly breaking down, an aging population requiring carers who don't currently exist, a threatening recession, and a whole bunch of other dysfunctional stuff.

There is zero appetite for a pushback on termination of pregnancies where the fetus has a severe medical problem, trust me.

We had a thread yesterday about a family talking about completely disrupting their teens' educaiton by relocating to the far north of Scotland because they were pushed to the absolute breaking point by business failure in addition to being the carer to a child with complex medical needs. I thought of this thread when I was reading the discussion about this despairing family.

Before we take women's rights away disability services need to be better funded, better respite which might then effect the abortion rates.

I doubt it. Social services for disabled children are the best in the world in the Nordic countries, where almost 100% of fetuses with Down syndrome (for example) are aborted.

It's just a fact that most people don't want to be the parent of a very disabled child, no matter how often the respite care bus comes round etc.

Because removal before birth (i.e. abortion) would be deliberately killing the child. Removal after birth would protect the child.

Again..

We're talking about (for very late abortions), children so seriously disabled they will suffer pain and die during or shortly after birth.

For earlier ones, we're still talking about children with significant disability.

But lets imagine we're talking about children who will live...

Please tell me what you think the care system is like for disabled children. Is it all fluffy unicorn teddies and trips to see Santa in Iceland? And then one bright sunny day, a nice couple turn up and invite the child home with them and theres jelly and icecream for tea every night and they all lived happily ever after?

Because any sane person knows thats bullshit. The reality is grim, and for children who will make it to adulthood, it's even worse.

You're not protecting anyone if you can't offer them a quality of life and 'not dead' is not quality of life, ditto 'not beaten, not neglected in terms of food/housing/clothing/education'.

Thank you for your comments, I was responding to another poster .If you read our exchange, I responded to their view that the unborn are not protected in law until they attain personhood i.e. after birth. My example cited a recent case where the law sentenced a man who attacked his partner and her unborn child died-he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
But to respond to your observations: I'm not aware of one person on this thread who has subscribed to your description of the care system for disabled children. if you want your opinions to be taken seriously, please don't appoint yourself as the voice of all parents/children/people protecting children and families.

"not dead", "not beaten" and "not neglected"??? It is precisely to protect an unborn child from these horrors that courts have ruled that removal at birth is necessary in some cases.

Quality of life is troubling, insofar as almost everybody I have ever met uses the term loosely, and in relation to their own desires. No problem with that, not until these subjective opinions are used to end the lives of the vulnerable.

Who should determine quality of life? Seriously-are you aware of the Quality Adjusted Life Year model that was imported into health economics some years ago? Or the green paper on the draft Mental Capacity legislation in the 90's? If you aren't familiar with the Appeal Court ruling in the case of Tony Bland, please read it. This is the case which fundamentally altered the interpretation of acts of commission v acts of omission, which eroded the notion of best interests and which incorrectly interpreted food and fluids as "artificial treatment".