Late term abortion, high court

[Anycrispsleft]

I saw this on the BBC this morning - it's High Court review of the rules on late term abortions. The campaigners are seeking to remove the exception to the ban on post 24 week abortion that allows it in the case of "non-lethal" disabilities. The woman who is asking for the review wants the law to be changed on the grounds that it's discrimination against disabled people.

Apologies if this case has been covered before, I'm a newcomer to FWR having been radicalised by you people on Twitter. I just wanted to express this thought that occurred to me: the trans debate has shown me that whatever good-thinking progressives think, rights are sometimes like pie, in that giving one person more rights can mean less rights for someone else. And this is also like that, isn't it? There's a balancing of the rights of the foetus (not that a foetus has legal rights, at least not yet) and the rights of the mother. Until now I used to sort of shy away from this bit of the ethics of abortion. I am very strongly pro choice, but I always wanted to be able to justify that stance in a sort of objective way, considering the cases of the foetus and the mother as though I had no skin in the game. And I realised I can't actually do that, because I do have skin in the game, because I am a woman, I have two girls, and I want all of us to have control over our own bodies. It's not that I think I am objectively right. I want to win this. I don't care about the rights and wrongs from an academic point of view. I don't want my children to have to carry a child they don't want to term. Full stop. I'm sure others would be able to put this in a much more eloquent way but I feel like I've reached a new point in my feminism and I wanted to share it. I'm not neutral. I'm team woman.

No limits on abortion.

Trust women to know what's best.

@Somuchgoo

I've had an abortion and can't support this view. Can a woman schedule an abortion at 36 weeks? How would they kill the fetus?

They give a lethal injection into his or her heart to kill him/her. That's needed from 20ish weeks to prevent the birth of a live baby.

At 36 weeks?

@BrandineDelRoy

Yes. How else would you suggest they do it? Tbh, it's a lot 'gentler' than some of the earlier ways.

You can't just induce labour, or there'll be a live baby, which either would have to be killed (which would be murder) or if very poorly or premature, be left to die...

Where we are talking about very poorly babies who worked not be able to survive outside the womb or who would only know pain after birth, it is likely a much more merciful way too go tbh, to shorten their suffering. But for something like downs syndrome, it's a more complex moral issue.

[quote Somuchgoo]@BrandineDelRoy

Yes. How else would you suggest they do it? Tbh, it's a lot 'gentler' than some of the earlier ways.

You can't just induce labour, or there'll be a live baby, which either would have to be killed (which would be murder) or if very poorly or premature, be left to die...

Where we are talking about very poorly babies who worked not be able to survive outside the womb or who would only know pain after birth, it is likely a much more merciful way too go tbh, to shorten their suffering. But for something like downs syndrome, it's a more complex moral issue.[/quote]
I understand this. I've had an abortion, two healthy births, and a misscarriage. I do not support elective abortion of a healthy fetus at 36 weeks.

I'm responding to"no limits on abortion."

@BrandineDelRoy
Nor me :-(

i do not support elective abortion of a healthy fetus at 36 weeks.

And you think those would actually happen?
Women would get to 8 months and go ‘ naww bored now. Kill it please’

@Sparechange,

If they wouldn’t happen anyway, no problem keeping law as is.

Only becomes a ‘problem’ if someone wants to abort a healthy foetus at 36 weeks…

@Sparechange

i do not support elective abortion of a healthy fetus at 36 weeks.

And you think those would actually happen?
Women would get to 8 months and go ‘ naww bored now. Kill it please’

Then why do certain posters argue so vociferously for it?

What is the point? UK law permits very late abortions in these exceptional circumstances so in a UK context these sort of posts are no more than virtue signalling.

In the context of say opposing the restrictions which some US states are considering such demands are positively counter- productive. No one who opposes abortion is going to change their mind because of that type of argument.

@BrandineDelRoy none of your experiences are comparable to finding out during pregnancy that your child is going to live a life of suffering

When you've spent weeks praying that your planned and much loved and wanted baby dies naturally in the womb so you don't need to intervene to take their life, then you will have had an experience that is relevant to the issues being discussed....

Only becomes a ‘problem’ if someone wants to abort a healthy foetus at 36 weeks

Does that happen? Anyone know the stats? Would any dr sign off on the termination of a healthy baby at 36 weeks?

I can’t see it tbh. Even if the risk to the mother is so big immediate delivery is required, then live delivery is still the best option?

If my understanding is correct, termination post 24 weeks is done for medical reasons only. This argument is that should be changed to termination for lethal abnormalities only.

'I don't quite understand the argument that something is not a womens' rights issue because 'the vast majority of women are against it'. The vast majority of women will not ever need a late term abortion so can't know how they will think and feel until they do. There is an AMA thread on here where a midwife explains why she is in favour of as late as necessary and it changed my opinion of this issue because I realised I am not all women.'

The thing is, as I said earlier, this is a conflict of rights type of argument, with most women believing that foetuses beyond a certain point of gestation do have a right to be birthed live, if the woman's life is not at risk, and if the foetus does not have significant abnormalities.

You do not need to have personally experienced something to have an opinion on it. There are very very few women who would believe my baby, my right to kill it post birth. However, some have been desperate enough to want to do this, and believed that they had no other option. This is not a reason to legalise infanticide, however.

The idea that all women won't suddenly wake up one morning and decide to terminate a healthy foetus at 8 months 'for shits and giggles' also does not really hold water. Most women are not criminals in any sense, which is why the female prison population is so much smaller than the male one. However, this is not a reason to decriminalise everything that women do, merely because something must have driven them to do it.

Personally, I think that we should stay where we are on abortion law. It is a difficult issue, but I do think that the massive impact being of being forced to birth and bring up a profoundly disabled Downs syndrome baby, for instance, outweighs that particular foetus's right to life.

With all these complex issues, ethics do change over time and the right to live in society with all its benefits always comes with some loss of autonomy. Look how many rights we have temporarily lost over COVID. We no longer have the right to reject a vaccine and travel or enter certain venues. That is a loss of bodily autonomy. There is no absolutist solution.

Well yes, people have opinions - they are like a**eholes after all. But unless you do have lived experience of the situation being discussed, those opinions are often based on Ill-informed misunderstandings and crude over-simplifications as this thread has so powerfully demonstrated.

If they wouldn’t happen anyway, no problem keeping law as is.
The whole point of the thread is people are campaigning to change the law. We are arguing against changing it. I think most people are pretty comfortable with the law as it is, in reality although it does make things time pressurised for people where their foetus has indicators of complicated medical issues.

I think the point that's being made is that if the case finds the current law discriminates against disabled people, its preferable to remedy the discrimination by making abortion available in all circumstances up to 40 weeks (subject to the same existing rules around grounds for it that apply to 24 weeks). Rather than taking that choice away from parents with children with non-lethal disabilities.

I don't know why there is this weird insistence that hordes of women want to abort their baby for no random reason

Well put @QuentinBunbury

@QuentinBunbury

If they wouldn’t happen anyway, no problem keeping law as is. The whole point of the thread is people are campaigning to change the law. We are arguing against changing it. I think most people are pretty comfortable with the law as it is, in reality although it does make things time pressurised for people where their foetus has indicators of complicated medical issues.

I think the point that's being made is that if the case finds the current law discriminates against disabled people, its preferable to remedy the discrimination by making abortion available in all circumstances up to 40 weeks (subject to the same existing rules around grounds for it that apply to 24 weeks). Rather than taking that choice away from parents with children with non-lethal disabilities.

I don't know why there is this weird insistence that hordes of women want to abort their baby for no random reason

Exactly this.

It's a really complex and emotive issue

Ultimately although I dislike the idea of a termination after 24 weeks I would fight for a woman's right to have one, I just find it personally an 'uncomfortable' idea.

I BELIEVE my own choices would be something like the below, but I don't know for sure because I haven't been in any of these situations and don't know what I would actually do if forced into them, and thats why I think the law needs to stay as it is to allow women the choice.

• I think I would choose to terminate if it was found that the baby would have only a short and painful life.
• I think I would choose not to terminate if the disability was non-lethal, something like Downs Syndrome or a missing limb.
• I think I would choose not to terminate but may opt for adoption if the baby was the result of rape or if my mental health was affected in such a way as to make me unable to be a parent.

@HalfShrunkMoreToGo thank you for acknowledging you can only imagine what you might do in the scenarios...

I just want to say that women who do end up here are not comfortable with the idea of a post-24 week termination either - or any termination at all for that matter. It is hellish but something they endure (and live with the consequences of) for the sake of their babies.

I don't know why there is this weird insistence that hordes of women want to abort their baby for no random reason

Possibly because certain posters on this and similar threads argue so vociferously for such a right? And decry anyone who doesn't agree as a "forced birther"?

Seriously? That's a very odd argument.

Please read the thread

@GoingGently

Please read the thread

Who is this instruction to?

As someone who fully supports the current UK law on abortion I usually come away from this type of thread thinking anti- abortion supporters could well rope in the comments by certain pro- choice posters on MN to support their case.

It might help if there wasn't so much misinformation coming from the camp thats trying to change the law.

I do not think that a mentally-well woman would choose a late termination of a pregnancy for a non-medical reason. Given that she has to go through the horrendous and painful process of giving birth to a baby that isn't alive, why would she?

Therefore, if a woman is making that decision, I trust that she believes it's her only option.

Nobody who is against allowing women to choose to have an abortion is saying what should happen when a woman is forced to continue a pregnancy for a baby she feels she can't look after.

What happens to the baby after birth? Who is going to care for it?