Roe bs Wade

[Mumsnut]

Has been overturned

It's heartbreaking. Again men making decisions about women's bodies. What of the women who won't have the financial or other resources to travel to another state and get an abortion?
A return to back street alleys and home DIY jobs?

There is so much that I cannot make sense of at the moment.. I feel like I have become disassociated from this news because I cannot allow the truth of this to run through my body. I feel myself turning away because I cannot allow myself to believe that it is true and that somehow if I hold my breath, when I turn back, it will make sense again and I will not be faced with the horror of contemplating the impact of this decsion on millions of women world wide.

We have western agencies all over the world instructing developing nations on how to take better care of women and children and then we do this... it is barbaric.

This is probably something you should educate yourself on given the ripples.

It's fundamentally a republican hard right policy which is about removing core equality principles. It's seen in many fundamentalist religions not just Christianity. It's happened because Trump was able to appoint a Judge to the Supreme Court after RBG died.

It's huge because it's only been a year that we've dragged NI along to recognise a women's right to choose and it's still not the case in many countries. That right is a bit further away now as the US's decision will be used to shore up that position.

There's a direct line between this decision and the Taliban banning girls from school and women from workplaces. And also with the proposed removal of the Human Rights Act in the UK.

It's fundamentally a republican hard right policy which is about removing core equality principles.

But what is the reasoning given behind it? Just that abortion is "morally wrong"?

Not exactly, it's the belief that foetus has the same rights as the mother. In reality it means the foetus has more rights.

Genuinely can’t believe this could happen. Such a huge step backwards.

Having said that, there is no other support for the foetus or the child so the reality is that this is about control of women.

All this before we're about to have serious food shortages. I feel like they're trying to completely destroy the country for some reason.

Not exactly, it's the belief that foetus has the same rights as the mother. In reality it means the foetus has more rights.

Oh right, yeah I don't really get how they are pretending they think that when there's the lack of support for mothers.

It's a weird thing to try and turn around, I'm still not quite sure where it's come from or what the supposed motivation is other than very thinly veiled hatred of women. Gilead really does seem closer and closer.

I did live in the US some time ago. I did not want to have children there. There were loads of things I took for granted in the UK that I was amazed to see as 'backwards' in the US - not just healthcare but so many other things.

Roe vs Wade wasn't strictly about abortion per se. It was about a Constitutional right to privacy (in this case the power to make a private medical decision), which isn't explicitly stated in the US Constitution but was inferred. For 50 years this precedent was never codified into law so the precedent could be overturned any time.

Now that there is no right to privacy women are completely fucked, no pun intended. Thousands are already deleting data from their period tracker apps lest it be sold and/or used to monitor their fertility or any interruptions that could signify pregnancy.

Are they going to remove the HRA? Dear god. I know they are talking about withdrawing from the ECHR but I hadn't seen this.

The United States of Atrocities- Land of the free-ish
Baffles me how the pro life brigade care so much about a foetus but care little once they are born, and are attending schools, and getting shot to smithereens by lax gun legislation.
Baffles me that once a child is born, they care nothing for their lack of quality schooling, their diets, their mental health, their domestic situation, their sexual exploitation and trafficking- nothing.

They (fundamentalist Christians/Far Right) care because the foetus has no opinion on anything. They're not Right or Left, Gay or Straight, so it's easy to virtue signal and get their pass to their deluded version of heaven if they think they have 'saved them'

I'm devastated, but not surprised tbh.
We must make sure we don't let this happen in the UK. We must make sure the HRA is left as is

The UK can't just withdraw from the ECHR as it's written into the Good Friday Agreement and the devolution agreements so they're going for the HR Act instead.

^^
Thanks. Will get up to date.

Instead of blaming everything on the court, why don't he US legislature take their share of the responsibility and get their finger out to start doing some work in introducing national laws rather than relying on state laws. It will take some horse trading between the parties but it was always a perilous position to be living by.

I'm clearly in a minority but I think this is a step in the right direction for the states or any morally righteous society for that matter. I'll not debate the matter here however.

Plop and run. A tried and tested method when someone knows they cannot sustain their argument.

Morally righteous society, right. It's what the Taliban like to think they are.

The problem is that British people think that American society is similar to ours because we both speak English. But the USA is a much more religious society, particularly in certain areas. So there is a large Christian electorate that feel strongly that abortion, in their words killing a child, is morally wrong and against gods will. They think of it as murder. When people hold such strong beliefs, they're not going to change their mind by telling them they're idiots or wrong thinking. And people with those beliefs obviously elect people with the same beliefs. It's impossible to know what they all think but most will believe that the right of the child (they think of it as a child rather than foetus because it has a heartbeat) to live outweighs the rights of the mother for nine months. However, most state legislatures (maybe all?) do have a clause in about a foetus can be aborted if the health of the mother is at risk.

I personally struggle to comprehend how anyone can see abortion as anything other than an immoral action. A human life is created at conception, whether it is killed as an embryo, fetus, infant, adolescent or adult doesn't change the fact that killing a human is wrong.

We are moulded by society to believe that if that life, in an early stage, were to pose a perceived inconvenience, then it somehow gives us a moral pass to then kill the human, and that doesn't sit right with me. I think most women would think that it is morally wrong to decide to kill that life at 26+ weeks. Why is that? Surely the realisation of the reality of what it actually is, but its easier to dismiss, when it's smaller and less significant to them.

When it affects the life of others it is crucial that people take responsibility for their actions. Birth control isn't difficult and it might make people think twice about the repercussions of sex outside of stable relationships.

You are completely free to think that, Adelicious and to live your life according to those tenets.

And to some extent, I agree with you, I think there is something special and separate right from the moment of conception

Where I disagree completely is in banning the procedure for everyone.

It's one thing to campaign in ways that people reject abortion as a choice (and that could be an end goal for those who see it as a form of killing).

But is is quite another to remove a safe procedure, when the harm desperate women will do to themselves if denied it, is well known and within living memory

Contraception can fail

@Adelishious what about the women who are raped? Should they also be forced to birth their rapist baby? What about the girls who's dad's join them in bed at night? How are these women suppose to use contraception? Oh, hang on a minute rapist, let me just pop into the chemist...

Pregnancies resulting from rape are rare. But OK, if we put those in a separate category and allow those victims to have abortions, are you at least willing to accept the other 99% of abortions are wrong?

It's not that I'm from a particular group who see abortion as a form of killing. Its a scientifically proven and indesputable fact that is precisely what it is, killing. People who convince themselves otherwise do so for good reason.

If I were to stab my friend in the heart causing her death, I'm sure I could somehow argue this was OK, as my method was a very safe procedure. Sure, of course it was for me! ! It wasn't me that suffered death as a result!

I also think we too often overlook those who work in the medical profession, many of whom who are apposed to abortion and who are the ones being quite literally forced to conduct these actions that they woukd never otherwise consider, having done nothing to contribute to the pregnancy in the first place.

I don't think roe vs Wade being overturned will make a huge difference on the outset but it was a poor judgement in the first place. No one should have a 'right' to an abortion. That's just an evasion of any form of responsibility.

I hear language changed to suit all the time, but growing inside is a baby. During pregnancy you get a baby bump, not a fetus bump. If a pregnant woman was attacked violently by a man causing miscarriage, you'd claim he'd killed her baby! Just because it's done under the guise of a 'safe medical procedure' doesn't make it any less killing of a baby.

I also don't think abortion benefits the most vulnerable of women in our society the way people think, it's not something that most people find easy to do or to deal with after and nowadays a mother can give a child up at birth anonymously so having to raise the child alone or in poverty just isn't a good enouog reason for justification

and who are the ones being quite literally forced to conduct these actions that they would never otherwise consider

Not in UK

There is a conscience clause for both contraceptive and abortion services, and no practitioner can be compelled to provide either

(there are no conscience clauses for anything else)

If a pregnant woman was attacked violently by a man causing miscarriage, you'd claim he'd killed her baby!

Miscarriage, no

But in some cases, where the pregnancy has passed the date of viability (and therefore the term miscarriage is no longer used) the offence of 'child destruction' is used in these circumstances in E/W (I'm not sure if there are parallel offences in S/NI, but as it ante-dates devolution, I suspect there are).

Those performing terminations outside the parameters permitted by law can be charged with the same offence.

Thanks, that's interesting, I wasn't aware there was a conscience clause for these sorts of scenarios. My only concern then would be how many of those may feel obligated to conduct an abortion who would otherwise see it is immoral, but at least no one is being forced under threat of instant dismissal. I wonder what the reaction of those wanting abortions would be in the hypothetical scenario that healthcare workers banded together en masse to opt out of having to do this. As it stands i hear so many women who think they are owed an abortion or who think they should be afforded the right to an abortion on demand.