UK woman convicted of abortion

[Veterinari]

Full story here www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/woman-given-suspended-sentence-for-having-abortion-in-the-uk-a6968676.html

Very sad. Is there a will in NI to update legislation on this issue? As it stands everyone loses

Absolutely. It says a lot about the ideology and politics of it all though - really what's important for many is ensuring wayward women don't get away with having sex and expecting not to live with the consequences of it. "Innocent" women who are raped are different - they didn't make the choice to have sex so this somehow means there's a different angle on the personhood of the foetus? Suggests it's not about the foetus after all really, doesn't it? How many of us would kill a person because their father was a rapist?

I don't think we all have rights to everything all the time. Every choice we make has implications for our rights, in that it closes down opportunities and opens up new ones, not always the opportunities that we'd like either. This applies to our bodies health as much as in any other area of life. There are natural outcomes and we don't particularly question our 'right' to have outcome 'x' when our choices led us inevitably to outcome 'y'. That's nothing to do with punishment and I wouldn't mention it, but it's relevant to the idea that a woman has the right to do as she likes with her own body, even when that means killing a life she has been part of creating. Some natural outcomes are unavoidable and they do appear to 'rob' us, or other people, of rights. The choices that other people make also have huge implications for us, and many of these interfere with our rights. Take the baby. I feel I have the right to a night's sleep and I should be able to do what I like with my own body, which extends to not going around sleep-deprived all the time. But I can't because I made this choice with unavoidable consequences and my rights no longer matter a diddly squat where my baby is concerned. I'm not a victim. If, however, I left my baby uncared for, they would be. Their rights trump mine because they are more vulnerable. I had my right to choose, back in the day, and now I have to get on with it. Thing is, this has everything to do with wanting human life to be protected and nothing to do with wanting any woman to suffer - far from it. Although I'd offer comfort if I could, I'm not invested enough to feel vindictive about any hypothetical person making different lifestyle choices to my own.

Some consequences aren't reversible because of the consequences involved for vulnerable human life. No one can tell me a foetus is not a person. I've seen what the prevailing culture has done, which is to make it legal for a baby with down's syndrome to be aborted when that life form is indisputably human. I don't have to like that and I defy any woman to say killing such a child is their right. Life doesn't work like that. The ducks don't always get into a row so neatly.

"I don't think we all have rights to everything all the time."

That's why we have to make a cut off point gone, when it comes to termination, and make the decision about whether the rights of an embryo or foetus who cannot survive independently outside a woman's body outweigh the rights of the woman who doesn't want to carry it any more.

There's something a little sinister about saying you don't think we all have rights all the time, when you are talking about a termination in the early stages of pregnancy and forcing a woman to continue against her will for the sake of an embryo.

There's something a little sinister about saying you don't think we all have rights all the time, when you are talking about a termination in the early stages of pregnancy and forcing a woman to continue against her will for the sake of an embryo.

No, there isn't. And stop calling it an embryo. You know the cut-off point is way, way later than that.

every woman should have the right to have a safe termination of pregnancy if that is what she chooses to do.
not to have to secretly send off for pills to induce a termination or god forbid a back street abortionist.

When a woman was recently given a prison sentence following a late term abortion, she was utterly vilified here. Why wasn't it her right to do as she wanted then? It seems that the pro-choice morality police are equally arbitrary and controlling in what they determine as obscene and perfectly understandable. We draw the line at different places because we are a society made up of individuals, not because there is something sinister about any one of us. Except the woman who aborts a child with Down's syndrome, especially if they could live outside the womb. That's sinister.

With the woman given the prison sentence following a late-term abortion, I felt she was shown very little grace or understanding and also that a prison sentence was unhelpful in the extreme, given her state of mind.

No one can tell me a foetus is not a person.

No one needs to tell you. It's a fact, whether you listen or not.

we are not talking about late abortions this woman was 10 weeks along and stop going on about tfmr unless you have been there you cant comment and if you have i apologise

Oh dear... it's the "Oh shit, I can't answer the question posed, quick, bring up late term abortions, that'll fox em" gambit.

Fail.

In this case it was an embryo, possibly a foetus. She was in very early pregnancy.

And yes, there is something sinister about suggesting that in such early pregnancy the woman has less rights than the embryo or foetus.

And TFMR are a very different thing and impossible to judge unless you have had one, 1pink4blue is right.

very, hello again, sorry we're meeting on yet another thread like this.

One day, we'll look back on this argument with this face on

Gone, you do seem to be a master at avoiding questions. To repeat one of my previous ones: if you say a foetus is a person, it follows that when that person dies unexpectedly there should be a full inquiry and inquest. Do you think that should happen? If not, why not?

And is there any chance at all of you explaining why it was fine for the flatmates to follow their consciences, albeit belatedly, in reporting this woman, but also fine for them to, presumably, ignore their consciences and lie about her repeatedly in public?

The "I support abortion in cases of rape" doesn't match up to the "I just want to preserve human life" and "all life, even unborn, is human and deserves to live".

Are pregnancies conceived from rape somehow worth less? Are babies born from rape less human than other babies? Are you going to tell an adult who was conceived out of rape that they have less right to live than someone else?

Pro-life logic is absolutely baffling. They just run around in circles, contradicting themselves, trying to make their views seem less abhorrent. If you oppose the right of women to access safe legal abortion, there's no two ways around it - you're abhorrent.

And absolutely everyone doesn't have rights to everything at all times. Completely irrelevant in this particular case, though.

And you know, women have died - far too many of them - in Ireland and other countries because of anti-abortion laws.

I don't need to say whether a foetus is a person or not - I think it just isn't that relevant as in the context of pregnancy, under a certain gestation a foetus certainly isn't independently able to live without the mother and I would say that the mother's rights are more important. You don't need to agree and your lack of agreement won't change my thinking on this, as I'm sure you're aware.

I think even the use of the term "pro-life" is illogical. After all, there are very, very few people who are pro death.

Southern Ireland is not

Because it doesn't exist, making. Read a book.

I was reading about this some more today and I just cannot get my head around it.

If anything, perhaps the 38 year old, having just lost her baby, could be excused (not excused but understood?) because of the trauma of losing her child.

Did the woman in question actually ask her to bring a scissors to her room as "the pest" was dangling and she wanted to cut it? (this is what flatmate told media.)

IF what flatmates said in the media was true then, with the added trauma of the pregnancy loss, I'd like to think that she wasn't in a rational frame of mind and wouldn't have acted as she did in different circumstances.

I don't really know about the other flatmate. I don't know what would compel her to phone the police.

RE: the pro-life stance of abortion being okay if you were raped, the glaring problem with this is; where does the sliding scale stop? It's either ok or it's not. What if a woman wasn't really raped but says she was? What if she was raped but didn't push for a conviction? It's just not enforceable.

A woman's health and life and body autonomy shouldn't come down to the votes of strangers. I mean, it just shouldn't.

Why should you as a stranger get to decide that I should be a mother? That I should go through labour?

I mean; isn't it just ridiculous?

Gone you make some very sensible points and then you say this:
I've seen what the prevailing culture has done, which is to make it legal for a baby with down's syndrome to be aborted when that life form is indisputably human. I don't have to like that and I defy any woman to say killing such a child is their right.

Most terminations are carried out before 12 weeks. Therefore the use of the term "child" is emotive and personal. I understand that is how you perceive the foetus, but you are falling into typical pro life language of blame, hate and generalisation of all pregnant women.
In RoI, the foetus does indeed have a "right to life" enshrined in the Constitution - this has led to bad law and a situation where we are nearly running out of letters of the alphabet for the court cases it has led to over the years. C, X, Y, and many more.
In RoI, also, despite the fact that the foetus has a right to life, the same country denies children with significant disabilities services on a regular basis. Leading to more court cases - fighting to win services, to receive care, access education, live in decent housing etc. High court case after high court case to live a life which they could not terminate legally in the first place.
Irony much?
I think this issue will divide most of us always.
I would pose the question only - what SHOULD happen to women with unwanted pregnancies? In RoI, in NI?
What should they do?
The current response in general from pro lifers seems to range from "shoulda kept her legs closed" to "suck it up and have the baby, not my problem after that". I have seen no real alternatives offered.
To be clear, there is only one reason EVER a woman should be offered an abortion - and that is if she requests one.
Rape, consent, TFMR et al are red herrings in my opinion. No woman "deserves" an abortion more than another due to the circumstances of conception. Remorse, victimhood, or vulnerability should not be played as currency in deciding who "deserves" to end a pregnancy. They may (and do, in reality) feed into how a woman makes her own decision, but they should not influence others in how they involve themselves with that decision. This "others" includes the State.

Late abortions are also a red herring and usually a sign of desperation on the side of the pro life lobby if they raise this. They are rare, usually for medical reasons and whilst not palatable to any of us they do happen but should not be used as a tool to deny safe, legal and accessible abortion to women overall.
I am very interested in this discussion and hope it can continue on the relatively civil course it has been on - only about 5 deletions so far, good going I think!

• Pregnancy doesn't kill you (except in exceptional circumstances). Abortion does kill. I don't think a woman's right to take the life inside her trumps the life of a foetus unless her own life is at risk. I also don't think that starting off life in another person's body means your life is worth less. Babies are as good as attached to their mother at the start of life; they are utterly dependent. Yet it's agreed that this doesn't make them less deserving of care, any less a person or any less 'alive'. We don't live in a society where human life is evaluated in such ruthless terms because we have a collective conscience about protecting children. I think this should extend to babies in the womb. I don't think being dependent on their mother is a good enough reason to say that their life is worth nothing and they don't exist, for the reasons just given. I agree that it's more emotive to consider killing a life form that resembles a baby, but that outward appearance triggering our emotions is not necessarily an indication that something has suddenly shifted on a moral level. Life is just life, in my view, and we diminish our own lives when we denigrate it.

• very proud, my very sincere sympathies. I wouldn't try to argue with you, except to ask you please not to compare Down's Syndrome with your baby's condition. They are utterly, wholly different.

augusta No I don't. Because lack of evidence. Obviously. Re the flatmates, have you outlined exactly what the lies were? And it wasn't exactly in public, was it, unless you know them?

ovaries There are cut-off points, circling and grey areas on both sides of this issue and I think you know it.

One example of why I think there's something wrong with the morality of the people currently making the decisions on these matters in the UK: In this country, a baby with Downs Sydrome can be aborted at any stage, right up to delivery. Apparently this is fine because it's the woman's body and she can do what she wants with it. Usually this right is said to incontrovertibly disappear as soon as the baby could, in theory, be kept alive by others (even though, mystifyingly, this doesn't happen until full-term delivery). But in the case of a baby with Downs Syndrome, who is only considered disabled because we find such people a mistake and a bit of a drain on the system, the mother's rights suddenly reappear to the point that it's perfectly ethical for a baby to be delivered dead who could have lived outside her body even ten weeks previously. As an example of the ethics underlying UK law, which most people on this thread appear to believe is flawless, I think it's crap and not self-evident, logical or respectful to life at all.

There are cut-off points, circling and grey areas on both sides of this issue and I think you know it.

Don't skirt around the point.

Why are pregnancies conceived through rape less important than any other pregnancy?

Why are those foetuses less deserving of life?

Its an embryo.

I will call an embryo an embryo since its an embryo.

I believe in calling things by their name.

very You have no idea if my sympathy was fake or not, but sure, I'll take it back if you prefer. Although I won't pretend I think you should have been denied access to an abortion, just to give you the satisfaction of hating another pro-lifer. How is it different? How is it different? You have described your baby, or whatever term you would prefer, as having 'no brain'. There was no potential future life, whatsoever, I'm imagining. Bear in mind that I wouldn't go into this if you didn't demand it. Death was a certainty. It was just a question of when. Please don't ask me to detail exactly how this is different for someone with Down's Sydrome because I don't think I could do it without becoming as offensive as you.