Three Irish women who travelled to the UK to have abortions have now gone to Strasbourg to argue that Ireland's strict abortion law violated their rights.

[TinselInYourBum]

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/12/091209_ireland_abortion_et_sl.shtml]

God and I still can't do links.

I strongly feel that abortion should be kept illegal in Ireland.

MN Jury?

There is also a further and very important distinction between euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Is abortion legal in Northern Ireland?

It is unavailable in NI, ilove.

i think 3 or 4 people have said "cluster of cells"

i have just googled images for 24 week feotus

that's not a cluster of cells - or its one with eyebrows.

15 week feotus - take a look - that is more than a cluster of cells

if you were saying 4 week - then yeah - i might concede.

Thanks for that expat. Never understood why Irish women would travel to England. Makes sense now.

Only skimmed this thread but so forgive me if these points have already been made somewhere - I am assuming not given the last few posts.

Regarding sterlization and contraception -

" The decision to have a sterilisation operation for family planning purposes, is a matter for the patient, in conjunction with their consultant. If the service is not available at a particular hospital, you have the right to ask your consultant for a referral to a hospital where this procedure is available. Your HSE office should make the arrangements.

The Department of Health and Children has asked the HSE to ensure that vasectomy services are available through hospitals, family doctors (GP's) and family planning clinics in their areas. You entitlement to free services is the same as for public hospital services generally. A number of private hospitals also provide these procedures. You have to pay the full cost involved."

Regarding the law on abortion -

"Abortion is illegal in Ireland except where there is a real and substantial risk to the life (as distinct from the health), of the mother. This includes a risk arising from a threat of suicide. The Irish Medical Council ethical guidelines to doctors state that it is 'not unethical if a child in utero should suffer or lose its life as a side effect of standard medical treatment of the mother'.

Women in Ireland may not be prevented from travelling abroad to get an abortion. It is lawful to provide information in Ireland about abortion abroad, subject to strict conditions. It is not lawful to encourage or advocate an abortion in individual circumstances. "

Or in other words

Sterlization and contraception are available on the public health service or privately.

Abortion is only legal if the life of the mother is at risk due to physical or mental health issues.

harpy

The dialysis/ventilator argument is common but specious. A dialysis machine is not a living thing that has feelings regarding its usage. Comparing a living woman to a piece of machinery thats sole purpose is to support life is rather offensive, don't you think?

Age as a criteria for right to life? Any person of any age has a right to life. But the unborn are not of any age, you don't count your age including the 9 months before you were born, do you? A foetus is not a person, not in the eyes of the law, not in common parlance.

RE cluster of cells, well we are all a cluster of cells aren't we? But a foetus of less than 22 weeks is a cluster of cells that cannot survive alone, at 6 weeks it is a potential, nothing more (IMO, I stress).

I agree that banning euthanasia while allowing abortion is a little inconsistent, which is why I agree with legal self determined euthanasia as well.

shriekingharpy, abortion is illegal in Ireland. (refer to thread title).

Of course a human being who has already been born takes precedence over a foetus. That is so obvious.

Pooexplosion,

I had promised myself that I would stay away from this thread, but I am so annoyed now that i have to post!

You write extremely confidently, fluently (almost ijn legal language- are you a lawyer! and from a standpoint of great certainty, more moral and ethical certainty than any of the 'pro- lifers' who have contributed to this thread.

You have made the point time and again that other contributors, myself iincluded, are citing opinion as fact, and have been quite persistent and critical of this fact.

Please may i respectfully point out that you are in fact doing on time and again.

There are many greater scientific legal and bioethicits minds than ours, all around this planet who take a variety of stances on the subject of abortion, some 'pro-choice', some 'pro-life' and many who are undecided.

But all of these great minds seem to share one opinion- that the subject of abortion, and the decisions to be made pertaining to itare all extremely complex and that therefor every possible piece of information needs to be given consideration.

I really cannot understand why nearly every time a viewpopint or scientific fact (which may or may not) either support or deny the need for easy acces to abortion you feel the need to make emotional statements (such as in response to 'harpy')saying her comment was 'offensive' seems to be a stock answer of yours.

Several people on this thread have made the point that the fetus does not have the right to life because of thier total dependency on the mother, therefore i feel that harpys point was a very valid counter argument to this point, what is offensive about this- please clarify!

Harpy's point was only valid,as PE has already mentioned, if the dialysis consisted of being hooked up to another being's kidneys.

Why?

If you are talking about dependency perse?

There are a lot of shades of grey here. What exactly does dependent mean -- a newborn is not exactly independent, except in terms of being able to breathe unaided, nor is a two year old independent in many respects. Put either one in a forest in winter without an adult to help them and how long would they last? Set me down a hundred miles outside Ulan Bator, and how long would I last? People depend on each other in various degrees all their lives, if you think about it.

Mathanxiety

I agree with you. Of course being dependent on a persons body is a different thing to being dependent on a machine, because, as Pooexplosion has said the latter does not have feeling etc.

I just wanted to make the point in my last post that others have given (total) dependency per-se as a reason why a fetus may not have the same rights as a person who has been born.

I think it is such an interesting concept for discussion (not on this thread necessarily!).

For example, if we give physical depdendency, ie the depdendency of one being on anothers body then surely it could be argued that if a mother decided she could no longer breastfeed and there was no feeding alternative available, she could argue that because the newborn/small baby was completely physically depdendent on her act5ual body it did not have the same legal rights as someone who was not in this position, hence baby couold be allowed to die with no legal penalty???

Last post should have read 'if we give physical dependency as (one) a reason to allow abortion'-.....ie the

Apologies for so many typos!!

"For example, if we give physical depdendency, ie the depdendency of one being on anothers body then surely it could be argued that if a mother decided she could no longer breastfeed and there was no feeding alternative available, she could argue that because the newborn/small baby was completely physically depdendent on her act5ual body it did not have the same legal rights as someone who was not in this position, hence baby couold be allowed to die with no legal penalty???"

I understand where you are coming from, but in the case you just stated, someone else could take over from the mother in looking after the baby. However no one else could take over care of a foetus.

My personal opinion, and I know it is different to yours, is that as soon as a foetus is able to have it's life supported outside of the mothers body it becomes a seperate being. And therefore abortion would be wrong at that point. However, before that, it would stand no chance of life outside of the womb and so isn't seperately alive. I hope that makes sense to you, even if you don't agree.

iwant Yes I have been critical of the difference between fact and opinion, which is why I was at pains to point out repeatedly that I was speaking of my own opinion (if you read back my last post it says "I stress, IMO , which means in my opinion). In each and every post I have said that it is my opinipon, not a fact, as facts don't come into most areas of this debate.

As to "offensive", I personally find it offensive to compare a woman to a piece of machinery as in the argument laid out about dialysis machines/ventilators. I think my last post makes it clear why I find it so. I cannot compare a foetus to a living person on a ventilator, and I cannot compare a women to a lump of plastic. I find it to be one of the worst of many arguments i have come across.

Thanks for the compliment. I'm not a lawyer, I'm a philosophy and psychology student with a background in mental health and sexual health education.

I do not expect anyone to agree with my own personal opinions, and I fully appreciate that many will find them unpalatable, but I will argue them to the best of my abilities.

Yes but was the pposter saying a ventilator/dialysis machine is equivalent to a living women??

That is not how I dear it, and surely it is obviously not the case.

I read it as specific reference to the issue of dependency, and whether this should be an informing factor in the abortion debate.

The reason i think you are yourself getting muddled uo between fact and opinion is that (for example in your last post youseemed to be saying that a person could have no 'age' before birth, and also that a person with no age could not be a 'person'. A lot of people would argue that this is a 'fact', it is a bioethical/moral (and indeed legal) stance shared by many but not all people.

Later

later????- not sure where that came from- am on new keyboard and am annoying myself with the amount of crap typing today!!!

Also, the debate as to what constitutes a 'person' or 'personhood' is still very much ongoing, so it would not be correct to say that an unborn child could not be a person.

Some theorists argue that people with severe dementia or who are in a PVS are not persons but currently society still sees fit to afford them the same rights of personhood as the 'rest of us'.

Do you count your age from the date of your conception? Most of us don't. I don't see how an unborn child has an age, either practically or liguistically, as you only start counting somones age (and the duration of their life) from the moment of birth.
I don't think that is a fact, and did not state it was. I think it is a commonly accepted notion though, and that carries weight in an argument.
Legally speaking, birth denotes the acquisition of personhood. Even in countries where abortion is illegal, the unborn is not counted as a person. If you killed a woman who was 9 months pregnant for example, you would not be charged with 2 counts of murder, but one.
There are many grey areas, when does life begin, what is life, is there a difference between life and personhood? There are few facts. There are many many opinions, some backed further with cultural norms and expectations or more logic than others. If you read my posts back I assert almost nothing as fact, and the issues I had with your posts were comments like "you can argue all you like but X is a fact", and using some basic agreed tenets to prove things that cannot be proven.

The one thing I know, fact or otherwise, the one thing I know in my heart and soul is that the only person that should decide what happens inside my own body is me. The only person who should decide when and which children I give birth to is me. The only person who can make such decisions is me. And when that right is taken from women, I think it is a moral wrong that should be changed.

I don't expect you to agree with me, but I'm still a little stung at being called callous and various other things. But there you are, this is an emotive issue and people get riled, its expected, we shouldn't take any of it personally, on either side.

Do you live in LA? I don't.

i don;t think its flimsy in the slightest, I think if historically and culturally the majority of people truly considered a foetus to be a full person then language and practice would reflect that, and they don't.

You may see my arguments as hard and dispassionate, I see yours similarly. You say you are not comparing women to ventilators, but I think you are, because otherwise your argument is empty. You are drawing paralells which to me are unreasonable.
A foetus depending on its host is different on many levels.

1. a person kept alive on machinery has already been born, has lived and is quantifiably alive. A foetus has not.
2. A foetus is not dependent on its host to stay alive, but to become alive. I see a big difference between the two.
3. A person hooked up to a ventilator does not take anything from the ventilator, it is all benefit and no drawback.
4. A ventilator does not have a life and feelings of its own.

As for the "bunch of cells thing", as I said earlier, as far as I'm concerned we are all a bunch of cells. However a person is a fully formed bunch of cells, which to me a foetus is not.

Re , offensive, I said I thought the comparison offensive, not that you yourself were offensive.

The problem here is that we are diametrically opposed. There is little we can agree on, and to each other we seem entrenched, cold, unfeeling and just plain wrong. Theres almost no common ground.
Its just that kinda topic