now I know there is no way I would vote for this man

[2shoes]

dipstick that he is

Ah, but tinkering has been scrapped, remember?

Species selection doesn't work btw (your earlier post).

This is getting a bit silly and moving off the point. is it OK to terminate at 39 weeks because a baby is disabled? IMO - in some very extreme cases (where the child themselves would suffer- and really suffer- not the current medical definition of it) yes it might be. Is it OK for moderate learning disabilities? A resounding no.

specied selection isn't that controversial it only happens under very specific circumstances. Certainly not in humans- no-one is perpetuating any species.

But anyway that's even more off the point.

What would have happened in the past is irrelevant to terminations now. Particularly because late terminations are carried out for conditions that would have survived. It's not what used to happen before the advent of modern medicine. It's only in the last few years that more babies with DS have been terminated than born for example. A quiet revolution that many (unfortunately) might see as progress. I think that needs to be questioned.

'Certainly not in humans' - never suggested it did.

'What would have happened in the past is irrelevant to terminations now'

Not sure what you mean by this - take away the modern edifice of civilisation or go visit a third world country and nature will be working today as she did in the past.

how many of the children that we are assuming would have been aborted under this legislation would require medical intervention post birth? i have no idea - just curious. dd2 wouldn't have survived without medical intervention and she was full term. i know it's slightly off the point (and may have been discussed - i lost the thread in the middle somewhere).

Manny- that's not the question on this thread. It's about the laws of this country which allow the termination of a 'severely' disabled fetus up until birth (with no definition of what constitutes severe) - whilst protecting the life a non-disabled foetus post 24 weeks.

The species selection stuff is totally irrelevant. I only brought it up because one of your arguments was "Well there is no guarantee but given that Homo has existed for upwards of 2.5 million years, then it's a safe bet that enough fit individuals are born to perpetuate the species, otherwise we most certainly wouldn't be having this debate!" and I was simply saying that that is not the level at which selection works.

If the figures are to be believed - and babies really are being terminated for things like talipes alone then fitness doesn't really come into it.

But that really is completely off the point.

This is a moral issue, not a biological one.

An interesting question. The definition of viability with today's technologies is much broader than if nature is merely the sole arbiter - many babies can be kept alive (disabled or otherwise) where previously they would probably have died. And the limit of viability is now 24wks, with a 50-50 chance of survival.

I never mentioned species selection - you did!!

Natural selection works on individuals, not species. I was merely answering 2Shoes' point about there being no guarantee that a pregnancy will not result in a disabled baby. The fact that our species has endured for 2.5 million years is testimony to the fact that enough fit individuals have survived long enough to reproduce and hence to perpetuate the species. That's a pretty simple argument and hardly irrelevant!

If you start talking about perpetuating the species you are talking about species selection.

But we're talking about laws & morality here, not biology.

'If you start talking about perpetuating the species you are talking about species selection'

No! Perpetuating the species is merely reproduction at the individual level!!!

'But we're talking about laws & morality here, not biology. '

So, short of itemising all the severe disabilities that can be legally terminated up to 39weks, who else can this thorny issue ever be resolved? Do you have any ideas, anyone?

Nope- that's selection at the individual level (or go further and the while Dawkins hog and go for the genes).

A species is very very rarely (and only in very particular circumstances) a unit of selection. So it's not perpetuated. It not a particularly workable 'unit' anyway.

Pedantic? yep. But you can't talk about perpetuating the species.

Well a definition of severe would help.

I was not talking about species selection, whichever way you cut it. Natural selection works on individuals and individuals reproduce and are acted upon by natural selection. Of course a species is not (often) a unit of selection!! Talk about splitting hairs!

i'm pretty sure that's why he made such an ass of answering the question in the first place... there just isn't one answer...

particularly when you have a group of people who are emotionally involved, and a group of people who are fiscally involved...
it's never going to work out.
which is why no-one is going to tinker with the law, because any amendment would never be passed into statute.

So are you saying that the late abortion is likely never to be changed? Personally, although I find the idea of a 39wk termination abhorrent, I would still support any woman who chose that route. Unless I was going to be supporting that woman financially and emotionally after the birth, with respect to respite care and such like, then I would feel that I had no place to dictate what she should do.

Splitting hairs indeed. I spent too long in the same room as Richard Dawkins to be able to let it pass. My one area of pedantry.

I agree Romy7, with both your posts. IME the majority of people don't realise you can terminate a disabled baby post 24 weeks anyway. So perhaps another reason why there's no need to raise it politically.

DD1 has a developmental age of about 8 months. Always will have imo. Although the law will treat her slightly differently as she grows older, in the main its treatment of her will be according to her developmental age not her chronological age. She won't be learning to drive. Or voting. Or walking out in the street when she chooses for that matter. Not because she is disabled in the sense of being physically incapable but because she is a baby to all intents and purposes.

I am sure neither the law nor the public think of it in these terms, but in effect the termination law is operating in the same way. In cases of severe disability (and, again, part of the problem is we all define that differently so are arguing about different things) a disabled 39 week old baby will be physically mature but the brain will be less developed than a norm 24 week old fetus. So in that sense they have the same rights, relative to their developmental age.

The main issue, still, is how you define severely disabled, who defines it, and whether they have any practical understanding of disability.

'Well a definition of severe would help.'

But aren't some conditions on a spectrum (say, DS), making it difficult to determine how affected an individual will be?

Maybe we should look at this the other way around - why does the medical profession bother to scan and to test women pre-natally? Surely, it's just so they can determine whether the baby has any defects or not. And why give this information to a women if there is no choice attached to it?

I understand that some severe conditions are only detectable after 30wks+ (my friend's ds has such a condition, his brain cells didn't migrate post 30wks) BUT how many women are actually offered scans after 24wks? Certainly, my friend wasn't and she had no idea there was anything wrong with her ds until he was born or that his problems could've been detected on a late scan.

So, given that the NHS only offers scans at 20wks (except in those cases where a women has pre-eclampsia, her waters break early (that was me - I was scanned many times at 34wks), then just how many late onset defects are going to be detected anyway? If DS is picked up at the 20wk scan, then why would anyone who wanted to terminate wait until 39wks?

'My one area of pedantry'

Oooh, better not mention it again then!

r3dh3d - I think you have a point there, it does seem, rightly or wrongly, that a disabled baby is judged to be younger that their actual age if s/he has a mental age of a much younger baby.

Fio - yes, I think scanning does lull people into a false sense of security. Scans almost devalue life, making us expect a greater level of perfection. But, if you take away scanning completely (for example, my mum jokes that 'in the 60s, it was just pot luck with you', before scanning was available) then I think you should also take away the vast medical support system that is available to babies once they are born. Let nature (or God, whatever your preference) decide.

I still don't understand why it takes until 39 weeks to discover a child has serious problems justifying killing them.

What about having the baby and letting some one who does want to look after them adopt them?

'I still don't understand why it takes until 39 weeks to discover a child has serious problems justifying killing them.'

Because the bottom line is resources, mainly financial. Society (and that includes us too) has decided through our laws that disabled babies can be terminated up to 39wks. The reasoning is wrapped up as parental choice but there is also the unspoken financial cost that a disabled baby entails.