Abortion - The Choice . Tuesday 13th May, BBC 2, 9pm

[Milliways]

Tuesday 13th May, BBC 2, 9pm: Abortion - The Choice.
"Five women face up to their decision to have an abortion, describing their thought processes as they made one of the most difficult choices anybody can make, and on which there can be no hard and fast agreement. Beyond the chatter, 200,000 pregnancies are terminated in the UK each year and none is anything less than tortuous and painful - as demonstrated by this poignant film."

you can have this thread to tlak about murder( I am not talking about abortion) i don't mix with people like you in rl. and sure as hell don't want to on here.
I will go back to sn.

Spero,
I'd have rather found out what was causing him so much anguish that he was doing that. If it's a hypersensitivity to a particular set of sounds, lights, textures, smells, then it could be driving him to permanent distraction and could be solved in other ways than just padding him up and some people wanting him put down.

Unfortunately, because most people can't see/hear/smell/feel what some hypersensitive people with disabilities can, they think it's insanity to act that way. It often isn't. It's more like leaving one of you in the trenches of world war 1 with people who don't speak your language and have no intention of trying, for your whole life, then wondering why you're a wreck. I'm not saying there's going to be an answer, but I'm saying I'd bet the professionals haven't even looked properly for one.

Spero - I am very and not to mention that you think killing an un-consenting disabled child is acceptable to discuss, let alone do.

What happened to valuing life. Who are you to say that if that child should live or die? Who are you to judge that that child is of no value, or isn't filled with happiness when he feels the breeze on his face or sees a familiar face smile at him. Or who are you to say that he has nothing to offer to other people?

It just goes to show that if we didn't draw the line somewhere who knows where we would end up. In your comment this debate has gone from abortion to murdering disabled children.

I for one am glad that the law controls things like abortion and that at 24 weeks the decision is taken away from the mother and as a society we say it is wrong. I wished that as a society we protected and valued disabled children and the people they grow into.

madamez - so your insistence that no one should have rights over a woman's body with an unplanned pregnancy - what about after 24 weeks? When it is illegal to abort? Do you think that should be changed?

?I would definitely have helped to give him aa peaceful and dignified death as was possible.?. .

There?s a vast difference between not continuing with treatment and therefore allowing someone to die, and taking active steps in order to kill someone.

I don?t think anyone would dispute that there are of course instances when stopping treatment is appropriate, thus allowing someone a peaceful and dignified death, for example when that person is already likely to die, and when the treatments to prolong that life are invasive but will not bring about a long-term solution. I think there?s nothing wrong then with calling a halt to such invasive treatments and allowing that person to die peacefully.

However, to suggest that a child should be killed because they have a certain disability, and because they will only have a certain quality of life is just wrong. Who is to be the judge of what quality of life is worthy of life and which disabilities should mean instant euthanasia? Because what to one is a severe disability is really not that bad to someone else, so if you?re unlucky and you get a doctor who has had no dealings with the disabled and who thinks that all disability is bad, then you run the risk of babies who have the chance of a totally normal life being killed purely because their disability doesn?t fit.

And how far would you extend this quality of life thing to ensure that the budgets are spent appropriately? Should we perhaps start euthanasing the terminally ill upon diagnosis? After all they?re not going to live, so keeping them alive is just burdening the taxpayer isn?t it? So why not give them a dignified death and save the taxpayer a few quid. and what about the victims of car accidents? Permanently brain damaged? Ah well better kill them now rather than make them undergo a lot of treatment/rehabilitation. After all, they won?t lead a normal life again, so anything not normal isn?t worthy of living is it?

It?s very slippery ground IMO. No-one should be allowed to make such life and death decisions over what they perceive to be someone else?s quality of life.

I think it's fairly ironic that there is an opinion that no-one has the right to tell a woman what to do with her own body, running tandem with an opinion that certain disabled people should probably be killed for their own good.

That's a bloody enormous logical inconsistency.

But there is an important debate to be had around euthanasia: remember Diane Pretty? At present, even if a person begs for euthanasia because he/she is unable, physically, to put an end to his/her life, anyone who helps will face prosecution.
Also, when it comes to newborns with very severe disabilities, then there are issues about what is the best use of NHS resources: active intervention or just pain relief. ANd to say that this is a difficult ethical issue and bears discussion is not to say to any individual mother of a child with severe SN that her DC should be or should have been 'put down': as I have said before, sometimes the parents of a child born with severe SN fight for treatment etc and the child makes progress far beyond what was expected but sometimes the parents fight on and struggle and the child dies anyway. It depends a lot on the type of disability and what if anything can be done (the baby born with brain damage and holes in the heart and half its intestines missing is very unlikely to survive no matter what is done for it).
A lot of the figures chucked around about babies born at 24 weeks or so are a bit flawed because the research was biased and didn't distinguish between the babies born at that stage who were given a good chance of survival and therefore immediate treatment, and those that were given a poor chance of survival: '24 weeks' official gestation can be anywhere between 22 weeks and 26 weeks since conception and every day counts in terms of development. THere is a point before which a premature baby's lungs simply won't work.
With regard to abortion I still subscribe to the viewpoint that it should be available as early as possible, as late as necessary. Late abortions are rare anyway (slightly less than 10%) of all terminations. and the possiblity that a few women abuse this right does not justify taking the right away from all women.

No one is talking about euthanasia. The definition of euthanasia is someone choosing themselves to die. Killing someone with a disability is not that, unless they are requesting it themselves, which I am presuming most sn children aren't.

Good post madamez

Every time I hear those figures re survival at 24 weeks I feel irritated - because they are comparing statistics from pregnancies where there have usually been severe problems leading to the very premature birth - and assuming that aborted babies at the same stage would have the same prognosis. It does not follow. And it is an attempt to avoid confronting the sad reality that many babies are being legally killed inutero, that could have lived had they been aborted the old fashioned way and placed in incubators.

Given a vote I would vote to leave the law unchanged - because there will always be extreme cases where it would be inhumane to allow abortion - I have an aquaintance who discovered that the baby she was carrying literally had no head and could not possibly survive outside the womb. She had a late abortion and I dare anyone to say that was wrong!

Deciding whether a life is worth living and fighting for is not something that is suited to abstract discussion - it should be on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes we won't agree with the decisions made.

. what a distressing turn this thread has taken (thinking of spero's posts in particular).

Madamez but while I agree that someone with a terminal illness should be allowed to make the call on their own life, to end their suffering, I don't think anyone else should be able to make that call on someone's behalf.

If I became terminally ill I could quite possibly see a point where I might not want to continue any more, and might want to consider the possibility of ending my life, but if it were my dh, or ds who became ill, it wouldn't be for me to decide when their suffering had become unbearable - that's just not my call to make.

I am so really very, very sorry for causing such upset. That most certainly was not my intention. I apologize completely and utterly to 2shoes, Tclanger, Clarisa and anyone else who I have offended on this thread.
I feel sick that I have become one of those people who causes others to swear, in anger, at another MNer

It is not my personal opinion that a disabled person has any less a right to life to a non disabled person.

I was speaking as a nurse who has been involved in the care of more babies and children who have been abandoned by their parents because they are disabled.

I realise now that it was a spectacularly bad example to use and as someone quite rightly pointed out I should have thought a bit harder before typing.

As a mother I would love equally any baby I delivered no matter how long they were in this world.

Wannbe: but what about when the person cannot speak for him/herself, and a decision has to be made regarding medical treatment? do you think that life should be preserved no matter what, or that a risky/painful/costly treatment should not be used because the drawbacks outwiegh the likely benefits (ie life will be preserved but not improved or life may not even be preserved).

Like a coule of others, I think that all such decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis because there are always so many different variable factors to continue.

I can't believe I am getting sucked back into this but I am....

Madamez, you don't seem to be able to see a contradiction in what you say on this thread so I will point it out to you.

You believe that for anyone to attempt to reduce or limit a woman's access to abortion on demand is wrong, because a woman should not be forced to continue a pregnancy she does not want - all sorts of angry comments made about woman's right to choose, self determination, misogyny, woman hating scum etc etc.

So far so very right on.

Now you apparently espouse the view that some people, being disabled(some of whom are presumably women), are not capable of deciding for themselves what is best, and whether their lives are worth living, so some kindly type needs to decide for them whether they should live or die.

Please explain, if you can.

Spero what you would like to do to disabled people is called eugenics and was practised by the Nazis. Just think about that for a moment please.

As other posters have pointed out, you have no idea of another person's quality of life and have no right to decide whether they live or die however "good" you believe your intentions to be.

With regard to the comments about disabled children - I believe that every child has a right to life, and that we cannot possibly judge the quality of their life. I am very and to think that anyone would consider killing a disabled child because they were hard to deal with or weren't "normal". Very good post LaVieEnRose.

Abortion - Madamez, you say that it's wrong for a woman to be prevented from having an abortion as it is her body and her choice. You also said that you didn't agree with the two doctor agreement policy on abortion. Normally I would agree with you that patients should have the ultimate say over their treatment and what happens to their bodies. However, in the case of a pregnancy there is another life involved which is unable to protect itself. I'm strongly against abortion anyway, but I am even more strongly against abortions past 24 weeks for any reason other than severe medical problems. I think that the unborn child has rights as well as the mother, especially at the point where it could no longer be seen as a "parasitical" being and could technically survive outside the womb with medical assistance.

A foetus isn't a person. It's a potential person. The rights of a woman (an actual person) will always take priority over the rights of a potential person.

Georgiemama: I see no contradiction in supporting a woman's right to control her own body and pointing out that there are cases and circumstances where a person (a live person, not a foetus) is not in any way capable of giving or witholding consent to medical treatment, so someone else (either a medical professional or the patient's next of kin) has to make the decision as to whether or not treatment is given. How do you suggest a comatose patient is 'consulted' on medical treatment?

Madamez - so if the foetus is merely a potential and its rights are overridden by those of the mother, where do you draw the line? Would you defend the right of a pregnant woman to drink heavily at the cost of her foetus, or would you then see the foetus as in need of protection? I'm not meaning to be confrontational by asking this, but am genuinely interested as to where the distinction would be made.

TTT: Yes I would defend the right of a pregnant woman to drink heavily. I might think she was unwise to do so but I would still maintain that she has the right to do what she wants with her body. Are you speculating that pregnant women should be legally prevented from drinking heavily? Put in jail? Forced to submit to breathalyser tests?

No, I probably didn't think that example through enough, as there is of course no legal way to stop a pregnant woman getting drunk. What I was trying to say is - would you defend the right of a pregnant woman to do whatever she likes, whether it harms her baby or not? If so, why is it suddenly wrong to harm the baby as soon as it is born, but before birth it's ok, because it's the woman's choice? I feel quite strongly that a pregnant woman has a responsibility of care towards her baby.

Madamez, I wouldn't defend the right of a woman to drink heavily if she knew she was pregnant. To knowingly do something that could lead your future child to suffer is surely every bit as cruel as to do it to the child when they're born. Would you be so keen if the mum was forcing gin down the mouth of a newborn baby? Well, it's what you're doing, in essence, if you choose to drink heavily whilst pregnant.

I speak as someone whose mum tried to abort me by drinking herself stupid during pregnancy. I could list the other medical problems I have here which the docs believe could be related to that, but it would only depress me. I'm not impressed by her choice at all.

Opinions aside, imo it's a dodgy road to go down when you start to talk about policing the pregnant woman's treatment toward her unborn baby. Where does it stop........e.g. passive smoking from the unborn baby's father, stress from domestic violence, high expressed emotion in the household, drug abuse of the father (not just the mother - sperm from drug using fathers can cause abnormalities I believe). In a bit of a rush.....but just wanted to illustrate that it is unhelpful to focus on, for e.g, a woman drinking in pregnancy, when there are so many other lifestyle issues that can impact on the unborn baby - and which would be impossible to prevent.

FioFio, i didn't find anything 'offensive' about this child. He was very very badly brain damaged. He would never get better. When he was awake he constantly tried to kill himself - hence the helmet.

I don't believe in eugenics - otherwise I would have been aborted, and as I've said, on balance I think my life is worth living.

Yes it is a very slipperly slope, but that doesn't mean we can't consider and discuss things. i think Madamez point about Diane Petty is absolutely spot on. If I did get any more disabled and wanted to end it all I would have to travel abroad to a country who did allow me to end it with dignity. And that can't be right. And I think we are in this mess because as a society we are not 'allowed' to discuss difficult questions of life/death/quality of life because someone always starts chucking terms like eugenics about. I assume Nazi is next.

I'm very sorry to cause upset and offence to people. That's certainly not my intention. But I thought the point of this kind of thing was to debate, to swop ideas. As a disabled person who has considered suicide as the logical response to a life which at times was very difficult, I think it is a debate worth having.

and I do think that there are some lives which on any standard, just aren't worth living because they are full of pain, immobility and abandonment in some institution.