Abortion to be reduced to 20 weeks

[avenueone]

There is a story on the front page of the Telegraph tomorrow (paper review) saying that in brief due to babies? being able to survive from a younger age it should be reduced.
I personally don't think this is an argument as I doubt they could survive without medical intervention. I feel it is just another attempt to undermine a woman's right to choose what we do with out bodies. Sorry no link but there should be one around tomorrow and I will try and post it.

I've just seen the news this morning & Jeremy Hunt, health secretary, is saying 12 weeks - aaargh!

Looks like there's a faction of the conservative party determined to hijack the forthcoming party conference with an anti-abortion agenda.

I know, I've just seen it too, but its just his own personal viewpoint, so lets not worry that David Cameron saw fit to appoint a Health Secretary whose competency for any job in government is dodgy never mind one who couldn't wait to spout his own viewpoint . The only saving grace is that Mr Hunt is as thick as champ at the best of times.

I prefer to call him Mr Cunt.

Astonishing, isn't it.

This is why I think any reduction has to be opposed, as it will be used to ratchet the age downwards until abortion is banned - or at least that's the aim I expect.

This thread has a very confusing headline as there are no plans by anyone to bring the limit down to 20 weeks and it remains at 40 weeks plus for disabled chidlren. The Government has made this clear.

Hunt has a first class Oxbridge degree so it may be a little unfair to suggest he is thick. There is certainly something about him behind the scenes one would like to know about why it took him to over 40 to marry and why he married in China, a Chinese lady etc. He also has babies of 2 and newborn so presumbly most women on here can sympathise although I hope he doesn't have a housewife at home and I wish his wife not he were in the cabinet.

Thick as champ. Ha ha Wigglesrock. I have never heard that from any of my Irish family. I am totally stealing that one for my own use.

Hunt has a first class Oxbridge degree so it may be a little unfair to suggest he is thick.

He is thick to make such a silly comment and expect it to slide, as Minister of Health just because he says that it's his personal opinion.

People can be academic, ie. good at learning/remembering things and thick at the same time IMO. He is an example of this. No emotional intelligence whatsoever.

I totally agree two gold. I work in a university and I deal daily with PhDs who can't follow simple instructions or who have the emotional literacy of your average piranha.

Just to clarify: not implying that being academic is only down to learning and remembering (just in case colleagues are reading )

I agree Slug - I have a similar job!

Ahh, Glosswitch is on the case.
In her blog post [['No, actually, I won't be ''even handed'' when it comes to debating abortion rights'

She writes

Harking back to Bill Clinton?s ?safe, legal and rare? ideal, there are a whole host of pro-choicers who are more than happy to reveal their moral qualms, as though this somehow backs up, rather than undermines, their case. 'I?m pro-choice but I?m not happy about being pro-choice.' This always strikes me as disrespectful to the women whose choices we seek to defend. We have chosen to put their bodily integrity first. Let?s do it properly, bravely and honestly, with faith in these individuals and their decisions, and not with sad, disapproving eyes. Our abstract regret betrays, not some hidden ?truth? about life, but an ongoing expectation that these women should be giving more than anyone has ever had the right to ask of them.

I love this. This is how I feel. This isn't about wrangling over if a foetus is a person or how bad we personally feel about the idea of `12,20 or 24 weeks - do we say to women "actually, this isn't your decision, you can be forced to be pregnant and give birth against your will" - or do we say "I trust you. It's your body. You own it and get to decide what happens to it" ?

When it boils down to it, I trust women. And that's why I am happy to be pro-choice. And so, from now on I'm going to push back a lot harder in conversations about this. It's not my right to force women to be pregnant and give birth against their will. It's not anyone's right.

Oops, spooned the link:

In her blog post 'No, actually, I won't be ''even handed'' when it comes to debating abortion rights'

Did anyone read The Times today? The front page appeared (read as I passed by on the way to the checkout) to be entirely about slating Hunt on his stance. A tag line under the headline said something about "an insult to women" and the article appeared to have three female authors. But I didn't get a chance to read more than a few words, and I feel dirty if I actually buy a News International paper, so I wondered if anyone else saw it...

I buy the TImes and subscribe to it on line.

Given politicians have always had a free vote on this issue and the Tories do not intend to bring abortion law changes forwards it was a fairyl pointless headline. The Times had secured an interview with Hunt although there was nothing interesting in it about his business career up to when he entered Parliament nor revelations about his time in Japan nor marrying his Chinese wife in China realyl so the journalist did not really did out anything of much interest. I suppose the only nugget was about the 12 weeks limit which as he is a man married to someone from a culture which routinely kills more baby girls than anyone on the planet at almost all stages of pregnancy is not really much of a nugget.

BBC Breakfast today had a discussion on reducing abortion to 12 weeks, did anyone else see that?

Jeremy Hunt wasn't on, they had a different Tory MP who was a member of the parlimentary pro-life group instead. I didn't catch his name.

It is cetainly a very important issue for many voters. Some will pick their vote based on abortion concerns which is probably why it's better if the Government leaves well alone.

Islam is not as strict at Catholicism on this or rather has a different view:

"Muslim views on abortion are shaped by the Hadith as well as by the opinions of legal and religious scholars and commentators. In Islam, the fetus is believed to become a living soul after four months of gestation,[1] and abortion after that point is generally viewed as impermissible. Many Islamic thinkers recognize exceptions to this rule for certain circumstances; indeed, Azizah Y. al-Hibri notes that "the majority of Muslim scholars permit abortion, although they differ on the stage of fetal development beyond which it becomes prohibited."[2] According to Sherman Jackson, "while abortion, even during the first trimester, is forbidden according to a minority of jurists, it is not held to be an offense for which there are criminal or even civil sanctions. On this understanding, Muslim-Americans who oppose abortion should assiduously limit their activism to the moral sphere and avoid supporting positions that favor the imposition of criminal or civil sanctions in an area into which Islamic law itself never contemplated injecting these."[3]"

So they are saying four months - 17 weeks.

I think the vast majority of women decide whether to progress with a pregnancy or not very quickly. I decided within two weeks of finding out. If someone only requests an abortion around the 20 week mark they must have good reason? Don't they have to actually go through with a birth at that point?

'Don't have sex' is such an odd and simplistic thing to say to an adult. How about - use contraception?

In certain circumstances i agree but i meant for someone to just think i dont want this baby anymore because someone has changed there mind or its not the right sex there r some sick minded people out there or people to young to understand. When it comes to health issues then thats understandable. So the abortion should be reduced to 12 weeks. I look at a scan picture of my baby at 20weeks and i could never imagine having an abortion

Miss there are lots of things I could never imagine doing, but my imagination is not a basis on which to make laws about what other people can and cannot do.

After all, it was people who 'couldn't imagine' being gay who made gay sex illegal for so many years. Living in society requires that one doesn't legislate away the choices of others just because their choices are unappealling.

Blackcurrants,

Most of us cannot imagine being thieves, pirates, blackmailers etc etc. Most people are decent. That is not an argument against laws, in fact it is the reverse. Laws are to protect society and individuals against the few rare exceptions who do choose to make poor, selfish and immoral decisions.

The fact that very very few women would choose to have a late abortion is not an argument against having a law against it, more the opposite. The only argument for allowing very late abortions is if you buy into the argument that a foetus is not a human being until it is born. Personally, I don't. For most people, abortion is a balancing of the woman's and the foetus's/baby's rights and that means it being time limited unless the woman's health is compromised (as the law is at the moment).

larry if you have read this thread or the one rumbling along in AIBU, there are some very, very brave women who have posted their late-abortion stories. I think you'll find that no women feel that they 'choose' to have late abortions - they feel compelled to end a wanted pregnancy by devastating medical news, of ten they decide to prevent the future suffering and death of a longed-for baby. Very, very few abortions happen after 12 weeks, and those that do are generally unhappy stories. Why should those families be punished by making it harder to abort, because you, me, or anyone else 'can't imagine' their situations? We should think ourselves lucky we can't imagine how awful it must be.

Blackcurrants,

If I posted a thread about theft, for instance, I would read many devastating stories about people having to steel a loaf of bread to feed their family and my heart would feel for them as I have never been that desperate or in that position. That does not mean that no people steel for bad reasons. Ditto, I cannot imagine anyone posting on one of these threads that they managed to procure a late abortion because they had just started a new relationship and their partner did not want the baby. I am 100% sure that that kind of story is very very rare although I have no idea exactly how rare but I am equally sure that it does happen. You cannot imagine making that kind of decision as you are not that kind of person, nor can I. The law exists for those rare cases where people decide to step outside societal norms.

I consider myself lucky in all sorts of ways and, in another life, maybe I would have been someone who felt forced to do things which society deemed unacceptable. That is not a reason not to have laws.

I am confused as to why you keep comparing a legal medical proceedure which thousands of women undertake every year, to a criminal act.

Is it just to be inflammatory?

Thank you for mansplaining that to us larry.

However, as a non-possessor of a uterus I respectfully suggest that it is not your business to tell women what they can and can't do with their own bodies.