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.

As a possessor of a uterus (which is in fact irrelevant to my opinion) I respectfully suggest that it is not anyone's business to tell someone else what they can and can't do with their own body - whether you would choose to do that with yours or not.

YY to this

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" ?

I am going to come out and say it. Abortions are a good thing. Not "sad but..." or "well, maybe in this case it's different". Just a good thing. Not a compulsory thing and not something that everyone should do. But a good thing that's available in the world if you want it. You wanting an abortion is a good enough reason to have one and for the rest of us to say "You chose your own destiny, I'm pleased that we live in a world where you can do this".

And to reiterate what I said on the thread earlier, we should really be applauding those women who have multiple abortions, not demonising them. They know they don't want to be or are not able to be a mother to a child. We should view that as a powerful and humane decision. Multiple abortions cannot be physically easy and that situation is unlikely to happen to a woman who is wholly in control of her life. So hats off to any woman in that situation if she still has the wherewithall and clearsightedness to take control of her life by deciding not to add an unwanted child to the mix.

I agree.

I would prefer to live in a world where abortions are available for those who want them than to live in a world where abortions are not allowed.

Therefore abortions are a good thing.

Abortions make the world a better place.

Blackcurrants,

This thread concerns whether to reduce the legal term for abortion. It is therefore about law and whether there should be one. What do you think this thread is about?

As a possessor of a human body, I feel that it is entirely my right to comment on what people do to other human bodies, albeit small ones.

My position is hardly pro-life so I am not extreme. I merely believe that there should come a time in pregnancy where the rights of the foetus are considered and the rights of the mother, whilst paramount, are not the sole consideration.

paramount: chief in importance or impact

If the rights of the woman are paramount then it does not matter whether the fetus has rights or not, the mother gets to decide.

Personally I'm not keen on the fact that you are calling her "the mother" - the whole point here is that a woman wants an abortion in order to not be the mother of this potential child.

Trills,

Paramount means that if the mother risks physical or mental harm through carrying the foetus, she has the right to abort at any point. If she merely risks inconvenience or annoyance, than the right of the foetus (I am talking 20 weeks + here) to life trumps her right to avoid the annoyance and/or inconvenience. Although the mother comes first on a like-for-like basis, the right to life weighs heavily against the absolute right to do as she chooses.

Trills, have you tried telling any heavily pregnant women that they are NOT the mother of the baby they are carrying yet and will only become so at birth? Works both ways...

If they consider themselves to be a mother then they are, If they do not, then they are not.

Just another way in which people who wish to reduce or remove access to abortion seem to be ignoring the most important thing - what the woman wants or feels.

I'm not sure it is possible to have a meaningful exchange of views with someone who can describe an unwanted pregnancy as something which "merely risks annoyance and/or inconvenience". There speaks someone who has no possible conception of the effect that an unplanned pregnancy can have.

Annoyance is something you feel when someone pinches your parking place.
Inconvenience is something you undergo when someone turns up unexpectedly as you are about to sit down to dinner.

Again with the mansplaining larry.

You see, for millennia men have told women what they can and can't do with their bodies. You can't get pregnant. Why on earth do you think that gives you the right to dictate to those who can what they should and shouldn't do?

Women's bodies aren't public property. They are ours. That means we get the right to say who touches them, who enters them and whether or not a pregnancy in our bodies is carried to term.

Slug,

Well, actually, you don't, sorry. Not legally, anyway.

And much as you would like this debate to split by sexes, it doesn't. There are as many women who find late abortion atrocious as men.

And if "bodily autonomy" is all important, should a siamese twin who shares a heart have a right to commit suicide? Easy question..or not so easy?

Well, actually Larry, I would like to be afforded the same privileges over my own body as men have over theirs thank you very much.

I respectfully suggest that anyone who finds abortion atrocious make the decision not to have one themselves and keep their opinions away from my bodily autonomy.

Since I'm not a co-joined twin Larry it is not a decision for me to make. In co-joined twin surgery the final say is given to the people concerned, it's not for the general public to wade in with their opinions.

I said LATE abortion, please don't misquote me. I am in favour of abortion on demand up to a limit.

Well, you do have. I cannot demand a surgeon or doctor do whatever operation I choose on me. They have to consent to it. So, in that sense, I don't have any more privilege than you.

I'm not misquoting you at all Larry

Just for a moment, stop and try to see it from the position of a person (difficult though it may be to see women as people and not a sub-species of male) and realize just how like slavery it feels to be told that you are not allowed to make decisions about your own body. As a man you will never understand how women's bodies are public property, how men feel they have the right to touch, invade and dictate to us how they are used.

This was linked to further up the thread but it's worth linking again to dispel the myth of 'inconvenience' that you are so keen to promote.

And I'll say it again. You can't get pregnant. Butt out.

slug

And I'll say it again. You can't get pregnant. Butt out.

Yah.
I disagree completely with his stance, and worked from the 70s on to support abortion liberalisation.

It's a feeble comment to say - you can't get pregnant, so you have no voice.

He has influence - as do all of us - with the mostly male legislators in the Commons; since the Dorries individual is a woman, we need more men on the pro-abortion side. Whatever you think is right, men do have a voice in this debate.

But he isn't exactly pro abortion is he? He's "We'll let the wimminz have some rights to shut them up but there comes a point where we must tell them what is good for them".

I, for one, am fed up to the back teeth with men telling me what I can and can't do with my body, especially the ones who feel it is their right to tell me that I don't understand the issues. Nadine Dorries on the other hand, with whom incidentally I have a frequent frank exchange of views via twitter, is, at least a woman.

"I respectfully suggest that anyone who finds abortion atrocious make the decision not to have one themselves and keep their opinions away from my bodily autonomy."

Well said.

My issue with Nadine Dorries is she makes the terrible mistake of extrapolating from her own experience of pregnancy to cover all women. Her pregnancy convinced her she could never have a termination. Mine convinced me they were all the more important. But that's just my view. I'm not trying to impose it on anyone - I'm just trying to keep everyone's options open. She's taking her view and assuming its universal. Hugely arrogant.

Slug,

"I'm not misquoting you at all Larry "

What I said: "There are as many women who find late abortion atrocious as men"

This is what you "quoted" me as saying: "I respectfully suggest that anyone who finds abortion atrocious make the decision not to have one themselves and keep their opinions away from my bodily autonomy."

That is a misquote, according to anyone's definition of a misquote. The fact that you did not directly quote me does not mean that you did quite clearly indirectly imply that I found ALL abortion atrocious, a position a million miles away from where I am.

And it is funny that you accept OneMoreChap's contribution to the debate merely because he totally agrees with your perspective and and has probably studied feminism at some right on ex poly

And where you really rile me is in the comment "you cannot get pregnant, butt out" as if, in this day and age, there are zero consequences to a man in getting a woman pregnant. He will have to pay for 18 years at least (assuming he is not actually an involved parent) and will have NO SAY in whether the baby is born or not. In reality, in this day and age, it is a woman's PRIVILEGE (a word you like to use a lot) to decide whether her DNA combined with a MAN's DNA ends up originating a life.

larrygrylls

and has probably studied feminism at some right on ex poly

You would have a great deal of trouble being more wrong.
Hard science, Russel Group, close to 40 years since...

I think a lot of the stuff posted here is bollocks, but I'm interested in what people think. I disapprove very strongly of abortion... but I disapprove of bringing unwanted kids into the world and forcing women to have kids very much more.

Larry, all the consequences a man risks, a woman risks too. But still men do not get pregnant and do not risk all that a woman risks. It is less a priviledge than a burden. Priviledge would be to tell others they must risk what you do not have to.

I'm with Drjohnsonscat - Abortion is good. The more we hinder abortion the less happiness and human potential we will realize.

Susan Faludi in Backlash mentions that in 1800 abortion was legal in all states in the US and public opinion was pretty neutral. It wasn't until the middle of the 19th century when women were trying to make it legal for wives to refuse sex on health grounds that reproductive rights and abortion in particular was attacked. It was a backlash. Just like all this is a backlash.

Restricting abortion has never been about the foetus and has always been about controlling women.

If abortion is made illegal, abortions would still happen. Only the rich would be able to have safe abortions without the risk of death or permanent gynaelogical damage. Most women would have to take a risk with a knitting needle. This is why I am pro choice.

Abigail If you ever feel like it, there's an incredible book called "Crazy for God" by Francis Schaeffer, about how he and his dad (the 'evangelical Pope' of the 70s and 80s) basically pushed the religious right into an extremely politicized anti-abortion stance (which they didn't always have, it used to be a thing only Catholics and Quakers objected to, and those two denominations are pretty rigorous when it comes to life - anti-death penalty, etc).
These people then came to dominate the US's right wing party and claim that they were the voice of the majority blah blah. In fact, a huge percentage of American women have had abortions, but the culture of shame is such that it's never spoken of.

Anyway, Schaffer sincerely regrets his actions now - to the extent that he wrote the book exposing them all - and boy howdy, even he says he never expected them to be so successful, politically.

Hideous, frightening stuff.