Abortion to be reduced to 20 weeks

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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.

but larry, what you propose implies that if there are unwanted foetuses who are capable of independent life, we safely extract them from the woman's body and grow them to maturity in a lab. This is not on offer.

Until it is on offer, there must be absolute primacy for the woman. And by the way, even if it was on offer, it's not necessarily a good way to proceed. Life is not in shortage. Caring and loving environments for children are. There may be an argument for saying we should extract these babies, grow them to maturity and deliver them to infertile couples who want to adopt. But while that sounds like a neat solution, it clearly isn't. It's also clearly not what we as a society are about to prioritise.

Blackcurrants,

I am really not getting your point here. Do you believe the soul flows into the body at the moment of birth? Some magical elixir enters the brain with the first breath of air?

You keep leaning on this 'majority of people' - why?

Ach, don't bother. My day just got a lot busier, now I know your stance on Foetal 'personhood' I know I don't have any more time for this malarky.

Yet more evidence that people who support restrictions on abortion are either sentimental morons or woman-hating scum.
So you're a bit uncomfortable with the idea of late abortions? Big deal. Don't have one. Your 'feelings' about the lives and bodies of women you don't know and will never meet are completely unimportant. Get over yourselves.

So you think it's OK to abort as long as the foetus was conceived by an act of rape? Basically you think women should be punished for having consensual sex.

Women will only have full human status when we have the right to abortion on demand up until term. Until that happens, women's bodies will still belong to men and the state, because men and the state can force us to continue pregnancies against our will and when it's a danger to us to do so.

And don't think that the woman-haters are going to stop with abortions, either. All the endless inaccurate scare stories about things that are 'risky' in pregnancy are more motivated by a wish to control women than concern for public health.

Soul? Good grief, now we're asserting that souls exist?

What about Santa? Does Santa have an opinion about forced pregnancy and the violation of women's bodily autonomy? Let's appeal to Santa!

Won't someone think of the elves?

And larry your last statement is just wrong. A baby in the womb, even at the last moment before delivery, is not capable of independent life because it is still attached to another person and might still cause the death of another person just by virtue of coming into the world. Until they are outside of the woman's body and have been safely disentangled, they do not have the same status. You might accord them the same status emotionally - but legally and morally they simply do not have the same status.

As you acknowedged in my example of danger of death.

If they had the same status you would not be able to choose between the unborn baby and the woman in mortal danger. It would not be obvious that the woman must be prioritised. But it was obvious even to you that the woman is prioritised. This is in direct conflict to your assertion that a baby inside the womb at this stage of development is precisely the same as a baby outside the womb.

Larry, a baby 8 months post conception outside the womb is legally recognised as a person; a baby months post conception that is still inside the womb is not yet legally recognised as a person. It is not living independently, it is surviving via the womb, the placenta and so forth.

If we start saying babies at 8 month post conception in the womb deserve the same rights and legislation as a baby outside the womb, it won't be long until that's gradually whittled down to all feutus/embryos are legislated in the same way as babies outside the womb. Hell. Lets just replace birth certificate with conception certificates... I mean, why worry about the incubator... Sorry, I mean MOTHER, an already viable, independently living human, when there's a cluster of cells to some description that may, some day become another viable, independent living human being for us not to care about...

DrJohnson,

It is no safer to extract a dead baby from a woman than a live one.

They may not have the same "status" but they are clearly the same person in the biological or "humanness" sense of the word. If you disagree with that, you have to believe that something magical happens at the moment of birth, other than the disentanglement, such as the sould or consciousness entering the body.

No Larry, once the baby is born it can breathe independely of the mother - while it may need some medical assistance in order to do so, it doesn't need her assistance. That's why birth is the deciding point.

'That would put a woman in exactly the same position as all men are in now. They have no say on whether their DNA ends up becoming a baby or not.'

Wow. Your true colours are showing.

Wow larry. Why are you so intent on insisting that women are incubators of children and not people in their own right?

larry, you seem convinced that, given the choice, women left right and centre would be getting abortions at 39 weeks pregnant... Why is that?

No magic.

Before birth, foetus depends on woman's body. Woman has rights over her body, including the right to decide to whom she grants the use of it. As woman is the donor, woman's rights to grant or withdraw that use are what count.

In the same way that no one can legally force you to donate a kidney or blood to keep someone else alive, so no one should be able to force a woman to continue a pregnancy. I can't force you, Larry, to give bone marrow to anyone. Even to the Queen. Even if it's your fault she needs bone marrow because you ran her over. No law in the land would make you do it. You have bodily integrity.

After birth, baby has own body, own bodily integrity. Baby has rights over body.

See how easy it is?

"Won't someone think of the elves". I just snorted my tea

larry you need to define your terms. You say they may not have the same "status" but they do have the same "humanness". I don't think you quite know what you mean. Either they do or they don't have the same status.

I don't think anything magical happens at birth other than the baby ceases to use me and my body to make its way to the world. Once that happens I am happy for the world to accord that baby rights equal to mine. Until that happens, and until I am free of the risk of being made subordinate to another against my will, I will maintain my primacy. Foetuses are subordinate to the person who brings them here, until they are here, at which point they have the same rights as you and me.

Frothy,

Your straw man is the other extreme of the debate; the pro lifers' stance. For most of us, that is an equally uncomfortable position as the one that it is fine to terminate a foetus's life at the cervical neck whilst being born. When does the brain form, when does a baby become "human"? For most that is a really tough question. For me, a foetus capable of having a different emotional and physical response to its parents' voices than to that of any other human being clearly demonstrates a certain degree of humanity.

I do think it is a really tough question, though, and pretty subjective. That is why legislators try and reflect the will of the people (via a free vote according to their consciences) and try to come to some sort of compromise. Sure, parliament is weighted towards men but I don't think the abortion votes ever come down to men vs women.

drjohnsonscat you are brilliant. Thank you for coherently saying what I have given up trying to say!

I don't think we're going to persuade lazza, however, that women are really people. I've certainly given up.

If the baby is capable of living autonomously (with medical support, of course) why should it not have the chance? That would put a woman in exactly the same position as all men are in now.

No it wouldn't - unless of course you have discovered a way that men can become pregnant and give birth.

What makes you think that women would choose to abort in the middle of labour, unless their lives somehow depended on it?

Blackcurants, don't be daft... Women aren't people. They're incubators for the next generation of men.

"In the same way that no one can legally force you to donate a kidney or blood to keep someone else alive, so no one should be able to force a woman to continue a pregnancy. I can't force you, Larry, to give bone marrow to anyone. Even to the Queen. Even if it's your fault she needs bone marrow because you ran her over. No law in the land would make you do it. You have bodily integrity."

They are different though. Once a woman is pregnant she cannot just decide not to become pregnant. What she needs is a medical procedure performed on her. I cannot demand a medical procedure is performed on me unless a doctor deems it to be in my best interest. The right to remain free from interference is different to the right to demand interference.

Not that different, Larry, in that women who self-medicate to induce an abortion have been prosecuted in countries where abortion is illegal.

"What makes you think that women would choose to abort in the middle of labour, unless their lives somehow depended on it?"

This argument that you don't need to legislate against something because most people are nice and sensible is an argument against all laws. Laws are for the tiny minority of people who decide to act against societal norms.

"I cannot demand a medical procedure is performed on me unless a doctor deems it to be in my best interest."

Surely ending an unwanted/potentially harmful pregnancy is in the woman's best interest, should she deem it to be as such?

frothy there you go again, assuming that women should be allowed to decide for themselves what to do with their bodies!

crazy talk!