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.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

But Bdd that doesn't help me understand your opinion.

Excluding exceptional circumstances, legally,, it isn't possible to have an abortion after 23 weeks and 6 days. After that point, the law and society says no. Before that point, it is up to the woman and the two doctors who review the case.

You have mentioned that the father should have some rights, I am trying to understand, in your view, as the starting point for the discussion you want to have, what those rights would be and when would they apply.

[DuelingFanjo]

"As yet unborn, but a person and already relevant to those that 'know' her or him"

IMO the choices of the person carrying the fotus will always take precedence, even over the choices of the father.
What do you propose, that men be able to force women to carry a baby they do not want to carry to full term?

[blackcurrants]

and that is 'forced by the state' - you haven't answered why there should also be someone/some people else who can do that forcing, or why that forcing should happen earlier than the current legal cutoff.

Also, is this still the same BDD? I notice the namechange and don't want to engage with a sockpuppet who's misrepresenting the real BDD...

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Ok Bdd, but you were the one who said that the father should have some rights.

By the way, with all your talk of "knowing the baby", did you read the BPAS audit about abortion requests past 22 weeks. These are not women who are in happy settled relationships with their DPs, where said DPs have been stroking the bump and singing to it nightly, but then one morning when 23 weeks pregnant thought "I can't be arsed with this now, plus it'll really upset my loving partner, so I'm off to the clinic."

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

"if it were possible, the views of the father should potentially be considered."

In a hell of a lot of cases, they will be anyway. Abortions happening in steady relationships where the couple have decided their family is complete but have a contraceptive accident. Abortions happening after two teenagers in a casual relationship get pregnant - but both agree they want to continue with their education. Etc.

If the woman has not told the man who impregnated her that she is pregnant, why do you think that is?

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

I'm impressed by your sharp eyes, blackcurrants!

[drjohnsonscat]

We'd all love to take the father's views into consideration if there was a meaningful way to do this. But pregnancy is binary - you continue or you do not. There's no way to split the pregnancy between the partners or decide to be slightly more pregnant than you would otherwise have been to reflect the father's views.

The reason the father's views cannot be taken into account is that ultimately only one person carries this baby and that person decides. Otherwise it means that in some circumstances (say where the woman has what you deem a bad reason to have an abortion and the man has really really good and powerful reasons for her not to), if you wanted to give the man's reasoning mroe sway than the woman's, the man would get to say no to the abortion. So the man has more control over the woman's body than the woman has over her own body. And that, ultimately, is slavery. It is really tough. I see that. But there really isn't a way around it that I can see.

Until men can carry the foetus it is ultimately not in their control.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Exactly drj. Clearly stated and reasoned, thanks.

[drjohnsonscat]

baddnc - I think ultimately you are expressing a wish that things could be different. I'm sure many agree with you. But with our current biology, some things are just tough. There are many things about pregnancy, labour, breastfeeding, all that stuff, that I would like to change. That endanger and limit women. As well as all the good things. We can't do much about it. This is just one of the things that men will have to deal with. And if it makes you feel any better, check this out: www.forwarduk.org.uk/key-issues/fistula

This is one of the horrific things that women have been enduring for centuries by virtue of being the ones to give birth. I don't think asking for complete bodily autonomy, no questions asked, is too much to ask in return.

[blackcurrants]

Drj. at 17:21 exceptionally well put. I am not pro-abortion because they.sound unpleasant, but I do think it is appropriate to.exercise. the absolute that a woman should have control over her own body. Because the alternatives are slavery and subjection.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

What rights would you envisage? Some kind of mediation?

[EmmelineGoulden]

I'm a bit behind, but baddancing you asked "If you were the parent of an unborn baby, a life, heart, brain, fingers, toes, a smile... would you not feel that you had some rights as to what happened to that child? Or would you accept that you had to submit to whatever someone else decided to do in a decision as to whether that child is killed or not?" and my answer is - if I had grown that foetus inside me, I would expect a say. If I had given my eggs to someone else who was growing that foetus I would definitely not expect a say.

I have some sympathy for the idea a father has a right to know (in the ordinary case), and I am quite shocked on the rare occasions I hear women stating they want to go through with an abortion or pregnancy without talking to the father.

But I don't see how, if a foetus is to be considered a full human life, its right to that life should be dependent on its father's opinion (or its mother's). So I see the state as an agent with legitimate standing in terms of determining and advocating for a foetus' right to life - that right either exists or it doesn't. Whether a father wants that foetus to live or not isn't about the foetus' right to life. Whether a foetus' right to life should be enough to trump a woman's right to do as she pleases to her own body is another layer on top of whether or not a foetus has a right to life.

[CheerfulYank]

Emmeline, a poster upthread asked if it would be all right to kill a baby shortly after delivery.

Another poster answered, "TBH, in some cases I do. I know (and don't care) that that makes me a bad person."

It was that answer to which I was referring.

[solidgoldbrass]

BDD: I believe in the right of abortion up until birth, for any reason whatsover. As to what the father feels, well sorry, but tough shit. It's not his body, so while he may have feelings (and, actually, I have sympathy for a man's grief if a woman chose to abort and he would have preferred the pregnancy to continue, but still: tough shit. It's not a decision he can make.) he has no rights whatsoever, either to prevent a woman having an abortion or to insist she has one if he doesn't want the pregnancy to continue.

Oh, and anyone who's going to come out with the 'waaa, waa, how awful that women abort their babies at 24wks+ because they've changed their minds and want to go on holiday.':

YOU ARE STUPID AND YOU HATE WOMEN. This DOESN'T HAPPEN. Insisting that it will happen if women are allowed to, you know, control their own lives and makes their own choices is insisting that women are mad, feral, selfish baby-haters and will do absolutely anything if they are not controlled by men and the state.

[LineRunner]

I see the unusual anti-women Abortion Myths are being spouted here, as on other threads.

[LineRunner]

usual typo sorry!

[OneMoreChap]

I support women's right to choose up to delivery. I disapprove of the two doctor rule which is a sop to pro-lifers.

I also - unusually - think that SGB is wrong, and that some women will have late abortions for reasons most of us will think trivial; including spiting partners.

That still doesn't alter the position that they should be able to make the decision. All rights have some costs. The tiny number of uncomfortable cases are worth paying.

As an aside, effective, easy reliable male fertility control is so overdue. The fact it isn't here is interesting to any who doubt the patriarchy approach...

[blackcurrants]

On.that aside; God.yes! The absence of a male pill. is just awful, and typifies the attitude that contraception. is a woman's responsibility.

[DuelingFanjo]

did baddncingdad/baddancing dad turn out to be a troll/sock-puppet then?