Abortion Bill

[Incredulosity]

Would you have supported this Bill going through?

Anyone who thinks this is in anyway ok seriously needs to have a look into the conscience.

Of course not
Think Mr Chairman is a bit speechless too

I don't know where you live but in England, Scotland, and Wales we technically allow abortion at any gestation if there is risk to the mother with continuing the pregnancy, or if the baby is likely to be severely disabled. Sounds pretty similar doesn't it? Just because something is legal though, doesn't mean it happens.

Even with that allowance in the legislation, 9 out of 10 abortions in 2017 were carried out before 13 weeks gestation.

Unclutch your pearls.

Delightful response loops, do you routinely resort to demeaning retorts?

The man talks about mental health problems as if it's lesser than physical health problems, thereby exposing his belief that the mental health of the woman is secondary to forcing her to give birth. Mental illness is not some kind of secondary to physical health. Also, they aren't talking about a scenario where a woman is a wee bit sad about giving birth being a reason to late term abort, only really stupid people, people who have an axe to grind about women with severe mental illness or people who have no concept of why a woman with severe mental illness night require a late term abortion suggest that kind of scenario.

As always, as early as possible, as late as necessary, and as statistics would have it, the vast majority of abortions as carried out very early on.

What we really don't want is suicidal women being handcuffed to their hospital beds until they are artificially induced as has happened in Ireland fairly recently. Or, at least one would hope that that's something we really don't want.

UK abortion statistics:

Under 10 weeks 80%
10-12 weeks 11%
13-18 weeks 7%
19+ weeks 2%

That 2% figure comprises the down and dirty, awful, harrowing cases that most people would consider should be exceptions anyway - mostly survival-related.

I cannot believe you are defending infanticide, this is why many women look on with incredulity at the antics of feminists.

A c section is safer for a mother than a late term abortion. That bill was abhorrent.

I trust women to make whatever decision is right for her body and her health, and I support the doctor's right to assist her without fear of prosecution.

I don't believe the law should have jurisdiction INSIDE a person's body and I don't recognise human rights until a person is born.

No law should oblige a person to keep another person alive by sacrificing their own bodily autonomy.

We each get to control our own bodies and noone else has a claim over them.

Perhaps you should watch the entire exchange Barracker, where she goes on to say that her Bill would allow an abortion where the women is fully dilated and ready to give birth - what about the "bodily autonomy" of the infant about to enter the world - is the vaginal canal a magical passage that confers "human rights"? Sick attitude

Kathy Tran (D): My bill would allow abortion up to 40 weeks.

Todd Gilbert (R): Where it’s obvious a woman is about to give birth...would that be a point at which she could still request an abortion?

Kathy Tran (D): My bill would allow that, yes.

I agree with everything that @Barracker has said.

This extreme example of a woman literally about to give birth requesting an abortion is designed to provoke a knee jerk emotional reaction. It would never happen in reality. The chance of any woman going through 40 weeks of pregnancy and then labour, only to request an abortion is virtually nil. And even if it ever happened, it could not ever be practically completed. It's a total non starter and just emotive nonsense.

I'm mystified by some of these arguments.

Once conception has occurred, the embryo/fetus will be expelled from the mother's body at some stage. This will either be on time at 40ish weeks or before that. And this will either be when nature takes its course or when humans intervene. And it will either be via the vagina or by CS. If human intervention is required, the woman will usually be given oral meds to bring about abortion if very early in pregnancy. If it's later on, can't recall the gestation right now, she'd be given vaginal pessaries to effect changes to the cervix to enable it to efface and dilate, bringing on contractions to expel the foetus. This process will be pretty much the same as having labour induced and I'm sure many of you know it well. So she will go through labour and, depending on the gestation etc, the baby may be born showing signs of life or not. In England at least the policy, to the best of my knowledge, is still that if signs of life are shown in a 24 wk+ foetus, there will be suitable resuscitation attempts (strange as that may seem for an abortion). Some units with swankier equipment will do that at 22 weeks or so. If no signs of life (meaning respiratory effort really) then that's it. It's quite amenable to a flow chart.

I can't understand your comment MyDcAreMarvel that a C section is safer for the mother than a late abortion and the Bill was abhorrent. Why, if labour has started as the man in the clip said, would any medical professional do anything other than behave as if it's a normal labour? From a physiological point of view, I mean, not an emotional one. Monitoring, giving augmentation drugs if needed, off to theatre if needed.I don't know the stats now but CS was always statistically more dangerous to mother and baby.

And it is legal in England & Wales certainly, not sure about Scotland, to abort at any time up to term if Drs deem it advisable, plus maternal consent unless she's been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, in which case the courts will be involved. When I was a midwife my hospital did therapeutic abortions, which basically means something physically wrong with the foetus, sometimes the mother. If the 20 week scan shows a condition incompatible with life, after lots of discussion etc, an abortion would be offered and it would go down the 'vaginal pessary then vaginal delivery' route. Why is a CS better than that?

And sometimes conditions develop in labour which are potentially fatal for the mother - like chorioamnionitis when the amniotic fluid becomes infected. Of course rigorous antibiotic treatment is given but doesn't always work. The only solution will be to get the baby, which probably isn't going to survive this anyway, out asap to save the mother. There was a case a few years back in the Rep of Ireland about a woman who died because the hospital were trying to follow the law and give equal weight to mother and baby: impossible in those circumstances.

And also bear in mind the You Tube clip is the US: they do things differently over there.

Ancient lights I am saying that if a mother’s physical health is affected by her pregnancy, the easiest and quickest way to remove the baby is via a C section. There is never a need to perform a late term abortion to benefit the health of the mother.

Posters are missing the point. When you criminalize abortion the law will be used in 2 ways;
1 - to criminalize and punish women and medical staff who have had to act out of necessity, and
2 - the threat of criminal prosecution will prevent medical staff from acting in the best interest of the patient.

At some point, every piece of legislation that exists to permit abortion has come under this kind of scrutiny.

We have abortion up until birth here too. Including for minor conditions like cleft palate & club foot.

There are private hospitals in London where wealthy nationals from other countries come precisely to abort babies at a very late stage in the third trimester, even though the abnormality is cureable.

I think most decent-minded people, even if they agree with liberal abortion laws, baulk at late-term abortions.

But if the mother’s health needs the pregnancy to end, why then does the foetal heartbeat need to be stopped via lethal injection prior to delivery?

My assumption ( I may be wrong) of the word abortion is that something is done to prevent a live birth. I appreciate that it may be necessary to deliver the baby slightly earlier than planned for the sake of the physical or mental health of the mother, but it would be wrong to deliberatly end the life of a baby that has every chance of thriving.

I don't watch videos of things, ppl are too lazy to type what a thing is about, I'm not going to watch people drone n and on. But doubtless this is one of the 2-3 places that have "liberalized" abortion enough to allow gasp sick women to go to their doctors and make medical decisions that prioritize their health without having to consult with the law first.

Over the last few weeks I have been seeing hysterical outrage by conservatives over how now women are going to traipse off willly nilly to the abortion clinic the day before delivery now to just have abortions for no good reason because you know, without the law to stop us, that's what we all do. We are all thoughtless children who hate our own babies and think of nothing other than our own convenience and if the law doesn't stop us by god, we will be out there having 39 week abortions of perfectly healthy babies because we had a fight with our hubbies.

Never mind that this never happens and never will happen. It's nice to know that this is what conservatives think of women - that we are crazy psychopaths who must be kept under control by any means necessary.

It's nice to know that this is what conservatives think of women - that we are crazy psychopaths who must be kept under control by any means necessary.

Certainly not what I think. My experience of late term abortion is that a lot of it is due to pressure from men.

The UK position is effectively abortion on demand up to 24 weeks. That is one of the longest cut off points I've found.

Even beyond that if there are exceptional circumstances abortion might still take place after 24 weeks. There is no huge call for this to be changed and I support current UK(excluding NI) law.

The demand that abortion should be available to term for no reason is never going to get public support. Saying, "oh well it won't happen anyway unless there are exceptional circumstances" is irrelevant if in theory it could happen.

My personal view is the sort of opinions expressed here by Barracker and others are dangerous and do no good whatsoever to the cause of liberalising abortion in NI, Poland or the various hell-holes in Latin America.

No anti- abortionist is going to be persuaded- if anything it will make them more hardline- and it runs the risk of tipping fence- sitters off the fence on the wrong side.

MyDCAreMarvel yes there are indications when you need to perform late abortions to save the mother. I gave you one example. If the amniotic fluid is infected, the infection cannot be brought under control by antibiotics, you think it's a good idea to cut into the mother's body, pierce the amniotic sac and have all that infected fluid get into her abdominal cavity? Really?

What exactly is your objection to abortions being carried out vaginally and why do you seem to think CS is a preferred route? They could both be abortions, the exit route doesn't matter.

Carolwiththegoodhair I have no idea if stopping the fatal heart before delivery is common. I don't recall having seen it myself and think in the UK it would only be used in particular circumstances, such as the absolute certainty that the baby had a condition that was incompatible with life so may be born alive but would certainly die soon after, so the birth was a shade less distressing for those involved? I don't know. But you are right, most people know there is a very big difference between an abortion at 6 weeks and one at 22 or more weeks. Late abortions are rate, thank goodness, and are very seldom done for anything other than pressing medical reasons or extreme social reasons like very young girls not having even known they were pregnant.

That You Tube clip is just daft at the end when the woman admits that a woman in labour could be given an abortion according to the bill. It's theoretical. She's already in labour! What's to be done in terms of an abortion, for goodness sake? She'd carry on and deliver the baby.

I don’t ‘baulk at late term abortions’.

Because I know that hardly any women or girls need or want them, but those that do are in absolutely dire fucking straits.

I am very grateful that those few are cared for decently and expertly and have their abortion funded by the NHS.

Stopping the foetal heart beat is standard procedure. And sadly, I know of many women coerced into late term (20-24 week) healthy babies by their families etc.

I also know of cases where women have gone into hiding until the 24 week limit has passed. The abortion stats indicate that the many of 20-24 week abortions are for ‘social’ reasons.

The abortion stats indicate that the many of 20-24 week abortions are for ‘social’ reasons.

Source, Caro?

There are about 180k abortions per year in the UK. Roughly 2% of those are at 19+ weeks, so that's about 3,600. And there are about 3,100 ground E abortions each year (foetal abnormality), which are almost all in the 19+ week cohort. So that doesn't seem to leave that many coercive social abortions?

I'd be interested to see this source because vulnerable women who are coerced in this way are a group we need to help.

According to the latest stats, 74% of Ground E abortions were performed medically I.e. not late term. That’s 2,452 of 3,314, Ground E abortions.

So if we are talking of roughly 3,600 post 19 week ground e (foetal abnormality) abortions then ground e would account for around 1,000 of those.

There were 1, 349 Ground D either alone or together with Ground C, but that still leaves around 1300 abortions of healthy babies after 19 weeks on social grounds.

I am not making any moral judgements on the individuals concerned (before I am flamed) but 1600 babies (and that’s being conservative) healthy babies aborted at a late stage every year seems a lot. Anecdotally (and I know that’s not data ) I frequently learn of women having a late stage abortion of a previously wanted healthy baby because of intolerable pressure be that family, financial or whatever.

I think we have to work out ways of helping this minority rather than brushing over them for the greater good.

I’m on my phone so I can’t download the data tables with the exact number of late stage abortions.

Sorry re-read this and saw an error, I typed 1600 instead of 1300. So the bottom line stat is around 1300 Ground C late term abortions of healthy children in the UK every year.

Fat finger phone syndrome.