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.

GunpowderGelatine, the video posted shows a Q & A where a series of questions were asked about the proposed bill and the possible consequences and the situation described was would an abortion be possible under the legislation once labour was well established. The answer given was an affirmative.

I'm aware of that Floral but that is answering a question about a technical possibility rather than a desire

GunpowderGelatine, clearly. Because that is how the process of legislation works. The mixing up of all sorts of emotional angles in this is doing the work of the pro life movement for them, tbh. Seriously. I'm astonished that some pro choice campaigners can't see how much of an own goal this was in such a really rocky moment in the US.

Of course it was an issue, given how the question was framed and the response which was logically consistent but with no consideration to the impact of the response.

I totally understand that supporting abortion without question means that the scenario described is possible, and that it would be legal. The point that cannot be made succinctly or in a sound bite is that it would never happen.

The point that cannot be made succinctly or in a sound bite is that it would never happen.

Yes, I know that, you know that, but if the legislation allows for it, you've got a ruddy great loophole which pro life legislators and campaigners are going to drive straight through.

‘It would never happen’ is not the basis to frame laws. Does ‘no sane woman would ever kill her own baby’ mean infanticide should be legalised?

I recently heard a Christian propose that personhood started at conception on the basis that, looking back at yourself, at what point would you think ‘that wasn’t me’? He was a highly intelligent well educated person and had decided using his own pure logic (but, to me, faulty axioms) that there was always a better way for both woman and child.

Many here are also using very good logic to argue that abortion should be legal until term but, again, to me, basing it on the highly dubious axiom that a person magically obtains their personhood on the cutting of the umbilical cord.

These two positions are equally extreme and, luckily, neither will be supported by a majority (and, on average, women want lower abortion limits than men).

The UK has it about right in my opinion and, although in the echo chamber of this forum, alternatives will be argued, I wonder how many would be comfortable to argue passionately for legalising abortion to term in their workplace?

Oh can we stop calling FWR a feckin' echo chamber. Jaysus it's irritating.

Legislation is quite often ill thought out and amendments have to be made at a later date, suprisingly legislation that refers solely to female bodily autonomy gets the fine comb treatment

Personally I don’t care at what point a foetus is considered a person. We can have that argument when blood and organ donation are mandatory for everybody, until that point (as stated above) insisting that only pregnant women are obliged to use their body to keep someone else alive is sex discrimination.

cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/a0c0uf8c2g/YouGov-Survey-University-of-Lancaster-Results-130130.pdf

Well here is a poll suggesting 6% (so about 1 in 17) want the abortion limit extended and far more prefer it reduced.

Yet on this board 80% champion abortion to term, so it is pretty close to an echo chamber, at least on this issue.

I'm aware of that Floral but that is answering a question about a technical possibility rather than a desire

That makes no sense. If the act is technically legal it is irrelevant to say it will never happen.

Really - can you who are advocating this not see what a spectacular own goal you are setting up.

Personally I don’t care at what point a foetus is considered a person. We can have that argument when blood and organ donation are mandatory for everybody, until that point (as stated above) insisting that only pregnant women are obliged to use their body to keep someone else alive is sex discrimination

Blood and organ donation is a false analogy.

Why are they a false analogy?

larrygrylls, sorry, did you miss the fact that you're in the middle of a discussion of different views not all of whom are abortion to term advocates? It's a lazy ad hom to call this place an echo chamber, there are a lot of individual views represented because women are perfectly capable of doing that.

You just confirmed everything I said - conservative painting women as a bunch of slavering psychopaths who are itching to abort at 9 months for no reason at all, in spite of zero evidence this has ever happened or will ever happen. You have a dim view of women, aka misogyny. If you can't talk about abortion rationally there's no point having a conversation with you about it

What a load of tosh. I'm pro-choice. As Floral said taking the most extreme pro choice position is not going to help the situation

So basically pro-choicers are expected to not act pro-choice so that they don't turn off the anti-choice folk?

Your choice- if you think your extreme position is right , bang on as much as you want. I personally think you do more harm than good.

larrygrylls, sorry, did you miss the fact that you're in the middle of a discussion of different views not all of whom are abortion to term advocates?

To be fair to Larry the "bodily autonomy- abortion to term" voices are the majority on here. And after reading that drivel about me "echo chamber" does not seem unreasonable.

Why are they a false analogy?

Because pregnancy is a unique set of circumstances- only a woman can get pregnant and only that pregnant woman can carry the child.

To be fair to Larry the "bodily autonomy- abortion to term" voices are the majority on here. And after reading that drivel about me "echo chamber" does not seem unreasonable.

Yes, I'm just pissy about the phrase being bandied about so much here when clearly those who dissent from the majority are able to speak up.

The only other people who give up their rights to NOT sacrifice their lives are soldiers. Not even policemen or firefighters can be legally forced to do so.

The US maternal mortality rate is the highest in the developed world.

I fail to see why a woman has less rights to the preservation of her OWN life than anyone but a soldier in wartime.

If you say she has this right but only until such date, whatever that date may be, you are making it state policy that she herself loses her right to life.

AnneHutchinson, I'm not sure I follow how that's relevant to this, tbh. Does the legislation under review address abortions to save the mother's life? (I'm not being disingenuous at all here, I don't if that is grounds for abortion in the bill, and it's a very extreme pro life position that would say abortion should never happen in any circumstances)

I fail to see why a woman has less rights to the preservation of her OWN life than anyone but a soldier in wartime

No one here has said they are opposed to abortion, even late term abortion if the woman's life is at risk.

The point you are arguing is that a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at any point up to 40 weeks. It is splitting hairs to say "for any reason" if "I

Posted too soon.

It is splitting hairs to say "for any reason " is not the same as "no reason" if "I just don't want to be pregnant " is a reason.

It is beyond illogical to call for termination for up to 40 weeks to be on demand and then argue - well it will never happen.

I fail to see why a woman has less rights to the preservation of her OWN life than anyone but a soldier in wartime

That is a hyperbolic distortion of what is being said. You are asking for abortion to term to be legal regardless of whether it is necessary to preserve the mother's life

I'm saying that pregnancy itself is inherently dangerous. That's true from conception to delivery. At any point along that time line, the mother should have the right to say no, I'm not going to put my life at risk for another's. Period.

There doesn't need to be a diagnosed risk because the risk is already there, inherent in the sheer fact of pregnancy. Many people continually obscure that fact.

And yes the pro-life factions in the US do not believe a woman should have the right to abort if her life is at risk. The thinking is that she assumed that risk when she had sex.

In the US it doesn't matter what any state law is. What matters is how the Supreme Court will rule.

I personally think it was a mistake to argue for the Roe decision on the basis of a right to privacy, which is unwritten in the Constitution. I think the stronger argument lies in the 13th Amendment: No person can be forced to labor for another.

Again, it is a very extreme pro life position to argue that risk to the mother's life is not grounds for abortion. Most people fall way short of that position, even if they do fall in the pro life camp.

I think you're probably right, Anne, that the 13th amendment is a strong case - I agree that bodily autonomy is the strongest pro choice argument myself, and I'm pro life, and the 13th amendment would be a sensible platform to build a case on.

But I'll be honest, your argument that pregnancy itself is a risk to the life of the mother as an argument for total term abortion on demand is going to be a very hard sell, and I think my point, and I'm guessing MargueritaPink's too is that if you want to retain rather precarious rights to abortion access, it's not the most effective plan.

It doesn't matter to whether or not pregnant women should be the only humans, alive or dead, not to have the right to deny another individual use of their body parts in order for that other individual to stay alive. That's just utterly ludicrous!

I think you are saying that nature is not fair to women ? you make it sound like the baby/foetus is to to blame for unreasonably using the mothers body and it is the governments moral duty to provide her the medical means to overcome nature's little quirk no matter how morally wrong the population who must be taxed to pay find it ?

insisting that only pregnant women are obliged to use their body to keep someone else alive is sex discrimination.

God is a misogynist.

Yes FloralBunting- that is my point. The argument that all pregnancy is inherently dangerous so any pregnancy could be terminated at any time even where is not the slightest indication of risk is not going to fly.

It is a very extreme pro life position to argue that risk to the mother's life is not grounds for abortion. Most people fall way short of that position, even if they do fall in the pro life camp

I'm slightly irritated by the implication on here that if one doesn't support abortion to term for any and all reason one is happy to see women die.

The reason I believe it should be any reason at any time is because when you put restrictions in place there are always exceptions that fit just outside and people will lie.
If you restrict abortions to the first 12 weeks, a woman can easily deduct a couple of weeks from her dates - dating is not an exact science.
If it's for the mental health of the mother, who makes that judgement call? Who decides whether a mother is actually suicidal or not?
If a woman desperately doesn't want to be pregnant but she doesn't fit the criteria, why should she be denied when the woman who claims to be suicidal is allowed?
Who gets to decide which birth defects or disabilities qualify?
Strict rules don't take individual circumstances into consideration.

The reality is that the vast majority of abortions happen in the first 12 weeks. The very small number of late term abortions are an indication that women aren't heartless bitches intent on murdering their babies, they happen for good reasons to them.

Any time for any reason. I don't actually care if that doesn't persuade the group of people who disagree or who would only accept a restricted approach. I don't think that women's lives should be put at risk to keep other people feeling more comfortable about something that doesn't affect them in any way.