Jailing a mother of three - WTF

[Capitalismwantsyou]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/woman-in-uk-jailed-for-28-months-over-taking-abortion-pills-after-legal-time-limit

Exactly, plus having a child out in the world who you don't know and aren't parenting is a complex thing. 'Just give it up for adoption' isn't as simple as people who have no idea about adoption make out

Just abort a late baby! That's less traumatic than allowing it to be raised by another family member (maternal or paternal) or finding an adopter.

This is really selfish. Nobody would support euthanising a newborn because the mother doesn't want it but doesn't want anyone else to have it either!

Your complex feelings do not outweigh the pain of the fetus and this wasn't even the reason in this case anyway

Exactly, plus having a child out in the world who you don't know and aren't parenting is a complex thing. 'Just give it up for adoption' isn't as simple as people who have no idea about adoption make out

How less complex do you think this feeling is for women who have their babies forcibly removed and put into the care system? Why not just euthanise all babies who face creating “complex feelings” for their parents?

Well clearly to this woman it seemed the least worst option didn't it, or she'd have done something else! I'm not saying she was right, what she did was wrong, but it's very easy to sit behind a screen and judge others who have complicated messy lives and make bad choices or no choices. You don't know that wasn't a reason in this case.

Is there evidence the baby experienced pain, or is that just your assumption? Not being goady, I genuinely don't know the answer.

Babies 'forcibly removed' is a whole different argument which isn't relevant to this case. I have plenty of feelings about the removal of children from their birth parents, but this thread isn't for that.

“Biologically speaking, the foetus is a parasite: an organism that is dependent on its host for survival. This is an objective and neutral description although the word parasite is often used pejoratively.”

Biologically speaking, @thedankness , you are fairly confused about the definition of ‘parasite’. Unless pregnant mammals are all hosting entirely different species in their wombs, their foetuses aren’t parasites. A biological parasite is of a different species to the host.

The use of ‘parasite’ is neither objective, nor neutral- it’s a dehumanising language technique. It’s scientifically inaccurate, it implies the foetus is of another species - not only is it not related to the mother, it’s not even the same species - and it deliberately uses the pejorative connotation of ‘parasite’.

You use similar dehumanisation language techniques when you talk about ‘leech-like organisms’.

Broadly speaking, your argument is using the language techniques I’d expect to see in extremist propaganda.

Very well said. We need to push back very firnly on this kind of emotive, misleading and dehumanising language. I've felt this for a while but you've crystallised it for me.

A woman is not a 'vessel', a foetus is not a parasite. If you feel that way you need counselling, frankly.

VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia ·

I'd really like the people advocating extreme late abortions to explain where they think the baby is a human life?

Zygote. A single cell. Abortion isn't about when life begins, it's about women's right to decide what happens to their own bodies, including the right to refuse to have their bodies used to provide life support to a fellow human.

I've been called "monster" and "the devil" on this thread and had my words called "chilling" and "disturbing" by people who think that a baby is not a human life until 23 weeks and six days 23:59:59, then one second later at 24 weeks zero days 00:00:00 it somehow magically is a human life with more rights than any other human being because it has the right to use someone else's body as life support.

I don't think I'm the unreasonable one here.”

You are by talking about 24 week abortions. Most people on the thread have no argument with those.

This person deliberately ended her baby’s life at up to 34 weeks.

Had she not wanted her body “used as life support” she could have intervened far, far earlier.

Yes I agree.

Is there evidence the baby experienced pain, or is that just your assumption? Not being goady, I genuinely don't know the answer.

At this stage the foetus would have felt the way you would if gradually deprived of oxygen, I imagine. Well into that stage of development. Utterly grim.

Ok. How about babies who are abandoned at birth? They are unwanted by their mothers. They are placed straight into care. Should they be euthanised?

What makes a fully gestated baby more or less worthy to a chance at life?

This.

I think abortion limits are fine as they are. The only change that needs to be made is full decriminalisation. This sort of case is extremely rare - unique possibly - and was a terrible mistake rather than malice.

In answer to when the foetus has rights, that has to be from birth. Before then the mother's rights (plus needs and wishes) must take precedence, always and without exception, otherwise we will have more horrifying cases like what happened to poor Savita Halappanavar.

I'm pretty sure this was covered upthread. Euthanasing children instead of putting them in care is not the same as performing a late term illegal abortion. Those children already exist as independent people, this woman's child did not.

It's not about 'less worthy to a chance of life', as multiple other posters have explained more eloquently than me. Those children are already independent humans with the rights of independent humans, this child was not. Legally, an unborn foetus isn't afforded the same rights as a living person, and I think that's probably the right thing overall.

Legally, an unborn foetus isn't afforded the same rights as a living person

Morally, it's a different story for many when we get to 32-34 wk.

And of course laws are subject to change over the years. Morality not so much. We can certainly have laws we disagree with in a moral sense.

Apologies, the biological definition of parasite refers to a species different to its host you are correct @Anactor . You could call a pregnancy pseudo-parasitism perhaps. You could reject the term parasite on semantic grounds but there is a clear biological distinction in the relationship between mother and foetus in utero and mother and baby after birth, as I stated. If a pregnant woman dies, her baby will die imminently without rapid medical intervention to extract it. If the mother of a newborn dies the baby remains as dependent on adults to nurture it as it was already.

The point of the post was not meant to be emotive but descriptive. It describes the reason why I think women's bodily autonomy trumps the rights of the foetus until birth.

This

I find denying women's rights extreme and dehumanising to women and I care about women.

But this is a baby whose life would be viable outside of their mother. We’re talking about a stage babies survive out of the womb.

The difference might be clear to you and one or two others on here but the majority are appalled by it and don’t see much difference between a baby inside the womb and a baby, at the same stage, outside the womb.

Continuing this all or nothing approach polarises the issues and ultimately loses support for the pro choice side.

And you’re wrong! Legally, that baby was entitled to live and not have their life needlessly ended. Which is why the woman in now in a cell.

I understand it would have been viable, and I'm certainly not supporting what she did. What she did was wrong as well as illegal.

But I do see a difference between a foetus and a born baby, despite the fact that the foetus could have survived. I think we have to have that distinction, or we risk going down the route of some other parts of the world, where the foetus/potentially viable baby ends up prioritised over the woman. I stand for the actual woman's rights to always supersede the potential baby's rights, if there is a conflict.

Legally, the baby was not entitled to live, late abortion being illegal isn't the same as a foetus having a right to live after a certain gestation. Foetuses don't have the same rights as existing people and I think that's correct.

Lily was female.

Surely when weighing up rights it matters not just who is most important but who has most at stake? If the mother is critically injured or I'll send her life cannot be saved without losing the baby, the mother's life comes first - and rightly so in my opinion. So the unborn baby isn't afforded the same rights as a baby that's been born, in recognition of its dependence on the mother.

But when the mother's rights are just about wanting her nonpregnant body back a few weeks earlier, or saving her relationship - and the unborn baby's life is at stake, I think their respective rights weigh rather differently. And the law rightly recognises that.

That should have read critically injured or ill and her life cannot be saved...

This.

Our current laws are finely balanced, they need to be to reflect the complexities of this situation which is one of the major reasons why I really don’t want to see any changes to the existing law on abortion in the UK.

The foetus has no rights, the born baby does and this is as it should be and this means that when the mother’s life is at risk saving her is the priority as it should be.

However we have restrictions on abortion to reflect the moral issues and facts presented by previous posters, viability from 24 weeks, potential for feeling pain or suffering of the foetus, natural feeling among probably the majority of women that later in pregnancy there is a “baby” inside, a precious human life, the need for society to value life.

We cannot accord rights to the foetus because a woman must be free to eat, drink, do whatever she is legally allowed to do, she is emphatically not a mere vessel under UK law. She is just not permitted to terminate the pregnancy after 24 weeks if the foetus is healthy and viable.

She has ample opportunity to terminate it prior to that. She could also have accessed free contraception including emergency contraception. I would like to say that she could choose not to have a man ejaculate into her but sadly we know that too many women still don’t always have that choice.

I would like to add that saving a woman’s life in the case of an ectopic pregnancy is not considered abortion in the UK and not covered by abortion laws, UK health professionals would simply act quickly to save the mother’s life. As they should, there is no viable pregnancy there anyway. An advantage of not having these laws tied to a heartbeat.

Equally I have known of a woman discovered to be seriously ill in pregnancy, past 24 weeks, not yet 30 weeks. She needed treatment to begin, the baby was delivered early and sent to NICU to facilitate this. The mother’s life was prioritised, everything possible done for the baby.

A final point for consideration, there have been parts of the UK in the past where no one would disclose to parents the sex of the foetus before 24 weeks because of wanting to avoid parents choosing to abort if the fœtus was female. This is also caring about women and girls. Abortion for any reason up to term includes abortion of the foetus because it is female.

To open up these laws risks something far worse replacing them, if they were opened as others have said we might suddenly find we have a much bigger anti abortion (from conception) movement than we imagined especially because as other posters have pointed out few people are likely to be comfortable with abortion of a healthy viable foetus up to term. Also because as others have said money might well pour in from the US and other places.

Knee jerk reactions to rare cases make bad law.

The current laws work well for most women most of the time.

I agree with @PomegranateOfPersephone 's post above but I don't know how that addresses the issue of whether the woman's actions should have resulted in criminal proceedings. Yes those proceedings address the moral issue but I can't see that society benefited from them, the woman herself didn't and certainly the existing children didn't. I can also say that the woman will not find a kindly or friendly response from her fellow inmates. I did voluntary work in a prison for a few years and anybody harming a child (which is how a lot of people would see it, whether the child was born or unborn) got harsh treatment.