US anti-abortion group lobbying Westminster

[LoobiJee]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/06/extreme-us-anti-abortion-group-ramps-up-lobbying-in-westminster

Really sorry to hear you were criticised for a medically necessary procedure. I had no idea there were people in the UK who are that extreme!

Ive sadly heard stories like this or worse from the USA- women denied induction after the foetus had almost certainly died, 'just in case' it all miraculously turned out OK, thereby putting the womens lives at risk from sepsis.

I understand why people are anti-abortion. I just don’t understand how you can have that stance and still think yourself a feminist.

Does anyone take that stance and consider themselves a feminist though?

A previous poster did

I see.

Well they would not be the only person to call themselves a feminist whilst having bizarre anti woman views.

Being a feminist and being anti-abortion are compatible as they are in my view two different issues.

I believe that a once conceived a foetus is alive and has a right to live - tragically many do not survive as rates of miscarriage are high, that is nature. I do not believe that we have the right to decide upon the fate of the unborn child and believe that they have the right to live.

As a feminist I believe in equality, equal right and opportunities.

Men cannot get pregnant being pregnant is uniquely female - that is a fact of nature. Aborting the unborn child does to bring or influence equality. I understand the view that women believe they should have control over their body and be free to decide whether they want to end a pregnancy but to me they are ending a life and I take the view that once created that unborn child exists.

I respect other people's point of view and know that my view is a minority view. I am also aware that the law is not going to change to outlaw abortion - I would like the abortion laws changed so that the time limit is reduced, I think that given the survival rates of pre-term pregnancies this more important now than ever.

Forced birthing is not a feminist position, and the majority of late terminations are because of catastrophic birth defects or a threat to the woman's health.

BPAS have successfully campaigned for exclusion zones outside abortion clinics, twice, and twice they have been shelved without explanation. A decade ago most of us thought women's rights was a settled issue. I'm not taking anything for granted.

People are never going to be able to really sidestep the question of what is the moral status of a human fetus, which is biologically a human being, is, and how to manage that in law in relation to the moral status of the mother.

Attempts to try and do so by treating abortion as a rights issue for women just creates a kind of moral deadlock that can never be resolved.

And tbh I think treating right to abortion as a defining feminist issue will always weaken women's rights discussions, because women are as likely as men (or even more likely) to see this as a significant ethical problem, despite the insistence that somehow this is something men impose on women. So you immediately cut off a group of women from the discourse around women's rights.

Its not a sidestep, its very simple. The State can't force you to donate a kidney because your body belongs to you. You have bodily autonomy.
A fetus becomes a person when it can survive independently, outside of the mothers body.

Most people would not say that feminism means giving women any possible "right" that could be claimed. There is no call I have ever heard, for example, to give women the right of life or death over her children outside the womb - which is not a crazy idea, such rights have existed in some places historically for mothers and/or fathers. We all understand that rights, be they human rights, rights of citizens, animals rights, etc, are complex and require balancing in many cases.

The main characteristic of people who think there should be some limits on abortion - which btw is most people, very few support unlimited abortion rights - is that they believe the fetus has some kind of moral status. That might be for philosophical reasons, for spiritual reasons, or for scientific reasons, and it can be conceptualized in a lot of differernt ways which lead to differernt views on what the nature of that moral status is and when it applies.

But a person's idea of the moral status of the fetus isn't generally defined by their view of the moral status of women, any more that a person's view of the moral status of cows is defined by their view of farmers. They are separate questions. It's based on its own merits.

Why would you expect they'd all then see balancing those things in the law the same way?

A few points here:

1. The question of when a human being becomes a person is not in any way simple or obvious. It's a very complex ethical issue, and while there are some reasons you could argue surviving independently is the right approach, there are also some real arguments against it. There are good arguments for choosing other times as well. One of the most significant ones, historically, is that it's being a human being that makes one a "person" no matter what stage of life.

This isn't a question that depends at all on the nature of the mother, it's a question that has to be addressed before it's possible to talk about how the rights of the mother interact with the rights (or lack thereof) of the fetus.

2. It's also possible to have rights that aren't connected to being a "person" as such. for example we have rights for animals under the law, and people who argue that animal rights should be based on self-awareness, or the possibility of experiencing pain. Similarly, there are people who argue that a fetus has rights like this, rather than human rights as a person under the law.

These questions are the substance of the whole disagreement, and saying "a person is someone who can survive independently so there is nothing to disagree about" is pretty much the definition of hand-waving away a problem.

A fetus becomes a person at birth, not before.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/07/abortion-decriminalise-poll-commons-vote-diana-johnson/

And so it begins.

Alliance Defending Freedom gets 1864 law reinstated in Arizona - effectively a total ban on abortion if this law is enforced.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68774959