Change to decriminalise abortion law

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2le12114j9o

'MPs have voted to change abortion legislation to stop women in England and Wales being prosecuted for ending their pregnancy.
The landslide vote to decriminalise the procedure is the biggest change to abortion laws in England and Wales* *for nearly 60 years.
Women who terminate their pregnancy outside the rules, for example after 24 weeks, will no longer be at risk of being investigated by police.
The law will still penalise anyone who assists a woman, including medical professionals, in getting an abortion outside the current legal framework.
Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi put forward the amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, which was passed by a majority of 242 votes.'

There is one good reason, which you seem to have omitted, which is the woman does not want to be pregnant anymore

When you get to the stage that the child is capable of independent existence, no, it's not just about the woman.

You think the government should assume full control over a woman’s body and force her to remain pregnant against her will?

I think some people are missing the bit where its still illegal to perform an abortion after 24 weeks except in specific circumstances.
Whats changed is the woman herself cannot be prosecuted for it... or for having a miscarriage that someone decides is her fault.

You think the government should assume full control over a woman’s body and force her to remain pregnant against her will?
When the child is viable outside of the womb, yes.

There is no other situation in life where a person would be forced to use their own body to sustain the life of another.
If the government assumed control of your body and forced you to donate an organ to save the life of another person, that would likely be a human rights violation, but by your logic that would be acceptable.

There is no other situation in life when it is acceptable to take a life.

Imo, completely different.
Pregnancy is unique.
If a child is aborted when it is viable, how is that different from killing the child when it is born?
Unless you also believe that infanticide should be decriminalised?

Yes there is. Abortion.

Abortion is not infanticide. Infanticide can only take place on an already born infant.

Whatever you choose to call it is irrelevant. Taking the life of a viable baby who would otherwise have lived should be against the law.

So, a woman is 38 weeks pregnant and she decides that she wants to abort her child who will likely be born in two weeks time.

She then telephones some one like BPAS and states on the telephone that she is just eight weeks pregnant and wants an abortion.

BPAS then sends out abortion pills by post without ever seeing her in person.

I don't know what effect they will have on a 38 week foetus but these pills certainly ended the life of a 34 week foetus.

Do you think that a woman changing her mind at 38 weeks is a "good reason"?

Do I think a woman changing her mind at 38 weeks gestation is a good reason for an abortion? Yes.

It is still against the law. It hasn’t been legalised.

Then I cannot see how we can come to any consensus. Such brutality is anathema to me.

The only scenario I can imagine a woman choosing abortion at 38 weeks would be on escape from an extremely abusive relationship.

To make that decision at e.g. 37 weeks is inadmissable. We have others to consider than ourselves, we are not islands unconnected with others. Why would one want to end a pregnancy within a few weeks of the birth - even if one doesn't wish to be pregnant any more? Just because a woman no longer wishes to be pregnant does not mean she has the right to abort a viable child past 24 weeks of gestation.
I agree with Kathleen Stock, this is an anti-feminist provision treating women and children as commodities and children as things which can be disposed of at will.

I don't know why these thread always descend into these exchanges. If a woman at 38 weeks pregnant misleads BPAS into prescribing her tablets via telemedicine, it will be an exceedingly harmful outcome for her, because she will go into unmedicated labour at home and likely give birth to a dead or dying baby. There is no way to paint that as empowering for her, unless you have the emotional intelligence of a concussed wombat. If a woman simply doesn't want to be pregnant any more at 38 weeks, the choices are induced labour of a living baby, a dead baby or a caesarean section.

In the notorious case of the woman who took tablets at 34 weeks, she called an ambulance during labour. It was cited in court as evidence that her search history showed she thought she was 28 weeks pregnant. After giving birth, she searched for what a 28 week old premature baby should have looked like and she told the court that she had nightmares and flashbacks about seeing her baby's dead face. Which is unsurprising, really.

For those of us who have enough emotional intelligence to realise that concluding a pregnancy by slowly and painfully expelling a dead or dying neonate from one's body would be a horrific experience, induced labour of a living neonate in a maternity ward or a caesarean is the way to go. Don't attempt to glorify induced stillbirth please.

There are women out there like Carla Foster who are clueless enough to do it, and then they'd have to live with the psychological trauma they'd been you-go-girled into.

No-one but extremists support abortion for any reason including 'I changed my mind' up to the point of birth. So, yes, after 24 weeks - the point of viability - we do not allow abortion for any but extreme and sad medical reasons (death of the baby, malformation incompatible with life, that the mother is seriously ill/in need of treatment that would harm the baby/likely to die if the pregnancy continues). There are no other good reasons for late terminations - which I said earlier. Not wanting to be pregnant any more is not a good reason.

Before we had pills through the post a miscarriage was just that. I have had three - never, ever were police involved at any stage.

Kathleen Stock is right on this issue. If a woman presents as over 24 weeks she will not be offered an abortion. But she can lie on the telephone and get pills to do it and thus suffer a stillbirth in her own bedroom without medical back-up. And such law changes as this tend to increase the thing they decriminalise. Look to see more late-term abortions and women in a critical condition because of them. This is not in the least a feminist win - it's a win for those who wish to divorce us from our bodies and the consequences of living in a society.

The methods used in the few cases that have come to light - over the phone abortion pills. It is the availability of this method of abortion that needs looking at, not decriminalising late abortion by the mother.

I agree about the pills. And I'm very sorry to hear about your miscarriages, Grammarnut.

I agree with 'as early as possible'. I also understand that some feminists have always advocated abortion up to the point of birth. I don't agree with 'as late as needed' any more except in the case of medical emergencies, imminent death of the mother, and malformation incompatible with life. This amendment was a bad idea and will bring into question our whole carefully balanced abortion law.

That's an extreme position and not many people will support it.