Bid in Lords to overturn move to decriminalise abortion for women

[IwantToRetire]

A landmark move to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancies could be overturned as legislation is considered in the House of Lords.

In June, MPs in the Commons voted in favour of decriminalisation, with one saying it would remove the threat of “investigation, arrest, prosecution or imprisonment” of any woman who acts in relation to her own pregnancy. ...

But, with the Bill making its way through the Lords, an amendment has been tabled to remove the relevant clause. ...

https://nation.cymru/news/bid-in-lords-to-overturn-move-to-decriminalise-abortion-for-women/

This is a bad faith argument. A mother can safely abandon a baby with another person or organisation. It is not inside her body.

Bodily autonomy doesn't mean doing anything we like just because we live from our bodies, and there's no regard for others, no such things as crimes or consequences.

It means we have self determination about what happens to our physical bodies and our bodies are not resources for others, for society, for 'the greater good', without our consent. It's one of the 4 pillars of medical ethics in the UK and incredibly important in a free society.

I don't intepret abandoning an infant child out of a desire to do something more fun and interesting as supported by the principle of bodily autonomy.

What about marrow? What if everyone had their blood type and location registered, so if someone needed blood or marrow and they were the closest available option, they could be forced to donate? To save a person's life, doing something that only takes a few hours time?

How can you be against that, but in favour of taking away women's automony in a much more invasive way in order to save an unborn child they don't want?

Everyone on this thread who has made the argument that late term abortions kill a baby and therefore shouldn't be allowed, is against mandatory blood or marrow donation that saves real people's lives with much less intrusion. That's so hypocritical it's sickening.

They're also nearly all in favour of allowing late term abortion for rape – which makes it clear it's about making sure women suffer, unless they 'don't deserve it'. How exactly does a few extra weeks of distress equate to being able to kill a healthy foetus? Why is 'murder' suddenly okay and state sanctioned if a woman was raped?

It doesn't make sense, and it's clear that it's not really about saving human life. It's about punishing a woman, and making sure that one way or another, she suffers.

It doesn't benefit society to criminalise women for late term abortions, or force them to have unwanted babies (that according to a previous poster, a study agrees with my suspicion that they will keep rather than relinquish.) It should be approached with a healthcare, 'how do we help make sure this doesn't happen again' attitude.

PP has said that after 24 weeks, a hypothetical 14-year-old girl raped by her father should be forced to gestate and give birth to his child for the good of society, because it's not always about the individual

I understand that's not a situation that would arise often, but that it could (and would) happen even once is one too many times.

No person should be forced to give over the use of their body in order to sustain another human being's life, and no person ever is....except for pregnant women and girls. No one can be forced to donate blood, marrow, or spare organs, even if a person will die without their donation.

Dead bodies who are suitable for organ donation have more rights to bodily autonomy than pregnant women and girls, even though they're already dead and could save multiple existing lives! Instead they're allowed to keep their autonomy and just rot away uselessly.

Why? Because it's clearly not about life being precious.

The argument about absolute bodily autonomy does not address the issue of coercion. Neither does it address the possibility of dead babies being passed off as aborted when in fact murdered.

Are organs not currently donated without consent, unless the person opts out?

I am not in favour of this as it happens. I'd prefer an opt in type of scenario.

Organs are not taken from the dead. They only remove the organs of the kept living for donation.

The family has the last say as far as i am aware, not the person, so they dont have greater bodily autonomy.

Are organs not currently donated without consent, unless the person opts out?

I am not in favour of this as it happens. I'd prefer an opt in type of scenario.

Organs are not taken from the dead. They only remove the organs of the kept living for donation.

The family has the last say as far as i am aware, not the person, so they dont have greater bodily autonomy.

Coercion can occur in early term abortion too, so I don't know why you're talking about that?

As for dead babies being passed off as aborted...well, if late term abortion was provided in hospital, then that might be less of an issue. But what purpose does imprisoning a woman for killing a newborn baby serve? It's terrible, yes - horrific - but who else is she a danger to? Why lock her away in prison?

Would it not make more sense to approach it from a healthcare perspective, and provide a woman with support and supervision to ensure it never happens again, and to enable her to be a productive member of society?

No, the family has to agree, even if the person hasn't opted out. And the implication is (as the person is unable to communicate their wishes) that the family is supposed to ensure that their loved one's wishes are respected.

The family does have the last say on refusal, that's true. But all that means is that it's even more clear that saving lives isn't behind people's reasoning regarding abortion, as the approach is the opposite when it comes to organ donation.

And what about blood? Marrow? Minor procedures, compared to gestation. Why is it that people cannot be forced into saving people's lives unless it's a foetus? It is morally inconsistent.

It would be very easy to tell the difference. When a baby is born and take its first breath, there are physiological changes that take place i.e. the lungs inflate, oxygen levels increase dramatically etc.
That isn’t the case with an aborted foetus which has never taken a breath.

There are already provisions for late term abortions under the Act. No one is suggesting life imprisonment. Within the debate Kishwer Faulkner proposed that prosection should be decided by the DPP only in exceptional circumstances.

From the debate in the House of Lords.

Clause 208 also endangers women by removing the current legal deterrent against administering an abortion away from a clinical setting right up to birth. Women may be incentivised to perform their own life-threatening abortion late in pregnancy. This is particularly the case given how easily women can obtain abortion pills through the pills by post scheme, beyond the legal limit and without a reliable gestational age check. These pills are not meant to be used after the 10th week of pregnancy for a very good reason. I encourage noble Lords to support Amendment 425 from the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, which would reinstate mandatory in-person medical consultations and abolish the pills by post scheme, which was started during Covid lockdowns and should have been rescinded after the pandemic, as was originally intended.

Any imprisonment is too much, frankly.

But personally, my issues are with the attitudes espoused on this thread by supposed feminists, saying that women and girls should be disallowed bodily autonomy for entirely hypocritical and morally inconsistent and incoherent reasons, and not with the specifics of the debate.

And I really don't think the clause will incentivise women and girls to do anything - I seriously doubt women and girls who are desperate or irrational enough (due to mental health issues, drug addictions, or abuse, quite often) to try to home abort a full term foetus will be dissuaded by the illegality! Care and support is what's needed in those cases, not pointless punishment.

But personally, my issues are with the attitudes espoused on this thread by supposed feminists, saying that women and girls should be disallowed bodily autonomy for entirely hypocritical and morally inconsistent and incoherent reasons, and not with the specifics of the debate.
Nobody on here has been doing that.

Clearly you haven't read the thread, as people have been saying exactly that.

She’s defining bodily autonomy as ‘should be able to abort a fetus/baby at any point during a pregnancy’ and trying to shame you as ‘not feminist’ if you disagree.

Yep. Sure am! Having autonomy over one's body is part of bodily autonomy. And it's not feminist to believe that women shouldn't have bodily autonomy. I thought that was pretty clear from my posts.

As I've said, and which no one has actually addressed:

"No person should be forced to give over the use of their body in order to sustain another human being's life, and no person ever is....except for pregnant women and girls. No one can be forced to donate blood, marrow, or spare organs, even if a person will die without their donation.

Dead bodies who are suitable for organ donation have more rights to bodily autonomy than pregnant women and girls, even though they're already dead and could save multiple existing lives! Instead they're allowed to keep their autonomy and just rot away uselessly.

Why? Because it's clearly not about life being precious."

None of those listed actively involve the death of another human being. You are not required to do anything, death happens naturally without interference.

In late stage pregnancy, you are interfering to cause the death of another human being that,
if left alone, would be able to continue living normally.

That’s a huge difference.

Ah, so you think that passively standing by and allowing someone to die when you know that you could save their life by donating blood, is somehow morally acceptable? Or that allowing a child to die when you could save their life by donating bone marrow is morally acceptable?

But killing a foetus in order to end a pregnancy that has a massive effect on a woman, meaning that a life will simply never begin, is somehow morally unacceptable?

At the end of the day, in both scenarios people die who could be saved, because of others' actions or inaction. So why should the government not enforce mandatory donations to save lives, if human lives outweigh bodily autonomy?

I presume you also think a pregnant 14-year-old victim of incestuous rape should be forced to give birth if she's past 24 weeks? After all, we don't murder human beings that are unavoidably causing emotional distress to others.

Ah, so you think that passively standing by and allowing someone to die when you know that you could save their life by donating blood, is somehow morally acceptable? Or that allowing a child to die when you could save their life by donating bone marrow is morally acceptable

We aren’t talking about my personal morality, only that you are not legally obligated to act to prevent someone’s death.

But killing a foetus in order to end a pregnancy that has a massive effect on a woman, meaning that a life will simply never begin, is somehow morally unacceptable

But you have intervened to end a life, whereas simply doing nothing would allow it to live.

At the end of the day, in both scenarios people die who could be saved, because of others' actions or inaction

It matters a great deal when you intervene to cause the death of someone. This is why we have strict guidelines (or blanket bans) on euthanasia too (I suppose that’s what abortion is, at the end of the day)

So why should the government not enforce mandatory donations to save lives, if human lives outweigh bodily autonomy

This is not the proper question. It’s a question that you can’t force someone to act to save a life.

We have a bias toward the natural—if intervention simply means nature takes its course, we tend to accept it.

I presume you also think a pregnant 14-year-old victim of incestuous rape should be forced to give birth if she's past 24 weeks

I think legally they cannot perform an abortion in this case. Nor do I think it should take place at that point either, much too far along.

After all, we don't murder human beings that are unavoidably causing emotional distress to others

I mentioned before a euthanasia case where a husband suffering from caregiver burnout put in an emergency request for MAID despite his wife’s stated resistance. It has been somewhat of a controversy in Canada. I think cases like this will touch on when human life has become too burdensome, on an emotional and physical level.

Right, so you think everyone but pregnant women and girls should be allowed bodily autonomy, even if other people's inaction results in someone's preventable death.

That's misogynistic, I'm afraid, and just sounds like you're tying yourself in knots to find a reason to punish only women and girls, to the point that you'd force a twenty-six week pregnant 14-year-old girl to give birth to her father-rapist's child...to what end? How does that benefit her, or society, or even the unborn child, whose life would otherwise simply end before it even began? The only person it benefits is the rapist, who'll get to enjoy knowing that he's truly destroyed his daughter's life, with her either being forced to give up her child (knowing one day it might contact her), or raise the product of incestuous rape.

It's truly monstrous to force that when it can be avoided, and I cannot believe that someone would promote that course of action and claim to be a feminist.

Also, trying to argue inaction vs action is weaselly, considering the end result is the same.

In the case of doing nothing and letting nature take its course...

Logically speaking, that would mean you're not okay with abortion, because its actively killing something, but you should be fine with exposing a newborn on a hillside because that's not intervening, and letting 'nature take its course'. Right?

We may not literally allow people to kill babies because they're emotionally distressed but we do recognise the difference between infanticide & murder. The former is the killing of a child under 12 months old by their mother when the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation.

Right, so you think everyone but pregnant women and girls should be allowed bodily autonomy, even if other people's inaction results in someone's preventable death

It’s not about my personal morality at all. It’s not about bodily autonomy even.

There’s a reason most abortion laws, even the most relaxed ones, hinge on viability. At the point where the fetus can live separate from its mother is the point where most people decide to draw the line. Thats not me, thats society.

In any case, nowhere in this world can a woman go and abort a healthy child at any point in their pregnancy. Because most humans find it objectionable, only extremists like yourself push for it.

That's misogynistic, I'm afraid, and just sounds like you're tying yourself in knots to find a reason to punish only women and girls

Yeah, no it’s not.

the point that you'd force a twenty-six week pregnant 14-year-old girl to give birth to her father-rapist's child...to what end

Where in this world can she get a legal abortion? Nowhere. Maybe China, but even then.

You know nothing about my personal morality. For me, I think it’s almost a duty to abort a rapist’s unborn child, since we don’t want genes associated with rape to be present in the next generation (propensity to rape has been shown to cluster in families, even those adopted out).

But I recognize that this is out of step with most people’s ethics.

It's truly monstrous to force that when it can be avoided, and I cannot believe that someone would promote that course of action and claim to be a feminist

Stop with your fake outrage, again it’s not based on my personal ethics

Logically speaking, that would mean you're not okay with abortion, because its actively killing something, but you should be fine with exposing a newborn on a hillside because that's not intervening, and letting 'nature take its course'. Right?

Infant abandonment is often not seen as bad as strangling your infant to death, true.

If your argument is based purely on legality, and not on your personal ethics, then why are you even discussing anything? You add nothing to the discussion. We all know the law.

And it's not fake outrage. I'm genuinely disgusted and disappointed that 'feminists' would be so hypocritical, and so against women and girls having autonomy over their bodies.

As I've said, I want to minimise late term abortions, but I do not think that it's right to criminalise women and girls for attempting to exercise bodily autonomy, when we bend over backwards to allow bodily autonomy for everyone else, even when that means people die.

Still, the state will not assist in killing a baby because their father raped their mother, so why, as PP said, would the state kill a foetus that it would otherwise protect, simply because its father raped its mother?

It's not morally consistent.

If 'autonomy' is the defining consideration then the child whether inside or outside of her body is still dependent on the mother for survival. Having something or someone depend on you threatens your 'autonomy'.

Try to follow your 'autonomy' logic through to its various conclusions.