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/

If the child is outside of the mother's body, she can literally just give it to someone else. It's not dependent on the mother for survival, just an adult.

So, why is it that a parent can't be forced to donate bone marrow or a spare organ to their child in order to save their life, if they're the only match available?

The biological condition of being female suggests that one's body is not entirely one's own, though. What makes the female body different to the male body revolves and is predicated on reproduction and the female's role in carrying new life and nurturing it.

I suggest you are taking a very utilitarian approach to being female - that suggests to me wanting to reject being female at all ( what is it you think that makes you female, I wonder? Or perhaps you 'identify' as 'non binary'?) Instead valuing the concept of individuality and imagined personal autonomy above and beyond all else -to the extent that ending the life of a pre-term baby is an acceptable cost in order to preserve that.

it is suggestive of an approach to life in which satiating one's own individual desires or preferences is the only moral criteria for making decisions.

Women are people too, of course, but the type of person who has an inbuilt capacity and biological responsibility for the nurturing of new life. It is written in the DNA. It is not something that has been randomly allocated. It is is in the very nature of being female.

Of course we can now control our fertility via contraception (or sexual abstinence) and civil society has decreed ( in our culture) that a female person has the right to decide not to continue with a pregnancy - up until a certain stage...after which other values and ethical concerns are deemed to have priority.

You can bang on and on, forever and ever, about female ' bodily autonomy' and women being just like men in they should not have to have such direct and intimate responsibility......but both nature, and every society, has decided differently.

It is you who has decided that the arguments made by other people are unadmissable - becaue they conflict with your own.

This 'shaming' and inverted sense of moral superiority is very common in people who espouse the imagined 'progressive' omni-cause and see themselves as being on 'the right side of history'. Disagreement cannot be tolerated. 'Bodily autonomy' is just a mantra; an article of faith - a bit like TWAW.

My issue is the rank hypocrisy. Either argue against bodily autonomy or for it – but apply it equally across the board, unless you want to sound like a misogynist.

I had a termination aged 15......and as traumatic as the whole episode was I managed to have the pregnancy terminated within the first 10 weeks of gestation.

You talk about pregnancies as if the woman, or girl, is never emotionally conflicted or even aware of the new life that is growing inside of her.....even when she has experienced the baby's first movements and kicks inside of her. You talk about the foetus/baby entirely in terms of it being a parasitic invader - even if that is not what all women feel - even with an unplanned pregnancy.

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.

It's not that this view isn't understandable, it's just that with abortion, if you decide that past a certain point of gestation a foetus has a 'right to life' then you automatically subsume its mother somewhat to carrier status. In that sense it's hard to see the cutoff for abortion at viability as a logical and consistent feminist argument, because the very reasons one would support women's right to abortion up to 24 weeks are the same as those after 24 weeks, they just become relegated to 'right' of the foetus to live. Like with the trans issue there is no way to balance competing rights - once you've let one man in to a womens toilet, you've given away womens rights; once you use the foetal viability argument, you've relegated women in the hierarchy of personhood.

For me this is at the core of misogyny - the challenge women always face is having our humanity recognised as full and equal to any other, and our biology is used as justification for a lesser human status. Abortion laws all over the world, even the generous ones, starkly enshrine women's bodies as a resource.

I can be glad that the UK laws are relatively stable and settled and function well for the majority of women, I can not want lots of late term abortions to happen (because I dont - i support more access to sex ed, contraception and early abortions) but i can still observe how pregnant women are seen in society and treated by the law and wonder how else this law reinforces misogyny and be depressed that the idea of women's full and equal human status not needing to be diminished by the unique role of childbearing is 'extreme' and 'provocative' on a feminist forum.

Ah, so women are people, but just a little less people than men. Biology says so.

If every society decided that biology dictates that women should be pregnant frequently and consent isn't required, because it was decided to be 'in the very nature of being female', and written into our DNA, would you then argue in favour of that?

And why aren't men forced to donate bone marrow or organs to their children, if they're a match, and could save their life?

It is you who is hawking around the concept of 'bodily autonomy' as the main value. Nobody else is obligated to frame their arguments around that concept.....that is your moral priority.

I have children, and have suffered miscarriages, but not had an abortion.

And I'm clearly not talking about women who feel conflicted, or uncertain, I'm talking about women and girls in chaotic situations that mean they can't or don't access early abortion, don't care about the foetus or even hate it, and just want it gone.

Why would you want to have them attempt unsafe self abortion and criminalise them, as opposed to providing safe late term abortion or induced labour, or – if they've already done it – providing health focused support and care to prevent it from happening again?

This whole thread speaks to how far removed Queer Feminism is from the reality of the female experience.

So you're a misogynist. As I said before. You don't care about saving lives, you just want to restrict and punish women and girls.

So, as I suspected we get to the root of your issue. You want to be a man, or 'like a man' - even though you are not. You are female, and because being female in your mind presumably means having less 'autonomy' by its very nature.

That is not the sort of 'feminism' that others necessarily recognise. There are many women for whom being female is a strength'; one which has its own unique value and set of potentials and possibilities. Possibilities that are disregarded or considered inferior or of less value; not taken into consideration by some...including by many women it would appear.

Is your definition of 'Personhood' entirely predicated on a male model?

Nope. You're talking nonsense. If you'll look at my comments on another thread, I was called a misandrist because I think men as a sex are superfluous to the species (aside from providing sperm) and cause more problems than they solve. Being female is far superior, in my opinion.

But we have the medical technology to ensure bodily autonomy, and I don't see why we shouldn't. Being female also used to mean dying in childbirth frequently, or having no contraception, and wanting to avoid those issues doesn't mean I want to be like a man.

And I see you're still dodging my points, while I'm answering yours.

Why are parents not forced to donate life saving blood, marrow, or organs to their children?

Great logic! I bet you'd think I was a 'transphobe' as well. That seems to be your style...anything or anyone who is in disagreement with you is a 'fascist' or a 'misogynist' or a 'transphobe' etc. Name calling! Very grown up.

No, but it seems yours is.

Such adorable assumptions. I'd have to believe men can be women to think that, and I don't.

But you're espousing views that dictate women should have fewer rights than men, including saying a literal child should have to birth her rapist father's baby. That's misogynistic.

The irony! The thorough lack of consistent logic.....look back at your posts.

You reject being female and what ever it is you seem to think puts you at a disadvantage to men. Your primary objective (from your own set of arguments) is predicated on 'autonomy' and rejection of the idea that a woman, a pregnant woman, may ever have a different set of moral considerations to a man.

Do you know the thing I never expected to hear on a feminist board?
A full term fetus being called a parasite. The left were pretty big on eugenics back in the day. It's the Utopian spirit that ushers in hell on earth.
This imaginary example of 14 year old rape victim which is being used. The one thing that's sure is she wasn't raped a week ago. Anyway she doesn't know/hides her pregnancy. Gives birth in secret and disposes of baby. No one knows. Is this a happy ending?
Alternatively she feels baby kicking, feels attachment, still says nothing. Gives birth to a girl with orthodox family present. They remove and dispose of baby. Girl shamed and bereaved. Is this a happy ending?
Best outcome is for her to receive trained medical care and support which the current system provides IMO. This is what the ammendments are about.
Telling girls killing a baby is just like losing a tooth is the biggest lie of all.

Still making utterly unfounded assumptions while avoiding addressing my arguments, I see. Are you a man, perchance? You're behaving rather like one.

Men and women are different in some ways you know...or do you reject that?

i have never said the things you claim I have said. Your tactic is to use extreme examples and high emotion, rather than reasoned ethical argument. This is quite typical of much political dialogue these days.

Who called a foetus a parasite?

You know what's not a happy ending? Criminalising a girl who self aborted or killed a late term foetus because she was scared, and unable to access help.

I've said over and over that avoiding late term abortions is the goal, through contraception, increased access to early abortion, and support for vulnerable women. But a safe late term abortion, and ensuring the girl or woman has support going forward, is better than criminalising a vulnerable girl or woman who engaged in an unsafe self abortion or infanticide.

Oh my goodness.......I'm out of this degraded and unnecessarily fraught discussion.

You don't like counter arguments or anyone disagreeing with you. It is as simple as that. You've been making personal comments and accusations throughout to a number of people, resorting to name calling. That is the level of your debate.