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/

Where’s the dissonance?

Doctors aren’t going to give you an abortion past 24 weeks.

But does protect women like Carla Foster, who murdered her healthy, 32-week-old daughter.

No it isn't predicated on that, it's literally a societal construct. You can look throughout history to see that your Christian paternalistic view of women's bodies isn't a given fact, it's a view point designed to control women. Now, should we be restricting mens bodily autonomy or not given we now know the implications of their lifestyles on the health of pregnancies?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10968330/

So now the issue is it protecting people like Carla but your initial argument was that this law change in itself was going to legalise infanticide ?

Doctors aren’t going to give you an abortion past 24 weeks.
I even pasted the abortion permission regulations for you upthread because you didn't know the UK abortion laws and this showed you still don't, clearly.

They’d exist, usually suffering from some sort of caregiver burnout, the kind of parent who pushes an autistic child into a river to drown (this actually happened)

I think humans have a bias towards the natural. If a child died because of your inaction, well some would see that as a natural outcome.

For @RingoJuice and others who don't actually know the UK abortion laws but feel qualified to debate on this topic. Please stop spouting nonsense that we have abortion on demand on this country and/or a doctor won't perform an abortion after 24 weeks. If you're going to argue at least know what you're talking about. In case you're unable to follow, grounds a and b apply over 24 weeks.

Information on the certified grounds for terminating the pregnancy stated on the HSA1 form:

ground A - that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated
ground B - that the termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman
ground C - that the pregnancy has not exceeded its 24th week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman (this includes pregnancies up to 23 weeks and 6 days)
ground D - that the pregnancy has not exceeded its 24th week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of any existing child (or children) of the family of the pregnant woman (this includes pregnancies up to 23 weeks and 6 days)
ground E - that there is a substantial risk that, if the child were born, it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped
Or the grounds stated on the HSA2 form where an emergency termination was performed:

ground F - to save the life of the pregnant woman
ground G - to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman
For terminations under grounds A or B, information is collected on the main medical conditions.

For terminations under ground C, information is collected on whether there was a risk to the woman’s mental health. If there was no risk to the woman’s mental health, information is collected on the main medical conditions.

For terminations under ground E, information is collected on the abnormality or other reason for termination and the method of diagnosis.

For terminations under grounds F or G, information is collected on the main medical conditions

They won’t give you an abortion for a healthy child. But of course you can get one if your child has a serious condition, this has not changed at all though.

A doctor will not abort your healthy child after 24 weeks (indeed many wouldn’t even before then without a serious reason to do so)

There are plenty of absent fathers who wouldn't want to. It's not some rare thing that requires caregiver burnout. Or people who don't believe in it for religious reasons. Or people who are abusive, or neglectful, or have serious mental health issues.

But again, this means people should be fine with a woman giving birth to a newborn, and then leaving it to die. It's natural, and caused via inaction, not action. So why aren't people fine with that?

People absolutely used to be fine with infant exposure.

And as I noted earlier, people tend to treat infant abandonment less seriously than if you strangled your newborn to death.

Please read the legislation, they absolutely can and will for the mothers health.

People used to be fine with marital rape too. I'm not sure of your point.

In fact, I'm not sure of your point in general.

You're saying that people are morally inconsistent? Yes. I understand that. But that's not a good thing, and it shouldn't be defended. We should not be enshrining moral inconsistency (specifically at the expense of women and girls) into our laws and social norms.

(S)he doesn't have a consistent point imo, they went from accusing the posters on this read of being eugenics adjacent to proposing sterilising homeless people in the same post and consistently ignores the actual wording of abortion legislation when it doesn't fit whatever point they want to make at that momen. Anything to avoid actually thinking critically about why their personal opinion shouldn't infringe of a woman's right to abortion.

Where is the separate thread set up to discuss whether foetuses are alive or not? As I biologist I'm morbidly fascinated.

Good luck finding two doctors that will agree to do that for you, if the baby is healthy. We know that these cases almost always involve babies with severe health conditions.

You sound like a pro-lifer, saying that doctors abort healthy, late term babies because the law can be interpreted in such a way to support it. Maybe but they won’t in practice.

The point is that people have a bias towards the natural. So if your inaction leads to someone’s death, well that’s their fate anyway (wrt blood and organ donation)

However people take a dim view if your actions cause someone’s death.

Thats my point. Organ donation is the former, abortion is the latter.

I mean, I don't like the idea of late term abortion, and I'd prefer it never needed to happen for any reason, with pregnancy being prevented altogether, or abortions happening earlier - that's best for women, and foetuses. But sometimes it seems the lesser of two evils.

And the arguments on this thread against it being decriminalised seem both distinctly anti-women and incoherent.

(Side note - I've really appreciated reading your comments on this thread)

That's not a point, an argument, or a moral position, though - that's an observation about people's ethical incoherency.

Not at all, but you seem to think they're exercising their bodily autonomy. Basically specific rights are part of a whole web of interacting rights and responsibilities within a social context.

It is hard to say how exactly well-intentioned people ended up here, but the phrase “bodily autonomy” getting madly out of control is one part of the story. At this point, it seems to be operating more like a hypnotic mantra than an important value to be weighed up against other ethical values. Within feminism, it turns otherwise inquiring minds into mush and makes their owners look like cult members. Indeed, from one angle, this new decriminalisation initiative looks like the equally foolish historic venture of self-ID: supposedly about advancing personal freedom, pretending other people’s vital interests don’t matter, fond of histrionic cherrypicked examples, and bound to result in a loss of public support for the overall cause. Kathleen Stock.

Are you also in favour of decriminalising drugs, prostitution and derugulating surrogacy, my body my choice?
What about all the missing girls throughout the world. Feticide specifically of girls is commonplace.

According to the statistics, 345 female infants were found dead in Islamabad in 2017.9. In 2019, the Edhi foundation reported 375 dead infants. A study at the Forensic Department of KEMU, Lahore, reviewed 35 autopsied cases from January 2018 to December 2019. Of these, 42.9 % were feticide cases, the same percentage for neonaticides, and 14.3 % for infanticide. According to the study's statistics, the male-to-female ratio was 1.26.10.

Are you saying if a woman's life is in grave danger two doctors won't agree? You are revealing more and more you know so little about abortion especially late term abortion and are only on this thread because you want to spread misinformation. I still highly suspect your a man still and antichoice. I could never sound like a prolifer because I don't think they exist😉

This is it exactly, no one likes abortions.or late term abortions. No one that has advocated for this law change and done so because they are advocating for Carla Fosters actions (as suggested by Ringo). It's also possible to be totally against abortion and believe all the misogynistic "a woman's place is to reproduce" stuff like PP does but know it shouldn't be written into law against everyone else.

(I've enjoyed yours more! You're much more patient at eloquently explaining the logic than I am at this point. It's tiring to see the same old misogyny year after year but especially disheartening to see this onan feminist forum)

I gave up reading at page three when it became clear that some posters are incapable of separating legality from morality.

We are talking about what is in the public interest to prosecute. We decriminalised suicide attempts because we recognised that suicidal people need help, not jail. I see decriminalisation of self-induced abortion at all stages as a similar humane act.

Northern Ireland has abortion decriminalised for the woman herself since 21st October 2019, as being the minimum legislative change that Westminster could impose in the then-absence of a functioning Stormont Assembly to comply with a ECtHR ruling. NI has not imploded in the last six and a half years.

The decriminalisation aspect of the bill passed by the Commons would bring the rest of the UK into line with NI.

What this means:

• Women and girls suffering genuine stillbirths are at no risk of investigation or prosecution. And yes, that happens, a school girl had her laptop taken off her during her GCSE year, affecting her studies, by the police investigating her stillbirth.
• Women who are in mental distress so severe as to think that a self-induced late-term abortion is a good idea are not criminalised, just as we don't criminalise suicidal people.

What this does not mean:

• A free-for-all for late-term medical and surgical abortion performed by medics. The laws governing medics don't change.

I'm in favour of decriminalising the taking of drugs (not selling) and treating drug use as a health issue.

I'm in favour of the Nordic model of prostitution, where clients are prosecuted, not prostitutes.

I'm not in favour of selling human beings (non-altruistic surrogacy) and think that altruistic surrogacy needs to be carefully monitored to ensure no possibility of coercion.

Feticide is murder of living children, not a matter of bodily autonomy. In the case of female feticide, the issue is often driven by patriarchal systems that devalue and dehumanise women and girls, and incidentally, strip away their rights and bodily autonomy.

I'm in favour of abortion at any point being decriminalised, but with a strong push to prevent unwanted pregnancy or provide early abortion, and with a healthcare approach to vulnerable women who seek out late-term abortion, to try to ensure the situation won't repeat itself.

The one thing I'm against that could infringe on bodily autonomy, is the rich being able to use the poor to harvest their eggs, babies, or organs by use of financial coercion, as that doesn't seem like a free choice if financial coercion is involved.

I'm a feminist - I think women's and girls' rights need to be protected above all else, within the structure of a patriarchal world and millennia of oppression that has caused most women to be deeply affected by internalised misogyny.

Is that morally consistent enough for you?

ground A - that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated

It is always true that a termination is less risk to the mother than continuing the pregnancy.

Agreed but as with Savita's story, where criminal law is involved it can make doctors hesitant to act on theoretical risk as many doctors in the UK do and wait for evidenced immediate risk to life. I mainly wanted to share as it shows how blithe and uninformed most of us are about our access to abortion. It's not guaranteed and we don't have abortion on demand, we need permission and there isn't an option for them to give us permission simply because it's our choice.

Haven't time to respond yet but just to correct you.
Feticide is a procedure to stop the fetal heartbeat prior to an abortion over 22 weeks of pregnancy. It is not the murder of living children.

good lord. Still going on that I’m a man because I disagree with you? Or that I’m anti choice?

A very common issue in feminist discourse is that whenever you mention any limitation on abortion, extremists will say you are NOT pro-choice, because you won’t support choice in all circumstances.

I totally reject that, and those kinds of hard lines will drive people away from your cause. I think this law change has already been counterproductive, opening up a can of worms here.