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/

There goes another label......." misogyny' ( you are very fond of labels with which to dimiss people) whereby 'misogyny' is pointing out things you don't agree with and which offend your ideological dogma - such as there are some differences between men and women and this can entail different kinds of life choice, responsibility or priority.

It must be really miserable to perceive yourself as continually fighting oppression. Although I guess it gives you something to live for.

We don't criminalise pregnant women for ingesting, or otherwise taking into her body, substances harmful or lethal to the foetus, even when that harm is known and completely predictable.

• We don't criminalise pregnant women who smoke.
• We don't criminalise pregnant women who drink alcohol.
• We don't criminalise pregnant women who take street drugs.
• We don't criminalise pregnant women who eat shellfish, raw salmon, or unpasteurised cheese.
• We don't criminalise women who contract STIs during pregnancy.
• We don't criminalise pregnant women who attempt suicide, even though that suicide would inherently kill the foetus.
• We don't criminalise a pregnant woman who lies at the blood donation session to give blood when she medically shouldn't, or lies to her doctor or pharmacist to get medication that's contraindicated during pregnancy.

Decriminalising self-attempted abortion removes the one anomalous situation where we criminalise women for putting a substance into their bodies, something that we never do to men.

IIRC, the woman you mention was in lockdown with a recent ex. Getting back with the less-recent ex was one of the few ways she could legally leave the current ex at that time. And TBH it doesn't actually matter why she did it. She wouldn't have been prosecuted for shooting up with heroin whilst pregnant, so she shouldn't be prosecuted for taking prescription hormones whilst pregnant. In some ways, I wish I'd not used that argument because it's not the most relevant one. The important argument is that no one else ever gets criminalised for taking tablets no matter what those tablets are.

Absolutely this.

The only reason that a woman's autonomy is ever restricted during pregnancy is lawmakers deciding to restrict it. Hence, Northern Irish women currently have more autonomy during pregnancy than their Great British counterparts, because their law is different. If loss of autonomy was natural, abortion would be physically impossible everywhere.

Women's reduction in autonomy, along with other aspects of our oppression such as rape, is absolutely not natural; they are manufactured to benefit men.

No you haven't except to say you think they matter more but you haven't given any argument to why they trump someone's right to bodily autonomy.

None of the natural differences between men and women demand a certain lifestyle choice, responsibility or priority of women, what you're describing is just an opinion that you want legislated against women - that's misogynistic. You can't even rationalise why you think that except your nebulous notion that it's natural. That's why you won't even engage with the science that mens lifestyle can negatively impact a pregnancy and the health of a child, at least if you did think there should be some kind of standard of responsibility or priority that men have to adhere to you would be consistent.

What exactly brings you to feminism or women's rights when you view most of the ways women are controlled as divinely natural? Is it just to spread that kind of misinformation?

Where the argument of women's oppression or subjugation being natural falls down for me especially is the fact they need to enforce it. If these rights and responsibilities were so natural women and mothers wouldn't have sought methods to end a pregnancy for thousands of years, if we were naturally inclined to submit to men they wouldn't have to put laws in place to make us and god knows they've been trying long enough. This line of thinking being repeated by other women is just another softer way of enforcement because they've internalised misogyny and it's a way for them to accept it.

Come on, you're being ridiculously hard on that poster. Haven't you seen the posts where she says she's pro-choice before late term and has had 2 abortions herself? She's not the rabid pro lifer you seem to think. Don't think she's mentioned being religious either (apologies if I'm wrong, Shortshrift)

Whoops, clearly it was too late for me to be replying, I see!

In that case, if a woman is choosing something freely then she should be allowed to, and I fail to see the benefit of forcing her to have an unwanted girl child, who is born into a patriarchal system and family that wanted her dead.

Otherwise, my response regarding feticide is the same.

Eh, I only vary on paid organ and body part donation, and I could be persuaded to agree to allow it on moral consistency points. I don't think anyone should be prosecuted for selling their kidney, anyway – I just think that people should be prosecuted for buying it.

My opposition to paid surrogacy isn't about bodily autonomy, it's about selling humans.

You're just making things up now, and talking nonsense. When it's biologically possible to abort (as it is, with medical advances, and even was in the past with abortifacient plants) it's not biology - being female doesn't restrict our personal autonomy. Laws do that, AKA 'social constructs'.

And wanting control over our own bodies isn't 'resenting' being female.

You sound like a misogynist because you apparently don't expect men to do anything that might interfere with their bodily autonomy, not even donate blood to save a life, but you believe that women 'owe' something to 'society' and that women naturally have less control and rights over their bodies because of 'responsibilities' to 'society. That's all a social construct on your part.

(S)he's literally said that women naturally should have fewer rights than men because our 'role in society' is to have babies, and we have a 'responsibility' to sacrifice our bodies and freedoms because of that.

(S)he thinks men shouldn't have to do anything that impinges on their bodily autonomy to save lives, accuses posters who want control of their bodies of hating being female, and refuses to accept that it's a social/moral construct on her part to be against biologically possible abortion.

She hasn't said she opposes most abortion, and as someone who's had two herself, she's been honest about that. You disagree with her about late term abortion but you both agree abortion should be available in the earlier months

(S)he's full of nonsense, claiming that women having less bodily autonomy is 'natural' and 'biological' and that women have a 'responsibility' to perform our 'role' in society.

She fails to apply any responsibility to men however, even when it's applicable - only women!!

She says that not aborting is biologically natural, and that bodily autonomy is a social construct, failing to recognise that actually, abortion at any stage is biologically possible, and the laws against it are the social construct.

She's called people who point out her inconsistencies TRAs, and said they must hate or resent being female, or long to be men, when in fact she's the one deifying and enabling men.

She claims people don't like her counter arguments when I spent pages responding to her points, while she spent pages ignoring my question about blood or bone marrow donation, by parents or by any adult in order to save lives, and not making counter arguments.

The fact that she's apparently had two abortions just makes her a hypocrite, given everything she's espoused. And she has literally said, "It must be really miserable to perceive yourself as continually fighting oppression. Although I guess it gives you something to live for."

Which sounds like a misogynistic sort of thing to say on a feminist forum, to me, as though she thinks women aren't oppressed.

Thanks! And yes some contributors don't really seem to want to understand other people's views and perspectives if they so much as diverge from the very particular kind of dogmas which now seem so on trend: of 'female oppression' and 'bodily autonomy'. I dislike contemporary identity politics. It literally reduces people to identity categories in a fixed hierarchy of oppression and victimhood.

I suspect that I have been involved with women's issues and politics long before some of these people were even born...and the stage of 'feminism' that they seem to identify with is something that I went through a long time ago, and have since come to re-assess and reject to a large degree.

Life teaches you as you live it - and now rigid political ideologies that are rooted in idealistic concepts don't seem very useful at all. In fact, like many of us on this board ( which seems to have become quite diluted recently) I've come to reject them entirely. I'd been pre-occupied with life and out of the 'flow' for some years ( more interested and absorbed in photography and urbanism/architecture - and in my own family life) and was re-awakened to the current toxicity and madness of the post modernistic politics of identity and 'progressivism' ( an american import as far as I'm concerned) by the transgender phenomenon.

My degree was in Sociology and Philosophy ( including a module in 'Women's Studies' - before it then morphed into 'Gender Studies' in the 1990s) and I've taught Sociology too.....I'm fully aware of these sort of frames and perspectives ( though they seem very dated to me). Being a photographer taught me that the frame you use to view a situation tends to shape, entirely, your feelings towards it, and your ideas and perception of reality. Change the viewfinder and your perspective shifts entirely.

An interesting point that if a PP is so fixated on 'nature' and what's 'natural', naturally speaking, this is inapplicable:

"It is not acceptable in my view to terminate a baby that could potentially survive outside of the womb. Lots of babies are now being born at around 24 weeks and surviving. It would be a horror show to terminate such a wll developed, and healthy, baby."

A 24 week baby isn't viable without massive amounts of modern medical care and intervention, and even then they frequently die, or suffer lifelong effects of being so premature. Premature babies are not actually viable without intensive, unnatural medical intervention until approximately 36 weeks gestation. Before then the lungs are undeveloped, and they're likely to die. So by PP's own 'nature' argument, abortions before 36 weeks should be fine.

(Also, looking back in the thread, I also see PP tried to weaponise someone's pregnancy losses against her, which is just unacceptable).

These questions were related to your perspective on bodily autonomy. In my view bodily autonomy cannot be an absolute value if you are trying to use the state to influence outcomes and manipulate behaviour. I'm in favour of decriminalising the taking of drugs (not selling) and treating drug use as a health issue.You don't say what underpins your position. If I want to consume drugs it's my body my choice. But you agree with and support the state intervening by criminalising and or controlling the drugs I want to use, affecting my ability to access those drugs. You are choosing to classify drug use as a health issue not a life style choice. You don't say whether you would compel me to attend drug rehabilitation sessions.I'm in favour of the Nordic model of prostitution, where clients are prosecuted, not prostitutes.Again you are accepting the state's right to interfere with my free choices. If I chose to use my body to make money why should the state be involved. We have criminal laws against violence. Criminalising my customers directly interferes with my bodily autonomy. Women have also said this model makes them less safe 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.Again this is about using my body as I see fit. I am not selling a human as you have been quite clear the egg, embryo and fetus are not entitled to human rights. A surrogate by definition is simply a rented womb, there is generally no genetic linkFeticide 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 not sure aborting girl babies in a patriarchal system is a winning strategy, maybe I'd prefer to abort the boy babies.

It should go without saying these are not my opinions. I think the current law with few tweaks is solid enough. The introduction of changes should be done in a more thorough and transparent manner than slipping it through like this.

I think that society does need to balance bodily autonomy against a healthy, functioning society. So actions that impact negatively on the functioning of individuals within the society, by causing harm to them that then spills over onto society at large, do need to be managed socially to some extent.

So - drug taking causes social issues to the individual that spills over onto others around them, and society at large. It's not healthy but harmful to existing people, driving (family) violence, poverty, and crime.

Prostitution is also harmful to society at large, by promoting the idea that women (or people in general, but mostly women) are sexual objects that can be purchased, dehumanising them and again, causing widespread harm. It drives the oppression of women and girls, and misogyny.
(And not all prostitutes feels the Nordic model makes them less safe - personally, as someone with a history of being coerced into underage prostitution in a country where it is legalised, I'm in favour of the Nordic model.)

In surrogacy, once a baby is born, it is sold - a baby is being purchased, not a foetus. Again, this commodifies and dehumanises existing people by placing a monetary price on them - again, it turns people into objects, which is unhealthy for a society. It's also inconsistent, as people can't sell their existing two year old - why not?

I'm not sure why you think forcing people to bear female babies they don't want in an intensely patriarchal system where females have few rights and suffer severe oppression would be a win for anyone - not for the mother, nor the unwanted child. The patriarchal system needs to be dismantled first, and then people will want and value female children.

But freely chosen abortion? That only affects the woman, and the unborn foetus. It doesn't have a wider impact on society for a child to cease to exist before it's born. It doesn't harm anyone else. In fact, it often benefits the woman, her other existing children if there are any, and the people around her. It doesn't devalue born, existing people.
And while late term abortion is to be avoided because of the increased toll it takes on a woman to carry a pregnancy that much longer, and the unnecessary nature of it if an abortion can be procured earlier, I don't think the opportunity to not have an unwanted baby should be taken away from women and girls.

What I do think, most importantly, is that any restrictions on bodily autonomy should be applied EQUALLY across the sexes, and that if a man cannot be forced to gestate a foetus (obviously not, as he can't do it) and if people are not otherwise forced to give up a degree of bodily autonomy in order to save lives, regarding blood and bone marrow donations, then it is misogynistic to demand that women and girls do so for unwanted foetuses.

(A tangential note to my above post - I think the way the UK hasn't legalised cannabis is ridiculous. When legalised, removing the criminal element from its production and distribution, it both has genuine medical uses, and also causes undeniably much less harm to society recreationally than the consumption of alcohol does. It's another example of inconsistency based on outdated beliefs and unfounded norms.)

As I've said I think the current law is perfectly sound. I am not unfavourable of illegal late stage abortions.

What I do think, most importantly, is that any restrictions on bodily autonomy should be applied EQUALLY across the sexes, and that if a man cannot be forced to gestate a foetus (obviously not, as he can't do it) and if people are not otherwise forced to give up a degree of bodily autonomy in order to save lives, regarding blood and bone marrow donations, then it is misogynistic to demand that women and girls do so for unwanted foetuses.

That is just about the most bonkers statement I've ever heard.

I think that society does need to balance bodily autonomy against a healthy, functioning society.

There you go. That wasn't so hard, was it? That's all that anyone here has argued. We're just ironing out the details of what a healthy, functioning society looks like. Balance is usually a fundamental requisite.

So penis envy. Your argument for late term abortion amounts to penis envy. Holy mother of god. Good night 😅

Seriously? That's what you take from that? You think a desire for equality in society is penis envy?

Honestly, the arguments against late term abortions on this thread have been - almost without exception - an incoherent, muddled, inconsistent, and wholly misogynistic shitshow. And on FWR's of all places. What a bloody disappointment.