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/

I didn't ask you a question, I said that, that was THE REAL question (that shoul be asked) so it wasn't a little bit rude. Funny what you take umbridge at considering what you've said about others.
Since we are sinking to the level of slogans don't have any more
time for this thread.

This is similar to trans pushing the boundaries and meeting a backlash.

Nah. The law was changed in NI in 2019 already. The rest of the UK is being brought into line with that. This is not sudden, and it's not coming from activists but from Govt responding to court rulings and reports from UN NGOs into our compliance with international treaty obligations.

Correcting the record: earlier in this thread, I ascribed Westminster's 2019 repeal of §s 58 and 59 of Offences Against The Person Act in NI to a ECtHR ruling. It was actually a combination of a High Court ruling (Ewart) and a CEDAW report.

If we do experience a backlash it's ideologues like you I'll blame.

Rule One of Misogyny: women are responsible for what men do. If men backlash, that's their choice.

@OtterlyAstounding maybe at 38 weeks, yes, but that's me answering with no knowledge of what the risks to both mother and baby are associated with induction (usually it's only done when risk of continuing pregnancy outweigh risks of intervention). I think it's already possible for women paying for private health care to book an elective ceasarian at 38 weeks, or is that an urban myth?

But you said:

"I would say because the separation between mother and child takes time. Early on in the pregnancy there is one being: a woman with potential-future-life inside her, and she is free to decide whether that potential develops to become a separate being. Once that separation is complete the life of the foetus has value in its own right and its mother should continue her pregnancy to term."

So before 'separation' is complete, the pregnant woman should be able to have an abortion, right? And then after, it's a separate person, and therefore should be able to be evicted.

So a woman should either be able to abort, or induce labour. There should be no point when she can do neither.

Sorry but I don't feel like this explains when this viability exception comes into place, can you clarify:
I would say because the separation between mother and child takes time. Early on in the pregnancy there is one being: a woman with potential-future-life inside her, and she is free to decide whether that potential develops to become a separate being. Once that separation is complete the life of the foetus has value in its own right and its mother should continue her pregnancy to term.

I wasn't applying a principal of harm prevention. I was using the word "harm" to refer to both neglect of and violence towards a newborn. It was an unclear choice of words.
Isn't your point that abortion is similar to harming a newborn, yet once I ask you to apply a consistent approach to a healthy pregnancy with restrictions harm prevention wasn't your goal? I'm confused you clearly said harming their unborn foetus is wrong, so why do men not have a duty to not cause harm also?

In my opinion the similarites are obvious, but I can try to elabourate further if you want. The glaring dissimilarity is there is only one parent capable of sustaining the foetus's life before birth, and she cannot relinquish that responsibility until after birth.
So very similar to responsibility to a newborn except glaringly different 😅 So it is then a unique responsibility and restriction you agree with being applied solely to pregnant women and girls?

If a person is opting out of something they're by definition not a corpse. I thought the protest poster was referring to the situation where a person hasn't opted out before death but their immediate family refuses to give consent for organ donation to go ahead.
My mistake.

I wonder perhaps if you haven't fully read the law because nothing in this legislation makes it decriminalised for someone to force or coerce someone into a termination, that's hyperbolic nonsense to use your words, nothing else in abortion legislation is changing except for the risk of prosecution to the mother. Every other part of the criteria, permission, limits and rules are staying the same with doctors who perform illegal abortions still subject to prosecution as well as anyone who tries to force or coerce someone.

Whilst family members are consulted, it's to try to find out what the dead person wanted. This is why the NHS has opt-in and opt-out forms to ensure clarity, as well as urging people to tell their families about their post-mortem wishes.

I think your post demonstrates exactly why this isn't a settled issue. You're saying the law works perfectly fine at the same time as saying the fur off limit is later than you'd like. Do you know whose lee is saying that? The man who very well may be the next PM. It's also disingenuous for posters to keep repeating that we have on demand abortion enshrined in law when what we have is a legal process which for the time being has allowed women relatively easy access at early stages to abortion with permission and doctors have been granting this but this can change just as hardly any women were prosecuted for over a hundred years and suddenly there was a spike in prosecuting women. With our current abortion laws there's no reason to be overly confident that doctors won't start to get more hesitant to sign off abortions effectively "on demand" especially when there clearly is a part of the public that would like to see more prosecutions.

I'd day that most often the women referred to may well have gone ahead with the pregnancy, if they'd had the support of the father/husband/partner.

What's happened here is that arguments about two legislative changes, happening in the same Bill, are (unintentionally, I suspect) being elided.

1. Retaining the abortion pills by post service instituted during Covid.
2. Decriminalising self-abortion at all stages.

The first arguably poses a risk of increased risk of coercion because a requirement for a present-in-person, on her own with the HCP, consultation creates an opportunity for an abuse victim to disclose, and her abuser can't deny her that opportunity if he wants her to abort. An unintended consequence of forcing that one-to-one meeting is that he may just instead force her to stay pregnant and be tied to him with a baby...

The second doesn't increase a risk of coercion to the woman.

Having two physicians sign off on an abortion is not onerous and iirc it usually takes about a week to book. Which seems to have been what your friend had experienced.

But I’m talking to extremists who maintain with a straight face that a corpse has more rights than a pregnant woman.

I think it's right that society provides full healthcare for a pregnant woman, which includes the option of safe termination earlier on in the pregnancy. I don't believe telemedical abortion is safe, even in the first trimester.

I don't know what you mean by using the word "evicted". A woman isn't a lifeless baby-house. She is a living being. You're talking about inducing labour? As I said, I'm not sure. These interventions will always pose a risk to both mother and foetus / infant. Certainly if it's taking place away from a hospital with a mother self administering meds I think that's crazy risky for both her and child and I'm really surprised there was no effort to guard against that in the legislation. Within the hospital? I think the life and wellbeing of the foetus are best secured by pregnancy continuing to term so if the pregnant woman can do this healthfully she should.

The women who are most likely to enjoy the benefits of telemedical abortion with minimal risk are those with the most cultural capital: well educated, good understanding of their bodies and their cycles, awarenss of what symptoms mean they should seek face to face assessment, supportive family, secure housing. These are also the women who are most likely to be elected to parliament, obtain tenure at a university, hold positions of influence in professional colleges, unions, and UN bodies.
The women who are most at risk of suffering harms from telemedical abortion, whether they are deliberately misleading the healthcare provider as to how far along in their pregnancy they are or not, are women whose lives are chaotic due to mental illness, homelessness, familial abuse and violence, or women who aren't well educated about how their bodies work, can't remember when their last period was, or have no idea what symptoms of what severity indicate they should seek a face to face assessment. These are also the women who are least likely to be elected to parliament, obtain tenure at a university, hold positions of influence in professional colleges, unions, and UN bodies.
I struggle with feminist activism that prioritises ease of access to termination at any stage during pregnancy over all else. I believe that serves the interests of a narrow section of women, and they are not the most vulnerable.

Several politicians have promised this legislation passing means no future criminal investigations of miscarriages or stillbirths. Yes, that means no women will be suspects, but it also means no menfolk will be, either. In my opinion that puts vulnerable women in controlling relationships at further risk because the men know that noone will ask any questions.
Maybe those politicians were lying for political gain. I actually hope they were.

That's changed some time in the last 15 years then. Prior to that family had to give consent before organ donation could go ahead.

Telemedical abortion is abortion pills, then? I agree this shouldn't be happening and is not safe. Not sure if should be criminalised - will that help women? But it's not safe...

Everytime you insist someone pro choice is an extremist I'll remind you you're the one who said this law change effectively legalised infanticide 😀

It's not for you to decide it's not onerous when I already explained the unnecessary distress this caused to a mother with cancer with young children. Also if you think every woman in the UK can access abortion within a week you're quite misinformed and could do with reading info from RCOG and BPAS that while there is technically access to abortion many women find it hard to access locally or there is a long waiting time. All things that push women into terminating later than when they originally decided but I'm sure as this is once again anecdote of women's lived experience it'll be of little interest or relevance to you.

Yes, that means no women will be suspects, but it also means no menfolk will be, either.
Why when the law explicitly doesn't say this?

Agreed, although I do feel that some of the concerns about the telemedicine aspect aren't realising it's a balance of concerns. While they see only the risk for coercion, clinicians clearly feel confident on consulting women this way given it's a solution to the barriers women face accessing abortion. It seems posters somehow wants women to access abortion as early as possible but don't want telemedicine access but aren't proposing other solutions.

They may well have... but they didnt.

One consideration of abortion pills by post is that if a woman decides to carry out a late stage self-induced abortion ( though if it is decriminalised she shouldn’t need to), the baby will have missed out on the feticide which would otherwise have been carried out by a doctor prior to administering the abortion drugs.

This would mean more suffering for the baby who could die of suffocation, ischemia, sepsis and other harms through the ensuing process. Maybe the baby would feel pain too ( there seems not to be a consensus). There is even a small chance the baby would be born live then die. The mother could also be harmed.

So it is important for girls and women to be educated to seek medical help, and not try a late term abortion by themselves, even if it is easy to get the pills.

These changes should be sorted out with doctors too. Some may balk at assisting with late term abortions if the mother is not at risk.

I feel the combination of easy to get pills, which may help with early abortions, could lead to some harmful late-term self/induced ones.

If you are in a long term relationship or marriage, then a partner who really doesn't want a/nother child will usually create such uncomfortable and conflicted conditions that the termination seems like the only realistic choice. It certainly was for the women I have known. ( Obviously the terminations were carried out within the first 12 weeks of gestation).

Such men then have a duty to then get a vasectomy.

I agree to some extent with the concern but I agree with RCOG and other organisations who state this is extraordinarily rare. Late term abortions are so rare anyway that a self induced self term abortion is even rarer, so rare that they and others supporter the change in the law because criminalising those rare cases didn't seem to deter them but it more likely deters women who have suffered a natural miscarriage from seeking medical care.

It's rare when it's criminalised, but do we have any evidence that it will remain so when it's perfectly legal?

Could you be a little more explicit with the point you seem to be trying to make. I can't quite work out what it may be?