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 beyond the scope of the legislative change under discussion, but hey.

The laws of nature mean she must go through something

Surely, the HCPs can help her go through that something better if they are screening all their decisions through "is this best for the patient?" without having to also worry whether the situation is grave enough under Abortion Act 1967 to avoid prosecution under Offences Against The Person 18something?

Several times in my life, I have been suggested a treatment by one medic (e.g. workplace OH GP) and had my own GP say "no, because you are a woman of fertile age, which contraindicates that, but instead we can offer X". Removal of the 24 week time limit wouldn't suddenly turn HCPs into women's obedient slaves, bound to remove a dead foetus from her at her demand. HCPs will be able to say "no, that's not in your best interests" and "no, that's not good practice" and will also still be able to consider the foetus-as-future-person's interests, as they currently do (hence the "no, because you are a woman of fertile age" reply from my GP).

Had Foster lived in NI, it wouldn't have been. And had she attempted suicide and harmed her foetus in the process, that wouldn't have been a crime anywhere in the UK.

Decriminalising the woman's actions to self-abort removes this legal anomaly where we don't prosecute pregnant women for foetal endangerment except for one, really narrow, circumstance where we do.

But how does it benefit society, or her, or the victim's family (also her, as well as her existing children who she apparently cared for well, and an ex boyfriend who wasn't in the scene), to criminalise her?

A situation where it's legal for woman to kill herself and her foetus to avoid giving birth to a live child, but not legal to abort her foetus, is so dystopian.

I don't think this is accurate about NI though. Abortion beyond 24 weeks is only legal there in cases of severe foetal abnormality or danger to mother's life. Their laws doesn't seem to be hugely different from the rest of the UK.

No it's not. If a woman commits suicide she cannot be charged for obvious reasons. Unless you mean attempted suicide?

It benefits society because she tool a viable life, and that can't be acceptable. There has to be some consequences for that, legally.

We decriminalised attempted suicide for good reasons.

It's counter-productive to criminalise self-induced abortion when attempted suicide is decriminalised for pregnant women. It creates a perverse incentive for a pregnant woman to attempt suicide to avoid giving birth.

Is a miscarriage or stillbirth manslaughter, then? Or if a woman takes a substance or does something she knows could harm the foetus, is she endangering or abusing a child?

Personally, I see little point in criminalising someone for something that could be dealt with via a health based approach.

The time limits refer to the ability of HCPs to perform abortions. What women do to themselves is decriminalised at all stages of pregnancy in NI.

I am really sick of having to explain this distinction.

Miscarriages and stillbirth are usually not something people want to induce. Especially as we have safe abortion available.

Taking a substance like alcohol won't take the foetus' life.

I also differentiate between a viable foetus and one in the earlier stages.

Yes, I mean attempted (although technically, one can commit illegal acts and then kill themselves before they're charged, eg. Murder-suicide).

And manslaughter isn't something people want to cause either, or it'd be murder. It's an accidental death. So how is that different to a stillbirth where the woman's choices may have had an ill effect on the foetus and contributed to the death? If killing a viable foetus is comparable to murder in your opinion, would accidental death not be comparable to manslaughter?

Would drinking any alcohol whatsoever be child abuse? Caffeine? Smoking? Vaping?

Hmm....well to be ethically consistent, I think a woman who attempts suicide could be charged if she is past 24 weeks. Terrible situation... 😢 Surely this not very common? I suspect most common in DV situations.

There are US states in which women face legal sanction for "foetal endangerment".

Personally, I see little point in criminalising someone for something that could be dealt with via a health based approach.

Exactly. We don't criminalise people for taking drugs, only for possessing or supplying them, because we recognise that the benefit of people who have taken drugs being able to attend hospital without fearing arrest trumps the benefit of punishing people for taking drugs.

Can you not see the glaring misogyny inherent in having a law where a man attempts suicide and has committed no crime, but a woman attempts suicide and can be charged because she's pregnant?

Wait, so are you saying that you think a pregnant woman (past 24 weeks) should be charged with a crime if she attempts suicide?

I know in response to their very reasonable point about consent to add your opinion that consent to sex is consent to pregnancy. It doesn't need to be put of the blue to be worrying and wrong.

The lack of critical thinking displayed on this thread is how "foetal endangerment" laws get on the statute books and women end up in court after enduring a stillbirth.

It's alarming, very very alarming.

It's not misogyny : misogyny would be if women were always charged whether pregnant or not.
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Men can't get pregnant. That doesn't mean that to be fair, laws should disregard pregnancy entirely.
Like it or not, (and I'd agree that nature is a bastard to women reproductive-wise in several ways), women can carry another life iside them, and that life has value too when it becomes viable in particular.

No you're gonna have to go deeper on that. She is a mother to more than one child,.one with additional leads. Where is the benefit to society of prosecuting her to lock her up away from her children for longer than a man who commits a violent crime?

Nature doesn't demand women keep their pregnancies, you're back to using nature as an excuse to enforce societies Christian patriarchal ideas about life and women's bodies that aren't universal "natural" facts. Women have aborted for thousands of years, planet have been literally used to extinction for that purpose, society doesn't insist that you treat women with disdain and shrug your shoulders and say it doesnt demand the same as men.

ETA cos I asked PP before and I think I asked you and it keeps getting ignored. If you're going to talk about nature giving women the role of pregnancy why won't you address nature giving mens sperm quality such a significant effect of pregnancy and fetal health? And why can't we then enforce men to adjust their lifestyles to support the best possible pregnancy outcomes?

It's misogyny to treat women worse than men in law, whether it's because we happen to be pregnant right now or for any other reason.

It is the hatred of women to decide that women should not have control over how others' use their body, while simultaneously ensuring that any infringement on bodily autonomy that might affect men as well - no matter how minor - is considered utterly anathema.

You cannot argue it isn't misogyny when people are trying to say that yes, children should die for lack of blood or marrow because you can't force men and women to be jabbed with a needle....but of course you can force a woman to be pregnant for months and become a mother - otherwise a viable life might die!

The idea of putting a woman on trial for trying to kill herself while heavily pregnant is so bleakly awful that I almost have to laugh. She's so mentally disordered or utterly desperate that she thinks dying is better than living, and so the government's clever plan is to...make her life even more abjectly miserable?

I think to be ethically consistent I'd say theoretically there's ground for that.

But in practice that's not a law I'd want there to be some mass movement to pasx now, or enforce. Any woman trying to commit suicide while heavily pregnant probably has severe mental health issues, lack of support etc or worse

I feel Carla Foster's case is very unusual also because it was discovered. Often late term abortions are not.

I don't think there should be a focus on hunting down women who perform illegal late term abortions and/or attempt suicide while heavily pregnant. The focus should be on support and prevention. I do think that in cases like Foster's, where the action is found out explicitly, the law has to be enforced.