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/

It's exhausting isn't it that people want to argue about legislation they refuse to read even when you kindly explain it to them against and again.

planet [sic] have been literally used to extinction for that purpose

The plant was known to the Romans as sylphium, and yes, it was harvested to extinction for use as a abortifacient.

A lot of men make poor health choices that affect sperm quality too. That's bad...

But I don't suppprt criminalising that. Or criminalising pregnant women for drinking or smoking

I've stated several times on this thread that I support abortion within the legal limits.

I don't know why you keep implying that I'm against all or most abortion when I've never said that.
Most abortions are not beyond the legal limits.

I agree that more support for vulnerable women, and prevention via better contraception and easier early abortion access, are the important factors in reducing late term self abortions.

The focus should be on support and prevention.

Decriminalising her actions is the most reliable legislative approach to enabling support and prevention.

If a woman discloses that she wishes she wasn't pregnant and is signposted to support, then suffers a genuine stillbirth, that disclosure could be interpreted as evidence that she self-aborted. This creates a perverse incentive for her not to make that disclosure and seek that help, increasing the chance of her self-aborting.

If you bothered to read more into Carlas case instead of continuing to bring her up to justify your shady view of women's rights it wasn't "discovered". She openly told medics what she did and was very distressed. Admitting guilt usually gets taken into consideration as a mitigating factor when it comes to sentencing crimes, especially men and unfairly wasn't applied to Carla. She was also denied contact with her children while in prison. Experts in the law and women's health have agreed her punishment was unduly harsh and I think it's disturbing how easily you and similar posters use her case like a thought experiment for you to make out in your head how much you'd like to punish certain women. I expect these kind of comments from young boys who think playing devils advocate is smart instead of showing they lack nuance and emotional maturity, seeing it from grown women is disturbing. I assume you haven't experienced pregnancy or birth to be this cold when talking about prosecuting vulnerable pregnant women or mothers?

I think one of the issues is that some of the arguments you and pp have used to argue against late term abortions can also be used to argue for a complete ban on abortions.

Because like PP your arguments against later abortions (which no one is pro) are inconsistent with supporting early abortion. You're repeating the same antichoice rhetoric that gets applied to all abortions.

Why not sorry? It can cause preeclampsia that can kill a woman and cause significant fetal health issues. Can you explain why it's different for a woman to hard a fetus and not a man?

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

Viability is both a red herring and a complication.

A red herring, because people use it, pointlessly, to bolster arguments about term limits, which should more logically be seen as an issue of the balance of convenience between mother and child.

A complication, because HCPs must factor it into decisions about the mother's welfare, on pain of a possible criminal conviction if they get it wrong in later pregnancy. In practice though, this seems adequately covered by the existing exemptions. Early induction for psychiatric reasons is not unknown, for example.

There is no legal obligation to treat a premature baby if the level of suffering outweighs their interest in continuing to live. So failing to treat an unwanted baby in this situation- who then dies - won't lead to a charge.

Late-term abortion won't be legalised for HCPs, because parliament and the public won't have it, so the debate on that point is moot.

Exactly, you've got it. There's absolutely no need for activists to promote the idea that the life of a foetus has no inherent value. Fine if that's a person's genuinely held values, but why would you seek to attach those values to the cause of decriminalisation of abortion - when it's completely unnecessary, and so politically inexpedient?
I feel like I have alot more clarity thanks to this thread (so I'm probably best to go back to lurking 😂). I could never understand why, if I truly believe that access to abortion should be part of proper healthcare for pregnant women, was I so uncomfortable with the abortion rights movement. And @Shortshriftandlethal has put her finger on it: "it goes too far though to think the equivalence of the situation should be that the late term baby never matters at all except when the mother accepts it."
There have been repeated examples on this thread of the shift from asserting that a woman has a right to end her pregnancy even though her foetus's life has it's own inherent value, to the assertion that a foetus is a valueless thing if its mother doesn't want to bring it to term - she can evict it, it's like a parasite, it's like a rapist's penis (more I'm sure I've missed).
I can see that the responsibility a woman has to nurture and preserve the life of her foetus/ child places very different demands on her before and after birth. I think there is alot of strength to the argument that the level of demand and the imposibility of commuting those demands means a mother should always be able to (safely) end a pregnancy, even at the same time as the life of the foetus is precious and it would have been a good thing for that life to grow and be born.
I refuse to have any truck with the elision into the denigration of a foetus, the demeaning language, the lack of respect for the process of creating life and that value of that life once formed.
(minor edit- was sure I pressed "preview" not "post" 🙃)

Meh this is a lot of words to accuse people who say women should have bodily autonomy as an absolute right means we don't think foetuses or babies have value. I haven't seen anyone say they don't, but if we're all honest with ourselves a baby or fetus is really mostly valued by those who want it. I'll believe society as a whole truly believe a fetus' life has value when the venn diagram of people who shout that from the rooftops also want to see that child fed, educated and cared for but that never happens. The majority of people who insist on this special value a fetus' has above a mother don't value that child once it's born, they are usually conservative and against taxes funding that child and go back to trotting out lines that people shouldn't have kids they can't afford and shouldn't rely on benefits.

Why are you making things up?

No one has said a foetus's life has no value. No one has been denigrating or demeaning about the foetus.

We've said that, as with any other human being on earth, the foetus's life should not outweigh the right of the pregnant woman to have control over who uses her body, and to remove consent to the usage thereof.

That doesn't mean it has no value, but it does mean that its value is irrelevant to the situation.

In fact, no one has said anything negative about the foetus at all, just about the situation, in which being forced to remain pregnant against her will is profoundly violating for a woman.

I see that ..that is one of the strongest arguments for decriminalising.

Setting aside Carla Foster's case for the moment : is that how illegal abortions are found and reported usually? I mean - if a woman says she's unhappy & then miscarries? Foster's was unusual as I said because she was found out due to the ambulance needing to come.

I've made clear that I don't support criminalising women for harming foetuses via health choices either.

I draw a line between health choices like smoking and deliberately aborting a late term foetus.

Smoking is not done primarily with the interior of ending a late term foetus' life. Nor are the others.

'So failing to treat an unwanted baby in this situation- who then dies - won't lead to a charge."- sorry, what situation?

Needing an ambulance to come isn't being 'found out' it was already noted that she made admissions early, if she hadn't been honest about her actions there would have been no way for anyone to know that she self induced an abortion rather than miscarried. Her case was unusual because it was exceedingly rare whereas you're wording your post and though she was a rare case of being "found out"

Sorry, I meant that she was 'found out' due to being honest when they arrived. I agree the ambulance alone wasn't the reason.

So you're saying if a man knows he is TTC and doesn't alter his lifestyle knowing his behaviour can cause preeclampsia and fetal issues that's all fine? Why is it ok in your eyes to cause health issues to a fetus' that will live with the outcome of that forever but ending a pregnancy isn't? One surely has a long-term worse outcome?

So what you mean is she wasn't "found out" at all. She was a vulnerable distressed women who was honest and was penalised harsher than men who commit violent crimes who don't admit guilt or cooperate. And yet you don't see the misogyny.

@Whyohwhyohwhy26 you're experience is very different to mine. What I see are women with plenty of social capital securing a setup in which their access to abortion is as convenient as possible, without regard for the risks this passes on to more vulnerable women.
And I know lots of people who work incredibly hard for the well-being of children, and towards a more just society generally, who don't share your bodily autonomy absolutism. They're not shouting anything from rooftops - I don't know what you're talking about. I get the feeling you're not really interacting with me, you've got some idea of an Evil Repubilcan Patriarch in mind, and you're in a game of rhetorical point scoring.

@OtterlyAstounding wasn't it you yourself who said an unwanted foetus was something to be evicted? And, yes, I'll grant you, people who consider women's bodily autonomy absolute have indeed admitted that a foetus has value - about the same value as a parasite. You can read the words on this very thread, I'm not making it up.
I'm ready to bow out, but my parting advice would be: leave off the disparaging language about unwanted foetuses being evicted, or like parasites, forget the argument about corpses that make choices, or weird thought experiments about diseases that can only be cured by sex, stay well away from the idea that there's nothing unique or significant about a mother's relationship with her offspring. Just stick to argument that the level of demand and the imposibility of commuting those demands means a mother should always be able to (safely) end a pregnancy, even at the same time as the life of the foetus has value.

You’re absolutely right. the thread started by Mmmchocolatebuttons in AIBU, apparently in response to my views, has now spiralled to the point where her arguments are being used to justify a complete abortion ban by some posters.

I'm not just saying that for the man, that applies to women who don't alter their lifestyle too.

Lifestyle choices can be horribly harmful but aborting late term takes a viable foetus' life.

She was vulnerable and distressed, and that's horrible. But she still took the late term foetus' life. People who do illegal things can't just be excused due to being vulnerable. A vulnerable man might break the law, being vulnerable should not be his excuse, nor should it be for a woman.

I do not condone misogyny. It's disgusting men are given lighter sentences for far worse crimes.

But the solution is the raise the bar for men, not lower it for women