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/

And yes, I do think there should be a penalty for aborting a pregnancy at 32 weeks in the way she did.

Depending on legislation, which can be changed. We also used to think homosexuality was unethical. So can you just clarify that you do think it's correct that my friend surgery should have been cancelled so that the hospital could comply with legislation that meets your personal ethical opinion? And it was right that Savita died because she was denied an abortion based on legislation because you personally agree with the ethics of the legislation that caused her death?

Sorry you don't get to just jump to agreeing with the absolutely rarity of cases where you can easily go "that was wrong!" Regardless of how it impacts the cast majority of women. So please explain why there should be a penalty or the possibility of a penalty for someone having an early abortion by having a hysterectomy for endometrial cancer? Or aborting a foetus that is inevitably going to miscarry?

I haven't even read your post about Savita; I was responding to someone else's post about about 'Society owning women's wombs'. I'll take a read of your post later.

I personally have has two terminations...both within the first twelve weeks of gestation, though I do believe that there should be limits to the right to abortion.

If they jump through hoops though, they can't just make a decision between themselves and their HCP or they could face prosecution as women did, and are now being pardoned. Abortion up to 24 weeks isn't guaranteed either, it isn't a big topic to some until someone legislates to bring it lower.

I'm not going to jump through hoops for you, on demand. If you want to understand my perspective i've already posted quite a bit on this thread.

That's odd, so you read PPs post and completely missed the one she was replying to about a young woman who died of sepsis? Did it just register as irrelevant to you as well as PP? Weird how people are invested so much in the ethical and philosophical part of this issue and the real life stories just aren't as relevant or interesting.

"How exactly is that not relevant to a proposal to remove legal consequences from abortion? Would she have died of abortion was decriminalised? It's a very simple yes or no question."

I dont think it is that simple. The reason they didn't terminate the foetus is that they didn't think her life was at immediate risk. Legally they could have terminated the pregnancy for these reasons under Irish law, at the time.
Medical incompetence was a huge factor. They didn't check for/ recognise sepsis, and thought she wasn't in danger and would miscarry naturally.
They could have terminated, and she still could have died from sepsis.

You seem quite keen to frame abortion entirely as 'healthcare' - without recognition of any of the ethical elements involved.

It's a bit like calling puberty blockers and juvenile mastectomies 'gender healthcare'.

The hospital messed up terribly in this tragic case.

Abortion was legal in Ireland at the time, if a mother’s life was at risk.

Unfortunately it’s not always clearcut when a woman is a risk from her pregnancy, but in this case the hospital didn’t follow sepsis protocols properly and didn’t realise until too late that she was in danger.

The subsequent enquiry identified three key casual factors for her death. They were inadequate assessment and monitoring; failure to offer all management options to a patient; and non-adherence to clinical guidelines related to the prompt and effective management of sepsis.

No it's not the same at all given women actually do need "abortion" as healthcare so yes I am very keen to frame it as that. It's nothing like puberty blockers, no one's going to haemorrhage or develop sepsis if they don't get puberty blockers fgs. Ectopic pregnancies, inevitable miscarriages etc can and do kill women and abortion is life-saving healthcare for them. I find people like yourselves very keen to frame abortion as seperate to healthcare perhaps cos you're uncomfortable with the reality of how often it's needed to save women's lives and you have a cognitive dissonance with reconciling that with your philosophical view about life. The reality is that the procedure is th same whether it's performed due to the choice of the mother or because her life is in danger, and when you criminalise it because you take issue with the first group it impacts the second.

I think it very, very sad that Savita died.....but this happened in the context of abortion being illegal in Ireland. I agree that such a total ban on abortion is extreme.

Not until their life is at risk though which is not until you develop an infection, which was why she died. Her baby had no chance of survival as the gestational sac was pretending from her cervix but it was "alive" and so her life was technically not at risk until the baby was dead and then ofc the risk of sepsis is critical. She asked for an abortion because she didn't want to be put at risk of infection and the life of this inevitable miscarriage was more.protecter by the law than she was. She is not the only case of this happening. It's not good enough to say "well it should be allowed once she's really at risk of dying, even though we know we're currently playing a waiting game for a situation that absolutely will result in infection that could kill her and this baby has no chance of life".

There wasn’t a total ban on abortion. It was legal if a woman’s life was in danger, but they didn’t realise that she was at risk until too late. Hospital failure meant a tragic outcome.

Your anger seems to be clouding your ability to think clearly and actually hear what others are saying.

I've no fundamental issue with termination being carried to save a mother's life. You are wildly throwing out all sorts of personal comments and accusations here with no foundation other than your own emotion.

And why was it illegal? Was it perhaps because of an ethical opinion that it was wrong?

Yes because that's how sepsis works! And exactly why waiting for the women's life to be in danger (when you know that's coming) causes women's deaths...

That's very unfortunate. Yes, I do recall that case now.

If you have no issue with it being carried out to save a woman's life then you agree it's healthcare. Why then did you say I'm trying to "frame it as healthcare" and try to imply I therefore just support puberty blockers?

Yes, Ireland is a catholic country and there is a fundamental prohibition against abortion within catholicism. I don't personally agree with that.....though i still believe there needs to be limits ( for all of the reasons i've given throughout this thread) and consequences for breaches of those limits.

For most women abortion is not about saving their life, it is about terminating an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy.

Referring to abortion as 'healthcare' is to minimise or ignore the fact that it involves ending another life.

No it's because the legislation on abortion affects women's access to it when they need it for healthcare. You don't know why every woman has an abortion, what may look like an elective abortion could still be healthcare, the woman may have a medical condition why she is choosing abortion. Abortion as healthcare shouldn't mean only those performed in an absolute medical emergency and no one needs to explain to you why they're choosing one. My friends "abortion" was healthcare, a woman aborting because she has high risk pregnancies and doesn't want to risk another is healthcare, a woman abortion because he's head a genetic condition she doesn't want to pass on is healthcare. All of those scenarios can also be an unplanned pregnancy and it's not your business whether that pregnancy was wanted or not. At the end of the day it's still a healthcare procedure that should be private and not subject to your own moral opinion which you're welcome to apply to your own circumstances.

Yes, that's right...when I opened up my computer this morning - after checking my emails and all of my other ususal morning routines, I went to the last page of the discussion. I haven't always got time to go back through a whole evening and night's worth of posts since I last posted myself. And there is no obligation on ayone to take all of your posts into account before responding to another person's post .

So when choosing between was the legal framework of it being banned or the current framework of it being decriminalised better? The latter may make you uncomfortable but it wouldn't cause women to die of preventable deaths, and I'm curious because someone has kse said upthread if they had to choose between decriminalisation and abortion being totally banned they'd choose the latter.

Also regarding your support for consequences for those who breach those limits can I bring you back to the question I asked you about my friend..What was the benefit of there being a risk of prosecution?

Why must you view everything through the perspective of extremes?

Though, I too would have to carefully consider my stance in such a circumstance, and I think those pushing things/issues to the extremes are going to be responsible for the consequences of that...because there will be a backlash.

To my mind too many people on the so called 'progressive-left' have become consumed in American style identity politics and are applying and imposing those dynamics on Britain...which is a very different country and culture....and which has so far had a very settled position on legal abortion.