24 Week Abortions

[GavinZac]

I've been reading this Thread since it's inception and have been reluctant to post, however if I was to post I would have said pretty much exactly what ShantyKelly has said above. I would like to add that the Sterile language used by some posters on here is a little unsettling to say the least, I think the attitude to abortion from some sections of society is a sad indictment of the value that we put on human life today.

I'd imagine you haven't read all my posts, I'm not going through why I use scientific language in this topic again.

from personal experience, My partner miscarried at 11 weeks and still to this day considers the mis-carraige a lost child, (even having the name we had chosen Tatooed on her back) Whilst I have to admit I was against her getting the tatoo as I thought it a little extreme I have seen how it was part of the grieving process and has helped her, so I'd like gavinzac to tell her that what she lost was an amphibious Parasite and see what her reaction would be

I'm sorry for your loss, but:
Firstly, we all have stories like that, 2 women in my life have miscarried. If we are to allow emotions to dictate laws then they would be very different. Your situation is different from the next, and that from the next.

Secondly, what you were mourning was the loss of a potential child. Potential being the operative word; This isn't an attempt to trivialise your experience, but the fact of the matter is that some other people would be relieved to no longer carry a potential child at 11 weeks. The difference is purely personal and that is why we can't just legislate based on your experience. As jebus pointed out, at the heart of this debate is not whether we believe abortion is wrong or right, but whether it is right for me to tell you that it is or is not in your situation, or vice versa*.

edit: *of course, that isn't actually true; the topic is whether 24 weeks is too old; if we toss out the abortion right/wrong, legal/illegal debate and concentrate on the limit that it should be if it is to be legal, the debate would be much shorter - basically, a few links to scientific studies and declarations of agreement or disagreement. That is where my much maligned "amphibian" remark comes in; at an early duration, the foetus is unrecognisable as human and virtually indistinguishable from any other tetrapod foetus.

[SeanDrog]

Wow, thats a preety big leap. Are you really siggesting that everybody should have the same beliefs and values? can you please list all values that society has decreed

Clearly not them all, but the ones to allow society function like the following:

Murder is wrong
Incest in wrong
Child abuse is wrong

are these good enough examples

If you beleive that society doesn't need some set of rules then you an interesting character. Now some people will disagree with these rules and society needs to impose its will to allow it to function. Don't see the difficulty in understanding this point but again maybe ts just another attmept to discredit the messanger.

[SeanDrog]

Im calling it a day on this one too as its getting into a pro/anti abortion thread rather than a 24 week one. All ill say is 24 weeks is too long way too long.

I dont want kids now thats why i use condoms and the missus is on the pill if on the freak tiny tiny chance both of those dont work (in the case of a slip or split the morning after pill would be the next option )if after all that she still got pregnant then id step up and take care of the baby if she didnt want to raise it id would agree to raise it on my own, if she still went against all my wishes and did have an abortion it would be a deal breaker.

I think thats a pretty reasonable attitude to have.



It all boils down to you are better off just having a w**k.

cheerio anto - I'm signing off too - getting a little bit muddy now.

[osarusan]

If you beleive that society doesn't need some set of rules then you an interesting character. Now some people will disagree with these rules and society needs to impose its will to allow it to function. Don't see the difficulty in understanding this point

And if abortion were legal, that would be one rule to serve society. Just like now, some would disagree with it, but society would still function.

People who didnt want to have abortions wouldn't have them, and people who did wouldn't have to go abroad to get them.

Don't see the difficulty in understanding this point.

[Dodge]

Clearly not them all, but the ones to allow society function like the following:

Incest in wrong
Child abuse is wrong

are these good enough examples

Excellent examples. You think incest is bad but would allow a father be rewarded with a new child (and I think a child is a reward and a gift)

You're against child abuse but would force a women to bringa child into an abusive situation

You see my point? Nothing is cut and dried.

[GavinZac]

People who didnt want to have abortions wouldn't have them, and people who did wouldn't have to go abroad to get them.

Thats pretty much it. Abortion isn't really illegal here, it just requires a waiting process just as it does in some states. Unfortunately, our waiting process isn't in a therapeutic clinic, but in a check in queue for Ryanair.

Credit card anyone?

[kingdom hoop]

If you beleive that society doesn't need some set of rules then you are an interesting character.

If I could twist that a little and disagree with your sentiment, society doesn't really function that much better because of rules, or at least, rules are far from imperative in allowing society to function. Rules are overly simplistic prescriptive attempts at regulating behaviour; more holistic and penetrating action is generally required. Basically, the importance of rules/laws of themselves can easily be overstated.

There're rules against littering, murder, speeding, polluting, acting the WUM, and so on. Do the rules eradicate the problems? Or more pointedly, if the rules didn't exist would the problems be much worse?

Societal and personal values, not the simple existence of rules, determine one's behaviour. Thus, would the mere removal of a ban on something as personal and emotive as abortion really change peoples' attitudes to the extent that society could no longer function, as you fear? Do people decide not have an abortion because it is illegal, or is it because of their personal belief system?

Balance: the improbability of the ban's removal leading to a worrying escalation in abortions in Ireland; increasingly liberal, individualistic mindsets amongst the young suggesting the law is out of line with those affected by it; continued increase in teenage sex; the availability of abortion abroad; the lack of personalised local after-care for those who opt for abortion; the broader quality of life issues for the many returning women owing to a stigma on abortion - removing the ban can influence paradigms here; a more open attitude to abortion and the correlative increase in advice available before and after can help women make the right decision for them to help them through the process; and so I think one might reasonably conclude that abortion's illegality in Ireland seems antiquated, unnecessary, and simply wrong.

[pete]

Any chance we can get back to the thread title?

As I mentioned above the UK arrived at 24 weeks based on medical evidence that the fetus/child cannot survive outside the womb before that period. The reason they said they did not reduce to 20 or 22 was because no new evidence presented.

Personally 24 weeks seems high but I am not a medical expert. Some people think life begins at conception which makes no sense either.

I have already posted link above that shows that almost no abortions in the UK done post 20 weeks and still very few post 15 or 16. I can only assume this is because women make the decision much earlier. Maybe the 24 week limit is kept for medical terminations? You cannot ban abortion as it will alwasy happen.

I don't think men should tell women what to do as lets face it thats their job. I also don't feel we need to tell people in general what to do unless of course a Moderator here

[SkStu]

if nothing else, the title of the thread is a great new schoolyard slag.

"ye 24 week abortion, ye"

[Macy]

You cannot ban abortion as it will alwasy happen.

Indeed, the reason that Britain brought in the laws in the 1960's was because of the numbers of women being maimed and killed by back street abortions. Availability in Britain has no doubt saved many irish women similar outcomes. Regardless of when you believe it's a life, it isn't going to stop just because it's illegal - it'll just be in much more dangerous conditions.

[Cymro]

Just to go back to the original post, the motion a few weeks back to have the limit lowered failed. Which I was disappointed with. (along with some other aspects of the F&E Bill, but that's another argument)

I was in favour of seeing a reduction in the limit because it seems pretty clear that a 20 week old foetus does indeed have the ability to suffer and feel pain during an abortion, more or less just like a 24 week old foetus would (obviously, at 24 wks the foetus is more advanced, but as I understand the basic capacities of the two are relatively similar). The scientific community is almost completely agreed on this, so I really don't know why people are still bringing up the argument of validity to justify keeping the limit as it is. They argued that because the abortion debate had always been ultimately settled over the issue of validity that there should be no change, but back in the early '60s when abortion first became legal the fact is it was not even considered that a foetus could feel and the limit was set at 28 weeks on the basis that babies were not survivng before then.

I do not agree that validity is a good way of solving this debate. Mainly, because it's so malleable and depends on scientific advancement rather than pure ethics. Say, for example, that tomorrow a scientist invented a new type of incubator that could successfully nurse all foetuses to birth from say, 6 weeks onwards (not saying this will happen in the near future or ever, but still, it may happen at some point). Do you really think pro-choice activists would change their views and set the limit at 6 weeks? No, neither do I. That is why I think that validity is a silly way of settling the argument, and pro-choice activists are really just hiding behind it as an excuse to keep the limit at 24 weeks.

With that in mind, I think a reduction to at least 20 weeks would be appropriate, and this limit should be reduced as and when scientific advancements shows foetuses to be capable of basic human reactions, such as the ability to feel pain.

With regards to other earlier term abortions, such as the abortion of a 12-week foetus which does not have the capacity to suffer, I do not agree with them personally, but can accept that there may be genuine disagreement over the ethics of it, though I also do not think they should be done on a whim or used as birth control. (Related fact: in 2005, 50 of the ~ 200,000 abortions were by women who had already had at least 8 in the past, and additional thousands were on their third or more.)