Bang on the money Dodge.
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Bang on the money Dodge.
As a father of two I'd always say I was against abortion, but pro-choice. Reading that looks mad, but I don't believe it's my right to tell another person to do this or that with their body when I'm not involved. If it was my wife/partner/ex who was pregnant and wanted to terminate the pregnancy, I'd want to have a solid discussion with them, explore all the options and then if she makes a decision, at least I have been heard.
Abortion just doesn't sit right with me, but would I look down on (for example) my sister for having one, which she hasn't, no. I would support her and lover her the same. What I find is very unsettling with many of the polarised comments is the lack of actual interest in the person, as in any battleground humanity isn't present and it's about winning a general point. I've read through the 5 pages here and am very impressed with the ideas and points of view.
And as a student of archaeology and early Irish church history, it's worthwhile pointing out to the religious types that even saints provided family planning and abortion services (my own Saint Brigid being one).
But it's not her body though. It's a human being inside her body. Who speaks for the unborn child? While in the womb, the child may be killed (or the euphemism "terminated"). When the child is born, it is murder if it is killed. Not something I have ever quite understood. Simplistic approach? Possibly but I would say there are thousands of Irish people in this country who owe their existence to our anti-abortion laws. Childless couples are also crying out for children to adopt.
Spudulka you say you don't have a right if your partner decides to abort/terminate/kill your unborn child and yet when your child is born and let's say you don't want to know, she has the right to get orders against you to pay maintenance etc etc.
My opinion has nothing to do with religion. In fact it is not a religious issue. It's a moral dilemma. Is a child in a womb entitled to the same rights as a child outside a womb even if the mother doesn't want that child? Once the umbilical cord is cut, the child has rights. Until then it has no rights according to some. I just don't see the distinction but the debate will continue and the pro-abortion lobby has certainly used the death of the mother in Galway to bring its case to the forefront again. I am also thinking of the child who died.
Pro-choice? What choice does the child have?
Rape child? I personally know one who is aware of her background and has her own beautiful family. The child is innocent in these circumstances and does not deserve to die because of its father's actions.
Is the foetus a human being/person in its own right though? It certainly has the potential to become a person, but it exists as a developing body of cells connected via an umbilical cord within the body of an actual person upon whose survival it relies for its own survival. It cannot survive by itself, it does not possess any sense of self-awareness nor does it possess many of the attributes that are considered to be essentially human.Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
Not quite. In states where abortion is permitted, I'm pretty certain there is generally an agreed cut-off point during the pregnancy after which a termination would be prohibited. In Britain, for example, abortion is only permitted within the first 24 weeks of a pregnancy. Albeit subject to some debate, scientific consensus appears to suggest that pain can only be felt by a foetus after 26 weeks at the earliest.Quote:
My opinion has nothing to do with religion. In fact it is not a religious issue. It's a moral dilemma. Is a child in a womb entitled to the same rights as a child outside a womb even if the mother doesn't want that child? Once the umbilical cord is cut, the child has rights. Until then it has no rights according to some.
OF, I know that my using the word "terminate" seems callous and cold, in the same way that "ethnic cleansing" or "regime change" are just part of modern language without considering what they entail - tell a father who had his child die of shrapnel wounds on August 7th just inside the Bosnian border after 2 days walking that they were just part of ethnic cleansing, or a black african family about to be lynched by French/UK/US backed islamic fundamentalists in Libya that they're just collateral damage during regime change, they would have much different views. Terminate (I agree) is just sanitisation of what abortion is, and I just don't know what other way it can be described without insulting one side or another.Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
You mention adoption, this week the idiots in the russian houses of parliament used adoption as a stick to beat America with - they banned all adoptions to US couples, when the majority of these adoptions are of handicapped or invalided/ill children. Now I know that there have been scandalous instances in the recent past - a child dying from being left in a car by the parents, or a little boy sent back to Russia by plane with a note attached saying he's too difficult to deal with. But when you have a deputy, a woman (not from United Russia) standing up and stating that even if only 1/5 of the children adopted (c. 60,000) are used for organ transplants and sexual pleasure, there are still almost 50,000 being trained to fight Russia. This fool is allowed to makes rules on adoption, and she's not different from our own dail fools who sway with the wind and make it more difficult for loving parents/couples to adopt. So adoption (even by other family members) is immensely difficult to get through, so it's not a truly realistic option unless there is a whole load of red tape slashed away.
You're right about the case where a father walks away and yet has to pay regardless - even if the woman refuses to put him on the birth cert (one of the most stunningly insane things about the gender balance in Ireland), and this is just as insane as my being unable to stop my partner/wife/girlfriend/ex having an abortion if she wants to. I don't have rights, zilch! All I can do is be understanding, supportive and hope for the best.
OF, I don't like how you've slipped in the pro-abortion lobby bit, I heard that overrated hack Ivana Bacik use "anti-choice" against a member of the Iona Institute when the woman was actually making a very good point about the suicide element. As the woman rightly stated, if a woman feels that suicide is the only option rather than giving birth, then it is a more serious situation than just a pregnancy - that she should be supported and assisted and regardless that follow up care should be given. It was a very reasonable thing to say, yet she was attacked for being anti-choice. I don't like the fact that Israel continues to build illegal settlements on foreign land, but I am not anti-Israel, anti-semite and certainly prefer them to what they come up against from the islamic world.
I agree about the situation with the child of rape, this whole thing of - the woman doesn't want to give birth because of what happened, is too convenient and a catch all, I do believe there should be an option, though I personally feel that it would note be utilised by more than use it now (via the UK).
'Medical notes indicate Savita Halappanavar made a request for a termination': http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0117/sav...ar-galway.html
So, it transpires her request was recorded after all but that her life was not believed to have been at risk at the time.
On a few of these points. When you use the term pro-abortion can I ask you to point me to one article from anyone who is genuinely advocating abortion as a thing someone should definitely do? You make it sound like some people see it as a way of life (ho-ho) but I've yet to hear or read about anyone who ever believes it's a good thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
I'd be of the looney left side that believes I have no right to tell a woman what to do with her life, definitely don't have any right to enforce those opinions to the extent that a rape victim has to carry a child to term and, in effect, make it so that a man can force himself on her, impregnate her and that society will then force her to alter her life, body and health quite dramatically. Even taking into account children born from a rape who grow up happy, I don't even see how that is an issue for anyone outside of Youth Defence to be honest.
We'll see with legislation and how it goes, I imagine abortions will become available in cases of rape, incest, suicide & foetal abnormalities, but I hope suicide doesn't come with the baggage of having to have 5 separate psychiatrists sign off on it on the first rainy Monday of March. A psychiatrist should be involved at that stage anyway, if they deem the person to be suicidal and that person requests a termination it should be enough.
The area that also needs to be looked at is with asylum seekers currently in Ireland. While they wait on a judgement on their status (can take upwards of 4 years I hear) they are unable to leave the country. At the moment if they were raped, and became pregnant, they would have a choice of leaving for the UK for an abortion and being sent back to whatever they have escaped from or carrying the foetus to term.
Full disclosure: I don't think a foetus is a child up until it can live independently of its mother, I do want a referendum on full choice rights (abortion on demand if you want to call it that) in the next few years regardless of whatever floodgates people fear and I do understand that foetal abnormalities could open the door to eugenics. I think the rights of a woman walking around with the capacity for cognitive thought trumps all of that.
Why do people not feel the father should have any say?
He has a say but ultimately it's up to the woman as it is still her body.
Look at it this way, if a woman gets pregnant and decides to terminate it but the man wants to keep it what, keeping it legal, can he do beside trying to change her mind? He can talk to her but if she still decides to go ahead with it he can't do anything about it. Reverse that to a woman gets pregnant, wants to keep it but the guy doesn't. Keeping it legal again, what can he do about that situation once she has decided to have the baby?
He doesn't really have a say at all so. He wouldn't even have to be told?
And if it is her body and her choice, surely she should be allowed to abort the baby up until the last possible second? Why not?
Well I think there should be some rights for the father, in that if the sex was consensual and he wants to keep the child, that should have some legal sway. Remember, you may believe a foetus is not a child, but many fathers would not agree. Who are you to say they are wrong?
You see that you are advocating that the courts deny a woman the right to travel if she decides to abort but the father doesn't want it? This has already been quashed in the courts and is completely unworkable, you may believe a father should have legal rights over a woman's womb but I don't think the courts will ever back you up on that and that's just being realistic about it.
As for the other two points, yeah I guess a man doesn't have to be told if a woman gets pregnant, that happens every day in this world. She can emigrate to the other side of the planet and never see him again if that's what she wants.
On aborting up to the last second, first off let's acknowledge that late term abortions are rare (1-2% of all abortions) and happen mostly due to foetal abnormalities or where it is deemed the child will have little quality of life, most of these are something the mother didn't want to happen and comes after the 20 week check up. By the UK & Wales figures for 2011 it shows that 79% of abortions take place before 10 weeks with 91% before 12 weeks. The figure goes up to 98% up to 19 weeks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...-england-wales
Now for when the choice is taken from a pregnant woman. Well I'll let doctors decide that to be honest. Personally I just view it as whenever the foetus can survive outside of the womb, but that only goes on what I've read. In the medical world that is being debated on still but I haven't seen it being put at lower than 20 weeks yet, and that is in rare cases. But that's again getting hung up 2% of abortions, lots of which are because of foetal abnormalities or danger to the woman's life.
Not a debate I'd generally get involved in and one where my views have continued to become more liberal with age, but, I think Jebus has summed it up extremey well and I'd share his views.
The father can have a say, when he's carrying the baby, undergoing the effects of the pregnancy, is exposed to the potential risks of the pregnancy etc.
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd be of the view that the father should have some say, and referring it to as "having control over a woman's womb" is unnecessarily emotionalising it -- I'd go so far as to say it's the kind of horsecrap I'd expect from the militant anti-abortion ahabs, and I'd expect better in there.
I'm not for a minute suggesting that a father should have a 50:50 say, but he should have a right to say his piece and not be dismissed out of hand. If it's absolutely mandatory for a father to pay child support, and be emasculated if he doesn't - and rightly so in both cases - then he should damned well have a say in this.
All well and good but what exactly is the point in the man having, say, 49% of the vote? What happens when the woman says 'well I have majority say and I'm saying abortion'?
And are you not asking for some control of the womb by saying the man has his legal rights? Or what exactly are you suggesting the courts do here?
Maybe saying no right to a say is wrong phraseology, but they should have no right to force a woman to carry a child to term. They can attempt to persuade. The case that sparked this thread shows that no pregnancy, even if the woman is healthy, is risk free.Quote:
Originally Posted by dahamsta
Hello old-fashioned!Quote:
Originally Posted by dahamsta
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/sla...250-medium.jpg
Completely agree.
It's that over-emotional language that has swayed me ever and ever back to the right on this issue. As is my wont.
I'm a huge fan of the Old Fashioned, ever since Karen Walker introduced me. Quality is very dependant on the barkeep though.
jebus, Macy, please point to the part of my post that sez "voting" or "forcing" should be involved. I phrased it very carefully ("some say", "a say"), so I'm pretty, pretty sure it's not there.
It's not an election, it's a judgement call.
To be fair, neither side is innocent on the "over-emotional language" front. From "baby-murderers" to "womb-controllers".
They aren't. But I was a bit of a leftie in regards this... moving right is moving me towards the centre.Quote:
Originally Posted by peadar1987
So in essence what you're saying is, to quote myself; "He has a say but ultimately it's up to the woman as it is still her body"? Which, if so, is basically what everyone pro-choice I know thinks.Quote:
Originally Posted by dahamsta
Anyone advocating anything else is, I presume, asking for the courts to intervene and wants a level of control on that woman's choice, so I stand by my comment on womb control.
I think that the problem is what exactly constitutes 'a say'. If the woman is ultimately entitled to do what she wants, even if it is the direct opposite of what the would-be father wanted, what's the actual value of him having a say at all.
I'm not sure whether it should be the courts or some kind of panel (doc, psych, lay perhaps), but yes, I absolutely think that the father should have a say. Hence my use of the phrase, repeatedly, "the father should have a say".Quote:
Originally Posted by jebus
Except in cases of rape, the woman gave up "control of her womb" (seriously, again with the emotive language? can we not be more mature about this?) when she consented to sex with the father. She can't have it one way and not the other.
Do you mean that the woman should be made to listen to what the man has to say - as in, actually be brought to the same room as him and be silent while he gives his opinion? Or, when you mention a court or some kind of panel, do you mean that the man makes his feelings known to them, and they pass this information on to the woman?Quote:
Originally Posted by dahamsta
Either way, after being made aware of his feelings/opinion, she is free to make her own decision?
Seriously, are you picturing me in a full-length leather jacket? I'm not Herr Flick of the Geshtapo. I think that if a father has a legitimate objection to an abortion and he and the mother can't come to an agreement, then an accelerated form of dispute resolution should be available to them. I'm not sure there are any circumstances whereby a woman can be /forced/ into carrying a child to term, but I do think that something should be in place to allow a father to, again, have his say.Quote:
Originally Posted by osarusan
I realise it's a difficult situation, but let's be completely honest here, there are actually some men out there who don't force themselves on women, and women out there who regard babies as nothings. I'm actually pro-abortion, but I don't think women should be allowed to discard babies willy-nilly.
Not at all mein fuhrer.
I know what you're saying about the father's feelings having legitimacy, but I think it comes down to two scenarios:
The woman, after being made aware of the opinions of the father (perhaps during some kind of counselling session, maybe with a balanced panel of childcare/medical/other professionals?), is free to make whatever decision she wants (and perhaps input from these people will influence her decision)
or
The opinions of the father, if not the same as those of the mother, have influence in a process that may see a woman /forced/ into carrying a child to term.
If it's the former, then I'm not sure of the merit of the father getting to have his say. If it's the latter, that's one scary process and who designs implements, and monitors it?
Is there a third (or more) scenario I'm missing?
And if either had legal standing, wouldn't it be more likely that a woman would get on the first plane to the Britain after having a pregnancy test so she doesn't have to go through either scenario? It'd be completely unenforceable.Quote:
Originally Posted by osarusan
Men also have the power to chose where they dip their unprotected wick - if they do so with a woman they can't trust to be open with them, have an adult conversation with, or have respect her decision as to what she does with her body, well that's back on them imo.
osarusan, no, there's no 3rd solution; and what Macy said in para 1 above. However all situations are different, and I'm talking more about situations that might be resolved in some way. Not all abortions are carried out by bitches that don't care about fathers, not all babies are kept because daddies say so. There's (probably, I'm not expert) an awful lot of middle ground that could be resolved with the right processes.
Macy, yes, in that case it's back on the fathers. AND the mothers. You're going out of your way to make everything binary, and I don't quite understand why.
I'm not even sure what you're advocating here, some kind of tribunal labour court where the man sets out his case to a woman against her having an abortion perhaps? Is that it? Is it a mediator? How workable in the real world do you think that is, honestly?Quote:
Originally Posted by dahamsta
What happens if the accelerated form of dispute resolution is set for, say, two weeks from when a woman informs a man she’s terminating the pregnancy and she decides ‘actually I think I’ll just have it this week’? Is she facing jail time?
Sorry if I’m just not grasping this but your concept doesn’t seem thought out to me
I'm not an abortion specialist and I'm not laying out a white paper. I'm saying that taking the attitude that a foetus/baby is a womans and a womans alone is wrong, and a mans opinion/want needs to be taken into account. Again, if men are to be required to pay maintenance or have a part in a child's upbringing, they should have a part to play in the decision as to whether or not a child is to be kept. Women can't have it one and not the other.
So you do advocate legal rights for the male on the foetus? Or is this still just you trying to find another way of saying what I said but in a way that might not annoy the pro-lifers?
Absolutely. There are very strong laws requiring men to take responsibility for children after they're born, and again - again, again, do I really need to keep repeating myself - what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I might add that I don't agree with the automatic default to custody to women either.
I should also add that while I understand that this is a hot button topic for some people, and some people love debating it, I don't appreciate the adversarial attitude. If you want to get hardcore with someone on the subject, you'll need to find someone else to discuss it with. I simply have an opinion, I'm not writing legislation.
Not adversarial, although I do find your belief pretty reprehensible as you, whether you find this term sensationalist or not, are advocating for a level of control on a woman's womb. Thankfully your idea is completely unworkable in reality so I guess there's no point in debating it any further.
I think you're unfairly misrepresenting dahamsta. He's not advocating that a man ought to be able to dictate the actions of a pregnant woman or possess some sort of "veto" over her wishes. At least, I think not anyway. He's suggesting that some framework be established to ensure that a woman might consider the man's opinion in making her final decision. Whether that's practical is another matter, but it's not as reprehensible as what you've accused him of advocating.
Agree totally with Danny and Dahamsta here. I have had more experience than anyone would want in this issue of abortion and this particular part of the debate and like to think I'm coming from a very informed place.
In terms of being "unworkable" and taking Danny's post into a practical situation, engagement of interested parties in decision making is fundamental in terms of success of the action and, in the case of the mother here, would assist in combatting/dealing with the feelings of guilt that follow these procedures.
In my work, I have to deal with multiple unions daily and in a very prescribed way. An example relevant to the point here is when we are considering organizational change. In these cases we are required to communicate the change, sit down and listen to union concerns and hear and consider alternative suggestions. Following this consultative process we make a fully informed decision. More often than not we go with our initial plan. But I know that the unions, although not always happy with or supportive of the outcome, appreciate the process.
Although they're worlds apart really, I think this illustrates that input is not control and does have value to both sides.
What DI said. I'm rarely surprised by the lengths people will go to to be offended; in this case I am surprised by the people doing it.
I'm not engaging on this subject any further, I'm a bit stressed at home with the newbie at the moment and I'm not going to allow myself to get annoyed by this.
Honestly I asked repeatedly for the stance to be made clearer and when he replied to the question of whether he's advocating legal rights for the male withQuote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
"Absolutely. There are very strong laws requiring men to take responsibility for children after they're born, and again - again, again, do I really need to keep repeating myself - what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I might add that I don't agree with the automatic default to custody to women either."
I took it to mean he did want a system in place where a man could take a woman to court to block a woman from having an abortion, or leaving the country to have one at present. If that's not the case I'll withdraw the reprehensible part of what I said, but I think I was right to draw that conclusion from what was said above.
It's still completely unworkable however and would basically draw out a very difficult time in a woman's life to ensure that a man is allowed have an opinion, something I've never seen anyone advocate against
There are different degrees of legal rights. A legal right to be heard wouldn't be the same as a legal right to a veto.
I was thinking about this during the day, and I came upon this question:
In the event that a would-be father wanted an abortion, but the pregnant woman didn't, would there still be a case for a process to ensure the man can have his say?
I thought of that apparent corollary the other day and was going to post the very same question, but the notion of forcing an abortion upon an unwilling other is preposterous. Surely...