24 Week Abortions

[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.)