One national newspaper has hailed yesterday’s decision by the Government to pay £1400 to pregnant women to travel from Northern Ireland to Britain to end the life of their unborn child as a great victory.
If this is a victory what constitutes a defeat?
Every abortion is a tragedy – a tragedy for a child whose life is taken and a tragedy for the mother who may have been persuaded that she has no choice but to have an abortion.
In the same narrative that declares this tragedy to be a victory those Northern Ireland Unionists and Nationalists, who have steadfastly upheld the sanctity of human life, are caricatured as illiterate, ill-educated bigots.
And those who oppose them declare themselves to be compassionate and progressive.
Yet, given that there are now 100,000 people alive in Northern Ireland who would be dead if Britain’s abortion laws had applied, it is worth asking the question who has proved the more worthy champion of the supreme human right – the very right to life itself?
Is it those whose legislation signed a death warrant for 8 million British babies or those whose faithfulness saved the lives of 100,000?
The “victorious” narrative is based on the belief that abortion is a compassionate lesser of two evils.
But there is nothing compassionate about scraping a child out of a mother’s womb – making it the most dangerous place to be in England. There is nothing compassionate about failing to provide help and support for a woman in crisis and offering her, instead, a ticket to a private clinic rather than giving care and support to her and her child.
And if it’s “evil” then don’t do it.
When Northern Irish women arrive in England what can they expect?
Most will be sent to the private clinics funded by the NHS.
The cost to the NHS has run into millions of pounds – and its in these clinics where around 600 abortions take place every day, including multiple abortions (some have had as many as eight). S
Some of these are clinics are where investigative journalists discovered functionaries willing to abort little girls simply because of their gender.
Some of the clinics to which they will go will be named for Marie Stopes.
Last year twenty two of their employees were paid more than £100,000. Their Chief Executive was reportedly paid £420,000(nearly 4 times the Prime Minister’s salary). They receive millions in public funds: £47 million from DFID and £20 million from the NHS in one recent year.
In 2016 the Care Quality Commission found dead unborn babies in their open bins.
Marie Stopes famously said that no society “should allow the diseased, the racially-negligent, the careless, the feeble-minded, the very lowest and worst members of the community to produce innumerable tens of thousands of warped and inferior infants”
Please note that when she wrote this, among others, Stopes had the Irish in mind.
So did those other luminaries, Beatrice and Sydney Webb who wrote in a Fabian Tract that “children are being freely born to the Irish Roman Catholics and the Polish, Russian and German Jews, the thriftless and irresponsible. . . . This can hardly result in anything but national deterioration . . . or this country falling to the Irish and the Jews.”
There was, of course, an echo of this unadulterated prejudice to be heard in the attacks on the Northern Irish this week.
For those Northern Irish women who have their abortions in an NHS hospital let them also recall the brave Scottish midwives who lost their hospital jobs after refusing to take the lives of their second patient – the baby – and reflect on what those midwives knew and believe.
They hold, as science does, that life begins at conception.
They know that an unborn child can feel pain and be caused great distress. They know that there is nothing compassionate about taking a life – it’s to confuse care and killing. They know that we have a duty of care to a mother and her child. It can never be reduced to a choice.
I have never been able to understand those able to dispense with the inconvenient yet incontestable truth that these babies are human lives – each unique and infinitely valuable. Barely a year passes without a major new discovery about how little difference there is between children in their mother’s womb and those at the breast. Yet we are told repeatedly that all of this is irrelevant. Patently, this is a preposterous position that no civilised society should support.
Three extraordinary women who at various times were my guests at Westminster spelt out the truth that every abortion carries untold consequences.
The late Norman McCorvey, who as “Jane Roe” was the test case that led to abortion in the US gave me copies of 1,000 affidavits that she had collected from post-abortive women. These sworn statements make for harrowing reading. She said: “This has long ceased to be a feminist issue about a woman’s right to choose.”
Dr.Alveda King, the niece of Dr.Martin Luther King, who had three abortions which she now deeply regrets told me “In our age the greatest human rights struggle, following in the footsteps of Wilberforce and my uncle’s civil rights movement is the battle today for the unborn”
While St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta told me and other parliamentarians “The greatest destroyer of peace in the world today is abortion.”
We must be positively pro-life, from the womb to the tomb, for the mother and the child, for the sick and the dying, for good medicine, ethical science, just laws. This is a daunting challenge but our world desperately needs to rediscover the beauty and mystery of life and to uphold a culture of life in place of our contemporary culture of death. Better, surely, than a ticket to yet another death in a British abortion clinic?
Absolutely entitled to your view. ZERO right to prevent others exercising their RIGHTS. Women’s RIGHTS over their own body’s trumps all others, however unsavoury that may be.
frazzo, I am dreadfully pro-choice. If two people engage in intercourse, the choice looms, do we engage in intercourse or don’t we?
If the decision is in the negative, sure, no problem.
If the result of the first debate is in the affirmative they must move to another choice, do we use contraception or don’t we?
If the choice following this debate is in the affirmative then, in the vast majority of cases there will be no problem, if things go wrong it is probably the fault of one, or both parties.
If the choice is however in the negative, surely, as adults, or Gillick competent teenagers, whose fault is it?
Clearly the fault lies with the individuals concerned, if not, why do the RUC prosecute people for speeding, which is their own fault.
The huge question however is, why in Hell’s name should others pay for some irresponsible people to terminate the life of their creation?
who is stopping women enforcing rights over their own bodies??No one……A baby is a different body with different DNA personhood to the mother.The number one right is the right to life….without this no other right exists.The right to life trumps all other rights.
The mothers life comes first. That’s just basic obstetrics. I’m presuming of course you want the foetus to survive at ALL cost and would never fathom a reason why it should be aborted for medical reasons.
I presume you are in the camp who thinks that extraordinary and unnatural life supporting measures should be continued no matter what. The cruel parents of Charlie Gard pushing to try a treatment that “wouldn’t normally be tried on mice first but we’ll use your son as a human experiment instead”
Itn’t it wonderful how all these good christian men are so concerned about womens’ bodies. My body my choice.
Your body and your baby’s body.
I have no right to tell a woman what to do with her own body and nor does anyone else.
What about the baby’s body?
You must be a completely spineless fool.You do not think the right to life ….the most important fundamental right there is ….is worth standing up for??You probably think you are a gentleman being so accomodating to women who want to destroy their babies.Would you be so limp wristed if it was your own baby?Sounds to me like you haven’t thought things through properly at all.This is not about womens’ bodies but about babies ‘bodies….and don’t forget they are the ones who die.
What an utterly misleading and crass pic attached to this article. I suffered a miscarriage at 8 weeks the collection of tissue bore as much resemblance to a baby as a ball of wool to a jumper. Away with your emotive nonsense. Are you happy to continue to penalise poor women. Shame on you.
I have had 7 miscarriages up to 4 months over a period of 3 years.None of them resembled babies……is that not the reason they miscarried?
I don’t know where to begin to answer this.
It’s all an emotional polemic. There are errors of fact is almost every sentence.
It is a feature of strident anti-abortionists that they resort to emotional blackmail, sophistry and at time mendacity; in short, those with such views are quite capable of lies in the promotion of their cause.
I do not understand why educated people are capable of such venom, such malevolent bile. You clearly do not understand anything around the complexities of abortion; you clearly do not wish elucidation.
If your mind is so closed, nothing I or others say will have any effect.
You know that you are right; you demand that others obey your commands, your orders, your needs. Women, in your view, are mindless incubators who need guidance and control by men.
And is your mind OPEN?
You wouldn’t think so, would you, after such an intemperate rant. There are times, I’m afraid, when I’ve had it with ‘antis’ and Brexiteers — a propensity to dissimulate isn’t the only thing they have in common.
The murder of innocents was once determined to be the act of savages. Nowadays, with our first world education, we dress it up in fancy words & say it’s okay.
The ‘savages’ within the church were uninterested in abortions before ‘ensoulment’, that is quickening.
The same church preferred that the ‘innocents’ should take precedence over the mothers because they were ‘innocent’ and thus could enter heaven easily; their mothers were sinners who might find the path more difficult.
Superb article articulating truth. What amazes me are the Reply’s above which simply want to distort and gloss over the truth.
The arguments in favour of abortion are simple but unsustainable – ” a right to choose!” Choose to murder an independent human being who has inalienable right to life. And the simple mindedness of believing that in exercising this “right” a woman can be happy! No she can’t so she is also a victim!
Apart from the life snuffed out in such a callous manner the future progeny of the human killed are also wiped out.
When we ignore the awesome transcendent nature of life and think we can defy God us humans always make a complete mess!
And of course for each of us there is a day of judgement when God reviews our actions by His Light not our prideful arrogance.
awesome reply
A mission, for example, is ‘aborted’ when something goes wrong or somebody in charge does something wrong.What has the baby done wrong apart from being an inconvenience. In Britain, 98% of abortions are for ‘social’reasons. It’s a woman’s choice, in most circumstances, to allow herself to be impregnated. It’s not the baby’s choice to be hoovered and dumped. If you do a crime, you do the time. If you get pregnant, you put the baby in the blender. And this is progressive?
The arguments from the pro-abortionists are really depressing.
The most militant simply say ‘It’s a woman’s right it is her body’. Take away the emotion and the modern misconceptions around what constitutes a right and you are left with it is ok to destroy the life because that vulnerable human is reliant on the mother’s body to develop.
The argument that ‘it’s her body’ we can’t tell her what to do is equally depressing. We all started as being part of our mother’s body- but we were also our own independent body.
I admit that I am part of a dwindling minority that is horrified that society finds it completely acceptable to get rid of a baby for any reason you can think of. Pregnancy is a biological process that we had no control over (like aging, hair growing etc.) and now we feel we must give mother’s control over it because it is their ‘right’.
I see no difference between legalising murder at 12 months and 12 weeks. At least the 12 month old gets to experience the outside world. If you are an atheist it is a scary thought that your mother could have killed you before you were old enough to be born.
If women are responsible for their own bodies might I suggest they avoid getting themselves pregnant in the first place? Abortion is now used as a form of birth control and that is a disgrace. Barbara Windsor the actress said she had five, Marilyn Monroe even more. Is abortion a good thing or a necessary evil? Would anyone here like to have been aborted? I wouldn’t fancy it myself and would personally never vote for it.
I don’t have much truck with religion, I like to try to look at things from a scientific view, with a critical eye. I keep religion out of it.
Life begins at conception. Not before it. Not 8/12/14 weeks later.
At conception.
Scientific fact is that life begins at conception.
Can that life survive without help at that stage? No
I also don’t know any new born that can survive without help.
(Potential) Self sustaining life begins at 24 weeks. That’s science. That’s a fact.
So a child of 24 weeks can fend for itself. That’s interesting. Mine were 2 or 3 years old.
Kids aren’t fully independent before their teens, and not always even then.
Yes. The minimum age of viability is 24 weeks. Hence almost no abortions are carried out beyond this. Not sure what you’re on about quoting years
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, this was correct, then again, in the same place they burned witches because they were women with warts on their nose.
Once upon a time, not so far, far away, life could not be sustained, out of womb, before twenty eight weeks gestation, then again, fourty seven years ago my Grand Father died of a condition which my Father, his son, survived and thrived thereafter.
Today, an unborn of twenty three weeks can survive birth, or, four of ten do, that is not a scientific fact, it is a medical fact.
Hi David,
Great blog! Thank you for taking the time to write it. Those numbers you quote are astonishing – 8,000,000 lives ended in the womb. Good grief that is a truly shocking statistic. Britain’s holocaust it would seem.
I would like to post an argument against abortion that I read once by an American academic called William Lane Craig. Craig, I believe, provides the most convincing argument I’ve ever heard on the issue and does so based on ethical, philosophical and scientific reasoning, and does this with a clarity and logic that is refreshing.
I would do an injustice to summarise his response, so I’m going to quote him instead. Craig in response to a question on abortion responds:
“It seems to me that amidst all the arguments pro and con about the abortion issue, there are two central questions which are determinative:
(1) Do human beings possess intrinsic moral value?
(2) Is the developing fetus a human being?
Think about that first question: Do human beings have intrinsic moral value? Something has intrinsic value if it is an end in itself, rather than a means to some end. Things which are valuable merely as means to some end have only extrinsic value. For example, money has no intrinsic value, in and of itself. Rather it has extrinsic value insofar as it’s a useful means of commerce for human beings and so is valuable to us for the ends it helps us achieve. But in and of itself it’s intrinsically worthless. It’s just paper.
Now the question is, are human beings like that? Or are they intrinsically valuable? I’m certain that most people, once they think about it, recognize that human beings are intrinsically valuable. People aren’t just valuable as means to some end; rather people are ends in themselves. That’s why, as Augustine said, we should love people and use things, not vice versa. Those who use people and love things are doing something profoundly immoral because they are not recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of other persons, who are not mere things to be used.
The international community recognizes the intrinsic moral value of human beings in its declaration on human rights. The notion that people have inherent rights just in virtue of the fact that they are human beings, regardless of their race, class, religion, caste, or station in life, is based in the inherent moral value of human beings. This truth is recognized as well in our Declaration of Independence, where it affirms that all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights, such as the right to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. Most of us, when we reflect upon it, would come to a similar conclusion: Yes, human beings do possess intrinsic moral value.
Now what that implies is that if the developing fetus is a human being, then he or she is endowed with intrinsic moral worth and therefore possesses inherent human rights, including the right to life. Abortion would be a form of homicide, and against such attacks the innocent and defenseless fetus would have every right to the protection of the law.
So we come to the second question we must address: Is the developing fetus a human being? Here it seems to me that it is virtually undeniable scientifically and medically that the fetus is at every stage of its development a human being. After all, the fetus is not canine, or feline, or bovine; it is a human fetus. From the moment of conception on, there exists a living organism which is a genetically complete human being and which, if left to develop naturally, will grow into an adult member of its species.
Contrast the complete human embryo with a sperm or an unfertilized egg. Neither the sperm nor the egg alone constitutes a human being: each is genetically incomplete, having only 1/2 the chromosomes necessary to make a complete human being. If left alone, they don’t develop into anything: the sperm dies in a couple of days, and the unfertilized egg is expelled in a woman’s monthly cycle. But if they unite, they combine into a single living cell to form a unique individual which has never before existed.
Already in that moment of conception, that individual is either male or female, depending on whether he or she received an X or a Y chromosome from the sperm. The later development of sexual organs and other secondary sexual characteristics is only evidence of a difference in sexuality which has been there from the very beginning. Moreover, all of the individual’s traits like body type, eye and hair color, facial characteristics, and so forth are all determined at the moment of conception and are just waiting to unfold. From the moment of conception we have a genetically complete and unique human being; in effect, you began at the moment of your conception.
Moreover, the development of this individual is a smooth and unbroken continuum throughout. There is no non-arbitrary breaking point before which you can say the fetus is not human, but after which he or she is. The traditional division of pregnancy into three trimesters has no scientific or medical basis: it is a purely arbitrary reckoning device for the sake of convenience. It’s probably due to the fact that pregnancy lasts nine months. If human beings had a gestation time of 8 months, nobody would talk about trimesters. We’d probably divide it into quarters. The fact is that any attempt to draw a line and say “not human before this point, but human afterwards” is wholly arbitrary and without biological foundation.
Thus, as I say, it seems to me virtually undeniable that the fetus — which is just Latin for “little one” —is a human being in the early stages of his development. Whether one is a “little one,” a newborn, an adolescent, or an adult, he is at every point a human being at a different stage of his development. Those who deny the little one in the womb is a human being typically confuse being human with being at some later stage of development. For example, some abortion rights advocates say that because an embryo is not a baby, it’s not a human being, and therefore abortion is morally acceptable.
This argument seems to me completely fallacious. On this reasoning, we could with equal justice say that because a child is not an adult, he is not a human being; or because a baby is not a child, he is not a human being. Of course, an embryo is not a baby, but that doesn’t mean that an embryo is not a human being. All of these are the various stages in a human being’s development, and it is arbitrary to cut off one stage and say that because it is not a later stage, it is not a human being.
Moreover, it is simply false that most abortions are performed on embryos. By the time most women realize that they are pregnant (about two months after conceiving), the embryo has already become a fetus, a “little one”. We’re not dealing at this point with a cluster of cells, but with—the word is unavoidable—a baby, a very tiny baby with a face and features, with little arms and legs, with tiny feet and hands. All the organs of the body are already present, and the muscle and circulatory systems are complete. Even brain wave activity is present. By the twelfth week, his fingers and toes are fully developed, complete with delicate fingerprints and with little fingernails and toenails forming. The baby is already quite mobile, kicking and moving about, clenching and opening his little fists and curling his toes. Behind his closed eyelids his eyes are almost fully developed. Incredibly, already at this point, the baby’s facial features begin to resemble those of his parents!…No one who has seen photographs of infants in the womb between 8-12 weeks old can honestly deny that here we have a human baby”
“The fact is that from conception to old age we have the various stages of development in the life of a human being. It seems to me therefore that the medical and scientific facts make it virtually undeniable that the developing fetus is a human being.
If we thus answer “Yes” to both of the questions we’ve set ourselves, it follows that abortion on demand is a moral outrage, the destruction of an innocent and defenseless human life. Now you’ll notice that I’ve not appealed at any point to the Bible in all this. That’s because, contrary to popular impression, abortion is not, as such, a religious question. The first question we asked is philosophical: do human beings posses intrinsic moral value? The second question is scientific and medical: is the developing fetus a human being? Neither of these is a religious question.
Given our answers to the two questions above, it follows that abortion on demand is the transcendent moral issue of our time.”
I too would also answer Yes to the two questions posed, but I’d love to hear from anyone who would answer No and their reasons for the same.
The argument is interesting; the problem is Craig asking the right or the most relevant questions? (His assertions aren’t helped by recourse to what is usually called ’emotional blackmail’.)
There is a difference between ‘life’ and ‘living’, for instance.
Further, there is the question of whether an ‘anti’ should be able to demand, if necessary by law, that all others accept his/her position. This is where ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ differ; pro-life requires and demands that no abortions may be performed. Pro-choice makes no such demand, it does not demand that all pregnancies be terminated; it makes no imposition.
Korhomme, People who are pro- life are arguing that killing unborn children should not be legal not demanding. ‘Pro-choice’ is demanding that abortions become legal. I think you are trying to twist words to make it seem like you have a logical argument.
Think about your argument this way. A group calls for murder to be legal while another group calls for the govt to maintain the illegality of murder. How could you say the latter group are demanding and not the first. The idea that ‘they are making no such demands’ seems silly.
Pro-life campaigners are certainly arguing that abortion should not be permitted, and also arguing for enforcement through the law — that it should remain illegal.
The use of the word ‘children’ to describe the unborn is duplicitous. The destruction of the unborn is not, in law, ‘murder’. There is also a particular case where the deliberate destruction of the unborn is not covered by the law, nor as far as I know, discussed by pro-life groups; this though refers to what, legally, an abortion is.
The legal enforcement for the social demand of one group over another in a society doesn’t work when many are opposed to the demand. Prohibition in the US didn’t work. Once, it was not only illegal to obtain contraceptives but also illegal to inform people about them. This didn’t work. In such instances the response to the illegality of something for which there is a social demand has always been criminality. By making things illegal, or continuing their illegality, the demand doesn’t vanish.
“destruction of the unborn is not, in law, ‘murder’”. Not entirely, I have heard of times were someone had been charged with manslaughter for killing an unborn child in a car accident for example.
“The use of the word ‘children’ to describe the unborn is duplicitous”. the word you use makes no difference to the argument. Man, Woman, Child, Baby, unborn Baby, foetus- all are equally human lives. I will never get into the debate of some lives are worth more than others.
“Pro-life campaigners are certainly arguing that abortion should not be permitted, and also arguing for enforcement through the law — that it should remain illegal.” Exactly, arguing something should not be permitted is passive not active as you have claimed. Also, the law doesn’t enforce anything it is the law- other bodies enforce the law.
Linking abortion to prohibition is very crude and insensitive. Casually destroying a life is not the same as having a drink.
Do you really think because there is demand we should legalise something??? People travel to China for harvested organs, South East Asia for exploitation of young girls and boys. That line of argument leads down a very slippery path.
Google makes things almost too easy, doesn’t it?
I find that William Lane Craig is a ‘Christian apologist’ and analytic philosopher and a faculty member at two theological institutions.
Nonetheless, his argument is interesting; as above, I’m not convinced that he is arguing the most appropriate point.
Abortion is the greatest evil that the powerful inflict on the poweless.
No-one has a right to a consequence free life; if you are sexually active you don’t have a ‘right’ not to get or not to make someone pregnant. You certainly have the right to try to the best of your ability but once pregnancy occurs you should adopt the responsibility of parenthood.
No-one has the right to end someone else’s ‘inconvenient’ existence.
Last year it is reported that over 800 women left the Island of Saints and Scholars to go to the British Isle to dispose of unwanted babies. If we are generous we can presume that 100+ were there because of rape,incest or FFF. That leaves 700 who ,for whatever reason, found it socially inconvenient. Is it possible to separate this further? How many were drunk out of their skullls and didn’t know a thing about where,when or how many fathers were involved? How many were too stupid to Google ‘contraception’? How many were sophisticated schoolgirls who were so busy daydreaming or filing their nails when that biology lesson was being taught? And how many just don’t give a shit. Sure we’ll slink over to England and wipe the slate clean.
If the woman was drunk when she was made pregnant, she cannot then have been able to give consent; thus, she was raped.
Men too should be able to search Google for ‘contraception’.
Why do you think that the entirety of the problem is down to the woman?
The ‘problem’ usually is left to the woman to deal with. I don’t know how familiar you are with the younger generation but I was often in a position to overhear the Monday morning or Saturday evening conversation of young girls and they were all tee heeing about how blocked they were going to be or had been. There was no question of alcohol having been poured down their throats by a third party. If I put my hand in the fire and get burned,who do we blame?
If the woman is drunk therefore is raped?
Poppycock!
If she’s black out drunk then fair enough there’s a question to be answered there most definately but to suggest that just because she was drunk it’s automatic rape is absolute nonsense.
“If the woman was drunk when she was made pregnant, she cannot then have been able to give consent; thus, she was raped”
What patent nonsense.
The law in the UK is quite clear on this; if the woman cannot give consent, then she has been raped.
The problem is around how drunk she was. If unconscious, then she has been assaulted, she has been raped. How drunk must she be before she cannot consent?
Consent can also be withdrawn at any time.
It is clear so why are you twisting words again? Being unconscious and being drunk are not the same state. Also, you don’t have to be drunk to be unconscious.
There is no possibility of a meeting of minds on this issue.
But what everyone can agree on is the desire to reduce the number of abortions happening.
This requires better sex education and better access to contraception.
In practical terms what would happen if anti abortionists had their way?
Women would still seek abortion and it would be provided illegally with greater risk to the woman.
And what would be done with women who did not want to give birth? No-one is ever willing to answer this question. Lock them up for 9 months? Sedate them?
And those who have abortions? Tried for murder?
That would be the logical out working of such reasoning.
Absolutely agree Gio that the best solution is better sex education and availability of contraception.
Agreed.
When abortion was illegal in UK before 1967, if you had money enough you could easily buy one. If you were poor you could visit the lady round the corner. Between 30 and 50 women died because of this every year.
Don’t forget the 30 to 50 babies who died as well.
I don’t.
I remember the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes.
The implication of your argument is that, had they not been aborted, the unborn would have been delivered and raised in a loving and compassionate environment. Were it only so. The evidence from, say Tuam, indicates that this is wishful thinking.
Thinking back to an American documentary: Pro-life, pro-death penalty, low threshold for war. Social conservatives really do like to pick which lives are sacrosanct. I’m sure a lot of conservatives over here fall into that category.
There is a quite remarkable overlap in the US between those who are Pro-life and those who are pro death penalty. I really don’t understand this.
Self serving Hypocrisy = organised religion is largely a fraud
That makes it ok then to butcher living human beings because you have a chip on your shoulder about organised religion?
That makes no sense.
However no chip. Just plainly evident that religion is a smoke screen for morals and I’ll not be entertaining any argument that uses their God as an explanation.
Abortion is a horrible thing but horrible things happen. It’s a necessary evil for some women unfortunately. Entitled to opinions but not a blanket control over a women’s reproductive rights. These rights simply trump all others.
I’m just pointing out the duel standards for people who blindly defend their military etc whilst opposing abortion. Some sort of quasi religious guilt thing that people think gives them some sort of odd rights over others.
Frazzo,
reproductive rights? The reproduction has already happened- it about the rights of the unborn child. Also, reproduction is not a right in the first instance.
To me your argument is the most disturbing. You admit it is ‘evil’ and yet you say it should be allowed under any circumstance if the woman decides it. I can see a point of debating with someone who wants to argue life does not start until (insert most recent date agreed on) but someone who admits it is killing an innocent child but argues for it anyway because it is someone’s right is scary.
Sorry, Emmet, I don’t understand what you are saying.
There is a spectrum of ‘drunk’ from being entirely sober through to being unconscious through drink. At some point on this continuum a person will be incapable of giving consent; quite where is a matter of discussion.
It’s rather similar to the advice given to people who have had a general anaesthetic (and alcohol was once used for this purpose). The advice includes not signing important documents for at least 24 hours, and not ‘operating machinery’ — which includes things like boiling a kettle. This is because the person may not be wholly rational even if enough of the anaesthetic has been metabolised (worn off) for the person to be a awake and and able to answer simple questions.
Korhomme,
“If the woman was drunk when she was made pregnant, she cannot then have been able to give consent; thus, she was raped.”
Later you tried to justify this by saying:
“The law in the UK is quite clear on this; if the woman cannot give consent, then she has been raped.”
I am simply saying being drunk does not mean your can’t give consent. Go into a night club and you will see lots of people who will be having consensual sex later but are most certainly drunk.
I’d agree with this, Emmet, that you can be drunk and give consent; but you can also be too drunk to be able to give consent.
True, but if you ‘give consent’ you can’t later argue I was too drunk to give consent. What constitutes consent is also very murky, that is why the rate of guilty verdicts is so ridiculously low.
In the UK the unborn is not a legally recognised person; other jurisdictions may differ. The Infant Life Preservation Act in GB in the late 20s (the NI Act was in the mid 40s) was originally about abortion. It created the offence of child destruction, but the child had to be capable of being born alive — at the time taken to be 28 weeks. It seems that if a woman is assaulted or damaged and looses the pregnancy, it can be very difficult (in the UK) to make a charge of wilful child destruction stick, particularly if the pregnancy is earlier. (Previously, of course, women and particularly married women were not recognised in law as being persons; rather they were chattels, that is possessions, of their husbands.)
The Law Courts enforce the law.
Prohibition and the Comstock laws (in the US) were introduced to criminalise and thus prevent a range of social behaviours which some felt to be undesirable. They were thus a form of ‘social control’, and included provision around abortion. As well as social control, arguments around abortion also include the role of women in society, the patriarchy, feminism and the ‘freedom of expression’. There are the ‘rights’ of the mother and the unborn, in the 8th Amendment treated as if they were identical. However, the mother’s right to life makes no demands on others; if she is healthy she doesn’t require life support, and she could forage for food. (A supermarket is easier, but is there a right to a supermarket?) The unborn gets its oxygen and its food from the mother via the placenta and the umbilical cord; if born around 24 weeks such ‘life support’ often needs to be continued for a while. The unborn’s right to life is classified as a ‘demand right’, the mother’s is not.
Now, what of the odd instance I mentioned previously; a situation in which a physician can give a pregnant woman a ‘poison or noxious substance’ for the express purpose of ending the pregnancy, yet the law is silent on this? You or I would not call this an abortion, for it isn’t; but some of those pro-life campaigners who regard any interference with the fertilised ovum from the moment of conception to be abortion are silent on this. And ‘any interference’ includes designating the morning-after pill as an abortifacient. (Many such campaigners use entirely imaginary complications of abortion as a reason to prohibit it.)
AFAIK, it isn’t illegal (in the UK or Ireland) to travel to China for an organ transplant. Were such a demand to be ‘regulated’ it would be by the introduction of a new law. (This is also the basis of some legal theory; is everything forbidden unless it is expressly allowed, or is everything permitted unless it is expressly forbidden? Differing jurisdictions view this differently.)
Korhomme- read the legislation, the unborn child is considered a recognised person from conception. A woman can be legally charged with manslaughter if she carries out an abortion. Abortion is only legal if carried out by a professional who believes the woman’s life or mental health is at risk (and a few other conditions). The act you refer to is in the early 20th century (around 1920), please see the act which covers abortions (1967). Time given is 24 weeks in legislation. As I said people have been charged with manslaughter for killing unborn children- they are recognized as human beings.
“The Law Courts enforce the law.”- no they make judgements on whether the law has been broken and sentence. Law enforcement agencies enforce the law – hence the title (police, sheriffs etc.). You seem to be arguing for the sake of it here.
There is no such thing as a ‘demand right’, rights are rights. A 6 month old baby can’t forage for food- if a mother refuses to breastfeed it and the child dies she would rightfully be charged. It doesn’t matter whether it is a breast or an umbilical cord the baby relies on the mother for life.
“Now, what of the odd instance I mentioned previously; a situation in which a physician can give a pregnant woman a ‘poison or noxious substance’ for the express purpose of ending the pregnancy, yet the law is silent on this?” This is the exact wording used in legislation. If a mother takes these substances she is breaking the law. If she goes looking for it she is guilty of ‘procurement’ and the person who supplies it is also culpable. Only a qualified person can make the judgment in certain circumstances.
It is illegal to travel oversees to break the law if it can be proven that you traveled with intent.
The morning after pill gets the body to reject the egg before it has time to be fully fertilised- medically speaking it has been judged not to be an abortion. It is not considered a noxious or poisonous substance- it is classified as a prescribed medication.
You seem to be unnecessarily complicating the argument. Nothing you argue here makes me see abortions as any more acceptable.
Emmet, thanks for the links; I have read the legislation, though not for some time.
“There is no such thing as a ‘demand right’, rights are rights.” Have a look at ‘Rights’ and ‘Typology of Rights’ on Wikipedia. It’s all very complex.
The morning after pill works by preventing or delaying ovulation; it may prevent implantation. It does not disrupt a normally implanted embryo, and is therefore not an abortifacient — despite what some pro-life campaigners claim.
In the ‘peculiar circumstance’, a woman with an implanted embryo can be treated by a physician with a chemotheraputic agent, usually methotrexate, with the express intent of destroying the foetus. This is not regulated under any abortion law. Some pro-life campaigners claim that anything which disrupts a pregnancy is an abortion; but by doing so they present themselves with this paradox.
There are two components in the ‘abortion pill’. A woman in Belfast was convicted of using such ‘poison or noxious substance’ to procure an abortion. Both components are also medications used in the treatment of other problems.
I think the woman treated by the Physician to destroy the foetus is covered by legislation- the physician did carry out an abortion under the legal definition, as long as the physician met the conditions stipulated (very easy to do or at least claim you did) they can not ne charged.
If the woman ‘procures’ the drug from a source with the ‘intent’ of killing the foetus she is guilty of manslaughter (murder if they can prove she knew the foetus was a human life- but this is impossible to do without the woman basically admitting it). This must be done by someone list under the abortion Act.
‘Some pro-life campaigners claim that anything which disrupts a pregnancy is an abortion; but by doing so they present themselves with this paradox.’ I am not sure what the paradox is here, can you explain?
I’m not wholly convinced that a foetus is a ‘legal person’; but then a company is a ‘legal person’ even though it can’t be murdered. No matter.
The peculiar circumstances, paradox is perhaps not quite the right term, is the management of ectopic pregnancy. The 1861 Act doesn’t specify that the foetus must be ‘normally implanted in the body of the womb’, and the first successful operation wasn’t performed for 20 years after the Act was passed. The Bourne judgement, an legal interpretation of the Act, would make treatment legal. Today, some ectopic pregnancies are treated by giving methotrexate to destroy the pregnancy (others are treated surgically, or resolve). The Republic’s 2013 Act specifically refers to ‘normal implantation in the body of the womb’ and thus excludes the treatment of ectopic pregnancy and the ‘morning-after pill’.
Nonetheless, there are those who claim that the treatment of an ectopic is an abortion:
https://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/why-did-wendy-davis-call-her-ectopic-pregnancy-an-abortion-an-obgyn-investigates/
Rather similar is the treatment of malignancy in pregnancy; some of these tumours are hormonally ‘driven’ because of the pregnancy. If chemotherapy is given while the woman remains pregnant, the foetus may be damaged or aborted as a ‘side-effect’. An abortion prior to treatment would be legal; this requires the woman to make a ‘fully informed decision’. An ectopic pregnancy won’t proceed to term, though this is possible with a concomitant malignancy. That is, the woman is presented with a choice, something that the pro-life campaigners would not otherwise agree with.
You don’t have to be convinced it is clearly stated for you in the act if you read it! Unborn children have legal rights (the woman will be charged with manslaughter or murder if she wilfully destroys the foetus)
No most ‘pro-life’ people would say if there is a choice between saving the mother or saving the child then it is understandable to save the mother- ie. receive chemo. It is not helpful to legislate for these abnormal circumstances. For example a doctor can administer pain relief to someone who is dying which can technically kill the person. This isn’t legally murder as the doctor was easing suffering. The same logic applies to treatments that may kill a foetus.
‘Pro life’ is not motivated by denying the woman choice, it is motivated by giving the unborn a chance to live.
“For the purposes of the law relating to abortion, anything done with intent to procure [F2a woman’s miscarriage (or, in the case of a woman carrying more than one foetus, her miscarriage of any foetus) is unlawfully done unless authorised by section 1 of this Act and, in the case of a woman carrying more than one foetus, anything done with intent to procure her miscarriage of any foetus is authorised by that section if–” from the 1967 Act
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/section/5
This shows that the courts recognise an foetus as a person- another section suggests the charge of manslaughter.
The Act you refer to is “Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929”
My reasoning is of course undermined by arguing ‘from the specific to the general’ and by the concept that ‘hard cases make bad laws’.
I don’t think you and I are going to agree; nonetheless, an interesting conversation. Time to call it a day, eh?
The triumph of the abortion lobby grows ever stronger, and the cynical political strategy from Labour’s Stella Creasy is but typical of the breed.
I used to support the theme that what a woman does with her body is her business, but that has changed.
I do not oppose abortion on religious grounds, because these days I support no religion, but I do oppose abortion on the grounds that murder has always been wrong .