routine selection and abortion of a malformed fetus is a dark place to go.
Eugenics by a different name ?
Science is advancing without open public debate in my view.

Not science, politics. There’s no point focussing on whether abortions should be allowed in cases of disability or illness without considering the rest of society. There’s a lot of discrimination against people with disabilities, whether mental or physical, and both at the level of individuals (calling people benefit scroungers) and in terms of how society is setup (taking a wheelchair on public transport? you’ll need to plan which stations are accessible, and maybe book a ramp in advance, whereas anyone else could just get on without thinking). Simply focussing on abortions is an easy way for politicians to pretend they care without having to do anything.

routine selection and abortion of a malformed fetus is a dark place to go.

Maybe, and I hope you’ll never have to go there – but if you do, please remember what you’ve been saying here…

Men pontificating about abortion is as ridiculous as celibate clergy preaching about contraception.

Let women decide.

I have a disabled sister and love the bones of her.

Also been involved with disability charities for years.

Eyes wide open here

mrmo – Member

Abortions have always happened, always will, ban them and you go back to backstreet butchery. Go back a bit and to Romans Infanticide was normal. The idea of children being sacrosanct is a very Christian idea.

I suspect you are right with respect to your first statement, mrmo, but that last sentence is just ignorant.

Although different religions offer different points at which they believe the foetus to be a person, killing a person is seen universally as wrong due to the idea of the sanctity of life.

Likewise Aristotle.

Likewise pre-Christian Roman law.

Rusty Spanner – Member

Men pontificating about abortion is as ridiculous as celibate clergy preaching about contraception.

Let women decide.

Of course women should be able to decide what happens with their own bodies. The question here, however, at least according to some, does not just involve a woman’s own body. It involves the body of another person.

That is, if you believe that a foetus is a person. And surely, it is everyone’s right to be part of the debate over the nature of personhood, isn’t it?

montylikesbeer – Member
I find it difficult to get my head around that anyone in our society does not understand what contraception is and where it can be obtained.

Where can I find this 100% effective 100% of the time contraception?

My beliefs regarding childbirth and natural selection may offend so i won’t go into them but I do belive that abortion is fine until the detection of brain activity. i have my reasons but that is my choice not yours. Just think about rape/Incest/other pregnancies where the child is not detected until the deadline has passed.

Although different religions offer different points at which they believe the foetus to be a person, killing a person is seen universally as wrong due to the idea of the sanctity of life.

you don’t know how wrong you are on that. The idea of life being sacred is often right, which is part of the reason why many civilisations took to human sacrifice. Read the Old testament and understand why Abraham was asked to Sacrifice Isaac. As for new borns, if you lived in a world where most would die anyway…

Infanticide

This government are actually beginnings to make me political. I even thought of joining th Labour Party this morning. Now Cameron is back peddling like mad on this it just shows they are totally out of control as a government. They have no ideology and are prepared to say anything to stay in power. This and the crap coming out of Gove’s mouth about education have really wound me up. They’ve got to go!

And I think abortion is very personal and the decision should be left totally to the people involved. No one wants to go through the trauma. And if you decide to abort your disabled baby then you definitely have good reasons.

montylikesbeer – Member
Eugenics by a different name ?

🙄

Who is in charge of this policy?

Its my view of how the “selection” of a new life is becoming more scientific and again in my view will become more and more about perceived perfection.

Its only my view of course and has no more relevance than a fart on a motor bike

I think that this is a subject that provokes opinions from many people, unfortunately the majority of opinions tend to come from well educated, well off people and not those for whom abortion is a reality.

Aren’t abortions used when the sex of the baby is required to be male by certain religions (increasingly more in the UK)?

Aren’t abortions used when the sex of the baby is required to be male by certain religions (increasingly more in the UK)?

Do you want to think a little bit more about that?
Think, perhaps, what would happen in any group if ‘the sex of the baby is required to be male’ ?

Some cultures see male children as desirable, and some people have attempted to determine the sex of their baby and use abortion as a method of not having a child of the less desirable sex.

Aren’t abortions used when the sex of the baby is required to be male by certain religions (increasingly more in the UK)?

Abortion solely on the basis of gender is illegal in the uk so no. It really does surprise me that people who can type comments on a forum can’t use google to check stuff like this.

Abortion solely on the basis of gender is illegal in the uk so no. It really does surprise me that people who can type comments on a forum can’t use google to check stuff like this.

It may be illegal, but like a good many illegal things it does happen, and after finding out the sex you might suddenly discover that you have a problem that means you want an abortion.

It may be illegal, but like a good many illegal things it does happen, and after finding out the sex you might suddenly discover that you have a problem that means you want an abortion.

Well I realise that illegal things occur in our society, but what do you propose make it very illegal?

Well I realise that illegal things occur in our society, but what do you propose make it very illegal?

I suppose the first question is should anyone be told the sex of the baby?

And that to disclose the sex becomes a crime in itself?

Your never going to stop gender based abortions completely, but there is currently nothing to stop you finding out the gender and then going and having an abortion for a different reason.

This thread will end badly. Is it too early or too late to close it?

No one has thought about the clinicians so far in this thread. As some have pointed out, premature babies can survive from 21 weeks or so now – so we are asking clinicians to sustain life at that age and also to take life knowing it could be sustained. For anyone being asked to do that on a routine basis that is a pretty big ask – I’m not sure I could do it and perhaps some consideration in the current debate should be given to those in the NHS that we make these requests of?

I suppose the first question is should anyone be told the sex of the baby?

And that to disclose the sex becomes a crime in itself?

When my mother was pregnant with each of her kids, the doctors refused to disclose the gender of the foetus as a matter of policy due to the fears about abortions and forced miscarriages (sometimes through beatings) of female foetuses.

In an ideal world, contraception would have a 100% success rate, everyone would be 100% educated on contraception, there would be no rape, no incest, and no pressure to have sex without contraception. But it’s not an ideal world, and unwanted pregnancies still happen, and personally I’m more concerned about the living, breathing women (and girls) and their families than something that has the potential to be a human life. I know a few people who had abortions, but only one was after 18 weeks due to an extremely severe abnomality – the tragedy there being that the child was much wanted.

It’s my understanding that health professionals and experts in the field agreed the 24 week limit based on the facts, those facts haven’t changed.

Look at how Survival rates have increased. 42% @ 24 weeks is a huge issue for many.

It’s not all that long ago that doctors were looking to agree that premature babies (pre-24 weeks) should not be resuscitated.

I assume nobody forces them to do it.

Nothing will change. Thankfully, women will continue to decide what they do with their pregnancies without deplorable shitheads like Hunt, Dorries and the half-baked pro-life brigade interfering. All this is mere talk.

anagallis_arvensis – Member
This thread will end badly. Is it too early or too late to close it?

Can’t close it yet, we haven’t had the ‘hand of hope’ photo yet.

SaxonRider – Member

Rusty Spanner – Member

Men pontificating about abortion is as ridiculous as celibate clergy preaching about contraception.

Let women decide.

Of course women should be able to decide what happens with their own bodies. The question here, however, at least according to some, does not just involve a woman’s own body. It involves the body of another person.

Well, it primarily involves the woman’s body – everything else springs from that.

And no man has the right to tell a woman whether to abort or not.

And surely, it is everyone’s right to be part of the debate over the nature of personhood, isn’t it?

No, not in this case it isn’t.

tyger – Member

Aren’t abortions used when the sex of the baby is required to be male by certain religions (increasingly more in the UK)?
All religions, including yours, have done this over the years.
Why don’t you tell us which religions you mean?
As a Christian, I’m sure you have no other agenda whatsoever, do you?
And the pro-life lobby have condemned many millions of women to seek back street abortions over the years.
You should be very proud of yourselves.

at about 20 weeks independent life is sustainable

No – even with modern neonatology it’s not. Even at 23-24 weeks, where survival is possible, it’s usually accompanied by pretty severe disability.

Also IMO: Bloke’s a tit and I imagine already has pretty much discredited himself in the eyes of most of the health service

Most of us at the sharp end thought it would be harder to find a more useless Health Secretary than Andrew Lansley (who managed the unique feat of alienating pretty much the entire medical profession). However, they seem to have succeeded.

Don’t get me started on Hunt’s sidekick, Dan ‘100 hour weeks’ Poulter, who appears to have been appointed as a junior minister because, as a doctor himself, he should have credibility with his fellow doctors. Unfortunately, he’s gone out of his way to sabotage that before even getting settled in, and appears to be as worth of irrational hatred as that twunt Bonio.

Andy

ratherbeintobago – Member
“at about 20 weeks independent life is sustainable”
No – even with modern neonatology it’s not. Even at 23-24 weeks, where survival is possible, it’s usually accompanied by pretty severe disability.

You can prove anything with facts.

You can prove anything with facts.

Meaning?

Look at how Survival rates have increased. 42% @ 24 weeks is a huge issue for many.

It’s not all that long ago that doctors were looking to agree that premature babies (pre-24 weeks) should not be resuscitated.

and from your link

When the surviving children born before 26 weeks in the 1995 EPICure study were followed up at age 6 years, a high level of disability was found:[xi]

22% had severe disability (defined as cerebral palsy but not walking, low cognitive scores, blindness, profound deafness) 24% had moderate disability (defined as cerebral palsy but walking, IQ/cognitive scores in the special needs range, a lesser degree of visual or hearing impairment) 34% had mild disability (defined as low IQ/cognitive score, squint, requiring glasses) 20% had no problems.

So yes science may well have moved on since this study, but if you say 40% survive and of those 80% will be disabled you have to ask is it the right thing to keep the premature baby alive?

ratherbeintobago – Member
“You can prove anything with facts.”
Meaning?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n-UGQcG3Jw[/video]

@atherbeintobago, great story about Dr Dan and his 100 hours. He’s not fooling anyone is he? 😆

fwiw, as a health professional I honestly thought it was some kind of send-up of the madness of cabinet reshuffles of the 80’s/90’s when I first heard that Hunt was the new health secretary. Seriously, if you had looked for someone even more willing to sell their soul off than Lansley, someone with an even worse record of being utterly in the pocket of private enterprise at the expense of the taxpayer and the voter, you couldn’t have done better/worse than Hunt. 👿

And yes, all this does also whiff of “smokescreen” -I wonder what they hope to sneak past the meeja whilst we are all arguing about abortion?

Are all pro lifers also vegetarians? Its all life isn’t it?

Anyway what’s the point in all this if most terminations happen before the proposed date? Other than to try to prevent gender based terminations that is.

I’m a vegetarian and a pro-choicer fwiw. Does that make me a bad veggie? 😆

.

“Men pontificating about abortion is as ridiculous as celibate clergy preaching about contraception.”

So I don’t have a say in what happens to my child/foetus? My ex-girlfriend had an abortion without asking my opinion, without telling me and without considering that maybe I’d at least want to talk over the future of a child I helped create.

I got told afterwards, in a completely off hand casual way. If you ever experience similar, I’ll bet you revisit the above statement.

As an athiest I think abortion is a human rights issue – if we can’t tell when the foetus becomes “human” how can we get rid of “it”?

My experience of abortion was a very dehumanising one from all angles. If she had kept the baby I’d have been obliged (rightly) to contribute to my childs welfare, but I don’t get a say in whether my child is born?

For a long time I hated my ex for that.

P8ddy if you could carry the foetus to term then maybe you would be entitled to more of a say. Until that happens we have to respect the wishes of the person doing the heavy lifting.

I would suggest that the foetus is not considered human until it is out of the host.

p8ddy, harsh though this might sound.

If your ex carried the child to term against what she wanted, do you think she wouldn’t hate you? Having seen kids brought up where there is not so much indifference but hatred between parents it is not a good place to be. Kids always know the truth however much you try and hide it.

It really is a no win situation to be in.

I would suggest that the foetus is not considered human until it is out of the host.

I take it that isn’t based on scientific fact ?

Presumably in your opinion something “magical” happens, and at the moment of birth the previously unhuman foetus suddenly and mysteriously becomes human ?

It’s almost as if a miracle has taken place, in fact I can’t think of any other way of describing it.

Given a significant number of abortion services have been shown as unable or unwilling to follow existing abortion laws , that despite the leaps forward in contraception and safe sex, the number of abortions has increased tenfold since abortion was legalised, and that half the premature babies born at the current cut off point of 24 weeks survive, then perhaps looking again at the legal position is a good idea.

Considering the British Isle’s and perhaps the planet is already overpopulated are you suggesting we should take a route that would lead to an increase in the birth rate?