Keep abortion out of Ireland

hattoncracker wrote: »

Im not getting into an argument with you. Im safe in the knowledge that one day it will be legalised fully, whether you like it or not because this society is moving away from the church.

Goodnight and farewell..

You've said one thing I agree with there - one day it will be legalised fully. For me, that seems sadly inevitable.

Let me say though that if you support abortion then you should do it for reasons other than to have a pop at the Catholic church. For me, the Church's opposition to abortion isn't the reason why I'm against it. I disagree with the church on contraception and homosexuality - but abortion... I just cannot agree with that, my heart, my conscience tells me that it is wrong. My heart goes out to any woman who may be considering it as an option.

Deank wrote: »

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What has waiting until marriage got to do with abortion, don't bring STD's into it that's a different debate, one which I do agree with you on :eek:,

There's a causual relationship between how people have regarded sexuality and the emergence of abortion which unfortunately I think is inevitable.

If people reject waiting until marriage, limiting themselves to one partner, and expressing sexuality when they feel that they are able to deal with the risk of unplanned pregnancy by bringing a child into the world, then of course there will be a perceived need for abortion.

It's a slippery slope. A few posts ago you said to me that I wasn't on the same planet, but actually there's a clear improvement in this respect over the secular sexual ethics that we've given ourselves over the past few decades.

drkpower wrote: »

That entire paragraph is flawed, especially the bit in bold.

The threat to the mother's life must be substantial. And noone has defined that term, not the courts, not the legislature, not the medical bodies. Aside from the rights & wrongs of the current debate, that is one of the chief difficulties with the current position vis-a-vis the law in Ireland.

There are two separate scenarios here. One is a case where a woman requires life saving treatment which may, as a side effect, result in the termination of the pregnancy. No doctor would hesitate to do this, even if it was certain that it would result in the death of the unborn child. This can't be considered abortion by any measure.

The second is a case where an doctor believes that he or she needs to carry out an abortion to save the life of a woman. This is provided for in the X case but has never been legislated for, probably because our elected representatives are afraid to go anywhere near it. I think the point that Festus is making is that it is difficult to see what examples would fall into the second category (aside from the risk of suicide, which was found to be a substantial risk in the X case). Personally I don't know enough about it to say one way or the other.

Plowman wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Well the argument is that no one has the right to interfere with a person's bodily privacy, even if this results in the death of another person.

Most people would accept the concept of bodily privacy outside of the context of abortion. No one has a right to, for example, perform an invasive operation on your without your consent. No one has the right to stop you having an operation on your body if you want to. You, and you, alone decide what happens to your body. If you choosing not to allow something to happen to your body results in the death of someone else (e.g. refusing to give blood) then that is a shame but does not supersede your right to bodily privacy.

How that argument extends to the mother is that she has complete control over her body and if she wants to, essentially, kick the baby out of her body, then she can. You can't stop her because she has the right to do anything to her body. No right to life the baby may or may not have supersedes the mothers right to be able to do what ever she likes with her body and to refuse to have any thing done to her body without her consent. You cannot stop her performing an operation on her body (ie the abortion).

The issues with this argument is that it takes a principle from one argue where the principle makes almost intuitive sense (you have the right to bodily privacy and have the right to perform or refuse any action that effects your body) and applies it to a highly emotional argument of parental responsibility, ie which rights as a person does someone essentially give up when it comes to their children.

For example it is easy to argue that everyone has the right to liberty in respect to movement, ie they can go anywhere they want for what ever reason and should not be confined to particular areas by force. If I want to take a holiday to Kerry I can, if you stop me it is kidnapping or illegal arrest. I can't though take a holiday to Kerry while abandoning my children in my house for a week without food. I have a responsibility of care to my children that supersedes any personal liberty I have for freedom of movement.

The question of whether parental responsibility supersedes the right to bodily privacy is both fascinating and extremely difficult, one I've not yet formed a solid position on.

The ethical questions it raises go beyond abortion. For example can a mother or father refuse to give blood to save the life of their child (some religious organisations would strongly argue they should be able to refuse to do this and no one has the right to brake their bodily privacy to make them). Can a mother or father refuse to provide things like marrow transplants to their children. Again many would argue that they can because they can refuse any operation on their body.

Some what ironically the notion that parental responsibility does not in fact supersede bodily privacy seems stronger after the child is born, rather than before.

So irrespective of the question of whether the fetus is a person with rights, the bodily privacy argument is not easy to argue either way. I think anyone who is anti-abortion needs to have a good think about the bodily privacy argument and come up with a sound ethical argument as to why bodily privacy is not supreme in this area, that extends beyond simply pregnancy (ie I would see it as difficult to impossible to argue a woman has no right to abort her baby but does have the right to refuse to give blood to her baby.)

Having not made my mind up quite yet I would be interested in this arguments.