Abortion Discussion

Sorry I didn't add more than a C&P and a link earlier, I had to run out the door.

I'm interested in Mrs Smyth's denial of harrassment - She's been accused of harrassing women and girls outside of the FPA for years but always denied it. And here she is caught red handed both harrassing women and taunting about harrassing women, and then lying to the police about it and then saying it was a "joke" when confronted with the CCTV of it. I suspect she genuinely believes she is isn't harrassing anyone even when she's doing it and saying that she's doing it, because what's a bit of harrassment when oh da poor wee babbies are being slaughtered?

Funnily enough I had cause and opportunity to use the services of the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast over the summer but completely forgot that it existed and so waited until I got home to the Netherlands. It was only to get an expensive contraceptive device that isn't covered by my insurance installed but I wonder if I'd have been hassled by the pro life protestors too?

Lingua Franca wrote: »

Sorry I didn't add more than a C&P and a link earlier, I had to run out the door.

I'm interested in Mrs Smyth's denial of harrassment - She's been accused of harrassing women and girls outside of the FPA for years but always denied it. And here she is caught red handed both harrassing women and taunting about harrassing women, and then lying to the police about it and then saying it was a "joke" when confronted with the CCTV of it. I suspect she genuinely believes she is isn't harrassing anyone even when she's doing it and saying that she's doing it, because what's a bit of harrassment when oh da poor wee babbies are being slaughtered?

Funnily enough I had cause and opportunity to use the services of the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast over the summer but completely forgot that it existed and so waited until I got home to the Netherlands. It was only to get an expensive contraceptive device that isn't covered by my insurance installed but I wonder if I'd have been hassled by the pro life protestors too?

Probably. I once got spat at going into the IFP clinic in Cathal Brugha Street for a breast check. They don't care, was reading some of the pro life FB pages and they are genuine in their opinion that Smyth is doing "god's work". Where was God today, he wasn't looking out for her in court. Sadly she might be no longer a threat but there are many others only too willing to step into her shoes and take her place.

eviltwin wrote: »

Probably. I once got spat at going into the IFP clinic in Cathal Brugha Street for a breast check. They don't care, was reading some of the pro life FB pages and they are genuine in their opinion that Smyth is doing "god's work". Where was God today, he wasn't looking out for her in court. Sadly she might be no longer a threat but there are many others only too willing to step into her shoes and take her place.

I saw that picture on her page, or on her support page, which said something like "Even if you tell lies about me, slander my name or take me to court I will defend the unborn".

Well, she was taken to court where it was proved beyond doubt and with substantial physical evidence that she was telling lies and slandering people.

Just a quick update regarding the case brought on behalf of the child born with foetal alcohol syndrome in UK - dismissed by court of appeal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30327893

Absolam wrote: »

I wonder will they take it to the Supreme Court. GLP Solicitors seem to be treating it as a test case so you'd imagine they always intended it to go as far as possible to pave the way for their other cases.

Someone cynical might suggest that as they have another 80 FAS sufferers on their books the potential financial upside of a win in the SC might make the risk worthwhile.

MrP

MrPudding wrote: »

Someone cynical might suggest that as they have another 80 FAS sufferers on their books the potential financial upside of a win in the SC might make the risk worthwhile.

Someone would have to be so blinded by cynicism, in fact, that they would make the assumption that the reported 80 potential claimants are all "on the books" of GLP solicitors, and that GLP has an interest in the success of those 80 potential cases. They aren't, and it doesn't.

The nominal claimant in this case, CP, is seven years old and has been in the care of the local authority since shortly after her birth, and will remain so indefinitely. It was the local authority that decided to bring the claim on her behalf. Most of the other 80 potential claimants will also be children in the care of different local authorities. If you're looking for people who have a financial interest in securing criminal injuries compensation for these children - other than the children themselves, of course - it's the local authorities, not the solicitors.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Someone would have to be so blinded by cynicism, in fact, that they would make the assumption that the reported 80 potential claimants are all "on the books" of GLP solicitors, and that GLP has an interest in the success of those 80 potential cases. They aren't, and it doesn't.

The nominal claimant in this case, CP, is seven years old and has been in the care of the local authority since shortly after her birth, and will remain so indefinitely. It was the local authority that decided to bring the claim on her behalf. Most of the other 80 potential claimants will also be children in the care of different local authorities. If you're looking for people who have a financial interest in securing criminal injuries compensation for these children - other than the children themselves, of course - it's the local authorities, not the solicitors.

Just to be clear, I would not be one of those people. A solicitor's job is to secure the best deal for his or her client. Of course, depending on the nature of the agreement with the client, the solicitor does have a certain amount of self interest in a good verdict, and even though I am not necessarily cynical, I would expect the solicitor to consider likelyhood of success, with its potential upside for them them and the client, against chance of failure, which could be expensive for both solicitor and client.

And one quick point, the article does say that the firm represents 80 other children suffering from FAS.

MrP

MrPudding wrote: »

And one quick point, the article does say that the firm represents 80 other children suffering from FAS.

MrP

You're quite right. My apologies.

TheChizler wrote: »

Could the law possibly be applied retroactively in this case? The foetus could be considered a person for the purposes of the crime if and only if they were born at some stage? It's clearly irresponsible to drink heavily if you intend to bring a foetus to full term. But if a birth is what makes the act a crime then you could get cases with the birth being continued against the wishes of the mother, in cases where they weren't able to access abortion services etc. You could say it's a crime where they intended to go to full term and did, but how do you go about proving that kind of intent? I know proving intent comes up in courts all the time but I feel this would be a very tricky one.

In Ireland as the constitution provides to protect the unborn I wonder how such a case would go here, especially as there is no access to abortion for those who don't want to continue a pregnancy unless your life is at risk.

I wonder how it would play out if a couple knew the risks of a child having an inherited condition were high, eg cystic fibrosis, and had a child knowing the risks who then had the disease. Would such a child deserve compensation for the risks his or her parents took?

lazygal wrote: »

I wonder how it would play out if a couple knew the risks of a child having an inherited condition were high, eg cystic fibrosis, and had a child knowing the risks who then had the disease. Would such a child deserve compensation for the risks his or her parents took?

I suppose firstly as far as I'm aware no one has ever been prosecuted for deliberately having a child with a high probability of a congenital disorder, so that's an indication of how it currently plays out. So something would have to change that for a start.

If it did then I think two factors would have to be considered;
The first would be the probability of harm. For instance, with cystic fibrosis, even if both parents are carriers the possibility is only 25%. For the parents to be considered in some way culpable of a malicious act, I would think the harm would at least have to be probable (ie more than a 50% chance) if not very probable.
The second would be act itself. In the case of someone poisoning a child in utero, there is a person taking a specific action which causes harm to another (if it were to be considered the case) person. In the case of the inherited deficiency/disease, the act (of conception) necessarily occurs before the (putative) victim exists; much as may be found to be the situation in the FAS case.

lazygal wrote: »

In Ireland as the constitution provides to protect the unborn I wonder how such a case would go here

Very awkwardly for all concerned, I suspect! It would tend to unpick the fudge implicit in the constitution that "the unborn" is a rights-bearing entity but not actually a person (or else a lesser class of person, if you prefer that theory).

In the event that a court found a foetus to have full, equal rights of personhood, I think the "awkwardness" would escalate to "crisis" levels.

especially as there is no access to abortion for those who don't want to continue a pregnancy unless your life is at risk.

That would seem to rule out the idea of abortion being the "last reasonable chance to prevent such a contingency", certainly. Though in the UK there's a no point any presumptive right to an abortion anyway (unlike various other places, for first trimester or so especially), so there too that would seem problematic.

It’s worth remembering that, in the CP case, at no point was the mother charged with a crime, and SFAIK nobody has suggested that the authorities ought to have charged her.

CP was arguing that a crime had been committed because, basically, she had to argue that to have any hope of winning any compensation. But it’s only because of the structure of the criminal injuries compensation legislation that the case had to be framed in that way.

What we are talking about here is the responsibility of mothers-to-be to the children they are carrying, and obviously the criminal law isn’t the only way that we can express societal views about what that responsibility is and how it ought to be discharged.

We don’t have a huge amount of detail about the circumstances of this case; in the interest of protecting CP and her identity not a lot of hard information has been revealed. But we do know that, when CP was born, her mother was 17 years old and already had one child, and that she was drinking half a bottle of vodka and eight cans of lager a day, as well as consuming other unspecified drugs.

That’s appalling. That’s a near-hopeless situation, and you have to assume that behind it is a horrifying story about how the girl got into that situation. And there is at least the possibility that she, in her turn, is herself the victim of some dreadful parental abuse, neglect or incompetence. In this situation the criminal law is a fairly blunt instrument, and not necessarily an effective one. If it were a crime to drink to excess while pregnant, do we really think that would deter a damaged and despairing 17-year old in the grip of hopeless alcoholism? There may well be actions that we as a society can and should take to try and remedy this situation and to protect unborn children, but I seriously doubt that criminalising drinking while pregnant has much of a role to play.

If, for the sake of argument, you do want to address this matter through the criminal law, it doesn’t follow that you have to identify the foetus as a “person”. There are lots of crimes that are not committed against “persons”. Civil liberties concerns aside, the legislature could make it a crime to consume, while knowing yourself to be pregnant, alcohol in quantities that are known to be harmful to foetal development. Just as, say, dangerous driving can be prosecuted even if nobody is injured, drinking while pregnant could be prosecuted even if the child is born without FAS, or miscarries for unrelated or unknown reasons (though of course in both cases a prosecution is in practice more likely where somebody is in fact injured). This doesn’t have to be about whether the foetus is a “person”. And if we actually want to address the problem effectively it’s probably wise not to make foetal personhood the focus of whatever it is we try to do; that would embroil it in an existing toxic public policy debate, and pretty much guarantee no progress.

I agree that the case describes a horrendous situation, and it's one which many would immediately feel should be the subject of some rule of law, as fraught as such a proposition is likely to be.

But it's the issue of whether a court might agree that an offense against a person had been committed, and what the ramification of such a finding might be for the UKs exisiting abortion circumstances that brought it into the scope of this thread.

So, off topic, I'm personally not convinced that addressing such situations as the case describes through criminal sanctions would either prevent them occurring, or ameliorate their effects, but I suppose the same argument could be made against criminal penalties in general. Nor do I think that extending the definition of personhood, even partially, so that existing assault type legislation can be brought to bear would be an efficient way of addressing the problem.
The purpose of the entire case, as Peregrinus points out, is not to sanction the mother for her actions, though I'm sure some would agree that it would be appropriate to do so. It is to secure sufficient financial aid from the State to enable the child to live as meaningful a life as possible despite the disadvantage she has been placed under. My thought would be that the case serves to highlight the fact that a compassionate society should enact legislation and funding to facilitate that aid, without requiring recourse to the convolutions we've been describing in this discussion.

Couple of thoughts:

Legally, victimhood was irrelevant. There was no compensation unless there was a crime; there was no crime unless poison was administered to a "person", not to a "victim".

But, yes, we can certainly consider CP to be a victim. CP foetal development was impaired by alcohol absorbed through the maternal blood supply. Any medical practitioner will agree that this was an injury. You don't have to be a person, or even to be human, to be injured.

And we can say that CP is still a victim, since she still lives with the consequences of impaired development. She is a victim who has since become a person.

With respect, I don't think sentience is relevant. Firstly, the mother drank throughout the pregnancy, and CP was certainly sentient in the later stages of the pregnancy, so at least some of the time while injury was being inflicted CP was sentient, albeit not aware of or capable of appreciating the injury being done to her. (Unless alcohol is only harmful during the early stages of pregnancy? But I don't think that is the case.)

But, secondly, I don't think you have to be sentient to be a victim; you just have to be injured. Suppose CP was so profoundly developmentally affected by FAS that she never developed to the point of sentience, but was born insentient? Suppose CP was an insentient adult - in a coma, say - and I killed her? In either of those cases would you say that there was no victim?