March For Choice 29th Sept 2pm the Spire.

Malari

Ellsbells wrote: »

They arent rare wnough - they should be banned. I could feel my baby move at 17 weeks very distinctly. Makes me sick to think of what a 24 week embryo goes through.

Yeah, I agree that it's very late, I think it's probably unnecessary to have abortions available at 24 weeks. And if they are so infrequent at this stage maybe it's grounds for having the limit brought down another few weeks.

Honey-ec

gara wrote: »

Being in utero doesn't make a child less human in any circumstance, just more or less developed.

An embryo does not need to be 'viable outside the womb' before it can be considered human, as you alleged

That's where most pro-choice and pro-life people part ways - the potential for life does not equate to an actual person, imo.

But I accept that the two sides are never going to agree on this.

Piste

Ellsbells wrote: »

They arent rare wnough - they should be banned. I could feel my baby move at 17 weeks very distinctly. Makes me sick to think of what a 24 week embryo goes through.

They don't really "go through" anything at that age though, they have no self-awareness or ability to feel pain so they wouldn't know that they had a life to lose in the first place.

RDM_83 again

Ellsbells wrote: »

They arent rare wnough - they should be banned. I could feel my baby move at 17 weeks very distinctly. Makes me sick to think of what a 24 week embryo goes through.

Piste wrote: »

They don't really "go through" anything at that age though, they have no self-awareness or ability to feel pain so they wouldn't know that they had a life to lose in the first place.

Yeah the graph is informative but lacking raw figures it hides the fact that even 1-5% of 196,000 is a substantial number.

Self-Awareness would be a very uncertain criteria especially as its so difficult to define (1), e.g new born babies can be argued not to be self aware until a certain point of development.

In relation to pain, this is also an area of uncertainty at least in relation to abortions on the upper limit of the UK regulations.
Premature babies born at 26 weeks have show facial responses to pain and hormonal responses to pain at 23 weeks, before the development of certain connections in the brain the actual 'perception of pain' might be absent though (2). Fairly rapid response to trauma also occurs from 18 weeks onwards (3) (not necessarily 'pain' though). I'd argue that at least in the context of the extremest late term abortions allowed in the UK a blanket statement that 'they' don't really go through anything is at the least uncertain without clarification.


1 - http://cogprints.org/231/1/199712004.html
2 - http://www.helsinki.fi/science/eeg/www%20no%20templates/Sampsan%20paperit%20PDFs/2000%20fetalpain.pdf
3- http://65.57.252.248/abortion/fetal_pain/BJOGfetalpain1999.pdf

Sorry for dragging this thread of topic.

RDM_83 again

Honey-ec wrote: »

That's where most pro-choice and pro-life people part ways - the potential for life does not equate to an actual person, imo.

But I accept that the two sides are never going to agree on this.

Very interesting and controversial paper here (and its in The BMJ so not exactly YD ) that rephrases the argument about personhood in a manner thats quite challenging whatever your views are (this post probably won;t get thanked though as I'm dragging even further off-topic but I would highly recommend it as a read)

http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full.pdf+html

Wompa1

Where I am now they just passed a law that made it a criminal offense to abort a child after 20 weeks. But a different city launched a federal appeal and got the law yanked until further review. The law allows later term abortions in cases where the woman is in danger.

Since this is mostly pro-abortion on this thread, what do you think the legal limit should be? 5 months seems like a long time to me...Personally and I'm a guy and have been told time and time again my opinion is not valid but personally I would say 5 weeks should be the cut off point. 6 weeks the baby seems pretty well formed already with spine, facial features and the heart is pumping blood.

lazygal

Wompa1 wrote: »

Personally and I'm a guy and have been told time and time again my opinion is not valid but personally I would say 5 weeks should be the cut off point. 6 weeks the baby seems pretty well formed already with spine, facial features and the heart is pumping blood.

My pregnancy was confirmed when I was over five weeks. We were trying to get pregnant but I had no symptoms and at least six negative pregnancy tests. It was only confirmed I was pregnant when I was in hospital for another proceedure, and even after this a home pregnancy test came up negative. So its perfectly possible for someone to do tests, get a negative result even after several weeks, and believe they are not pregnant, especially since a lot of the minor symptoms of early pregnancy mirror period symptoms.

So for me, five or six weeks is an incredibly tight timeframe. Given the logistics of an Irish woman finding out she is actually pregnant, then needing to organise flights, time off work, find a clinic in the UK, well I shudder to think what would happen if the safety valve of UK clinics introduced such a restriction. If I didn't want to continue my pregnancy, I'd have had a week to get organised, and I was doing tests that still showed I wasn't pregnant. It could easily have been over six weeks before I would have found out.

eviltwin

lazygal wrote: »

My pregnancy was confirmed when I was over five weeks. We were trying to get pregnant but I had no symptoms and at least six negative pregnancy tests. It was only confirmed I was pregnant when I was in hospital for another proceedure, and even after this a home pregnancy test came up negative. So its perfectly possible for someone to do tests, get a negative result even after several weeks, and believe they are not pregnant, especially since a lot of the minor symptoms of early pregnancy mirror period symptoms.

So for me, five or six weeks is an incredibly tight timeframe. Given the logistics of an Irish woman finding out she is actually pregnant, then needing to organise flights, time off work, find a clinic in the UK, well I shudder to think what would happen if the safety valve of UK clinics introduced such a restriction. If I didn't want to continue my pregnancy, I'd have had a week to get organised, and I was doing tests that still showed I wasn't pregnant. It could easily have been over six weeks before I would have found out.

Even for women in the Uk who don't have to travel this would be very tight. Its not the case that most women know they are pregnant in the first few weeks, many don't. I didn't find out I was pregnant with my first child until 4 months, I was still having periods and had no symptoms at all. A lot of women don't have a typical cycle that they would be able to tell when a period is due.

Malari

eviltwin wrote: »

Even for women in the Uk who don't have to travel this would be very tight. Its not the case that most women know they are pregnant in the first few weeks, many don't. I didn't find out I was pregnant with my first child until 4 months, I was still having periods and had no symptoms at all. A lot of women don't have a typical cycle that they would be able to tell when a period is due.

This is the scariest thing I've read in some time. :eek:

xDramaxQueenx

eviltwin wrote: »

I didn't find out I was pregnant with my first child until 4 months, I was still having periods .

The exact same thing happened my mom when she was pregnant with me. She was 4 months pregnant before she even realised.

LegacyUser

Wompa1 wrote: »

Where I am now they just passed a law that made it a criminal offense to abort a child after 20 weeks. But a different city launched a federal appeal and got the law yanked until further review. The law allows later term abortions in cases where the woman is in danger.

Since this is mostly pro-abortion on this thread, what do you think the legal limit should be? 5 months seems like a long time to me...Personally and I'm a guy and have been told time and time again my opinion is not valid but personally I would say 5 weeks should be the cut off point. 6 weeks the baby seems pretty well formed already with spine, facial features and the heart is pumping blood.

I use to work in a doctors office and a woman came in one day saying she had a pain in her stomach, turns out she was in labour and she didn't even know she was pregnant. Thankfully she delivered ok and her and her partner were happy though in shock for the first few months. It's very rare to not know your pregnant at all but it does happen. It's far more common not to know until 6 to 7 weeks. Women who don't have regular periods might not notice or some women [like the example above] have normal periods even when pregnant. Unless your trying really hard for a baby and checking all the time it is not uncommon for someone to not be aware until after 5 weeks.

24 weeks is usually the max cut off in most developed countries, with abortions after that only happening for emergency reasons. From 24 weeks the survival rate of the fetus outside the womb increase significantly. For most developed countries like Sweden for example it is the choice of the woman up to 18 weeks. For 18 to 22 weeks she would need to seek permission from the National board of health and welfare and abortions after that limit are, firstly very rare and secondly only in cases were the life of mother and/or baby are in danger. Currently nearly 90% of abortions in Sweden are carried out by the 9th week of pregnancy.

For Irish women sadly early term abortions are rarely an option. A high number of clinics in the UK won't give chemical abortions to Irish women thus forcing them to have invasive medical procedures but for many Irish women the time it takes to get the money to pay for flights and hotels plus arrange time off work means they have no choice but to have a surgical procedure. It's not as simple as just booking holiday time as many need to hide the reason why they need to travel from family and friends due to the stigma Irish people place on those who've had abortions. Many are women who already have children and can't afford more and they need to make arrangements for the kids to be looked after and most just don't have the money needed and it takes them time to rise it. There is a danger now of women ordering abortion pills of the internet and taking them at home with no knowledge of what they are taking or what is going to happen to them. Many are looking for abortion to be legal Ireland for the safety and health of Irish women. Be aware abortions are happening, wither they are traveling to the UK and risking their health by having no post-abortion care or attempting something very unsafe in their own homes. Its not about making abortion legal, it's about making it safe.

And for the record no one is 'pro-abortion'. There is a reason people say pro-choice because it is about choice not about forcing one option and one option only on women. This view that certain groups are forcing abortions on women and that there is an "abortion industry' is just stupid. Yes there are countries like China that have forced abortions but that is the very opposite of what is means to be pro-choice. I know many women who personal would not opt to have an abortion but know it's a choice they've made and other women should be able to make that choice. Also you don't know what is going to happen in the future, you don't know the what where and how of a pregnancy until it happens. It could be the result of rape or you could be told like many Irish women have been that the baby you want is pretty much dead in the womb. There is a hospital in Liverpool that only deals with abortion in cases of fatal fetal anomalies and they get on average two women from Ireland a week.

People like to stir up frenzies over sex selective abortions without bothering to educate themselves on where and why those happen. In many countries women are still viewed as second class citizens and property and female babies are a burden to a family as they must provide a dowery when she marries and she cannot inherit the family farm/business. Her sole role is to marry and when she does she becomes part of the husbands family. So yes sex selective abortions are happening in some countries but what they fail to tell you is before ultra sounds and abortion services came around many female babies were killed at birth. People become too= focused on the procedure of the abortion and how that is 'evil' they don't look at the larger picture in these countries, of the rates of female infanticide in previous years and the correlation between rates dropping and the rise of abortion procedures. A whole generation of women are missing in these countries but they are missing due to culture and superstition. You find the same thing with the disabled, where villages think they've brought a curse on the village or are the result of evil spirits entering the mother because she looked at the moon during an eclipse. Education is what is needed in these countries and it is sadly something that is not going to be fixed overnight.

Will there be people who opt to abort due to gender or disability regardless of being better educated? Maybe, sadly we can't go inside everyones head and figure out what they are thinking. I don't pretend to understand why some people would opt for that choice but I also don't understand why some people abuse their own children. I personally don't understand couples who have a second baby as pretty much a spare parts machine for a sick older sibling but it happens. There will always be those who abuse systems and push peoples moral buttons more but we shouldn't deny thousands access to safe medical procedures because a handful will abuse that system.

Education is, as nearly always, the key everywhere. Ireland could drastically reduce the demand for abortions if we just implemented a better reproductive health care education policy but many of those campaigning against safe abortion services also don't want better access to contraception or better sex education. We need to get rid of the old wives tales that are still floating around and empower women and men with knowledge and smack of common sense.

Morag

Poster making for the March for Choice 2
Public event · By Unlike Youth Defence, I trust women to decide their lives for themselves.

Thursday, 27 September 2012
18:30 until 20:45
Exactly what the title sounds like: A second chance to come hang out, have fun and make cool posters and banners for us to carry at the march!

Wibbs

xDramaxQueenx wrote: »

The exact same thing happened my mom when she was pregnant with me. She was 4 months pregnant before she even realised.

Happened with my maternal grandmother when she had my uncle. Only worse. She was shopping in Dublin city centre when she felt very weak with stomach pains and went to casualty only to be told she was in labour. Full term too. He came out at 7 pounds in old money. She was a tall woman in her prime. A 6 footer. Now if she had been a big woman overall you might understand not noticing, but she was a slim woman with it. She had only put on something like a stone and just thought maybe she was eating more than usual as her appetite had gone up, but that was the only symptom.:eek: All went well though and the uncle was duly born, not long after she arrived in the hospital. This being way back in the day, my grandfather was called at work, but hearing she and the baby were OK finished out his shift. :eek: Then again she was one tough cookie so likely told him not to bother she had it under control.

xDramaxQueenx

Wibbs wrote: »

Happened with my maternal grandmother when she had my uncle. Only worse. She was shopping in Dublin city centre when she felt very weak with stomach pains and went to casualty only to be told she was in labour. Full term too. He came out at 7 pounds in old money. She was a tall woman in her prime. A 6 footer. Now if she had been a big woman overall you might understand not noticing, but she was a slim woman with it. She had only put on something like a stone and just thought maybe she was eating more than usual as her appetite had gone up, but that was the only symptom.:eek: All went well though and the uncle was duly born, not long after she arrived in the hospital. This being way back in the day, my grandfather was called at work, but hearing she and the baby were OK finished out his shift. :eek: Then again she was one tough cookie so likely told him not to bother she had it under control.

:eek:


That's absolutely hardcore, jesus. It's scary realising that these things actually happen and aren't just stories in trashy magazines.

eviltwin

Malari wrote: »

This is the scariest thing I've read in some time. :eek:

I was very young at the time though, my doctor said its common enough in teen pregnancies, your cycle hasn't really settled and you're not as in tune with your body as you might be when you are older. But yeah, it was a total shock alright

desolate sun

It's OK to call yourself a feminist and be Pro-Life.

Have a look at this article on Pro-Life feminism. http://www.theliberal.co.uk/issue_9/politics/fof_hoskings_9.html

Pro-life feminism has emerged as a distinctive current, voicing the concerns of those who have been marginalised by the mainstream....Labour Life Group, informed me that mainstream feminist publishers refused to publish an anthology of writings by ‘pro-life’ feminists. ‘Pro-choice’ supporters have written of ‘pro-life’ feminism in a critical manner, but have not allowed these women to speak for themselves. If the voices of all women count, should we not be more tolerant of nonconformity?

Reading this article, it reflects the way pro-life people are treated, especially in this forum. We are all lumped in with the Youth Defence gang. If only people could be put into easily identifiable boxes, life would be so much simpler. Just as pro-choice people aren't all baby-hating monsters, pro-life people aren't all Catholic-preaching misogynists.

A false consensus has been drawn between Left and Right on this issue, especially in the United States, where support for abortion rights is a litmus test of one’s liberal credentials. The terrain is less heated in Britain, but abortion is still a divisive issue. Emily’s List, the all-women shortlist for Labour Party MPs, deliberately excluded ‘pro-life’ women. The criterion to be accepted as a candidate was being in favour of “a woman’s right to choose”.

Morag

I do know people who are pro choice and who are not feminists and I do know anti abortion feminists. There is nothing stopping you starting a thread about anti abortion feminist.

iguana

Ellsbells wrote: »

They arent rare wnough - they should be banned. I could feel my baby move at 17 weeks very distinctly. Makes me sick to think of what a 24 week embryo goes through.

First off it's not an embryo, from 11-12 weeks (9-10 gestation) when the placenta matures and takes over the life support functions from the corpus lutem the embryo is classed as a foetus. It remains a foetus from that point until birth. Secondly they don't go through anything as in late term abortion the foetal heart is stopped in advance of the surgery by the administration of an injection. The foetus 'suffers' less than a dog or cat being put to sleep.

Thirdly the vast, vast majority of late term abortions happen for medical reasons. They are usually undertaken by women who actually wanted the baby but have made the heartbreaking choice to end the pregnancy due to health conditions present in the foetus which have only been detected and confirmed from 20-22 weeks onward. The second most common reason for late term abortion is when the life or long-term health of the mother is threatened by continuing with the pregnancy. Again these are usually cases where the baby was wanted. It's extremely, extremely rare for a woman to get so far into a pregnancy and choose to abort. It does happen but it's a small percentage of a small percentage.

It's also worth noting that just because the foetus is moving it doesn't mean that it has awareness. For the majority of the pregnancy, those movements are pretty much just involuntary movements caused by the development of muscle mass or a physical reaction to something the mother has just eaten or drank. There is not yet any absolute certainty about when a foetus has developed the awareness necessary to feel pain but it seems to be emerging that before 26 weeks it's highly unlikely that their brains are developed enough to feel pain and even then they don't seem to really process pain until after birth.

We have a major tendency to anthropomorphise the unborn. It's a fairly natural thing to do, they look like tiny oddly shaped humans, they can appear to behave like tiny humans and they are in fact potential humans who may very well eventually come to develop the thoughts and feelings that we project on to them. Imagining that they already have those traits is unsurprising, especially when we have an emotional connection to a particular foetus. But those are just our projections and have nothing at all to do with what the foetus is actually (not) thinking and feeling. For expectant mothers this is probably an important part of the bonding process and I don't doubt that there is a hormonal surge at play increasing the bond the mother has to the foetus. This is a good thing for both the mother and the baby in survival terms. But when we fail to look at what it is from an objective stand point and use what is an emotional response as an argument to deny women a choice, despite the best scientific knowledge we currently have showing us that it's just an emotional response then we are on dangerous ground.

Morag

Don't forget the Fun Fundraiser is on Tomorrow in the Sugarclub, 8pm tickets are 10 euro.
https://www.facebook.com/events/151641771641826/

Morag

Great night last night, the sugar club was full great to be there laughing with other pro choice people.

Morag

The route for the March has gone up.

This is a celebration of being pro-choice! A day of being pro-choice and proud, speaking up and speaking out, making our voices heard. Come and celebrate with us!

Event will Kick off at 2pm there will be face painters and performers, people are welcome to be their kids if they want to.

krudler

wonder if they'll be much opposition support from Youth Defence, they're whinging about the march on their facebook page, wont make this as am working but its good to see its getting such strong support.

rainbow kirby

Very similar to the Dublin Pride route. Not bad

Morag

krudler wrote: »

wonder if they'll be much opposition support from Youth Defence, they're whinging about the march on their facebook page, wont make this as am working but its good to see its getting such strong support.

The plan is to pretty much ignore them if there is a counter protest, to not engage to keep on with the march and the chants, there will be stewards for the march to make sure it keeps moving.

Morag

If you can't make the March then this may be another option for you
or you could attend both and make it a choice themed weekend

krudler

Sharrow wrote: »

The plan is to pretty much ignore them if there is a counter protest, to not engage to keep on with the march and the chants, there will be stewards for the march to make sure it keeps moving.

I'm sure there'll be some waving their dismembered foetus placards and screaming babykillers at people. hopefully it all stays civil.

Morag

krudler wrote: »

I'm sure there'll be some waving their dismembered foetus placards and screaming babykillers at people. hopefully it all stays civil.

I don't see why it wouldn't be, the choice counter protest at the rally for life stayed civil.

krudler

Sharrow wrote: »

I don't see why it wouldn't be, the choice counter protest at the rally for life stayed civil.

Ah its just an emotive issue is all, tempers flare, names thrown etc. there's been a few clashes at marches before on both sides.

Morag

The March is well organised, there will be plenty of stewards, before it leaves the spire people will be asked to be respectful and civil and the stewards will do their best to make that the case.

I honestly don't know why you seem to think there will be clashes or why you are worried about it.

Morag

Venue for the screening has moved to Filmbase in Temple bar due to the numbers who have said they are going.