Abortion Discussion

lazygal

Richard do you think the right to travel to kill an unborn child should be repealed?

Brian Shanahan

because basically they blow all your arguments out of the water.

The first article is on the phenomenon of anti-abortion campaign women getting abortions. And the question you have to ask yourself is "are my points worth anything when even those who agree with me take the action I am trying to prevent when faced with a crisis pregnancy?" And clearly the answer is no. So if you are truthful and honest you have to admit your arguments in this debate are worthless.

The second article speaks about the dangers of criminalising abortion (which many countries have done). And the question here is, "Am I willing to live with the blood of 48,000 women dying every year because of my support for the criminalisation of abortions?" And if you were truly compassionate and empathetic to your fellow humans you would say "no, I am not."

The fact of the matter is that if you think having an abortion is wrong, then never have one. Nobody is forcing you to have an abortion, nor is there anybody out there in their right mind likely ever to do so; so why should you be put into a position where you can force other people not to have abortions when they feel that it is in their best interests (and maybe their children's too)? Morally and ethically you shouldn't.

Ralphdejones

SW wrote: »

a good question. as is why shouldn't the law permit a raped woman get an abortion. An abortion should have been provided at 8 weeks. The law needs to revised to stop this scenario repeating itself at some point in the future.

The law does, that's the whole point. It is not the laws fault that the no one got her to a doctor until 16 weeks

swampgas

Ralphdejones wrote: »

The law does, that's the whole point. It is not the laws fault that the no one got her to a doctor until 16 weeks

Nope. You have to prove that you're suicidal. Rape doesn't come into it.

Ralphdejones

SW wrote: »

and she went to the IFPA seeking help to get an abortion. That was as 8 weeks, which you just confirmed.

That's correct, she went to them seeking medical help. The first time she got to see a doctor was when her friend took her to the GP after 8 weeks of being messed about by the IFPA.

volchitsa wrote: »

Imuic, the IFPA have no legal right to go further than providing information. They did that, and presumably when they didn't hear back from her they logically concluded that she was in the system and her needs were being looked after.

aloyisious wrote: »

For info on the IFPA, it's a voluntary organization originally set up due to the lack of Govt involvement in abortion advice to pregnant women. Anyone deriding the IFPA for not taking the woman - now mother of a baby boy - to a GP is NOT being accurate as to what the IFPA can do. It is NOT a statutory body with powers to force anyone do something they don't want to do and it definitely cannot lead a woman directly to a GP's clinic door and push her through it. It's actions are limited to advice. Google IFPA for info.

In their RTE radio interview last week, which you can google, the IFPA admitted they can and do help people see a GP, they repeatedly refused to say why they didn't in this case.

Ralphdejones

swampgas wrote: »

Nope. You have to prove that you're suicidal. Rape doesn't come into it.

And she did prove it. So why was a suicidal person who went to the IFPA for medical help with serious medical issues, not seen by a doctor until her friend took her at 16 weeks ?

lazygal

Ralphdejones wrote: »

And she did prove it. So why was a suicidal person who went to the IFPA for medical help with serious medical issues, not seen by a doctor until her friend took her at 16 weeks ?

Do you think a termination of pregnancy on the grounds of risk to life from suicide at between8-16 weeks is acceptable?

swampgas

Ralphdejones wrote: »

And she did prove it. So why was a suicidal person who went to the IFPA for medical help with serious medical issues, not seen by a doctor until her friend took her at 16 weeks ?

That's a very good question.

(I misunderstood you to mean that abortion for rape is allowed under the law, it isn't.)

Delirium

Ralphdejones wrote: »

The law does, that's the whole point. It is not the laws fault that the no one got her to a doctor until 16 weeks

then why was there talk of travelling to the UK? If the law permits, why leave the country?

Nodin

The two State agencies charged with the care of the pregnant young asylum seeker at the centre of the latest abortion controversy were warned she was suicidal when she was 16 weeks pregnant, the Sunday Independent can reveal.
Spirasi, a group that supports victims of torture, wrote to the Department of Justice, which was responsible for the young woman, and the Health Service Executive, which provided her medical care, highlighting her condition after she was referred to them for a medical and legal assessment in June. -

The revelation raises troubling questions as to why the young woman had to wait a further two months before she was finally referred to a psychiatrist to be assessed for an abortion under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act legislation. -
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/justice-dept-and-hse-in-firing-line-on-abortion-crisis-30531662.html

Can't see this linked earlier.

volchitsa

Nodin wrote: »

The two State agencies charged with the care of the pregnant young asylum seeker at the centre of the latest abortion controversy were warned she was suicidal when she was 16 weeks pregnant, the Sunday Independent can reveal.
Spirasi, a group that supports victims of torture, wrote to the Department of Justice, which was responsible for the young woman, and the Health Service Executive, which provided her medical care, highlighting her condition after she was referred to them for a medical and legal assessment in June. -

The revelation raises troubling questions as to why the young woman had to wait a further two months before she was finally referred to a psychiatrist to be assessed for an abortion under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act legislation. -

Can't see this linked earlier.

Thanks for that. I quoted from the article earlier (actually, maybe it was in the other thread on the subject), but I don't have enough posts yet to post links.

Brown Bomber

Macha wrote: »

Because you don't make the distinction between an 8 week old foetus and a 24 week old foetus.

As far as I can see it is you who isn't making the distinction. This is the distinction that I am making:
8 Weeks - Chemical abortion of what isn't a viable infant
24 Weeks - Brutal surgical procedure on the now potentially viable infant with the intention to kill it.

Macha wrote: »

which Of course I don't wish the baby that is now alive (and no longer a foetus but actually a child) to be dead but I still think the woman should have been allowed a termination at 8 weeks.

You can't have it both ways. At 24 weeks either the child is born and has a chance at life (as was the case) and no abortion is carried out
or
the abortion is carried out and that child that is now lying in hospital is instead a series of lifeless body parts.

Which is it to be?

Macha wrote: »

As for 'having a chance at life' - by that logic, all contraception should be banned to allow the maximum number of people to have a chance at life!

:rolleyes: Yes because a newborn infant is exactly the same as a pre-fertilised egg.

Brown Bomber

SW wrote: »

and the woman requested an abortion at 8 weeks. I think it should have allowed.

OK. For the third time I am referring to the actual birth-day of "Hope", not when they were an 8 week old foetus. On his/her birthday it was not possible to go back in time to correct whatever mistakes were made. I think it is incredibly good news that this child has a chance in life despite all the odds and despite all the people who would apparently deny this baby this chance if given the opportunity.

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

OK. For the third time I am referring to the actual birth-day of "Hope", not when they were an 8 week old foetus. On his/her birthday it was not possible to go back in time to correct whatever mistakes were made. I think it is incredibly good news that this child has a chance in life despite all the odds and despite all the people who would apparently deny this baby this chance if given the opportunity.

if it's good at 24, then it must be good at 8? Or is abortion at 8 weeks is ok?

Brown Bomber

SW wrote: »

if it's good at 24, then it must be good at 8?

Not sure what you mean here. Do you not understand the differences between a foetus at 8 weeks and 24 weeks and the differences between a surgical and chemical abortion?

SW wrote: »

Or is abortion at 8 weeks is ok?

In my opinion and excluding exceptional circumstances ending the life of a potential human being is never "ok". Likewise, forcing a woman to carry a baby against her will is not "ok". So it is a dilemma, a dilemma which I personally find hard to detect which is the lesser of two evils.

irishpancake

Absolam wrote: »

I didn't say it was, but a referendum is required to amend the Constitution, which is not the same thing as delivering a judgement which is constitutional.
More specifically, the majority court ruling was that marital privacy was an unenumerated right; not specified in the constitution but inferred (this being a feature of Irish Constitutional Law, per the 1965 SC ruling, as distinct from the Constitution itself). A distinction being that rights expressed in the Constitution itself are amenable to change soley by plebistice, but unenumerated rights are not constitutionally protected.

As I said; the fact that a right is constitutional (ie lawful under the Constitution, or deriving from the Constitution) does not raise it to the position of having Constitutional protection; for what it is worth unenumerated rights are apparently guaranteed by the Constitution, but they are not protected by it. Which means that whilst an express Constitutional right may only be changed by plebistice, an unenumerated right remains in the province of the Supreme Court.
The 12th Amendment would have taken the unenumerated right determined by the Supreme Court and raised it to the level of an express right with Constitutional protection (with the exception of the provision for suicide).

My dear confused and clearly attempting to confuse and obfuscate Absolam.......

your apparent lack of understanding and/or deliberate obfuscation of the term "unenumeated", as it applies the the Irish Constitution generally, and particularly in relation to Article 40.3.3, inserted at the behest of PLAC in 1983, and interpreted by the ISC in 1992, is breathtaking.

Of course, the very opposite of what you claim is the truth.

I will explain.....

Background to 40.3.3:

Abortion is a criminal offence in Ireland under s.58 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 –> “To procure an unlawful miscarriage…”

However, after the legal prohibition of the importation and sale of contraceptives was found to be unconstitutional as a breach of an unenumerated right in ***McGee v Attorney General [1974] 1 IR 284....

fears arose that the doctrine of unenumerated rights might be stretched so as to invalidate the criminalization of abortion.

Indeed, this is what had already happened under similar provisions in the US Constitution; the right to privacy had been applied to the issue of contraception in **Griswold v Connecticut 381 U.S. 479 (1965) and this was found to legalize abortion in certain circumstances in **Roe v Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

Consequently in Ireland, a successful campaign (PLAC) resulted in the insertion of a new provision recognizing the right to life of the unborn in Article 40.3.3.

Enumerating certain rights of the unborn and the mother, guaranteeing to defend and vindicate, as far as is practicable, in it's laws, those rights so enumerated.

It provided:

“The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard for the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

This was the 8th Amendment to the Constitution and took place in 1983.

Through this campaign the vagueness of the Constitution was amended (or at least had tried to be amended)

to preclude the possibility of abortion being recognized as an extension of the right to privacy

as found in McGee with the rejection of legislation criminalizing contraceptives.

I hope I don't need to recite again all the facts of X??

Just this.....a short recitation of the relevant facts:

The Supreme Court overturned the HCt decision by a majority of four to one (Hederman J. dissenting).

The majority opinion (Finlay C.J., McCarthy, Egan and O’Flaherty J.J.) held that a woman had a right to an abortion under Article 40.3.3 if there was “…a real and substantial risk” to her life.

This right did not exist if there was a risk to her health but not her life; however it did exist if the risk was the possibility of suicide.

This allowed for the abortion to take place in Ireland.


The 1861 Act made it an offence to procure an unlawful miscarriage.

So, there are situations where it is necessary to remove a foetus to save the mother’s life.

This is the case in an ectopic pregnancy for example.

The SCt saw this as much the same thing, the unborn child’s life was for lack of a better word, doomed either way.

The SCt did emphasize that it must be a risk to the mother’s life and not merely to the mother’s health.

However, the SCt went on to say that if the mother’s life was not at risk, they would have granted the injunction, preventing her from travelling – the right to life took priority over the right to travel.

X miscarried shortly after the judgement.

The perpetrator was sentenced to 14 years in prison, reduced on appeal to 4 years.

Source for most of the above:

http://lawinireland.wordpress.com/constitutional-law/

He, Sean O'Brien, went on, after release, to rape another under-age child, in 2002.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/xcase-rapist-guilty-of-sexually-assaulting-girl-15-26053614.html

swampgas

Brown Bomber wrote: »

In my opinion and excluding exceptional circumstances ending the life of a potential human being is never "ok". Likewise, forcing a woman to carry a baby against her will is not "ok". So it is a dilemma, a dilemma which I personally find hard to detect which is the lesser of two evils.

As do most people, to a lesser or greater extent. How far to you want to allow other people to resolve that dilemma for themselves (i.e. choose for themselves if an abortion is right) or do you think the current blanket ban is reasonable ?

irishpancake

Absolam wrote: »

I didn't say it was, but a referendum is required to amend the Constitution, which is not the same thing as delivering a judgement which is constitutional.
More specifically, the majority court ruling was that marital privacy was an unenumerated right; not specified in the constitution but inferred (this being a feature of Irish Constitutional Law, per the 1965 SC ruling, as distinct from the Constitution itself). A distinction being that rights expressed in the Constitution itself are amenable to change soley by plebistice, but unenumerated rights are not constitutionally protected.

As I said; the fact that a right is constitutional (ie lawful under the Constitution, or deriving from the Constitution) does not raise it to the position of having Constitutional protection; for what it is worth unenumerated rights are apparently guaranteed by the Constitution, but they are not protected by it. Which means that whilst an express Constitutional right may only be changed by plebistice, an unenumerated right remains in the province of the Supreme Court.
The 12th Amendment would have taken the unenumerated right determined by the Supreme Court and raised it to the level of an express right with Constitutional protection (with the exception of the provision for suicide).

And, of course, your colleague in all things "Pro-Life", or more correctly, Anti-Choice, that old warrior from PLAC, Dr. Gerard Casey, is of the very firm opinion that there is no such thing at all as "unenumerated rights" in Bunreacht na hEireann

https://www.ucd.ie/philosophy/staff/gerardcasey/casey/UnenRiIrCon.pdf

If the framers of Bunreacht na hÉireann had really wanted to embed unenumerated rights in its text and give permission to the Courts to pronounce upon them, why did they not say so explicitly, especially as they had the example of Amendment IX of the US Constitution to guide them?

The United States’ Constitution explicitly acknowledges the existence of unenumerated rights.

Amendment IX reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Arguments from silence are notoriously unreliable but, given that the US Constitution is the oldest such document, given its role as a model for much that is found in Bunreacht na hÉireann, and given that it contains an amendment dealing explicitly with unenumerated rights, it is, I believe, significant, that there is no explicit advertence to them in Bunreacht na hÉireann.

That inadvertence, together with the lack of textual evidence for such rights and the obvious political problems to which they give rise, constitutes a presumption that, pace Mr Kenny’s judgement, and the concurrence of the legal establishment, unenumerated rights, except when logically necessitated by the Constitutional text, are not to be found in Bunreacht na hÉireann.

Whatever (if any) may be the rights that follow from what Kenny J calls “the Christian and democratic nature of the state”—whether and to what extent the state is or was either Christian or democratic is a moot point—they will have to derive their legal force from a source other than Bunreacht na hÉireann.

Ralphdejones

SW wrote: »

then why was there talk of travelling to the UK? If the law permits, why leave the country?

you'll have to ask the IFPA who messed her around for 8 weeks before her friend got her to a doctor

Nodin

Ralphdejones wrote: »

you'll have to ask the IFPA who messed her around for 8 weeks before her friend got her to a doctor

Things have moved on since.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=91882335&postcount=5651

Ralphdejones

Nodin wrote: »

Things have moved on since.

That still doesn't answer why did it take 2 months after she went to the IFPA for medical help with serious medical issues, before she got to see a doctor at 16 weeks ? And only then, after her friend helped her.

volchitsa

Ralphdejones wrote: »

That still doesn't answer why did it take 2 months after she went to the IFPA for medical help with serious medical issues, before she got to see a doctor at 16 weeks ? And only then after her friend brought her.

You must have missed the bit in that report that says that the IFPA contacted the HSE about her mental health several times over that period.
What exactly are you saying they should have done?

Ralphdejones

volchitsa wrote: »

You must have missed the bit in that report that says that the IFPA contacted the HSE about her mental health several times over that period.
What exactly are you saying they should have done?

If they were able to plan and organise an abortion in the UK for someone who went to them for help with a serious medical issue, and hold her off until she came up with the money, surely they could have organised for her to see a doctor here and get checked out medically for her sake ? What were they doing for 8 weeks, before her friend thankfully intervened and got her to a doctor ? The IFPA admitted in the RTE radio interview that they can and do organise sending people to the Doctor, but repeatedly refused to say why they didn't in this case.

volchitsa

Ralphdejones wrote: »

If they were able to plan and organise an abortion in the UK for someone who went to them for help with a serious medical issue, and hold her off until she came up with the money, surely they could have organised for her to see a doctor here and get checked out medically for her sake ? What were they doing for 8 weeks, before her friend thankfully intervened and got her to a doctor ? The IFPA admitted in the RTE radio interview that they can and do organise sending people to the Doctor, but repeatedly refused to say why they didn't in this case.

Because, apparently (and I'm sure you will have heard this as well as I did) one thing they are strictly banned from doing is helping with money. And it wasn't a case of waiting a few weeks till she came up with the money, she was on direct provision, I think they get 19€ /week to spend. You do the maths and see how many weeks that was going to take.

So what they did do, was contact the HSE and the DoJ, repeatedly, and asked them to do their job. Something they seem to have failed to do. But you want to criticize the IFPA. Could that possibly be because they actually do try to help women access abortions, unlike the HSE apparently?

Ralphdejones

volchitsa wrote: »

Because, apparently (and I'm sure you will have heard this as well as I did) one thing they are strictly banned from doing is helping with money. And it wasn't a case of waiting a few weeks till she came up with the money, she was on direct provision, I think they get 19€ /week to spend. You do the maths and see how many weeks that was going to take.

So what they did do, was contact the HSE and the DoJ, repeatedly, and asked them to do their job. Something they seem to have failed to do. But you want to criticize the IFPA. Could that possibly be because they actually do try to help women access abortions, unlike the HSE apparently?

But the IFPA have already admitted they can and do get women to doctors, but have refused why they didn't in this case and it was left to her friend to get her to the doctor after 8 weeks of being messed about.

Nodin

Ralphdejones wrote: »

But the IFPA have already admitted they can and do get women to doctors, but have refused why they didn't in this case and it was left to her friend to get her to the doctor after 8 weeks of being messed about.

Again, simplistic nonsense. She was in care, being (a) a minor and (b) an asylum seeker. They contacted a Nurse in the HSE. It now emerges that another organisation contacted the HSE and the Department of Justice.

"It is believed she was around 16 weeks pregnant when she was referred to Spirasi. The physician who examined her found her to be suicidal and was so concerned for her welfare that she wrote to the HSE medical team at her accommodation centre, warning she was in need of "psychological care".Mr Straton said the physician also wrote to the medical director of the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA), a division of the Department of Justice that processes and accommodates asylum seekers, on learning that the young woman was to be moved to an accommodation centre in another part of the country, apparently at her own request.Mr Straton said the letter "strongly advocated" against the move, because of her distress.

He said
Spirasi received no written response from the HSE or the RIA."I do know that we did follow up by phone," Mr Straton added.Later that month the woman was moved to another location.She lost contact with Spirasi until July 18 when she attended a meeting organised by the support group. She again indicated that she was suicidal and wanted an abortion.Mr Straton said "we strongly advised her to get to a GP" and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital shortly afterwards.

He wrote to the HSE last week notifying it of Spirasi's involvement with the young woman after the story of her traumatic request for an abortion broke. He confirmed his agency has a record of 22 interactions with the young woman, the HSE and the RIA. "
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/justice-dept-and-hse-in-firing-line-on-abortion-crisis-30531662.html

alaimacerc

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Do you not understand the differences between a foetus at 8 weeks and 24 weeks and the differences between a surgical and chemical abortion?

You seem a little hazy yourself. There are more than two types of termination procedure, whose indication does not merely depend on gestational age; and after eight weeks what you have is an embryo, not a foetus. (Much less, per your later characterisation, a "baby".)

alaimacerc

swampgas wrote: »

(I misunderstood you to mean that abortion for rape is allowed under the law, it isn't.)

For the very good reason, perhaps, that it's what he said, regardless if it's what he meant.

There's no provision in Irish statute for abortion on the grounds of rape, nor is one foreseeable, given the the Constitution. Though who knows: all depends on the the detail of the legislation, and whether the SC have their radio tuned to whatever the UN or the ECHR's been saying recently. So the health services might see the role they're mandated with as being simply one of "managing" the patient through suicidality, keeping the risk of same below what they judge to be "significant" by any possible combination of other "treatment", delay, mendacity, and application of force that they can bring to bear.

Certainly that seems to be consistent with what's happened in this case, and many in the "pro-life" camp thing it's something to be celebrated. Well, I suppose that's the "moderates": the people out on the "repeal the 'abortion act'" demo evidently think the stringing-along and compelling process needs to be extended to 40 weeks, not 24, and to be done without regard to risk of suicide at all.

alaimacerc

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Importat that all anti-abortionists read the linked articles

because basically they blow all your arguments out of the water.

Sadly, I don't think they're playing by the same Debate Battleships rules as the rest of us.

I think responses to this will largely fall into two categories:

• Pro-abortion lies! Lies, I tell you!
• Well, obviously this merely demonstrates that I, myself, am not merely morally superior to all pro-Choicers, I'm morally superior to many other, lesser anti-abortionists.

Brown Bomber

alaimacerc wrote: »

You seem a little hazy yourself. There are more than two types of termination procedure, whose indication does not merely depend on gestational age; and after eight weeks what you have is an embryo, not a foetus. (Much less, per your later characterisation, a "baby".)

Uh-huh, pedantry aside you are making my point for me that killing the life at 8 weeks is entirely different to killing the life - a potentially viable premature baby - at 24 weeks. Which is why "Hope's" unlikely journey from death sentence to life is such an incredibly uplifting story.

I would consider killing the life at 24 weeks as being closer to infanticide than than it is to medical abortion at 8 weeks.