Abortion Discussion, Part Trois

Nick Park

Bredabe wrote: »

No im not saying that, but if they are going to be supportive, surely they should be supportive to all who are hurt by the church and not just the ones its convenient or cool to supportive? after all its supposed to be a church of love.

I'm not a Catholic, and wouldn't dream of defending that church's actions over the years. But are you seriously claiming that it is 'cool' to offer support to people who voted against abortion?

Here is the kicker, knowing my background and having asked me to put myself in the shoes of ppl who are hurt by the vote, but proceed to try to be derogatory about my heartfelt reaction. No sign of an apology for the 'confusion' your comment caused.

I know very little about your background, but I gather you've had a rough time.

Also, I didn't ask you to put yourself in anyone else's shoes. I pointed out that you can disagree with them while still understanding where they're coming from. Given the perspective of people who believe that an unborn child is a human being, it's not unreasonable for them to have prayer meetings as a way of dealing with the Referendum result.

I only posted to get clarity from ppl who are interested in the workings of religion and was and still not interested in what you call a rational conversation on this topic

Fair enough, if you're not interested in a rational conversation then I won't bother trying to have one. Adios.

Bredabe

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

You are bang on there, what I don't get is why he responded at all when the only thing he had was to deliberately misinterpret anything I said and then 'accuse' me of being a 'hysterical/silly' woman when he was called out on his arrogance.

If that's the attitude his church takes to the women,

Strange as its exactly this behaviour(along with the posters/harassment) that turned the def no to maybe yes, during the campaign and that camp still using it.

As he's put the idea in my head, I look forward to an apology from the church for discriminating against me again:D

volchitsa

Nick Park wrote: »

I'm not a Catholic, and I've not attended any of the kind of services you've mentioned, but I know a few of the people involved, and for them it's nothing to do with problems with democracy or the magisterium of the Church.

They genuinely believe that an unborn child is a human being. And they are struggling to come to terms with living in a society that, from their perspective, chooses to kill human beings and thus violate human rights.

It would be similar to how you might feel (assuming you are a decent human being) if the country where you lived chose to execute homosexuals, or to introduce apartheid, or to legalise slavery. You wouldn't just shrug your shoulders and say, "Ah well, I didn't get my way politically, but sure it'll be grand." You'd probably be wondering where the hell the country was going and feeling like you don't really belong any more.

Now, you obviously disagree with their beliefs and perspectives - which is obviously part of the diversity that makes up humanity - but it's not really helpful to make fun of them or demand that they just get over it.

What they "genuinely believe" doesn't give them a right to ignore women's human rights though. Some people genuinely believe that women should be covered from head to foot, but so what? They're entitled to act that way themselves, but not to impose it on anyone else just because of the genuineness of their belief.

That's where your comparison with slavery collapses - because women, unlike fetuses, do have human rights and a ban on abortion removes some of those. That's not the case for slavery, where it was always obvious even to slave owners that slaves were human - why else would slaves have been expected to obey laws? A country doesn't write laws for dogs or horses, does it?

No person's basic human rights to control over their own body was removed by the ending of slavery.

volchitsa

end of the road wrote: »

the term is correct, however it does not apply to what i stated. many on the no side genuinely cared about people dying hence we didn't oppose abortion full stop, just abortion on demand.

This is not true. All of the No side were already on record as fiercely opposing POLDPA in 2013. A few anonymous posters saying that they supported it is meaningless. That wasn't the prolife view at the time.

Nick Park

volchitsa wrote: »

What they "genuinely believe" doesn't give them a right to ignore women's human rights though. Some people genuinely believe that women should be covered from head to foot, but so what? They're entitled to act that way themselves, but not to impose it on anyone else just because of the genuineness of their belief.

If someone genuinely believes that an unborn child is a human being (something a substantial number of us do believe) then it is reasonable to also believe that killing another human being is not anyone's 'right' - irrespective of gender.

And Catholics who hold such views are certainly entitled, if they so wish, to have prayer meetings for mutual support. We've gone through a Referendum campaign where people on both sides held deep convictions. Some saw the result as a reason to party. Others saw it as an occasion to grieve. Some people have even managed to be gracious towards those who disagreed with them.

That's where your comparison with slavery collapses - because women, unlike fetuses, do have human rights and a ban on abortion removes some of those. That's not the case for slavery, where it was always obvious even to slave owners that slaves were human - why else would slaves have been expected to obey laws? A country doesn't write laws for dogs or horses, does it?

My comparison with slavery was simply to point out that when people see legal or Constitutional issues as being violations of human rights then they are unlikely to just shrug and 'get over it'. So nothing you say has 'collapsed' my comparison. All you have achieved is to massively miss the point.

For what it's worth, if the Referendum result had gone the other way, I wouldn't have demanded that the pro-Repeal side should just shut up and suck it up. I would defend to the hilt their right to bemoan what they perceived (wrongly, in my opinion) as the denial of a human right to abortion.

Nick Park

volchitsa wrote: »

This is not true. All of the No side were already on record as fiercely opposing POLDPA in 2013. A few anonymous posters saying that they supported it is meaningless. That wasn't the prolife view at the time.

This is to over-simplify people's positions. The opposition to the POLDPA was, for many people, because of the inclusion of suicidality as a grounds for abortion. It would be deeply dishonest to imply that such opposition meant that they were opposed to abortions being conducted where necessary to save a woman's life.

On a subject like abortion there will always be disagreement. Disagreement is fine, but misrepresenting other people's positions isn't.

volchitsa

Nick Park wrote: »

This is to over-simplify people's positions. The opposition to the POLDPA was, for many people, because of the inclusion of suicidality as a grounds for abortion. It would be deeply dishonest to imply that such opposition meant that they were opposed to abortions being conducted where necessary to save a woman's life.

On a subject like abortion there will always be disagreement. Disagreement is fine, but misrepresenting other people's positions isn't.

I agree entirely, which is why you should stop misrepresenting mine.

My point is that what they believe doesn't matter when they can't make the case as anything more than what they believe. They had the whole time of the referendum campaign, and their argument basically came down to "Well you can't prove it isn't a person".

An argument which the people considered and found insufficiently strong to enforce on anyone else.

volchitsa

Nick Park wrote: »

If someone genuinely believes that an unborn child is a human being (something a substantial number of us do believe) then it is reasonable to also believe that killing another human being is not anyone's 'right' - irrespective of gender.

And Catholics who hold such views are certainly entitled, if they so wish, to have prayer meetings for mutual support. We've gone through a Referendum campaign where people on both sides held deep convictions. Some saw the result as a reason to party. Others saw it as an occasion to grieve. Some people have even managed to be gracious towards those who disagreed with them.

My comparison with slavery was simply to point out that when people see legal or Constitutional issues as being violations of human rights then they are unlikely to just shrug and 'get over it'. So nothing you say has 'collapsed' my comparison. All you have achieved is to massively miss the point.

For what it's worth, if the Referendum result had gone the other way, I wouldn't have demanded that the pro-Repeal side should just shut up and suck it up. I would defend to the hilt their right to bemoan what they perceived (wrongly, in my opinion) as the denial of a human right to abortion.

Except they don't follow through on this claim of what their beliefs are - if they actually believed what they said, they wouldn't have been so silent about the 13th and 14th amendments allowing the exact same human beings to be taken abroad and killed. Just for one example.

If you want to remove someone's human rights, you need a rock solid argument. Prolife have never even tried to provide that, in fact they have contradicted their own arguments whenever it suited them. Even Catholic institutions aren't above using the claim that the fetus was not a person when their own money was at stake.

And it's that contradiction that is why their claims have been rejected. Because they didn't seem to believe their own claims as soon as they got a bit awkward for themselves.

Nick Park

volchitsa wrote: »

I agree entirely, which is why you should stop misrepresenting mine.

My point is that what they believe doesn't matter when they can't make the case as anything more than what they believe. They had the whole time of the referendum campaign, and their argument basically came down to "Well you can't prove it isn't a person".

I certainly wouldn't want to misrepresent you, so I apologise for interpreting the following exchange as meaning that you were saying that the pro-life side were opposed to abortion full stop:

end of the road wrote:

many on the no side genuinely cared about people dying hence we didn't oppose abortion full stop, just abortion on demand.

volchitsa wrote:

This is not true. All of the No side were already on record as fiercely opposing POLDPA in 2013. A few anonymous posters saying that they supported it is meaningless. That wasn't the prolife view at the time.

end of the road

volchitsa wrote: »

If you want to remove someone's human rights, you need a rock solid argument.

correct. however the yes side, never mind actually bothering to even try to provide that argument, they ran away from it and sanitized the reality and buried it with fluffy language. so the people weren't even given an actual argument to remove the unborn's human right to life. that's assuming that either campaign actually had any effect on the outcome in the first place.

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

So, how is it democratic when one side (your side) bend things their way. And not, when the other side do the same thing?

A splendidly piece of whataboutery.

The two sides do indeed bend things left or right according to taste, but the distinguishing difference lies in the sheer volume of dishonesty emanating from the GOP, and not just from #45's Twitter account. This reply of mine from last week lists some of the areas in which the GOP are not only undemocratic to start with, but being substantially more undemocratic than the Democrats - and to which you whatabout'd in reply.

robindch wrote: »

[...] but I'm sure you can accept that democracy works less well than it might when a nominally democratic state is taken over by people who gerrymander electoral boundaries, who refuse to confirm that they will accept the outcome of a democratic election, who engage in voter suppression, who do not accept the value of either evidence or reason, who attempt to subvert the freedom of the press, who attempt to subvert the independence of the judiciary, who prefer white over black, who prefer christian over islamic.

alaimacerc

end of the road wrote: »

correct. however the yes side, never mind actually bothering to even try to provide that argument, they ran away from it and sanitized the reality and buried it with fluffy language.

Sanitizing (sic) and fluffy language like turning criminalisation of a pregnant exercise of bodily automony into statements like:

so the people weren't even given an actual argument to remove the unborn's human right to life.

...for example?

volchitsa

Nick Park wrote: »

I certainly wouldn't want to misrepresent you, so I apologise for interpreting the following exchange as meaning that you were saying that the pro-life side were opposed to abortion full stop:

Except I've never accused them of saying they were prepared to see women die, but the fact is that they have defended a law which explicitly puts women's lives at risk before allowing doctors to carry out an abortion even when the fetus is in the process of miscarrying.

So while of course none of them now say they oppose abortion even when a woman's life is at risk, the facts show that they prefer to risk a woman's death, and when a woman actually did die, even then they still didn't question the law, but instead rewrote the narrative into one of negligence only, without ever wondering whether it might not be reckless to have that legal constraint there in the first place.

So basically what they say they want, and what they actually support in practice are two different things.

Also FWIW, we don't have "abortion on demand", not as prolife were portraying it (remember all the stuff about how the law was going to be "more liberal" than the Uk's 24 weeks, that it would be up to birth - all stuff they said about POLDPA of course) So it isn't a one or the other anyway.

volchitsa

end of the road wrote: »

correct. however the yes side, never mind actually bothering to even try to provide that argument, they ran away from it and sanitized the reality and buried it with fluffy language. so the people weren't even given an actual argument to remove the unborn's human right to life. that's assuming that either campaign actually had any effect on the outcome in the first place.

You've missed a step : prolife first need to prove that there is a someone there with rights and when/why.

Women have already been there and done that. So now anyone wanting to take those rights away needs to prove that there is someone else there with the same rights in the first place.

And "it's a person from fertilisation except when I don't think it is" doesn't really cut it somehow. Not when we're discussing someone else's pregnancy.

end of the road

alaimacerc wrote: »

Sanitizing (sic) and fluffy language like turning criminalisation of a pregnant exercise of bodily automony into statements like:

...for example?

what was criminalised was the the killing of an unborn human being. there was no criminalisation of the exercising of bodily autonomy.

volchitsa wrote: »

Except I've never accused them of saying they were prepared to see women die, but the fact is that they have defended a law which explicitly puts women's lives at risk before allowing doctors to carry out an abortion even when the fetus is in the process of miscarrying.

So while of course none of them now say they oppose abortion even when a woman's life is at risk, the facts show that they prefer to risk a woman's death, and when a woman actually did die, even then they still didn't question the law, but instead rewrote the narrative into one of negligence only, without ever wondering whether it might not be reckless to have that legal constraint there in the first place.

So basically what they say they want, and what they actually support in practice are two different things.

Also FWIW, we don't have "abortion on demand", not as prolife were portraying it (remember all the stuff about how the law was going to be "more liberal" than the Uk's 24 weeks, that it would be up to birth - all stuff they said about POLDPA of course) So it isn't a one or the other anyway.

we do actually have abortion on demand however it's only up to 12 weeks.

end of the road

volchitsa wrote: »

Except you have missed a step : prolife first need to prove that there is a someone there with rights and when.

volchitsa wrote: »

we don't. we aren't the one who wanted and ultimately got the removal of human rights.

volchitsa

end of the road wrote: »

volchitsa wrote: »

Except you have missed a step : prolife first need to prove that there is a someone there with rights and when.

we don't. we aren't the one who wanted and ultimately got the removal of human rights.

Prolife had prevented one aspect of women's rights being granted, back in 1983.
That was to ensure that an 1871 law, from a time when women were chattels, continued to have that effect on pregnant women, or even women who could potentially be pregnant. It took until 2018 to put that right and give women the same rights as men, even when they are pregnant.

That you wish to portray this as wanting to grant human rights to an entity which you cannot demonstrate deserves or requires them (largely because prolife makes all sorts of variable exceptions to that "rule" when it suits them) is your own problem. You didn't manage to make a strong enough case to the public. Because it isn't a strong case.

aloyisious

end of the road wrote: »

not quite. most other western democracies introduced abortion for 2 reasons. 1. try and eradicate back street abortions. 2. to prevent those cases where death occured due to the non-provision of abortion. it's only ireland who used "human rights" "compassion" and other sanitized guff and irrelevantsies as a reason to implement it.

What you wrote might be at odds with other people from the NO campaign side in seeing Human Rights as sanitized guff and irrelevant, as they seemed to see the right to life of the unborn as a human and constitutional right.

For what it'a worth, I did understand what you meant when you wrote mentioning human rights, compassion and irrelevancies in a sarcastic way and wrote what I did to show how words can be turned in a way you didn't mean.

ohnonotgmail

aloyisious wrote: »

Are you at odds with other people from the NO campaign side in seeing Human Rights as sanitized guff and irrelevant, as they seemed to see the right to life of the unborn as a human and constitutional right?

it is the human rights of the pregnant woman that are irrelevant to them

alaimacerc

volchitsa wrote: »

That you wish to portray this as wanting to grant human rights to an entity which you cannot demonstrate deserves or requires them (largely because prolife makes all sorts of variable exceptions to that "rule" when it suits them) is your own problem. You didn't manage to make a strong enough case to the public. Because it isn't a strong case.

Only one "right". (As far as I know about endy's preference, and as a matter of fact in law.) And a "right" not exercisable by the purported legal entity in question, or by legal persons that would normally have an interest in such matters. And a "right" with only one effect, i.e., to requirement criminalisation of abortion.

A "but we like our terminology better, and will endlessly insist that everyone else use it" exercise that continues to this very day. This very hour, indeed, on this very forum.

alaimacerc

aloyisious wrote: »

What you wrote might be at odds with other people from the NO campaign side in seeing Human Rights as sanitized guff and irrelevant, as they seemed to see the right to life of the unborn as a human and constitutional right.

And at odds with himself, as he pivoted a few posts later to use that very type of language. And since, and many, many times before.

alaimacerc

volchitsa wrote: »

Also FWIW, we don't have "abortion on demand", not as prolife were portraying it (remember all the stuff about how the law was going to be "more liberal" than the Uk's 24 weeks, that it would be up to birth - all stuff they said about POLDPA of course) So it isn't a one or the other anyway.

I seem to recall the PLC types -- supposedly the 'nice, respectable' arm of the autonomy-criminalisation movement -- saying POLDPA was indeed "abortion on demand". And that the UK's law is "abortion on demand". So if the draft legislation is "more liberal" than either, then it seems there's on-demand, on-demander, and on-demandest, somehow?

Or maybe they've just repeated themselves so often, their empty formulae have ceased to have any meaning, even to themselves.

end of the road

volchitsa wrote: »

Prolife had prevented one aspect of women's rights being granted, back in 1983.
That was to ensure that an 1871 law, from a time when women were chattels, continued to have that effect on pregnant women, or even women who could potentially be pregnant. It took until 2018 to put that right and give women the same rights as men, even when they are pregnant.

in 1983, pro-life did not prevent any women's rights being granted. there is no right to an abortion on demand. abortion on demand is not a women's rights issue, it has only been made to be so.

volchitsa wrote: »

That you wish to portray this as wanting to grant human rights to an entity which you cannot demonstrate deserves or requires them (largely because prolife makes all sorts of variable exceptions to that "rule" when it suits them) is your own problem. You didn't manage to make a strong enough case to the public. Because it isn't a strong case.

we made a fantastic case, and we demonstrated in full why the unborn are human beings and why removing their rights is hypocritical. however more of the public voted to repeal for many varied reasons. it doesn't mean our case isn't valid, because it is and ultimately dispite the vote it is us who are on the right side of history and will be judged to be so.

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

it is the human rights of the pregnant woman that are irrelevant to them

it's not. our way would have insured rights for both.

volchitsa

end of the road wrote: »

in 1983, pro-life did not prevent any women's rights being granted. there is no right to an abortion on demand. abortion on demand is not a women's rights issue, it has only been made to be so.

It's dishonest in the extreme to pretend that the 8th only prevented abortion on demand. Repealing the 8th was about giving women the right to consent during labour as much as it was about abortion. More so, maybe, since women who wanted abortions actually got that right in 1992.

we made a fantastic case, and we demonstrated in full why the unborn are human beings and why removing their rights is hypocritical. however more of the public voted to repeal for many varied reasons. it doesn't mean our case isn't valid, because it is and ultimately dispite the vote it is us who are on the right side of history and will be judged to be so.

We made a great case but the people were stupid, right?

it's not. our way would have insured rights for both.

Why "would have"? You had the opportunity to put that into practice for 35 years and didn't bother. Not even a decent number of neonatal hospice places, never mind psychological help for women left carrying dying fetuses inside them for weeks or months. Too late to start saying it's all about "Love them both" when you see the writing on the wall.

ohnonotgmail

end of the road wrote: »

we made a fantastic case, and we demonstrated in full why the unborn are human beings and why removing their rights is hypocritical. however more of the public voted to repeal for many varied reasons. it doesn't mean our case isn't valid, because it is and ultimately dispite the vote it is us who are on the right side of history and will be judged to be so.

it's not. our way would have insured rights for both.

1.4M people dont believe you.

King Mob

end of the road wrote: »

your question hasn't been dodged. it has been answered. an answer that doesn't fit your agenda isn't dodging.

Hey, so why did you say that abortion isn't murder and then blatantly lied about ever saying it was?

Again, you have no right to comment on who is and isn't dodging questions.

end of the road wrote: »

it's neither.

No, it's one or the other.

I dunno about you, but I wouldn't be cool with describing the brutal murder of a person in poetic detail to people who've lost a person in that way.
It's kind of a messed up thing to do.

I also wouldn't use said brutal description of a murder to try and convince someone of something or to scare them out of a procedure they are considering.
It's kind of a messed up thing to do.

So it's either that, or you guys are just hypocrites and you realise that you aren't talking about a person at all.
Again, you yourself said that abortion wasn't murder...

alaimacerc

end of the road wrote: »

we made a fantastic case, and we demonstrated in full why the unborn are human beings and why removing their rights is hypocritical.

A fantastic case as in it consisted largely of fantasy, perhaps.

Thousands of factually inaccurate posters, brazen appeals to alarmist, reactionary sentiment, millions in opaquely sourced funds, and you only managed to convince yourselves of the watertight argument you made.

Here, we only get flat assertion, dogged reframing -- and sometimes re-reframing -- of terminology, and claims that the burden of proof lies elsewhere, for equally unproven reasons.

it doesn't mean our case isn't valid, because it is and ultimately dispite the vote it is us who are on the right side of history and will be judged to be so.

Rarely has arrogance been simultaneously so breathtaking, and so slipshod. If your unevidenced, dogmatic certainty isn't grounded in some particular flavour of religion, perhaps you should consider starting your own?

end of the road

volchitsa wrote: »

Why "would have"? You had the opportunity to put that into practice for 35 years and didn't bother. Not even a decent number of neonatal hospice places, never mind psychological help for women left carrying dying fetuses inside them for weeks or months. Too late to start saying it's all about "Love them both" when you see the writing on the wall.

the yes side did even less, and some of them were in government.

alaimacerc wrote: »

A fantastic case as in it consisted largely of fantasy, perhaps.

Thousands of factually inaccurate posters, brazen appeals to alarmist, reactionary sentiment, millions in opaquely sourced funds, and you only managed to convince yourselves of the watertight argument you made.

Here, we only get flat assertion, dogged reframing -- and sometimes re-reframing -- of terminology, and claims that the burden of proof lies elsewhere, for equally unproven reasons.

nope, a fantastic case as in it consisted of nothing but facts and reality, thousands of factually accurate posters, appeals to reality and the facts, and millions in legitimately given donations from philanthropists who want to protect the unborn and who care for both them and their mothers.

alaimacerc wrote: »

Rarely has arrogance been simultaneously so breathtaking, and so slipshod. If your unevidenced, dogmatic certainty isn't grounded in some particular flavour of religion, perhaps you should consider starting your own?

i have no intentions of starting a religion, or believeing in any of the existing ones.

King Mob

Appeals to reality like when you said you never claimed that abortion is murder?

Seriously end, every point you make is undercut and made hypocritical by your lie and your unwillingness to address it honestly.

volchitsa

end of the road wrote: »

the yes side did even less, and some of them were in government.

You're complaining because the Yes side didn't put more humane but still anti choice policies into effect? The Yes side, which can't have been in government because it didn't exist in 1983 (there was literally nobody arguing to bring in abortion at the time) did what was required to bring in more liberal abortion policies.

It's a bit odd to blame them now for not doing your work for you.

nope, a fantastic case as in it consisted of nothing but facts and reality, thousands of factually accurate posters, appeals to reality and the facts, and millions in legitimately given donations from philanthropists who want to protect the unborn and who care for both them and their mothers.

Really? Have you already forgotten Nurse Noel? Or the canvassers recorded lying on the doorsteps about who they were or what POLDPA allows? It wasn't all facts and reality, by any means. And I think you know that, and just being dishonest.