Abortion Discussion, Part the Fourth

aloyisious

Yesterday, The UK court of appeal overturned the 28 month prison sentence given to Carla Foster for illegally obtaining abortion pills. 45-year-old Carla Foster was handed a 28-month sentence in June; however, the UK Court of Appeal reduced her sentence to 14 months suspended. She will also have to complete 50 days of activity.

She has spent 35 days in Foston Hall Prison and the Court of Appeal heard she was refused any form of communication with her three children, one of whom is autistic, while in prison.

One of the three appeal court judges described the case as “very sad”. Justice Victoria Sharp.commented " “It is a case that calls for compassion, not punishment, and where no useful purpose is served by detaining Ms Foster in custody,".

Hotblack Desiato

She has spent 35 days in Foston Hall Prison and the Court of Appeal heard she was refused any form of communication with her three children, one of whom is autistic, while in prison.

That is disgraceful. She should not have been imprisoned while her appeal was still being heard (it only took a few weeks). It seems there is a vindictiveness in play here and the real victims of this are not her but her children.

amanda36

This is ridiculous

Igotadose

Says it all.

Hotblack Desiato

Ohio votes to place abortion rights in the state constitution.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67352011

Almost 57% of voters in the conservative-leaning state backed the measure.

Its success is likely to bolster Democrats' hopes that abortion rights remain a winning issue ahead of elections in 2024.

It also extends an unbeaten record for ballot measures designed to protect abortion rights since the nationwide right to the procedure was rescinded by the Supreme Court last year. This is the seventh such measure to pass.

But Ohio's measure, known as Issue 1, was widely seen as the toughest fight so far for abortion rights supporters as it was the first Republican-led state to consider changing its constitution to explicitly guarantee the right.

The amendment will change the state's constitution to include protections for abortion access. It will establish "an individual right to one's own reproductive medical treatment", including on abortion, contraception and miscarriage care. It will take effect on 7 December, 30 days after the election.

Supporters of the amendment warned voters that unless it passed, more restrictive laws could be introduced including a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy with no exceptions.

Abortion is currently legal in Ohio until 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121343196#Comment_121343196

Ohio was the state with the pregnant 10 year old girl forced to travel to Indiana for her abortion. The Indiana AG went after the local Dr. that provided the abortion medication, suing her, etc. In good news, that state's supreme court has reprimanded the AG for his conduct.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/11/02/indiana-attorney-general-reprimanded-abortion-case/71428894007/

Hotblack Desiato

Shows you how out of step with the electorate the Ohio legislators were when they tried to impose a six week ban (since suspended)

With any luck this issue will really hurt the womb watchers electorally.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121345378#Comment_121345378

The sweep to power in Virginia in the local elections has been attributed to campaigning on it in the state. Creepy Youngkin the governor there was all over how as soon as a ban was passed by the legislature, he'd sign it. Well, gotta wait till there's another election.

Youngkin's whispered about as a possible compromise candidate should TFG disintegrate completely, and likely in 2028.

Loafing Oaf

Safe Access Zones Bill passes final stage in Dail by overwhelming majority

https://gript.ie/safe-access-abortion-zones-bill-passes-by-117-votes-to-10/

To me this reflects the extensive cross-party pro-choice that now exists in the Dail and suggests the government can go pretty much as far as it wants with liberalisation of the law in the wake of the ongoing review

Hotblack Desiato

Gript link 😯 can't find anything on RTE or Irish Times though, oireachtas.ie has the debate up until one of the propopsed amendments was defeated but not after that.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121373886#Comment_121373886

Here's a brief Newstalk report if you don't trust ole grift.ie

https://www.newstalk.com/news/dail-approves-of-safe-access-zones-outside-abortion-clinics-1614778#:~:text=The%20Health%20(Termination%20of%20Pregnancy,hospitals%2C%20and%20family%20planning%20clinics.

Here's a list of the naysayers if that is what you were looking for

Aontú’s Peadar Tóibín, and Independents Mattie McGrath, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae, Peter Fitzpatrick, Noel Grealish, Michael Collins, Richard O’Donoghue, Seán Canney, and Michael Lowry.

Predictable names there, minus Carol Nolan for some reason. Not a government TD among them, this seems like ancient history now

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/more-than-half-of-fianna-fail-parliamentary-party-backing-no-vote-in-referendum/36870462.html

robindch

Ye gods, is Michael Lowry still a TD?

Hotblack Desiato

Oireachtas site now updated

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2023-11-15/21/

Interesting that there were no absentions recorded, Carol Nolan must have been absent for whatever reason.

Some of the commentary from the Healy-Raes, Michael Collins et al is just bizarre.

I do not support this Bill and I will not be supporting it going forward. The right to protest and the freedom to exercise one's religion are pillars of a democratic society. 

I'm not aware of any religion in which standing around outside maternity hospitals whether silently or otherwise is a form of worship.

Remember the 2018 debates here and in the media when we were constantly told that the opposition to repeal of the 8th was not religious in nature... 🤥

They really need to press on now and remove the 3 day wait and seriously look at the time limit too.

Igotadose

IANAL, and I'm REALLY unhappy the Judge in Nevada ruled the way he did, but this proposed state constitution amendment was kind of poorly worded:

(can't link, apparently Boards is going through captcha, and it's not on archive. yet, site is thehill.com. googling nevada abortion russell thehill.com should get it.)

"Judge rejects attempt to enshrine abortion rights on Nevada ballot"

The Judge ruled it too broad - it is, and it isn't. It tried to be specific about forms of abortion and shouldn't, like why tubal ligation is enshrined but the more common, and FDA approved, Bilateral salpingectomy isn't? I get a vibe of 'resolution by committee' where maybe copying what another state like Ohio did would have passed.

Still, even in failing it keeps the issue in the news and it might be that the Nevada supreme court overrules the judge in question.

Hotblack Desiato

No surprises here

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67495969

And no surprise that the Russian Orthodox Church is right in there.

Authorities are concerned that the decreasing number of young people, particularly men, will make it more difficult for the Russian military to recruit soldiers. There are also worries about the effects of a stagnant population on the economy.

They might consider that the kleptocratic shít economy is causing the stagnant population? And who wants to raise sons just so they can be conscripted and killed in pointless wars?

Pherekydes

Yep, the Nazis banned abortion, at least for Aryan women, for much the same reasons.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121411771#Comment_121411771

Actually, no. Abortion was already banned in Germany before the Nazis came along; under the Weimar republic it was decriminalised only the case of grave danger to the life of the mother.

The Nazis in fact widened access to abortion, making it available in in cases of deformity or disability, if either parent was the carrier of a genetic disease, if either parent was Jewish, or on various other eugenic grounds. And of course in many circumstances they practiced forced abortions, again on eugenic grounds. But they also increased the penalties for abortion in cases where it wasn't permitted, up to and including the death penalty for repeat offender abortion practitioners.

robindch

And who wants to raise sons just so they can be conscripted and killed in pointless wars?

The white boys from Moscow and St Petersburg are largely free of this risk which applies, in the main, to the sons of the Turkic + Asiatic republics and other ethnic minorities within the Russian Federation. The abortion rate in Russia is down substantially from twenty years back, when it was around two million abortions per year - that's now reduced to around half a million per year, or a reduction from around eight times the Irish rate to around twice the Irish rate.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1034529/russia-total-number-of-abortions/

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121423723#Comment_121423723

At one stage they were performing around 6M a year. apparently at one point they had more abortions in a year than live births. the decrease in the last 20 years is most likely down to the increased availability of contraception.

robindch

the decrease in the last 20 years is most likely down to the increased availability of contraception.

That and a set of tax breaks which apply to larger families only:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/20/putin-wants-mortgage-relief-and-cash-for-big-russian-families.html

...plus a set of frankly blunt adverts exhorting the women of Russia to produce one for you, one for your husband and one for your country - a bizarre line which I think first saw use in Australia. Russia is also attempting to address its demographic decline by stealing unknown thousands of children from Ukraine.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-children-taken-ukraine/32527298.html

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/20/ukraine-calls-for-return-of-abducted-children-as-more-arrive-in-belarus

robindch

Kenya proving once again that if you can't go in the front door, you can always go down the backstreet:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67473183

"At an unregulated clinic on the outskirts of Nairobi, the man in charge offers women abortions for 2,500 Kenyan shillings ($16; £13). [...] He charges extra for the safe disposal of the foetus. If the woman cannot afford that he pays someone to throw it in the river."

robindch

[...] one for you, one for your husband and one for your country [...]

Family policy hit by war inflation - VVP now calling for four, five, even eight children. Bonus - in the second video, one lad helpfully pointing out that if a woman has more than one kid, then it's easier for her to say goodbye to one of them.

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1729772483253789018

Hotblack Desiato

Finally

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41281186.html

Five more maternity hospitals are to offer abortion services from next Monday, December 4, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has announced.

Hospital sites at Kilkenny, Portiuncula, Letterkenny, Wexford and Portlaoise will provide the services from next week, bringing to 17 the total number of maternity hospitals providing early (under 12 weeks) termination of pregnancy services, as prescribed in the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018.

Speaking on Friday, Mr Donnelly said the expansion of services was "a significant step towards the provision of full termination services for women in all 19 maternity hospitals".

The HSE has said that the two remaining maternity hospitals — Cavan and Clonmel — will begin service provision in 2024.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121441962#Comment_121441962

Nice, but these are 'early pregnancy' terminations. This is currently being provided by GPs AFAIK. Not a lot to get excited about, why did it take hospitals 5 years to get to where GP's have been for awhile. I think surgical abortions are still only provided by a couple of hospitals.

Note that, naturally, the HSE web page is out date and doesn't show the new hospitals though I suppose you could call. Over/Under of when it'll be updated?

https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/abortion/how-to-get/in-hospital/

And of course the 3 day misogyny is still in effect.

aloyisious

The "Life" campaigners are trying out a new publicity ad tactic, that the money they claim has been used to terminate pregnancies has cost other branches of public health medical the ability to provide care for the public.

Hotblack Desiato

Which is of course total bullshit, do they think abortions cost €500,000 each or something? IIRC a GP gets €600 to cover two consultations and the medication cost. The actual bulk cost of the medication is something like €5.

Of course if ~6000 a year extra unwanted births were to occur a year, what would the cost be in terms of welfare, lost economic productivity, family breakdown, child neglect, etc etc ? They'll run a mile from answering that.

Would they apply the same cost argument to unwanted end-of-life care? like hell they would, they want us to spend fortunes on people who regard themselves as better off dead.

All in all it's an incredibly stupid line of argument to open up, even for them.

@Igotadose Due to the prospect of a 14 year prison sentence if they get the dates slightly wrong, most GPs (who are opted in) don't want to know at 10 weeks so between 10-12 it's still a medical abortion but done through a hospital.

After that it's surgical abortions but only in FFA or life-threatening cases, you'd hope any maternity hospital would be set up for this already? because the 8th has allowed the latter since 1983 and confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1992 and by legislation in 2013.

Dunno what the blockage was in the others but Kilkenny had a famously conservative catholic obstetric consultant and his deputy consultants were muslims. What a country we live in... let's hope the legislative review removes the 3 day wait at the least.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121444487#Comment_121444487

And, lest we forget, childbirth is very impactful on the mother (so, lots of potential medical expenses) and a percentage of children born with disabilities will require significant medical resources all through their lives.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121444487#Comment_121444487

The cost of providing pre-birth medical care to a pregnant woman for exceeds the cost of an abortion

robindch

Texans being Texans again -

"The Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked a pregnant woman from obtaining an emergency abortion on Friday, shortly after the state's attorney general requested the block. The Texas court halted a lower court ruling allowing the emergency abortion [...] The woman, Kate Cox, 31, of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, sought court authorization for the abortion because her fetus was diagnosed on Nov. 27 with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or death soon after birth. Cox, who is about 20 weeks pregnant, said in her lawsuit that she would need to undergo her third caesarean section if she continues the pregnancy. That could jeopardize her ability to have more children, which she said she and her husband want. District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble sided with Cox on Thursday, issuing an order that applied only to Cox and does not expand abortion access more broadly. But Paxton, who had previously warned that any doctors involved in providing the emergency abortion would not be safe from prosecution, asked the state's highest court to intervene. Cox said in her lawsuit that, although her doctors believed abortion was medically necessary for her, they were unwilling to perform one without a court order in the face of potential penalties, including life in prison and loss of their licenses."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/paxton-asks-texas-supreme-court-stop-woman-emergency-abortion-2023-12-09/

Hotblack Desiato

Trying and failing to come up with a printable reaction to that.

Like the Tories currently in the UK, it's all about making people suffer just because they can.