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Abortion Discussion, Part Trois

PopePalpatine

I didn't know whether to post this here or in the Sanctimony of Pro-Lifers thread in t'udder forum - a BBC article on Paraguay's "epidemic" of child pregnancies. Paraguay only allows for abortion if the mother's life is at risk. On average, two girls aged 14 and under become pregnant in Paraguay every day.

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aloyisious

recedite wrote: »

Yes, and that is still a matter of freedom of speech.
Unless you think that Irish people should not be exposed to any information coming from outside the country? That would be censorship.

If something is genuinely fake or misleading, then presumably the usual channels apply such as the Advertising Standards Authority.

Umm, yes well, its probably me being more than a doubting thomas when it comes to information supplied from external sources in regard to abortion. We have had practical experience here of that approach from our own Irish Pro-life groups about what goes on in British agencies licensed and monitored by the UK Govt, with said Pro-life groups deliberately providing us with falsified and adulterated data to mislead us, conflating data from Europe with data from the UK. The multitude of Pro-life groups popping up here on facebook is a sign of the times and I expect more dishonesty from that quarter.

Again umm, this time about your thought on the ASA. Unfortunately bringing in the ASA would probably be as much use as bringing in SIPO, but for different reasons. SIPO because [as already pointed out in the article] it would be simply unable to monitor the fake news and misleading information being deliberately fed to Irish citizens from fake accounts AND the ASA as it only deals with "faulty or misleading" information contained in/on Ads about goods and services or sale after the fact when people complain. Even then what's being promoted in regard to abortion as genuine is only information or data, it is not something being sold for payment, just one's credulity, so for that reason I'll discount the ASA from this aspect of debate.

Re censorship, I'm trusting you would want to protect us from Goebbels-like fake, misleading information and ensure provision of real facts when it comes to us making decisions on what should be contained as law in our constitution. I just won't go as far as shooting the messenger, just the message.

aloyisious

On the topic of the 8th itself, does anyone here think it is what one gent on facebook describes it as, hence his position on its existence [The biggest protection to a liberal abortion regime in and has been the existence of the 8th. Hence my huge hesitation with voting to repeal in the first place]?

It's entirely possible that I am misunderstanding what he means by the above and I'm open to ideas.

eviltwin

aloyisious wrote: »

On the topic of the 8th itself, does anyone here think it is what one gent on facebook describes it as, hence his position on its existence [The biggest protection to a liberal abortion regime in and has been the existence of the 8th. Hence my huge hesitation with voting to repeal in the first place]?

We didn't have a liberal abortion regime before the 8th, can't see why the assumption is that we will have one of its gone. And how does he define liberal? For some any abortion is a liberal regime regardless of the circumstances.

Samaris

"The biggest protection to a liberal abortion regime in and has been the existence of the 8th" makes as much sense as "Only those and hate the Second Amendment own guns".

(It doesn't make much sense even when one removes the excess words)

Not sure where he's coming from, unless it's to spread misinformation. I don't see that bit working though. Biggest protection -against-...? From?

aloyisious

Samaris wrote: »

"The biggest protection to a liberal abortion regime in and has been the existence of the 8th" makes as much sense as "Only those and hate the Second Amendment own guns".

(It doesn't make much sense even when one removes the excess words)

Not sure where he's coming from, unless it's to spread misinformation. I don't see that bit working though. Biggest protection -against-...? From?

I think "protect the 8th" might have been the title of the page on F/B. I googled that title and it opens unto a Pro-Life site, but I couldn't find the entry I saw earlier. The writer may have been inviting responses as to what was meant and if wavering in supporting the retention of the 8th was on the boards personally. The notion. I don't get it, unless it's service as a rallying point for both sides. I copied and pasted the quote as it was written.

Hotblack Desiato

The second petition to have a recall vote to remove Asscough from the UCD students' union presidency has succeeded.

http://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/new-petition-impeach-pro-life-13745193

First one failed because although they collected name, course, year and student number on the petition, they forgot to ask for signatures. Duh. I hope our future leaders are going to TCD

MrPudding

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The second petition to have a recall vote to remove Asscough from the UCD students' union presidency has succeeded.

http://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/new-petition-impeach-pro-life-13745193

First one failed because although they collected name, course, year and student number on the petition, they forgot to ask for signatures. Duh. I hope our future leaders are going to TCD

I believe it is Ascough. I think Asscough is a polite term for a fart.

MrP

PopePalpatine

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The second petition to have a recall vote to remove Asscough from the UCD students' union presidency has succeeded.

http://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/new-petition-impeach-pro-life-13745193

First one failed because although they collected name, course, year and student number on the petition, they forgot to ask for signatures. Duh. I hope our future leaders are going to TCD

Hang on, I thought her surname was Martin?

On a related note, the airwaves on talk shows are going to be filled with that not-at-all-tired trope of reactionaries playing the victim card. :rolleyes:

aloyisious

Some of the senators and deputies are [apparently] upset that some others attending the committee hearings have not watched videos of abortion operations and are considering their positions on the committee. RTE news interviewer asking Jerry Buttimer if the hearing is not loaded in favour of the "Delete the 8th" side of the debate.

rainbow kirby

Basically Ronan and Mattie being whingers at being faced with actual science and not being allowed to bring over right wing ideologues from the US...

Hotblack Desiato

MrPudding wrote: »

I believe it is Ascough. I think Asscough is a polite term for a fart.

Oh. Excuse me

frag420

MrPudding wrote: »

I believe it is Ascough. I think Asscough is a polite term for a fart.

MrP

Damn you, there is now coffee streaming down my work monitor, almost choked laughing!!

aloyisious wrote: »

Some of the senators and deputies are [apparently] upset that some others attending the committee hearings have not watched videos of abortion operations and are considering their positions on the committee. RTE news interviewer asking Jerry Buttimer if the hearing is not loaded in favour of the "Delete the 8th" side of the debate.

I see no problem with people being made to watch a video of somebody taking a tablet...

recedite

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The second petition to have a recall vote to remove Asscough from the UCD students' union presidency has succeeded.

http://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/new-petition-impeach-pro-life-13745193

First one failed because although they collected name, course, year and student number on the petition, they forgot to ask for signatures. Duh. I hope our future leaders are going to TCD

While it is lawful to provide information in Ireland about abortions abroad, it is subject to strict conditions.
Ms Ascough's decision required reprinting the annual guide and is estimated to have cost the union around €8,000.

The Bottom line here is that Ms. As cough received legal advice on whether the UCD SU was acting legally in providing the info, and the answer was "No".
In those circumstances, she did the responsible thing by making the decision to abort the magazine (which presumably had been designed under the previous presidency).

Hotblack Desiato

'Legal advice' which she refused to allow the other SU officers to see. Uhuh.

aloyisious

One of the peculiar things about this UCD Students issue was that the legal person advising Ms Ascough on the wording is apparently the same person who's been advising the student body committee and president for some years now. I don't know if the advisor changed his advice when it came to the students handbook wording now, or if it might have been that it was a different president reading the wording of that advice now. I understand that the legal effect of offering advice contrary to the wording of the act hasn't changed over the past few years.

Zerbini Blewitt

Just looking at the ongoing events at the UCD Students Union {in other words the latest continuity Iona black-ops, Von Schlieffen Plan}.

Putting aside routine speculation of a general election in early 2018, it got me pondering -

(Sincere, genteel) people (& all over 50!!) I know in real life who are pro-life:- wouldn’t last 2 nanoseconds in any reasonable, robust abortion debate because they are all still at the training wheels stage i.e. relying on disingenuous slogans & blatent issue avoidance masquerading as debate!!

So my question is – is there any pro-life commentator you’ve encountered who has made a logical case for the pro-life / enforced incubation viewpoint – either in Ireland (or failing that, anyone worldwide) -

who debates using reasoning that doesn’t rely on
• hysterical emotional grandstanding
• playing semantic word games or how many angels fit on the head of a pin?
• inventing irrelevant yet time consuming distractions or crackpot hypotheses
• straight out deceit
• wilful biological ignorance or
• any of the usual infuriating, soul-crushing drivel that passes for pro-life ‘debate’ on the substantive abortion question

I’ve been looking for such a commentator on & off for 34 years. And I cant think of one. And I’m not saying that for effect – I really can’t think of even one that qualifies!

Hotblack Desiato

You forgot that 'the church' opposes it, and it's murderin' baybees (well, emotional grandstanding probably covers the latter)

stinkle

Dont forget good old slutshaming too

Hotblack Desiato

Can't be lettin' wimmin make decisions, their tiny little minds might get confused what with the hormones at all, and they might regret it later. So the logical answer is to not allow any women make any decisions at all. Simple.

nozzferrahhtoo

Zerbini Blewitt wrote: »

So my question is – is there any pro-life commentator you’ve encountered who has made a logical case for the pro-life / enforced incubation viewpoint – either in Ireland (or failing that, anyone worldwide)

To be honest, no. I have not heard a single coherent and convincing anti choice argument or point yet.

I realized quite some years ago that I had no idea what my stance on abortion was. As what many people would consider an "atheist" or even a "liberal" I think a pro choice stance was simply expected of me by default.

I hate holding positions merely by default.

So I set aside some time to not only research the issue at great length, and from many angles........ but also to sit down with people who I knew were entirely against abortion. For example I cleared a whole saturday to go sit and talk to the people who had those anti abortion stands (the ones with all the misleading cherry picked fetus photographs) and listen to their points.

Their points turned out to be "Look at the pictures maaaaaan" said in a slow empty drawl. Literally nothing else.

And my experience has not improved since then. There simply is no arguments coming to me as to why there is a moral or ethical issue with abortion of fetuses.

Christopher Hitchens was pro life. So I sought with interest talks or debates where it came up to hear what his arguments actually were. He, I thought, would at least have well thought out and robust arguments to present. He was after all a master of debate and discourse.

But no, even his position, represented by a discussion he had with Ben Stein as a moderator, was purely a linguistic one. Basically his position was "The term unborn child exists, the term must mean something, therefore abortion bad".

If even one of the greatest debating minds of our generation could not muster anything better than that tripe......... I fear there is no pro life arguments out there that are going to be that impressive or convincing at all.

Even on this forum the tripe we get offered is egregious. We have one user who goes around, for example, misrepresenting a study where the fetus is shown to make tongue movements when music is played at it. This, for him, seems to somehow indicate abortion is therefore bad. He has yet to explain how or why.

That is not to say there are not some bad pro choice arguments out there. There are some awful ones. The worst on this forum being from a user who thinks abortion without any term limits at all should exist. His argument for this? Well..... he feels Hilary Clinton agrees with him. That is basically it. The entire argument for abortion without term limits.... Hilary says so.

I have also never been impressed at all by the "what if she was raped" argument some pro choice people make. For me either the fetus being aborted has rights, or it does not. (at 12 to 16 weeks I have yet to see an argument why it would or should). IF it does however then I am not seeing a good argument as to why it should lose those rights because a crime was committed not by it on not it. I can think of no other good examples of where X loses rights because Y committed a crime on Z. Further I am not sure how rape as an exception could be implemented. How is rape to be ascertained?

The difference however is the truely bad pro choice arguments do not represent the totality of the pro choice discourse. There are great arguments there too. I like to think, of course, that I present some of them myself. I have yet to see even ONE convincing anti choice argument even normalizing for and accounting for any obvious biases I might hold (real or imagined).

Zerbini Blewitt

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

To be honest, no. I have not heard a single coherent and convincing anti choice argument or point yet.
....

I agree that’s one blot on C Hitchins otherwise remarkable record.
I think I need no longer listen out for a good pro-life argument: That for whicheth I seek doth not exist!

Zerbini Blewitt

Public debate doesn’t inform the middle ground on this issue in my opinion because the pro-life side do so much screaming, spoofing and spreading doubt & confusion.

A big lesson from the Citizens Assembly is how the middle % who lean pro-life were significantly swayed by a few weekends of fair, calm presentation of the facts by different experts in the field (excluding one Iona propagandist).

The assembly produced very liberal reccomendations (for Ireland) which surprised me .

Maybe the referendum commission should produce a bigger booklet which distils the material given to the CA (for each household).

Ideally the ref. com. should also clearly identify in red bold font & in a tabular format inside the front cover of the booklet each of the common pro-life non-arguments (as well as poor pro-choice ones) used so that such traditional, relentless disruption can be neutralised for the general voting population.

This would be a big step toward maturely handling this public policy issue.

looksee

It would also be helpful to have a clear explanation of what the 8th amendment does, what is left if/when the 8th amendment is repealed, what it means and what, if anything, is going to replace it.

aloyisious

About the only way I could be persuaded that my pro-choice opinion is wrong is for a Plo-life to persuade my that what he/she means is the fetus has an automatic right to be born alive [above any rights allowed in Irish law to others living] merely due to it being conceived.

For those who base their total opposition to abortion on religious [God's ordinance] grounds I'm afraid that God hasn't been living up to their personal belief standards and ethics as the unborn don't all make it to the born alive moment.

For those who base their total opposition to abortion on non-religious grounds - just simply personal pro-life ethics - that does not equate with what the 8th amendment says: The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to 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..... there's a strong degree of equivocation [IMO] in the "as far as practicable" part of the 8th.

As the need for us to introduce a follow-up [secondary] piece of Irish Legislation [POLDPA] to the 8th proves, nature doesn't allow for ethical niceties.

aloyisious

looksee wrote: »

It would also be helpful to have a clear explanation of what the 8th amendment does, what is left if/when the 8th amendment is repealed, what it means and what, if anything, is going to replace it.

@Zerbini Blewitt & looksee; that would be precisely what the Pro-life people would like so they could continue their arguments, allegedly to fight for a lesser result on abortion, via the niceties of wording in the referendum advice booklets & advice.

recedite

aloyisious wrote: »

One of the peculiar things about this UCD Students issue was that the legal person advising Ms Ascough on the wording is apparently the same person who's been advising the student body committee and president for some years now. I don't know if the advisor changed his advice when it came to the students handbook wording now, or if it might have been that it was a different president reading the wording of that advice now. I understand that the legal effect of offering advice contrary to the wording of the act hasn't changed over the past few years.

Its quite possible that the previous SU president chose to ignore the advice. Given what has happened to the current president, that would be understandable. There must have been considerable pressure on any SU president to ignore it.
Having said that, I'm not privy to the details of this.

aloyisious

recedite wrote: »

Its quite possible that the previous SU president chose to ignore the advice. Given what has happened to the current president, that would be understandable. There must have been considerable pressure on any SU president to ignore it.
Having said that, I'm not privy to the details of this.

It'd be interesting to see what might happen if the current president is deposed by student vote and whomever is elected as a replacement is then faced with a "what to do" question on the handbook: A, go for a student union referendum on a re-issue of the original.... B, go for a reprint of the prior issue with what may be risky advice and a sure-fire way of tempting the Pro-life side into issuing a legal challenge..... or C, let it stand and avoid conflict with the law on abortion advice.

I reckon it's reasonable to think the Pro-life people are aware of the U.C.D S.U controversy b now.

Loafing Oaf

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Christopher Hitchens was pro life. So I sought with interest talks or debates where it came up to hear what his arguments actually were. He, I thought, would at least have well thought out and robust arguments to present. He was after all a master of debate and discourse.

But no, even his position, represented by a discussion he had with Ben Stein as a moderator, was purely a linguistic one. Basically his position was "The term unborn child exists, the term must mean something, therefore abortion bad".

If even one of the greatest debating minds of our generation could not muster anything better than that tripe......... I fear there is no pro life arguments out there that are going to be that impressive or convincing at all.

Was he though? He said in a Newsweek interview: “I don’t think a woman should be forced to choose, or even can be” and was against the overturning of Roe v Wade. I don't think someone who had an equivalent position in an Irish context would generally be regarded as 'pro-life.'

Hotblack Desiato

Ascough is a liar. She said that her personal so-called 'pro-life' views would not influence the SU's pro-choice, determined by plebiscite, policy and that she would defer to the other union officers on any matter pertaining to abortion. Then the first chance she got, look what she did. She not only acted unilaterally, she refused to let the other SU officers see the supposed legal opinion.

She was elected under a false pretence and a recall is entirely justified.

recedite

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Ascough is a liar.

Now now....

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

she refused to let the other SU officers see the supposed legal opinion.

That sounds dodgy. But are you saying this on the basis of hearsay, or can you cite your source for this, or are we simply suppose to accept this because you say so?