Would Ireland follow Europe's Lead in Aborting the Huge Majority of Down Syndrome Pos

I don't think some people realise the extent of the medical conditions that present in DS. Most have heart conditions of varying severity and can be uniquely complicated. Crumlin's cardiologists are known worldwide in their field because of how many cases come through their doors compared to other countries. Rates of leukaemia are also many, many times higher.

Winston Orange Pennant wrote: »

At 6 weeks it has a heartbeat...just like everyone else has. It's alive.

It may have a heartbeat, but it doesn't have a brain, or consciousness, or sentience, and it cannot live outside the womb.

It is my opinion that the only person who should get to decide what happens in a woman's womb is the woman who owns it. And if a woman believes that she is not capable or does not want to raise a child with a severe disability then that is her own decision.

Winston Orange Pennant wrote: »

Does the father have no right to decide what happens his child?

Is the father going to raise it as a single parent, with sole custody?

Tigger wrote: »

if there was a country that had something terrible legal
well people would have the rightvtobtravel there and to know about it
thatvdosent mean that what ever this thing is is a good thibg

honestlybim out atvthis stage

ill be puttingba decent bet in the 8th notvgettingreoealed
late term abortions for everyone

Except it used to be illegal to issue information or travel with the intention of procuring an abortion. The Irish people decided democratically in 1992 that neither of those things were so terrible that they ought to be against the law.

I'm not sure why late term abortions are being brought into it. Despite being a favourite to get bandied about, I don't know anyone outside the lunatic fringes/trolls who advocates for them outwith FFA and when there is no other alternative to preserve the life of the mother.

Late term abortions are common? Never mind for non-FFA? Do you happen to have any evidence to back up that assertion? It flies in the face of pretty much everything I've read on the topic.

Define commonly?
There is prenatal screening from 12 weeks, more scans and tests before 20 weeks - yes, some diagnosis will be missed.

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) is currently available which can detect fetal abnormalities - including Down Syndrome - from 10 weeks and with much greater accuracy but it's still expensive and not routine in public health care systems.

Given most would want to get the earliest diagnosis and treatment, post 24 week abortions are likely to become a rarity in the not too distant future.

Tigger wrote: »

good
so lets legislate before the refferendum so that post 20 week abortions are still illegal
or post 16 weeks ( with the ffa and risj to life things still in operation)
16 weeks is loads of time to terminate the pregnency

16 weeks?


https://www.bpas.org/media/2027/late-abortion-report-v02.pdf

Tigger wrote: »

the crux of the matter is and will always be how far back in the gestation we go before we definatly dont have a being that deserves rights

We simply do not have an answer for the exact "moment" this happens. Partly due to our lack of complete knowledge. But also party due to the fact I do not think there is a "moment" it happens rather than a sequence of events that occur in iteration.

Thankfully for abortion we do not NEED to identify when it DOES happen. We just need to identify when we can be as sure as sure gets in science that it HAS NOT yet happened.

This we can do. And given the near totality of choice based abortions happen significantly BEFORE such points, it is not really a problem for pro-choice people to deal with.

Tigger wrote: »

i used to play music and sing to my fetus son before he was born and he reacted. that was probably at 30 weeks onwards

Yes 30 weeks is very late in the process. But the fetus will "react to" many things from much earlier stages. The danger lies in how much we read into such reactions. An ameoba, for example, will "react to" light and/or a needle stuck into it. Mere "reaction" alone tells us nothing.

Some reactions are more emotive to us than others of course, so some people fall into the dangers of over interpreting it more than others. For example one user of boards was very emotionally moved by a study that showed tongue movements in a fetus in response to music.

Attempting to DESCRIBE that movement the researcher likened it to "trying to speak". All rationality went out of the user at that point and he interpreted it looking LIKE "trying to speak" as pretty much being the fetus ACTUALLY trying to speak. Which was both sad AND comical at the time.

So using caps and no caps I think we have to distinguish between a fetus reacting (autonomic responses with no actual experience, or possible experience, on the part of the fetus)......... and Reacting (capital R) where the fetus' reaction is wholly or partially due to a present and functional faculty of sentience or conscious awareness.

Tigger wrote: »

ahh ffs that works for gay marrige but jot for killing fetuese some people feel they shoild have rights

Of course they do. All I have ever asked of such people myself is whether they can give any arguments, evidence, data or reasoning for that position. Or is it just something the "feel" and to hell with anyone who thinks OR feels (or both) otherwise?

There is always a distinction in my mind between WHAT a person thinks and feels, and the basis they can offer for thinking or feeling it. I get a lot of the former. So far zilch of the latter.

Tigger wrote: »

16 weeks is loads of time to terminate the pregnency

I would always pin my flag to the mast of 16 weeks. If I woke up tomorrow in a country that allowed choice based abortion up to 12 or 20 weeks though I would not loose any sleep over either.

But yes, the near totality of abortions people make by CHOICE are done by 16 weeks in pretty much every country in the world where it is available. I would be all for your conclusions here.