The 8th amendment(Mod warning in op)

If you want a scan before 12 weeks you need to pay it yourself and they are quite costly. Unless you choose private care, in most circumstances the consultant will give you one. But this excludes the whole lot of women in public care.
Why? Because it's not in the plan to scan women as a standard before 12 weeks, which is pretty ridiculous.

I suffered a pretty bad case of sickness and was at my GP who refused to scan me, when I asked him he said because the first scan is the booking scan and was pretty uncomfortable with the situation. I later had to be admitted to the hospital and I was scared sh1tless if the baby is alright. Everybody refused a scan. It's a combination of cost reasons and the amendment in place. If there's anything wrong abortions are easily accessible in the UK or elsewhere up until 12 weeks and the woman can go off.
Has partly to do with the protection of the unborn. I did some research on this afterwards, I had my first not in Ireland and the care was a whole lot different.
What in reality happens is that a happy couple appears to the booking scan and find out that the baby is in fact dead and a missed abort swimming around in there for the last 3 weeks, which can be quite dangerous.


The other problem is a consent problem that women aren't asked for consent for tests or treatments. If it doesn't sit well with the future parents a lot of professionals don't inform them about their rights or simply play the "you're threatening the life of your baby" card. This is a common issue in high risk pregnancies, which in itself can be quite distressing.

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Whilst I am all for abortion in exceptional circumstances (fatal fetal abnormalities, rape, incest, etc), and not for abortion on demand but would respect the decisions of mothers/parents in them circumstances, todays turn of events do make me feel slightly uncomfortable.

If the Government do go ahead with a change in legislation, that includes demand up to 12 weeks, not sure I could vote yes.

I can understand that, but in reality our laws at present don't stop abortions. The 8th at best relocates them and at worse makes them unsafe or dangerous.

The question isn't really do we think Irish people should be able to access abortions, because they do and for most people the freedom to do that is constitutionally protected (under the 13th Amendment).

The question is; if Irish people are accessing abortions, should it not be in the safest environment possible? Because even if we may not like or be comfortable with the idea of people having abortions, it's definitely safer for someone to be able to take a pill here, under medical guidance. The alternatives are that people continue to travel, which puts their health at risk, they continue ordering pills online and take them without medical supervision, or they maybe take more drastic steps.

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Whilst I am all for abortion in exceptional circumstances (fatal fetal abnormalities, rape, incest, etc), and not for abortion on demand but would respect the decisions of mothers/parents in them circumstances, todays turn of events do make me feel slightly uncomfortable.

If the Government do go ahead with a change in legislation, that includes demand up to 12 weeks, not sure I could vote yes.

There's no difference between a rape victims foetus and a foetus though

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Heard that on the RTE news this morning - not clear what that actually means regarding the wording to be put to referendum.

The Oireachtas committee is reccomending a straight repeal and legislation for abortion upto 12 weeks

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

There's no difference between a rape victims foetus and a foetus though

But the rape victim didn't choose it, or the potential psychological associated with it.

NuMarvel wrote: »

I can understand that, but in reality our laws at present don't stop abortions. The 8th at best relocates them and at worse makes them unsafe or dangerous.

The question isn't really do we think Irish people should be able to access abortions, because they do and for most people the freedom to do that is constitutionally protected (under the 13th Amendment).

The question is; if Irish people are accessing abortions, should it not be in the safest environment possible? Because even if we may not like or be comfortable with the idea of people having abortions, it's definitely safer for someone to be able to take a pill here, under medical guidance. The alternatives are that people continue to travel, which puts their health at risk, they continue ordering pills online and take them without medical supervision, or they maybe take more drastic steps.

Just because laws permitting something as legal elsewhere which is illegal in Ireland does not necessitate changing the law to make it legal here.

Marijuana use is legal in Amsterdam and plenty of other places - actually I'd argue for legislation of it here but not because people have access to it elsewhere.

Same argument for euthanasia - argument on its own merits, not because it's available legally elsewhere.

Because you then go down a slippery slope - should the age of consent be 13? Because it is in South Korea so an Irish person can have sex with a 13 year old legally elsewhere so why not in Ireland?

We decide our own laws and saying that "it's available elsewhere" - even if it is in our closest neighbour isn't a very convincing argument to me. Amsterdam is but a 2 hour plane hop away but we don't have marijuana coffeeshops here.

Your statement that our laws "at present don't stop abortions" cannot be substantiated - it can easily be said that our laws "at present stop many abortions" by necessitating the travel to another country or procuring medication illegal in Ireland.

Argue the point on its own merits - not on what other countries do.

Specialun wrote: »

thats not just the only question. yes irish can access abortion if they go abroad or use drugs

What? Use drugs?

You do know using abortion pills in Ireland is illegal

professore wrote: »

I agree, "other countries do it" is a poor argument.

Possibly, but "we allow you to kill your child as long as you take it out of the country to do so" is an even poorer one. And we voted for that.

If it's killing babies, we can't let women take Irish babies abroad to kill them.

And if it's not killing babies, then it's a medical issue and we shouldn't be expecting women to go abroad for medical treatment.

volchitsa wrote: »

Possibly, but "we allow you to kill your child as long as you take it out of the country to do so" is an even poorer one. And we voted for that.

If it's killing babies, we can't let women take Irish babies abroad to kill them.

And if it's not killing babies, then it's a medical issue and we shouldn't be expecting women to go abroad for medical treatment.

I don't agree - it's akin to saying "I don't agree or condone you having sex with 13 year olds but if you want to go to Korea and do it then unfortunately I cannot stop you".

And of course we can also put in place measures which discourage people from feeling the need to seek abortions and supporting those people who decide to keep or put their child up for adoption. This being the case whether abortion is legal or not in Ireland.

volchitsa wrote: »

And if it's not killing babies, then it's a medical issue and we shouldn't be expecting women to go abroad for medical treatment.

And you realise that if you do define it as a medical treatment issue then the argument still falls flat when looking at the measures proposed by the Oireachtas - 12 weeks ain't 24 weeks as allowed by the UK. It means women will still go abroad for "medical treatment" if they fall out of the proposed Irish time frame, sure why not suggest 24 weeks like the UK then? Women will travel if 13 weeks pregnant surely?

This branch of argument falls into the fallacy that suggests unless we have a regime that matches the most "liberal" one - then we are wrong and forcing some women to travel to other countries where more "liberal" regimes are operated.

Thirdfox wrote: »

And you realise that if you do define it as a medical treatment issue then the argument still falls flat when looking at the measures proposed by the Oireachtas - 12 weeks ain't 24 weeks as allowed by the UK. It means women will still go abroad for "medical treatment" if they fall out of the proposed Irish time frame, sure why not suggest 24 weeks like the UK then? Women will travel if 13 weeks pregnant surely?

This branch of argument falls into the fallacy that suggests unless we have a regime that matches the most "liberal" one - then we are wrong and forcing some women to travel to other countries where more "liberal" regimes are operated.

No, because the country specifically voted to allow women to travel to terminate pregnancies, that's the difference. If we had voted to allow people to travel to abuse children then yes, we'd have to answer why we thought it was acceptable to go abroad to do so.

We can punish men who travel abroad for child sex abuse - the UK does. Are you really saying that the Irish people would vote to allow men to take their daughters to Thailand to abuse them?

ETA: replied to your second post. The "most liberal" argument is not relevant because the problem is not that women are choosing to go for late abortions, it's that they have no choice here at all.

Let's legislate for 12 weeks as they do in most countries. That's well over 90% of all terminations even in the UK anyway. And I don't hear women from France and Germany complaining because their laws aren't based on UK term limits.

It's a red herring to try to claim that that gap between 12 and 24 weeks somehow means we shouldn't allow women to terminate at 11 or 12 weeks when the vast majority of abortions take place anyway.

Thirdfox wrote: »

So where do you get "specifically voted" from?

The 13th

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

The 13th

Interesting - I wasn't in the country when the 13th was debated - what did people think they were voting on specifically for this wording to be added?
...
I see from the Wiki link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

That the exact words of the amendment are
“This subsection shall not limit freedom to travel between the State and another state.”

This wording does not in Volchitsa's words "specifically voted to allow women to travel to terminate pregnancies".

In fact it does something quite different - it is saying that the 8th amendment does not interfere with the freedom to travel. As a result of the X case - the SC would have left the police with an unenforceable legal protection as unless you can read minds it is impossible to know why someone chooses to travel to another state.

This is quite different to what Volchitsa suggested.

Thirdfox wrote: »

Interesting - I wasn't in the country when the 13th was debated - what did people think they were voting on specifically for this wording to be added?
...
I see from the Wiki link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

That the exact words of the amendment are
“This subsection shall not limit freedom to travel between the State and another state.”

This wording does not in Volchitsa's words "specifically voted to allow women to travel to terminate pregnancies".

In fact it does something quite different - it is saying that the 8th amendment does not interfere with the freedom to travel. As a result of the X case - the SC would have left the police with an unenforceable legal protection as unless you can read minds it is impossible to know why someone chooses to travel to another state.

This is quite different to what Volchitsa suggested.

No it's really not, the question wasn't some vague one of whether women in general would be stopped from traveling, it was whether the AG had been correct to injunct X and her family because she was traveling for an abortion.

The 14th, which was voted on at the same time was about whether women had a right to access abortion information within Ireland (Uk magazines were having pages torn out of them at the time).

Everyone knew they were voting on the right to travel for abortion and on the right to get information about abortion. It wasn't some worry about going to Malaga or about not getting the latest edition of Cosmo on time.