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The 8th amendment(Mod warning in op)

RobertKK

The citizens assembly voted to replace or amend the 8th amendment.

50% voted to replace or amend
44% voted to repeal
Rest preferred to not state an opinion

Now deciding how it will be replaced or amended
: Let the Dail legislate on the rights of the unborn
: Amend the provision in the constitution.

Meltdown on twitter by Repealthe8th people.

Mod- This thread has descended in to petty name calling. We've tried to let this thread run without too much mod interference but now it's on our radar we will be watching. From here on the name calling stops. If you can't debate civilly we will remove your right to post.

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Zubeneschamali

Vronsky wrote: »

Correlation doors not imply causation.

I think the correllation with lead in petrol and paint is better.

Hooks Golf Handicap

I spent last night trying to get my head around the real argument.

So, if the 8th is not repealed then about 5,000 women will source abortions.
If the 8th is repealed then about 5,000 women will source abortions.

So really the whole debate comes down to whether the state has a duty of care to Irish women.
That best medical practice is followed by not forcing them to travel or take unsupervised medication.

That makes it a no brainer for me.

Vronsky

maxsmum wrote: »

Has anyone read Freakonomics by the way? Crime rates in the States fell drastically 20 years after abortion became legal through Roe Vs Wade. Maybe some people who become pregnant through accidents or lack of education could do with having access to abortion.

Correlation doors not imply causation.

maxsmum

LirW wrote: »

If abortion on demand up to 12 weeks would be legalized, you won't find out the sex of your baby that early. You could only via tests, and these aren't accurate or shouldn't be taken that early. So in that case, this issue can be avoided.

Panorama or harmony tests are done from 9 weeks, I had one as did my sister, so we knew the sex that early. Only available privately but becoming more widespread.

Odhinn

maxsmum wrote: »

This is exactly it. This is really all it comes down to. I find the image of men curled up in their beds at night worried that maybe some women somewhere might have an abortion so weird!

For a lot of them, it help takes their mind off worrying what two, three or more men may be doing in bed together.

NuMarvel

Belfast wrote: »

Will it be illegal to have and abortion based on the gender of the fetus like it is in Britain.

Going by the Committee's recommendations, it would be legally permissible in the first 12 weeks, but I don't know enough about fetal development to say if it's possible to determine gender in that timeframe. From what I've briefly googled, gender is usually determined by ultrasound from about week 16 onwards. There are blood and genetic tests that can determine gender from week 10 but I haven't a clue about the accuracy or risks of those tests, or of their availability in Ireland.

The Committee also recommended that after 12 weeks, abortion can only be accessed for specific reasons (eg FFA, risk to health or life), and gender isn't one of those reasons.

LirW

If abortion on demand up to 12 weeks would be legalized, you won't find out the sex of your baby that early. You could only via tests, and these aren't accurate or shouldn't be taken that early. So in that case, this issue can be avoided.

Belfast

Will it be illegal to have and abortion based on the gender of the fetus like it is in Britain.

Is it illegal to terminate due to financial/social needs or based on gender?

The law does not state that a doctor has to take into account a woman’s environment when deciding whether she can legally abort, but they may choose to do so.

For example, a woman’s economic and social situation may impact on a her health if she continued with the pregnancy.

There have previously been campaigns to make sex-selective abortions legal in the UK, but it remains illegal.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/3782462/uk-abortion-laws-termination-ireland-uk/

maxsmum

Has anyone read Freakonomics by the way? Crime rates in the States fell drastically 20 years after abortion became legal through Roe Vs Wade. Maybe some people who become pregnant through accidents or lack of education could do with having access to abortion.

nozzferrahhtoo

Sweetemotion wrote: »

Why are all these people who don't want to get pregnant not getting pregnant?

As a user already told you, some people think they were protected and the protection failed them. Some people even use 2 or 3 protections in parallel, and it still fails them.

But not all pregnancies come from unprotected sex. Some are from rapes. And not all rape victims are aware they were raped either.

Further it is an error to assume that everyone seeking an abortion is someone who got pregnant against their will. Some people get pregnant willingly but then their circumstances change and their desire to be pregnant changes. So the "If you did not want to be pregnant why did you get pregnant" narrative simply does not fit for them.

Further you seem to think "if protection does not always work then take the MAP every time" is a useful approach to this. Do you know what that drug does? Do you know anything about the results of consistent use of it rather than one off periodic emergency use of it?

Further, you might also be in danger of making the assumption that it too is 100% effective. Do you think that is a safe assumption? If contraceptives, even when used in parallel in multiple forms, can statistically sometimes fail........ then do you not suspect that emergency after measures even if taken consistently might not also have a failure rate?

And if so, you would STILL end up with unwanted pregnancies. So you would basically be left in a position of having to argue for abstinence only approaches to contraception. And history has shown how well THAT has gone for us.

Sweetemotion wrote: »

It's better than the advice you are giving. Sure why use protection at all we will soon have abortion available.

Strange I thought I was reading the thread closely. I must have missed where the user advocated that position. Could you perhaps cite or link the post where this occurred? After all, I would hate to think you simply made it up and shoved your words into their mouth in order to mis-represent them. You would not stoop to that level I guess?

nozzferrahhtoo

Thirdfox wrote: »

One question I wonder about from the pro-choice side (and some of my pro-choice friends confirmed it to me) is if medical science advances forward so that a 10, 8, 6, X week old foetus is viable independently

I am pro-choice but nothing about my pro-choice position is predicated on "viability". And while I have met other pro-choice campaigners who DO predicate it on that, they have in my experience been a minority.

So the progress of medical technology......... which as you suggest is likely to eventually remove the requirement for wombs at all.............. is not an issue for my position on abortion.

Thirdfox wrote: »

I'm trying to help you see that your argument of "you don't do it but let others who want to go ahead" doesn't work in actual fact.

Well the argument does AND does not work, depending what the argument is actually being used against. Context determines the strength of the argument here.

I think where this argument is strong is where people have nothing but a PERSONAL bias against abortion. They have no moral or ethical arguments to indict it, they just feel like it is wrong and therefore no one should have one.

The "you don't do it but let others who want to go ahead" argument works very well in THAT context.

Whereas with murder, to use your analogy, we DO have good moral and ethical arguments against people doing it. So the "Well if you do not want to murder dont, but leave those of us who do alone" argument would indeed be weak in that context.

Thirdfox wrote: »

And I too have tried to look at it from a scientific (with a humanist bent) view - spiritual doesn't fact in the argument at all in my household. The scientific view is one that throws up 1 of my 2 key problems with abortion - that of imposing an arbitrary limit on the availability of abortions.

I do not see that as a "problem" at all. Arbitrary limits are built into a lot of our laws by necessity of the fact we do not live in an ideal world where we can consider each individual case on it's own merits.

Take the arbitrary age limits on sexual consent and purchase of alcohol for example. What is it about a specific birthday that somehow means a person 1 week before it is capable of consenting to these things, but 1 week after they are not. Especially given in some countries a child can go to war years before they can purchase a beer.

I have considered the moral and ethical arguments around abortion by choice for many years now and I have noticed that the arguments that would make me iffy about termination of a fetus do not kick in until around 22-24 weeks gestation.

The near totality (in the area of 98% consistently around the world) of people who CHOOSE abortion do so in or before week 16 of gestation.

That is one hell of a buffer, to the point that while one might moan a 16 week cut off is "arbitrary".... it caters for the near totality of demand that is actually placed on abortion services in the real world.

So your issue does not seem an issue at all except for the "If it can not be done 100% perfect lets not do it at all" style of thinking that does seep into the conversation on rare occasion and usually from a single user who is not you.

Thirdfox wrote: »

for human life - I find this arbitrariness highly troubling. Why is a 12 week 0 day 0 hour 0 minute 1 second foetus "unabortable"?

It is not. Rather I think the arguments say that in reality it is closer to 24 weeks. But what you seem to miss is that there are two ways to argue it. Purely philosophically is one. And when you do this you get figures around 24 weeks.

But when someone suggests cut offs in the REAL world, one has to factor in all kinds of other things. What is the actual demand on the system? What are the risks of complications at later abortions? What are the political implications of trying to campaign for abortion at 12 weeks rather than 24 weeks. What are the costs of maintaining different systems. And much much more.

And what one has to do is balance what people actually want/need, with what we feel we can provide, and with the complications providing it might result in.

And then in the end one comes up with a balanced figure born of mediating for ALL those individual concerns. And for me that is 16 weeks. But if I woke up in an Ireland tomorrow with abortion by choice at 12 weeks, or 20 weeks, I would lose absolutely no sleep over either.

And none of the final figure is predicated on the no-true scotsman thinking that lies behind a "What has intrinsically changed from 1 second ago that made this "thing" deserving of legal protection" narrative on parsing it.

Thirdfox wrote: »

Another thing I generally find myself in agreement with with pro-choicers is that we all want to minimise abortions as much as we can.

I love that you included this and I wish many more people would. Many people not only miss that common ground, but some even actively ignore it and hide it. Usually behind trolling emotive terms like "pro murder" and "pro abortion" and similar rhetoric.

Abortion is a divisive topic already, we do not need to make it more so by missing the fact that there is a massive lump of common ground between most people on most sides. Pretty much all of us would ideally like to live in a society where no abortion happens. We just differ on our paths towards that ideal.

Zubeneschamali

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 really isn't, it is exactly what Volchista said, and everyone who voted for it knew that, and the prolife movement opposed it at the time and 37.5% of the voters opposed it because they were prolife.

Think about it, the 13th does not establish a right to travel. It does not stand alone. All it does is say the 8th cannot be used to limit freedom to travel.

But in what circumstance could the 8th have been used? We know that, because the Supreme Court told us in its judgement on the X case. The 8th obliged the state to prevent travel for abortion.

This is not in any way an unenforceable legal anything - the AG enforced it in the X case, injuncting a girl from travel and from having an abortion. She returned from England and never did have the abortion - it worked.

And that is before the legislature implemented the judgement into law (which they never did, we enacted the 13th so that they wouldn't have to). Obviously, if travelling to England for an abortion is a breach of the right to life of the unborn (which the SC confirmed) then the state would have to make it illegal, and punish women and people who help them appropriately. Something like the recent law with its 14 year sentence on conviction would have been required.

And 37.5% of voters were A-OK with that.

nozzferrahhtoo

markodaly wrote: »

Put simply I do not want a culture of abortion become the norm in Ireland where 25% of pregnancies are aborted which is the norm elsewhere.

Well it does pay to consider how much a part of our culture it already is. Just because people currently seeking abortions might, for example, hop on a boat to England and do it there..... that does not make it NOT part of the culture HERE.

That said though, have you looked through the figures on abortion when choice based abortion is introduced to the society? You might find that quite often the figures go in the OPPOSITE direction that your concerns here suggest you imagine they would.

end of the road wrote: »

the unborn have a right to life bar absolutely extreme circumstances.

Should they though? On what philosophical basis? What is it you think "rights" are at the level of philosophy. How and why are they formed. To what exactly are they assigned and on what basis?

What is it about one piece of life that gives it "rights" that another piece of life does not? Why does the 12 week old fetus have a right to life when the cow about to become your next burger does not?

I fear a lot of people have a throw away sound bite approach to the deep philosophical concepts of rights, morality and ethics that is shown in your rather vague statement here.

_Dara_

conorhal wrote: »

You think it isn't? What percentage do you imagine are 'oopsies'?

The amount of women who wilfully don't use contraception because abortion is an option? Yeah, I'd say that's very few women. Now, women who do use contraception and it fails? A much higher number, I should think. But that's not really an "oopsie", is it?

LirW

I had my second because I wanted to and the pregnancy was horrifying. I did feel sh1t for 9 months straight and needed an emergency C-section because I went into labour early. It's probably the main reason why I don't wanna have more children, because I really don't wanna go through this again, ever ever ever.
If you're pregnant and have to carry it to term against your will you're risking the longterm mental and physical health of an adult woman. So many women that really wanted children get out of pregnancy and childbirth traumatized because it can go wrong so easily. You can't use women as brood machines against their will. Pregnancy is not getting a bit heavier over 9 months. It sucks, big time.

Kiwi in IE

conorhal wrote: »

I think what you actually mean is that your pompous declaration was at odds with reality and now you don't want to talk about it because the fact that the majority of abortions are lifestyle choices to illiminate a minor inconvenience is a fact that you don't want to acknowlege because it's a hard PR spin.

When you have been pregnant for 9 months when you didn't want to be, and gone through childbirth unwillingly, come back to us about your 'minor inconvenience'!

conorhal

RayM wrote: »

No, I don't think it is. Not that what someone else chooses to do with their own body is any of my business.

I think what you actually mean is that your pompous declaration was at odds with reality and now you don't want to talk about it because the fact that the majority of abortions are lifestyle choices to illiminate a minor inconvenience is a fact that you don't want to acknowlege because it's a hard PR spin.

NuMarvel

Thirdfox wrote: »

It's my day job - I can't leave the law to one side

If that's true, then your grasp of the law is shockingly poor. Maybe (once again) take your own advice and hit the law library. Start with the consequences of breaching court orders and injunctions.

[Deleted User]

Sweetemotion wrote: »

It's better than the advice you are giving. Sure why use protection at all we will soon have abortion available.

What on earth are you talking about? Nobody here said not to use protection. The point being made is that even the most effective methods of contraception have a very small chance of failure. If that happens, the people involved have to decide what's right for them and sometimes it may be having an abortion. It is not something that is taken lightly and to try to argue that it will be used as a method of contraception is frankly ridiculous and shows utter contempt for the women unfortunate enough to find themselves in that situation.

Annasopra

Sweetemotion wrote: »

It's better than the advice you are giving. Sure why use protection at all we will soon have abortion available.

Watch and see how much sexual transmitted diseases increase due to this.

But hey isn't it great how liberal we are...

You are making stuff up now :rolleyes:

maxsmum

RayM wrote: »

end of the road wrote: »

well no they are choosing to kill the unborn. i don't think the unborn should have it's life taken bar extreme circumstances. the unborn have a right to life bar absolutely extreme circumstances.
without a legal guarantee that there will be no abortion on demand, i can't see there being a resounding yes to repealing the 8th, or if there is it won't be by much.

It only needs to be 50% plus 1, so hopefully it'll get over the line and abortion will be safely available on request. Not really interested in arguing about the rights and wrongs of abortion itself, tbh, because those arguments have been done to death. I don't have to like or approve of other people's decisions to accept that they should have a right to make them, even if I think they're wrong - especially where their own bodies are concerned. It's not my business. It's not about me.

This is exactly it. This is really all it comes down to. I find the image of men curled up in their beds at night worried that maybe some women somewhere might have an abortion so weird!

RayM

end of the road wrote: »

well no they are choosing to kill the unborn. i don't think the unborn should have it's life taken bar extreme circumstances. the unborn have a right to life bar absolutely extreme circumstances.
without a legal guarantee that there will be no abortion on demand, i can't see there being a resounding yes to repealing the 8th, or if there is it won't be by much.

It only needs to be 50% plus 1, so hopefully it'll get over the line and abortion will be safely available on request. Not really interested in arguing about the rights and wrongs of abortion itself, tbh, because those arguments have been done to death. I don't have to like or approve of other people's decisions to accept that they should have a right to make them, even if I think they're wrong - especially where their own bodies are concerned. It's not my business. It's not about me.

end of the road

RayM wrote: »

They're choosing not to carry it inside their body for nine months. I don't think they should be forced to.

well no they are choosing to kill the unborn. i don't think the unborn should have it's life taken bar extreme circumstances. the unborn have a right to life bar absolutely extreme circumstances.
without a legal guarantee that there will be no abortion on demand, i can't see there being a resounding yes to repealing the 8th, or if there is it won't be by much.

RayM

end of the road wrote: »

they aren't choosing to do something with their body though. they are choosing to do something with the unborn life they are carying. quite the difference there.

They're choosing not to carry it inside their body for nine months. I don't think they should be forced to.

end of the road

RayM wrote: »

No, I don't think it is. Not that what someone else chooses to do with their own body is any of my business.

they aren't choosing to do something with their body though. they are choosing to do something with the unborn life they are carying. quite the difference there.

RayM

conorhal wrote: »

You think it isn't? What percentage do you imagine are 'oopsies'?

No, I don't think it is. Not that what someone else chooses to do with their own body is any of my business.

conorhal

RayM wrote: »

If you really think abortion will be used as a form of contraception, then - like so many of your ilk - you have a very low opinion of women.

You think it isn't? What percentage do you imagine are 'oopsies'?

RayM

Sweetemotion wrote: »

It's better than the advice you are giving. Sure why use protection at all we will soon have abortion available.

If you really think abortion will be used as a form of contraception, then - like so many of your ilk - you have a very low opinion of women.

LushiousLips

Sweetemotion wrote:

Goodnight princess.

Don't be a Dlckhead

Thirdfox

NuMarvel wrote: »

I'm not stretching anything. It just looks like that to you because you have a very narrow view of how the law works.

Travelling for an abortion when there was a high court injunction telling her not to (amongst other things), would have left Ms X in contempt of court. Contempt of court can result in fines and/or prison sentences. Just because something isn't set out in statute doesn't mean it can't be enforced. Court orders can have the same legal weight as laws passed by parliaments.

Maybe you should take your own advice and leave the legal arguments to one side.

It's my day job - I can't leave the law to one side

If you read up on the case - the family had already travelled to England and came back. You need to get your facts in order before tackling the legal side.

Here's the case notes - have a read of the (rather tragic) case - rape by family member and girl ultimately had a miscarriage while in London after being cleared by the SC to have an abortion:
http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IESC/1992/1.html

As for constitutional law - I recommend Hogan's book - it's a tome but a worthy read (try any legal library if you're not inclined to buy the book yourself

):
https://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/ie/j-m-kelly-the-irish-constitution-9781845923662/

edit - and now I'm really out