antiskeptic wrote: » Whether or not the the foetus is a person is a philosophical matter. Neither the law or medicine has a way of establishing the truth of the matter....
david75 wrote: » The only people we should be listening to in this entire situation are the women brave enough to come forward to speak about their experiences. Our ‘sincerely held beliefs’ really have no place when put into context against actual real life experiences and tragedies women are facing. This is thought provokinghttps://twitter.com/skynews/status/957892095108268033
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pitifulgod wrote: » Sweden and Denmark offer fantastic support to families and children. But they're less civilised because they allow abortion?
end of the road wrote: » ireland is a civilised country by not allowing unrestricted and on demand abortion. countries that allow abortion on demand and unrestricted are less civilised as they allow the killing of the unborn without good reason.
smacl wrote: » Whether or not the unborn foetus currently has a right to life is what this entire debate is about. You are clearly of the opinion that it does, the law as it currently stands supports that, but very many people feel that this should not be the case as it infringes the pregnant woman's human rights and hence the move to change such law. As so many have stated here already, a foetus is not a baby and repeatedly referring to it as a baby does not change that.
smacl wrote: » The litany of clerical abuses throughout recent history in this country aren't a matter of my opinion, they're a well documented fact. Subsequent unrelated charitable activity, however beneficial that might be, doesn't cancel that out. That an organisation run largely by elderly men would seek to influence and even dictate women's reproductive behaviour based on their own anachronistic moral outlook is clearly a nonsense.
smacl wrote: » More importantly, the upcoming referendum stands to improve the inexcusable treatment of pregnant women in this country, who for whatever reason, do not wish to continue with their pregnancy. That you find this an appalling injustice is your opinion, but it would seem likely you'll find it to be a minority one. The injustice as I see it today is that a woman cannot choose to legally have an abortion in this country. It does not mean that the woman who would make such as choice will have the baby, it just means that she will be exposed to danger and unnecessary burden to have the abortion outside of the Irish health care system purely to protect the narrow-minded morality of those who are unlikely to ever have to make such a difficult choice.
ABC101 wrote: » You have mentioned the right of the mother to end her pregnancy, however while she does have rights over her body, ending the pregnancy will infringe upon the right to life of the baby human growing inside her. In this conflict of rights there is a "pecking order" a heirarchy so to speak.
This curtailment of certain individual rights is very common in society. Even within marriage, each spouse / partner surrenders certain individual rights to the greater good of the marriage / relationship. For example... one partner may wish to play golf all weekend / every weekend of the year. But this may not be possible due to other considerations of the marriage / partnership, where the other partner may require to visit a family member etc. Another example ...You may desire to go on a holiday but your manager / boss at work requires you to be present in the workplace. Despite the fact that you have the individual right to go on this holiday, the work contract you have with your employer takes priority and you have to stay at work. This is just another example of where your rights are curtailed. I am sure you could mention better examples, and we could go on listing them, but you get the idea.
2). You seem (from what I have gathered in your posts) to have a opinion that a injustice has been committed by the RCC / other religious denominations against women and babies. No doubt some injustices have occurred, but you don't seem to be willing to accept certain good has been practised in the past and continues into the present. The Father Peter McVerry trust, the Cappuchin Day centre ( x number of dinners / food per day), the St Vincent de Paul society (assisting families in need) are just a small number of examples. I'm sorry to write Smacl, but you seem to ignore all the good which has been carried out over the past continuing to be done, and only see the negative. Why is this? 3). Getting back to your sense of "injustice" which you perceive to have taken place in the past. It is good and correct that we admit past mistakes and wrongdoings, it is good that we recognise past mistakes / injustices which have been committed either by a religious denomination and or nation / society. It is good that we try and learn from these mistakes, and implement systems to try and prevent them getting repeated. But past wrongdoings..... are in the past. We cannot go back in time and change the circumstances / social environment of 1923 or year YYYY or whenever. The dead are dead, we cannot make them undead.
But the upcoming Abortion referendum of 2018 in Ireland "WILL IMPACT" human babies of the future. Abortion is a appalling injustice committed against human beings in very early stage of development. In summation, stop wasting energy about past injustices, instead look to the present / near future and try to work on various injustices which we can limit / reduce / eradicate. If the electorate vote for abortion up to 12 weeks in 2018, because the constitutional right to life of the unborn is removed, there is nothing stopping our political representatives at some point in the future introducing unlimited abortion. It will just be passed by a vote in the Dail. The 2018 Referendum, could be the thin edge of the wedge of a much greater injustice in the near / not too distant future. No poster on Boards can guarantee that it will not be so. Smacl... we cannot change the past, no matter how outraged we feel about various past injustices. But we can control the future (to a certain extent) in this 2018 referendum.
end of the road wrote: » no, abortion outside that scope is wanted. it's not actually needed, people can just as easily continue going to the uk if they want an abortion for convenience reasons. it's not the job of the irish state to provide abortions for convenience or contraceptive/birth control reasons. when it comes to removing rights, absolutely. i have no problem being anti-democratic in exceptional circumstances, such as where rights will be removed or a decisian that will negatively effect the country is made. i'm not happy about those women traveling, i just can't stop them from doing so. it's not. not providing abortion as contraception and birth control is not at the expence of anyone, it's protecting the unborn from undue harm. i have provided it. the unborn don't have more rights then the woman, they have equal rights bar where those rights interfere with the life of the mother, cause a threat of injury or disability, or where those babies will not live to term. there is nothing disgusting about wanting to ignore a result that removes the rights from the unborn. the unborn have rights and those rights must be upheld as much as is practical. wanting to protect the rights of the unborn is the extreme opposite of disgusting.
WhiteRoses wrote: » No, sorry, you have totally missed the point. If the referendum to repeal should pass, you are suggesting and encouraging that we should ignore and show disrespect to that result. That is absolutely disgusting. Disregarding the majority opinion (whatever it may be) and suggesting we ignore it is horrible. That is not how this society work. Here is what you said, for truth:
end of the road wrote: » the unborn have rights. equal rights to the mother unless the mother's life is under threat, she is at threat of permanent injury or disability, or cases of FFA or other cases where the baby cannot be caried or will not live to term. so the system is set up to allow abortions when actually required. there is nothing selfish or disgusting about wanting to insure the unborn continue to have rights. in fact, wanting the unborn to continue to have rights is the extreme opposite of selfish and disgusting.
Originally Posted by end of the road if the majority actually do believe in removing the rights that the unborn have then that view must not be respected and must be ignored.
david75 wrote: » Again. Using America as a metric is utterly ridiculous. It’s a completely divided and polarised situation featuring two competent dofferent extremes. And the religious end of the extreme isn’t and has never covered itself in glory. *bonus point. ‘North America refers to the United States AND Canada. Rhe attitudes to abortion in both countries could not be more different
smacl wrote: » Obviously. It is an action based on the choice a pregnant woman makes that she does not want to have a child. Not an easy choice, nor one that you or I can make on her behalf against her will. Pro-choice people are not trying to make an emotive 'who will think of the poor babies' argument, where the pro-life people clearly are. As such it seems entirely reasonable to ask pro-lifers why they are so keen that new babies be born at a time when so many existing babies are starving to death. The RCC haven't exactly covered themselves in glory when it comes to mothers and babies now have they? Yet at the same time, many of those same fathers might spout pro-life rhetoric on the simple basis that the consequences of doing so will never impact them. Perhaps you should be applauding the women who take the decision to have an abortion rather than becoming single mothers and a burden to the taxpayer.
volchitsa wrote: » I imagine it's for the same reason that a woman can legally travel to end her pregnancy, but if she announced the she was taking a child to a warzone where there is no sanction for killing it, people would try to prevent her, ie, because for the vast majority of people, ending a pregnancy is not the same thing as killing a child?
WhiteRoses wrote: » Posting emotional blackmail videos is something we could all do, I’m sure I could find hundreds that support my pro choice position. A song about the possible perspective of the unborn fetus? This is almost as bad as your cartoon of the embryo. Spare me.
WhiteRoses wrote: » Really heartbreaking story on The Simon Community’s Facebook at the moment. It’s the story of a man, now in his 30’s. Born with fetal alcohol syndrome to a mother who neither wanted him nor could cope. He was surrendered to the care system aged 4 and had been in 13 different care homes around the country by the age of 12. At age 12 he started drinking, and at age 15 he was addicted to heroin. He didn’t attend school and no one cared. At 18, he was released from state care and left to fend for himself. It’s a surprise to no one that he ended up homeless. He was in trouble with the law for stealing and being drunk and disorderly. It was only in the last year that he managed to get himself clean. Thanks to the hard work of the Simon Community, he’s now got his own place. He’s studying for his junior cert at the moment and is doing very well for himself. He was the one who suffered for the lack of support given to his mother. It all fell back on him. So forgive me for giving more weight to the story of a real man who actually grew up in the care system, and how it impacted him. The same system we rely on today to bring up the babies of women who had no choice. His perspective is far more valuable than the song about the possible feelings of an embryo in the womb.
pitifulgod wrote: » Just to clarify, do you think overall mother and baby homes and laundries were a force for good overall? Seems distinctly like you're intentionally diminishing how large scale the neglect was. The church bore considerable responsibility for how single mothers were viewed in the first place. In much the same way women who have abortions are referred to as murderers by some
pitifulgod wrote: » Firstly, yep I view society as complicit. However the rationale that the people followed was that of the fallen woman. They didn't just invent that themselves, they were taught it from birth. A single woman with a child was something to be ashamed of and the church was a considerable proponent and nurturer of that view. So yep society was at fault but you can't ignore where those views came from. Now we're in a phase where there are people who are happy to shame women for abortions and label them as murderers, we've had posters on this thread that simply voting to allow abortion is to doom you to hell. The parallels are very real, just the RCC have considerably diminished influence.
