realitykeeper wrote: » Time and again, the courts show up families which have harboured a pedophile for decades while all the time pretending to pillars of the community.
realitykeeper wrote: » Instances of wrongdoing within the Catholic Church are no more part of the Catholic Church than finding a fly in a packet of soup from Tesco. Tesco do not have a policy of adding flies to their soup even if you found one there.
tonymontanavu wrote: » What diffrence do that make? The only diffrence is that our closest neighbour allows it because of the access to it. We can't make decisions and refer to what's allowed elsewhere (and not everywhere deemed progressive)
Billy86 wrote: » Eight months would be 34-35 weeks... apart from North Korea and China (with their 'unique' history when it comes to abortion), is there any country in the world that allows that late?
professore wrote: » I'm not talking about these cases.
volchitsa wrote: » I notice you haven't tried to explain it though. Because from where I'm standing, as a woman, hopefully with a brain, who's had an abortion, I don't think I needed a random man coming along and helping me to think these things through. I did that at the time, and I'm still certain it was the right decision. And what's more, I think women who terminate pregnancies do think these things through, and that nobody thinks it's like killing a fly. To be blunt about it, the mindset behind such a comment is the typical male "women are silly idiots who need to be told what and how to think" stuff.
....... wrote: » Why should any womans decision making process be held up to your judgement about whats right for her? What if she thinks its a necessity but you dont? Why should your opinion dictate her options for her own body?
Edward M wrote: » It was in response to a question asked of me. By wording it the way I did it seems to have caused upset. What I felt when I was writing it was that I was conveying that women have a brain, (something I never doubted) and are well capable of making their own decision on the why's of it. I have never told anybody what they should do nor would I. The last sentence in that post states very clearly that what might be my necessity might not be yours, meaning that decisions made are valid for the person that makes them, whether agreed with by me or others or not. I can't help it if what I say sounds typically male, I am a male after all, but the way you word that is a bit ironic I think, given that you are attacking me for seeming to have some bad opinion of women?
professore wrote: » I don't believe this is a topic that should be legislated on the whims of politicians, rather whatever is decided should be enshrined in the Constitution.
swampgas wrote: » I find this genuinely hard to comprehend. You are assuming that democracy won't work properly for legislation regarding abortion. You are assuming that TDs are likely to go passing abortion legislation "on a whim". Everything I've seen from the Dáil in the last 40 years suggests the opposite - that the government tends to leglislate on controversial issues only when they absolutely have to, and when there is significant public pressure to do so, and when efforts to kick the can down the road have been exhausted.
pleas advice wrote: » I really think you got the wrong end of the stick there...
Zubeneschamali wrote: » This will be handled in legislation after the 8th is repealed, not in the Constitution, 12 weeks unrestricted, and later for FFA or the health of the mother is at risk.
professore wrote: » You mean like the bank guarantee?
Joeytheparrot wrote: » What happens post Brexit then?
Edward M wrote: » Me too, I think a bit of misandry has shown itself. But of course I'm being misogynistic.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » Not everything needs to be in the constitution. There are reasons, for example, why we do not have people generally in politics trying to reduce the sexual age of consent to 10 years of age. We do not need specific laws in the constitution to prevent them doing that. This is simply not what a constitution is for. Also I am not sure what your concerns are with countries that do have no limits. Firstly of the most well known ones, only canada is meaningfully comparable to us as a country. I do not think we are all that much like North Korea really. And China is debatable. Regardless of whether there are limits or not though, one thing we see consistently around the world is that the vast majority (usually a few digits past 90%) of abortion by choice happens in or before week 12. The near totality (numbers like 96 and 98) by week 16. Those women who have abortions past this stage generally do it for genuine FFA and other medical concerns. They do it because they basically have to. If you are fearing abortions at 8 months for example, which tend not to be abortions at all but terminations of the pregnancy resulting in a premature but entirely healthy child............ then ask yourself how often that ACTUALLY happens. How many women in this world CHOOSE for no medical reasons etc..... to have an abortion at 8 months. For your concerns to be valid enough to justify voting no you would have to A) assume the government would ever legislate for something the electorate totally do not seem to want, which would be akin to reducing the sexual age of consent to 10 in terms of uproar and political suicide, assume they will go against the recommendations of the Citizens Assembly that they have said thus far they intend to stick with C) they would ignore all the good arguments AGAINST allowing such abortions and D) that we can not trust women at all and that they actually would go about doing any such thing. Any one of those is pretty unlikely, but to expect all 4 of them at the same time..... sounds to me like someone who is choosing to vote "no" first and then reaching for reasons to actually do so second. But by all means pull the stats on Canada, and work out A) How many abortions (not terminations) did happen from 8 months on and How many of them were purely based on choice and everyone involved was actually perfectly 100% healthy.
swampgas wrote: » That's all you've got? Look at issues like contraception and divorce instead. Marriage equality and the smoking ban were two areas where Ireland was ahead of many other countries but there was widespread support for those. When the Dáil legislates for abortion, it will be for a position that has widespread support. If you don't like that then you don't like democracy.
professore wrote: » I've set out my position and that's it. Even one termination like this that I helped bring about is too many for me.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » Actually as someone who has worked through miscarriage with women the exact opposite of what you suggest here is true. MUCH benefit can be attained from bringing a woman mourning such a loss to a point where she sees the fetus for what it is, rather than what she had invested in it. Now of course this does not entail marching up to such a woman and declaring to her "Get over yourself, all you lost was a relatively complex but otherwise barely differentiated clump of cells". There is a process of care and empathy in divesting people of the narratives that are causing them to needlessly suffer. But the overall goal, and benefits, are derived very much in such cases from essentially getting to them to the point you describe, even if we do not describe it to them as crassly as you do here. The problem with your rhetoric here however is the assumption that such consideration has NOT been taken/given. It has. The reason you pretend it has not is that the RESULTS of that consideration by people like myself have not produced the result YOU want. So I guess it is easier to imagine no consideration was taken, than to accept the fact it WAS taken and it did not go where YOU want. I have consider at length, we are talking a length of time measurable in decades here, the value and basis for value inherent in our moral and ethical systems. I have considered at length what it is we value, why, and on what basis. I have considered even what it means TO value anything in the first place. And of course, what such values are in the business of doing day to day. What their goal and agenda and purpose even is. And the result of ALL of that leaves me in a place that when I turn to look at the subject and context of a fetus at 12 weeks (by which time the vast and overwhelming majority of abortions have already occurred) I see nothing there TO value all that much. Least of all do I see any basis to allocate rights, or moral and ethical concern, to such an entity. Now you are welcome to engage me on such views (or, seemingly, not) as you like....... but no pretense shall be brooked that no consideration was even given.
professore wrote: » You can pull any stats you like - they are irrelevant to this principle. I've set out my position and that's it.
professore wrote: » Even one termination like this that I helped bring about is too many for me.
professore wrote: » The constitution IS for human rights issues. If this isn't a human rights issue, what is?
volchitsa wrote: » So you are too young to have voted in 1992, right? And in 2002? Or did you vote to ban women from travelling?
tonymontanavu wrote: » Absolute nonsense here. I have been through miscarriages and know plenty of others. Devaluing may work as a coping mechanism but it is not healthy. A fetus at any point is the beginning stages of a child and has more value than your dismissive attitude to many.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » Always terribly easy to just wave away ANY data that contradicts your position without presenting any that supports your assertion. However I think that move deserves about as much respect as the effort you put into doing it. None. The data simply shows that around the world the horror you envision basically does not come to pass. Yet so convinced are you of that horror that you have to..... what..... assume that Ireland will be some pocket of reality that is the exception to it all? Hardly. The real reason you are not pulling out the stats to support your position is that you know as well as I do that statistically speaking the ending of the life of 8 month old fetuses on a non-medical whim is simply not happening and you are bordering on scare mongering a fantasy rather than engaging with the actual issue. Thankfully those in power, and education, and science do not think like that or we would never get anything done ever. Why? Because ANY change that we bring out in this world disenfranchises someone, or hurts someone, or opens up loopholes that are abused by someone. I am not convinced there is many, if any, exceptions to this. We do not live in a perfect world and our rules and laws and moves on the public stage will never have perfect results. But "one person somewhere might do something terrible" is simply not an excuse to not do the right thing. Especially if the right thing will benefit thousands or more people. The question you should be working with is what is the RIGHT thing to do. Not "If I do the right thing, who could possibly abuse it?". Quite simply the legislation we get is HIGHLY unlikely to allow what you fear, women in Ireland are HIGHLY unlikely to do it even if it was allowed, and even after that at 8 months it is REMARKABLY rare for abortion to actually happen. Rather the pregnancy is terminated which is a much different thing entirely. So is the sexual age of consent. But it is not in there either nor should it be. The constitution is NOT the place to have specific laws that relate to human rights. The constitution is the place to have the framework and the axioms AROUND which such laws can be built. I am not a lawyer by any means, and I know my limits in that regard. But even I understand the difference between constitution and legislation enough to know this. But users on this thread better than I have written on this EXACT discussion you and I are having. If you wish I can dig out their posts on the matter?
The constitution is the place to have the framework and the axioms AROUND which such laws can be built.
professore wrote: » You seem have a fixed view of me in your head. It might surprise you to know I agree with a lot of what you are saying.
professore wrote: » Surely at what point a fetus becomes human is a basic axiom that should be clearly defined? How can you accord ANY rights to ANYONE if you don't have this basic statement?
professore wrote: » Lots of things have been "handled by legislation" badly.
