Abortion - Report of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution

J C wrote: »

Drink driving potentially causes harm to living citizens and their unborn children in utero ... and a drink driver who has an accident that causes a miscarriage or the death of a pregnant woman can be charged with causing the death of the unborn child.
... and while drink driving only potentially causes harm ... abortion always kills.

If we had a referendum to repeal the drink driving laws there would also be a split in public opinion and voting intentions as well ... wouldn't make it right though ... and would likely result in a 'no' vote as well because people instinctively protect life, if for no other reason than because disrespecting any life, disrespects all lives.

... all legislation placing restrictions on personal behavior is about saving people from themselves (or others) ... and abortion legislation is no different.

You only say that because it suits your own personal agenda, not because there is any truth in it. I highly doubt there would be any public appetite to repeal the drink driving laws, they are of benefit to everyone, unlike your extremely conservative abortion views.

The truth of the matter is you are so self involved that you cannot see beyond the end of your nose.
I implore you to read some of the stories on "In Her Shoes - Women of the Eighth" on facebook and try to have some compassion and understanding.
Despite what you seem to think, this isn't all about you and your morals and beliefs, its about whats best for society.

And what's best for society is to protect its living citizens, giving them choices and freedoms and not bringing unwanted children into the world simply to punish their mother for being careless.

bubblypop wrote: »

If pro life people have an issue with the legislation that comes after repeal, then they need to fight for that. Lobby, March whatever they need to, to deal with the legislation.
The fact that they will leave the 8th amendment in so it can continue to risk health & safety of living breathing members of society, says a lot for their 'pro life' beliefs.

we could lobby but realistically, if the 8th is repealed then the government will be expected to implement the legislation either as proposed, or as near to the proposal as they can get. our lobbying is likely to have little effect on that score unfortunately. so voting no is for many of us, the least worst option.

bubblypop wrote: »

No, no it's not.

of course it is . what else is it ending the life of.

JDD wrote: »

End of the Road - when you say that legalizing abortions will lead to the "normalization" of ending the life of a human being, do you honestly think that the introduction of abortion on request up to 12 weeks in Ireland will

a) lead other changes in the law which will reduce the right to life of living citizens - i.e. the introduction of capital punishment or other similar laws? Can you point to any other western country where the introduction of legal abortion has led to this?

or

b) you don't think it'll lead to changes in the law for living citizens, but you do believe it will lead to abortion on request up to a later limit at some future date. Can you show any other western country where this has occurred? I genuinely don't know if this has happened elsewhere. I know in the UK the limit has been 24 weeks since they legalized terminations in 1967. I also know that the same argument was used during the divorce referendum in the mid-90's where the anti-divorce campaign said that it was a slippery slope to allowing quickie divorces. As far as I'm aware, the divorce laws in Ireland haven't substantially changed in over 20 years.

b would be my answer. for me, it's about minimizing the risk of the limit being upped, regardless of the possibility of it happening. other western countries not upping their limits wouldn't be enough to convince me that in the future we wouldn't do the same. it's not a risk i'm prepared to take.

SusieBlue wrote: »

You only say that because it suits your own personal agenda, not because there is any truth in it. I highly doubt there would be any public appetite to repeal the drink driving laws, they are of benefit to everyone, unlike your extremely conservative abortion views.

The truth of the matter is you are so self involved that you cannot see beyond the end of your nose.
I implore you to read some of the stories on "In Her Shoes - Women of the Eighth" on facebook and try to have some compassion and understanding.
Despite what you seem to think, this isn't all about you and your morals and beliefs, its about whats best for society.

And what's best for society is to protect its living citizens, giving them choices and freedoms and not bringing unwanted children into the world simply to punish their mother for being careless.

if anyone is interested in punishing the mother of an unwanted child for being careless, they are in a very very very very tiny minority. i certainly haven't come across them, and i doubt many of us actually have.

JDD wrote: »

End of the Road - when you say that legalizing abortions will lead to the "normalization" of ending the life of a human being

And if this was a real effect, how has this not already happened, when women have a constitutional right to travel to England for an abortion, and 170,000 (or whatever the number is today) have availed of it?

bubblypop wrote: »

From what I have seen , no one Has even tried to Do anything about the proposed legislation, it's just a straight no to repeal.

Coveney made some noises about being for Yes but against 12 weeks, but then he changed his mind.

b would be my answer. for me, it's about minimizing the risk of the limit being upped, regardless of the possibility of it happening. other western countries not upping their limits wouldn't be enough to convince me that in the future we wouldn't do the same. it's not a risk i'm prepared to take.

So... and I know this is a purely hypothetical question... would you vote for repeal if there was no risk the limit would be upped? If say - and I'm not advocating this - Section 40.3 was repealed and replaced with a provision that said that abortion on request would only be allowed up to 12 weeks, would you vote for that?

JDD wrote: »

So... and I know this is a purely hypothetical question... would you vote for repeal if there was no risk the limit would be upped? If say - and I'm not advocating this - Section 40.3 was repealed and replaced with a provision that said that abortion on request would only be allowed up to 12 weeks, would you vote for that?

no . i couldn't vote for anything that would allow abortion on request.

J C wrote: »

The Supreme Court actually ruled that X had a right to abortion because she was suicidal ... so the right to travel per se never was actually ruled upon.

Not by the Supreme Court. However, the High Court did rule that the girl did not have a de facto right to travel and that she should be detained until she gave birth.

The High Court had deemed that the issue of suicide was irrelevant. The Supreme Court overturned the ruling about suicide only, meaning that the High Court ruling about the right to travel remained in place, and was the official legal position.

For a brief period in Irish history, the Irish courts had ruled that a pregnant child who wanted an abortion, but was not suicidal, could be detained until the conclusion of the pregnancy, and a right to travel did not exist in the constitution.

oscarBravo wrote: »

I would vote against it. Trying to tie future governments' hands through legislation in the Constitution is anti-democratic and will have unforeseen consequences.

I know, I know, I agree. I was just trying to tease out End of the Road's position.

I think we all agree that there are a set of rights, attaching to each person, that are limited in some way for the "greater good".

End of the Road, I'm not quite getting my head around your position here. You're saying that you don't believe the legalization of abortion will lead to reduction in the right to life for existing citizens of the state. You also would not vote for repeal even if the right to life of a 13 week+ foetus was enshrined in the constitution, thus putting the strongest barrier against an increase in the limitation dates. So you believe that bestowing the right to life on a foetus from implantation to birth (and specificially from implantation to 12 weeks) is for the greater good?

I mean, you know that a pregnancy - even an uncomplicated one - can take a huge physical and mental toll on a pregnant woman. Lets again use an analogy. Say you drunkenly signed up to a bet that you would take on the physical toll of being pregnant for nine months, but when you sobered up you wanted to get out of it. However, it's a valid contract, and it's enforced by the courts. The courts stipulate the following:

• You will be injected with a hormone that will make you nauseous and/or vomit every day for six to eight weeks
• You will then have a backpack duct taped on to you where three pounds weight will be added every two weeks for a period of six months, ending up with you carrying around two stone in weight at the end of the six months.
• Electrodes will be added to the backpack which will give you a very mild electric shock intermittedly from weeks 16 to week 24. These electric shocks will increase in frequency and intensity from week 24 onwards, until they are painful enough to stop you in your tracks and prevent you from sleeping.
• You will be injected with a substance from week 12 to week 40 which will have varying side effects. As a standard list, your hormone will make your back muscles weaker so that you suffer from constant backpain, it will give you two kidney infections, make your hair fall out and give you heartburn.
• At week 40 you will be given the choice to either have two fingers broken where you will get a painkiller three hours later, or stomach surgery. Breaking your fingers may or may not result in permanent issues in using those fingers. Stomach surgery will result in six weeks recovery.

On a scale of what a court would consider an assault, the above list would be considered an assault causing serious harm. You could be imprisoned for life for that in Ireland. And yet, it's considered acceptable to force the equivalent on a person when there is an argument that a non-sentient foetus has a higher right to continue to exist. How, in a situation that you agree there are no other attendant consequences (changes to the law in other ways) is that considered to be "for the greater good"?

End of the Road, may I ask, are you religious? Do you believe the foetus has a soul, and because of that it automatically has a right to life? Because if that's the case, I respect that. I don't agree with it, but I understand your stance a lot more. If it's not because you're religious, I just can't get my head around it.

SusieBlue wrote: »

You only say that because it suits your own personal agenda, not because there is any truth in it. I highly doubt there would be any public appetite to repeal the drink driving laws, they are of benefit to everyone, unlike your extremely conservative abortion views.

Plenty of people think that 'a few drinks' doesn't significantly impair their driving ... so there would be an appetite in some quarters for amending the drink driving laws.

In any event, these laws are guided by the scientific evidence of impairment ... and our abortion laws should be similarly guided by the scientific fact that abortion kills unborn human beings.

SusieBlue wrote: »

The truth of the matter is you are so self involved that you cannot see beyond the end of your nose.
I implore you to read some of the stories on "In Her Shoes - Women of the Eighth" on facebook and try to have some compassion and understanding.
Despite what you seem to think, this isn't all about you and your morals and beliefs, its about whats best for society.

And what's best for society is to protect its living citizens, giving them choices and freedoms and not bringing unwanted children into the world simply to punish their mother for being careless.

Nobody is talking about punishing anybody here ... but of course the mother and her partner should not be so careless as to cause an unwanted pregnancy to arise, in the first place.

It's all about what is best for mothers and their unborn children ... and killing one partner (except in extremis) cannot be good for either partner in a pregnancy.

Triceratops Ballet wrote: »

Legislation can not be introduced that contravenes anything enshrined in the constitution. Therefore, lobbying to alter the proposed legislation after you have voted to reject the repeal is utterly nonsensical. If the 8th amendment is not repealed then no legislation on abortion no matter how restrictive/liberal can be introduced.
If the pro life side want to see legislative changes that allow for abortion in restricted cases (ffa etc) but not in other cases, there is no scenario in which they can see them introduced without first repealing the 8th amendment.

The 8th can easily be amended to cater for any other 'hard cases' if they are not already covered.
In many cases all that is required is legislation or medical protocols ... this has already happened with the POLDPA ... and this should have been enacted thirty years earlier, in line with the 8th.

‘Pregnancy may be somewhat uncomfortable’.....

I stopped reading at that point. You have very clearly never been pregnant to be making such a statement, JC.

J C wrote: »

Its a fact that abortion kills unborn human beings.

Its a fact in your head, it's not a scientific fact (real science, not the makey up one you subscribe to)

Disgusting unfounded personal insults by you yet again.

Not an insult JC but a fact that anyone reading the thread can see for themselves.

I have no issue with contraception or women's rights to equality with men.
... but I do have issue with killing unborn human beings ... just like I have issues with killing born human beings.

I know you have no issue with contraception, the problem is you seem to have no idea about contraception and the failure rate. You seem to think that every unwanted pregnancy is simply down to carelessness.

J C wrote: »

I'm a man ... so I've never been pregnant ... but I've lived with a woman who has been pregnant (on a number of occasions) ... the fact that it was a number of occasions testifies to it not being the terrible thing the pro-aborts would have us believe it to be ... in order to justify killing a human being to end it.

Here are 8 positives from being pregnant ... that balance up some of the negatives of being pregnant:-
https://www.thebump.com/a/pregnancy-benefits

Hey ladies! Don't bother going to the salon this week and waste your money, get pregnant instead and you too can have bigger boobs, longer finger nails and shiny hair :rolleyes: