Colombia legalises abortion up to 24 weeks!

…which isn’t an option if you’ve been raped.

Bless his noodly goodness.

A woman who wants an abortion has her own personal justification and it's not just "opting out of parenthood".

You need to stop using such simplistic sloganeering and respect that it's the woman's choice and there will be a multitude of reasoning behind it.

As for men plenty of them do opt out of parenthood without any repurcussions.

You need to accept the the referendum campaign for repeal of the 8th amendment is over and the no side lost.

Your views are archaic and not in step with society and instead of condemning other people for their own personal decisions that they don't have to justify to you, you should look at yourself and your own prejudices, learn empathy and compassion and move on with your life.

Every referendum on the matter other than the original 8th has gone the way of the "yes side". So no, they didn't lose several - only ever one, which was then comprehensively overturned.

The two attempts to overturn the X case were rejected, the right to travel was accepted, the right to info was accepted and repeal of the 8th was accepted.

Sure and that is a good thing. For me it is how the ideals of democracy and discourse should work. Periodically the side out of power, or on the wrong side of the current status quo, should be able to try and turn the tables. Unlike many people who are on the same winning side of the last referendum as I am..... I actually hope the losing side go back to the drawing board, improve their arguments and campaign tactics.... and try again sometime in the future. That is how democracy, discourse and progress should work.

And if their arguments are good, they will convince me too. And I will without reservation, hesitation, or apology.... happily switch sides too.

But I am not seeing it happen. The noise I hear coming from the losers is, much like your own OP, simply rehashing the same failed tactics and talking points and emotionally manipulative nonsense that lost them the referendum. I am not seeing a return to the drawing board and an evolution of their arguments.

Trust me when I say that strolling in and declaring your PERSONAL OPINION to be "sacrosanct" is not a good look. It will convince pretty much no one. The Ex President in Colombia calling people with his PERSONAL OPINION the "higher" citizens.... similarly so. This distasteful arrogance looks like little more than a childish tantrum from a loser who probably does not even know the word magnanimous. In any language.

I tell this story often. When I was in my mid teens I realised I did not have a fully formed opinion of abortion. I was "pro choice" by default because my peers were. Or the people who shared other views with me.... like atheists for example.... were. So I decided I needed to challenge that. Because I feel uncomfortable holding any opinions "just because".

I wanted to actively spend a lot of time talking with the "other side" and have them convince me I was wrong.

I remember how I set aside an entire Saturday to start this mission. My first move, I decided, was to go to the anti choice tables which were outside the Central Bank in Dublin every weekend at that time. Maybe you remember them. Weekly they would setup shop, with many pictures of fetuses, and campaign on the subject of abortion. So I went there hoping to spend hours and hours talking with them and hearing their side. I was even gonna help out at their stands while doing so, so I was being helpful while draining their time asking them to talk with me.

What happened? I went up to them and talked to them and asked them to explain their views and was told "Look at the pictures". I said yes the pictures were unpleasant to look at sure, but could they explain their views and positions to me. I was then told louder and more aggressively than before "Look at the pictures maaaannn!!!". No attempt to get anything out of them resulted in more than simply being told to look at the pictures. Over. And Over. And Over.

Now here I sit 25+ years later and your OP is essentially to post a picture of what 24 weeks of development looks like in your view and essentially repeat the "Look at the pictures man!" tactic they tried, and failed, to use on my 25 years ago. The same tactic users on this forum tried during the referendum (Like tongue picture boy I mentioned before). Over on the peoples republic of cork forum for example one guy posted pictures claiming it was the result of abortion in order to horrify people. Turns out it was a picture, taken without permission of any kind, of a still birth caused by a medical issue. The parents released the picture in the media trying to raise awareness of that medical issue. So stealing that image to re-appropriate it to an anti choice abortion agenda was.... morally reprehensible. Didn't stop them from doing it though.

I would like.... I want..... hell in some ways I need.... your cohort to evolve your arguments and try again! But in 25 years engaging heavily with this topic I have not seen an iota of evolution in the arguments I am presented. Nothing is changed.

So yes, you are entirely correct.... we lost elections in the past. But we kept struggling, trying, talking, educating and pushing. And now we have swung it our way. And my suspicion is that if you ever manage to swing it back.... you're going to have to really seriously up your game to do so. Appeals to emotion and photos (many of which are not representative, and are positively misleading in fact, but that's a different discussion about the reprehensible tactics used by the anti choice cohort) are not likely to do it any more. But it seems.... to me at least..... it's all y'all got.

When that changes..... I am all ears.

If by "accept democracy" you mean that I would accept the result, abide by the result, but return to the drawing board and improve my arguments and tactics for in the future changing that result..... then yes I would.

I just wish you and your cohort would do that too. I am waiting for their new and improved arguments. Not just another 25 years of "Look at the pictures man".

What "accept democracy" does not, and should never, mean is "Sit down, shut up, you lost, get over it and go away and never be heard from again". I would not do that. And I would hope you and your side of the argument do not either!

So up your game and come back and hit me with your arguments when you can! I will be all ears! I think you can probably do better than the "Look at the pictures man" approach or the "my personal opinion is sacred" approach. Both of which made up pretty much all your OP offered.

He's probably worried the pool of children for his priests to rape is facing further reduction

it's more different stages of the process of life rather then being 2 completely unrelated things.

the question is ultimately valid even though both stages bring some different characteristics such as the rights of the child once born.

however it is perfectly legitimate to ask the question as to why 1 parent can get an out from not having a child but the other cannnot do so, but i suspect that is for a different thread perhapse.

to be fair, abortion is at the bottom of the list of things most people vote on, if it is even on the list which i suspect for the vast majority it isn't and never actually was.

housing, transport (well the roads mainly) local issues are what people really vote on.

Was replying to the poster that asked what the bearded sky faery thought.

Well as someone who is absolutely Pro Choice... I would very much love to hear what the "many hypocrisies and double standards" are in my position so I can correct them. I can not think of a single one. So if you find any in my posts... by all means do not hesitate to point them out to me! You would be helping me and I would consider it a favor and thank you for it, should I find your concerns to be well founded.

Until then though... I hope I can point out a few issues I find in your post.

Firstly to answer the question you ask, yes, most pro choice people I have encountered (which is relatively quite a lot given how active I was during the referendum time) also strongly support Euthanasia. Not all of them though... but I find the reasons they give for this are not as hypocritical or internally inconsistent as you might think. For example the most common disagreement I find with Euthanasia lies in the potential for it to be abused. They have a very justifiable fear that a sick and relatively helpless person might feel compelled or cajoled into choosing death when they otherwise might. And that is a conversation absolutely worth having even among the most ardent and strident of pro euthanasia advocates!

The first and most obvious example that jumps to mind in Irish Society is Michael Nugent. He campaigned a lot for pro choice on abortion. He also campaigns a lot for Euthanasia. His own wife died of a condition where they both agreed that, despite the law, he would assist her suicide should the time and need arise. And he would have faced and accepted the repercussions of this. I respect him for that. His love for his beautiful wife was such that he would accept prison and punishment in order to respect her right to die and her wish to die, at her chosen time.

Second... I have to say of all the many many pro choice people I have encountered I can not really think of any who espouse the "Life begins at birth" position you describe. I fear you may be very much misrepresenting and strawmanning the pro choice position. Though I withhold jumping to the conclusion you do so deliberately.

In fact right this moment the ONLY person I can think of who espoused the "Live begins at birth" position actually later switched to being ANTI choice, and espousing equally absurd anti abortion arguments. My suspicion is he (a board poster as it happens) was simply doing a "poe" on the Pro Choice position and was espousing a ridiculous version of it in order to make it look silly. As I recall one of his defenses of this position was.... I kid you not..... to claim that Mary Robinson agreed with him. But later switched to claiming abortion was bad because it prevented working and lower class women from bettering themselves. Again, I kid you not. To this day I am unsure if he was poe'ing either position or both.

Third when you say "it is still a different person in its early developmental stages" this is where I as a pro choice advocate would most strongly disagree with you. It may be a different biological entity and organism, despite it's attachment to the mother. That much I would agree with. But to call it a "person" for me strikes my ears as a nonsense. What aspect of a fetus would you assign "personhood" to? Most abortions occur in the area of 12 to 16 weeks development where, among other things, the faculty of consciousness has not even BEGUN to form. For me I see no more reason to consider such a fetus a "person" than I do a rock or a leg off a table. So when you are calling this thing a "person".... what attributes are you hanging that use of the word off exactly?

Fourth.... you ask why would people post pictures of things like a sonogram. That is an easy question to answer. The reason is because of "narrative". The people who post pictures of their fetus in development are showing us part of their story. A story that they believe and hope culminates in the production of a new person, a new baby, and a new stage in their life. Such a sonogram picture represents not their opinions of the state of "personhood" of the fetus in the moment of the image. But of the beginning of a beautiful story arc of the person they hope to create and bring into their lives and ours. As such there is NO contradiction between such an image, and a pro choice position. And the failure to realise such a story and see the unwanted death of such a fetus as an ending of that story arc... can be no less tragic or relevant. Even without recognising the death of the fetus as the death of an actual person.

Finally when you call people "degenerates" because they choose abortion for reasons you do not agree with (such as a one night stand) I would be compelled to press you to consider such a position more deeply. The abortion debate really comes down to one main question. Is there any reason to afford a fetus human rights.... or to afford it moral or ethical concern? If there is.... then of course we need to justify the reasons we might seek to abort. I would absolutely agree with you there. But if there is not.... and at 12/16/20 weeks I really think there is not..... then the REASONS someone might choose to abort are irrelevant. Even if they are distasteful to us, they are irrelevant. And none of our business.

Let me give you a weird analogy to food. But bear with me. I absolutely think you have the right to eat McDonalds. But your REASON for eating it might be distasteful to me. You might eat it because, for example, you are hungry and have no time to cook a good meal. Great. But your reason might be that you want to get super fat so you can get so obese you can claim disability allowance. I would find that reason MASSIVELY distasteful and immoral and disgusting. But I would STILL defend your right to choose to eat McDonalds. Because you have that right, whether I like your reason to exercise it or not, or I hate you for your agendas and incentives.

So unless you can find a reason to afford moral or ethical concern to a fetus, and assign it rights..... your distaste for why someone might have an abortion is your problem not theirs surely?

If someone for example told me they were having an abortion because they were trying to set the world record for most amount of abortions in a 10 year period I would find this disgusting and want to keep that person out of my life. I would STILL defend their right to have an abortion however. Just like if someone told me they were eating McDonalds because they have never had a heart bypass and were aspiring to get unfit enough to qualify for one.... I would be disgusted by this person and their motives.... but still defend their right to eat what they want.

As such... to go back to how I started this post.... I look forward to you finding any inconsistencies or hypocrisies or double standards in my position, points, opinions and claims. I have spent about 25 years weeding them out. So I would be grateful.... though very surprised.... if you find any more for me.