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Abortion

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    #842
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    prinz wrote: »
    Except of course for public places, streets etc. Not to get into the whole are of advertising services and/or brothels and pimping.

    Can't masturbate in a public area, but masturbation isn't illegal.
    Can't advertise smoking, but smoking isn't illegal.
    And so on.

    Prostitution is legal, and it's fairly off topic.


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    #843
    Min
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,550 ✭✭✭Min


    Stupify wrote: »
    All I'm saying is this; the fact that you can't have abortions here isn't lowering the number of Irish women having abortions. Not while England which is so close and so easy to travel to have legalized abortions.

    The stats show Ireland has the lowest abortion rate in Europe.

    From the Guttmacher institute: • In Europe, 30% of pregnancies end in abortion. A higher proportion of pregnancies end in abortion in Eastern Europe than in the rest of the region
    http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html


    Abortion rate map: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/mapeuropeabrate.html

    http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/index.html#ST
    The % of pregnancies aborted by people who live in Ireland is 5.6%
    The % for the UK is 20.7%
    The % in the USA is 22.2%
    The % for France is similar to the UK.

    If anything the rate of abortions would increase if abortion was legalised. So one could argue the current policy lowers the numbers of abortions.


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    #844
    prinz
    Registered Users Posts: 14,598 ✭✭✭✭prinz


    Seachmall wrote: »
    Can't advertise smoking, but smoking isn't illegal..

    Yet advertising smoking, and smoking are two different things.. Anyway within any normal adult discussion you wouldn't have to clarify that when you refer to tobacco advertising, you of course weren't referring to somebody sticking up a Marlboro man inside their own home but rather the industry designed to advertising tobacco products to the general public in public places.

    I believe Min was referring to prostitution as the vast majority of people would understand it, public solicitation.

    Off-topic yes.


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    #845
    Min
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,550 ✭✭✭Min


    Sharrow wrote: »
    Ok then if it's illegal to have an abortion here, when was the last time any woman was prosecuted for it?

    It is illegal to perform an abortion and the last known person to do so, fled the country as she was wanted by the Gardai for questioning, the last known case of an abortion being performed was in 2008 as far as I am aware.


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    #846
    OldNotWIse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    benwavner wrote: »
    Im aborting this thread!

    Because it's "not viable" or because you feel it's an inconvenience? ;)


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    #847
    partyatmygaff
    Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    hooradiation wrote: »
    Yes, lived, past tense.
    The fact that we all gestated doesn't automatically confer the status of "an issue" on half the population.
    Except that it does.

    This issue solely revolves around whether or not we as a society should allow parents to kill their children. To my mind, whether the child is in or outside of the womb makes little difference. The time spent in the womb is negligible in comparison to the average total lifespan of a human being.

    If we won't allow parents to kill their children outside of the womb, we shouldn't allow them to kill their children inside the womb.

    Obviously i'm only talking about elective abortion. Abortion where the child is unlikely to survive (Anencephaly or aneuploidies incompatible with life for example) or when the mother's physical or mental health is at severe risk is unfortunate but acceptable.


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    #848
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    prinz wrote: »
    Yet advertising smoking, and smoking are two different things.. Anyway within any normal adult discussion you wouldn't have to clarify that when you refer to tobacco advertising, you of course weren't referring to somebody sticking up a Marlboro man inside their own home but rather the industry designed to advertising tobacco products to the general public in public places.
    Which is why I wondered why it was brought up at all.
    I believe Min was referring to prostitution as the vast majority of people would understand it, public solicitation.
    I'd be sceptical as to whether or not the majority of people understand prostitution to mean "public solicitation" as oppose to just "solicitation".

    Regardless, the statement was wrong and a poor comparison.


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    #849
    OldNotWIse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    hooradiation wrote: »
    Yes, lived, past tense.
    The fact that we all gestated doesn't automatically confer the status of "an issue" on half the population.

    But does this mean that only those who are at risk of direct consequences should have a say? So we were all children at some point (and reading this thread it appears some of us still are), but we are no longer children. Should we not have a say in how paedophiles are prosecuted and registered? By your logic, a paedophile cannot affect us since we are no longer children. Same could be said for racism. Should only those with a minority status be allowed to formulate and vocalise an opinion? Sounds riciculous I know but I absolutely hate this thing of "well only women of chilbearig age and ability should have a say" - what? Does this mean infertile women should not be allowed to hold an opinion on the matter? And btw I am a woman (of childbearing age) but I support a man's right to an opinion as much as my own. Saying that men should more or less stay out of it is nothing short of feminist bigotry.


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    #850
    OldNotWIse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    partyatmygaff wrote: »
    Except that it does.

    This issue solely revolves around whether or not we as a society should allow parents to kill their children. To my mind, whether the child is in or outside of the womb makes little difference. The time spent in the womb is negligible in comparison to the average total lifespan of a human being.

    If we won't allow parents to kill their children outside of the womb, we shouldn't allow them to kill their children inside the womb.

    Obviously i'm only talking about elective abortion. Abortion where the child is unlikely to survive (Anencephaly or aneuploidies incompatible with life for example) or when the mother's physical or mental health is at severe risk is unfortunate but acceptable.

    Well said. Also the fact that in some countries, a child can be aborted past what has recently been shown as the point of viability. So if a premie at 25 weeks was taken from an incubator and dismembered that would be a crime (naturally) but do the same to a 26 week old in-utero and it's acceptable? :confused: How do we draw the line?


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    #851
    prinz
    Registered Users Posts: 14,598 ✭✭✭✭prinz


    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    But does this mean that only those who are at risk of direct consequences should have a say??

    It's one of those ridiculous clichés that always gets trotted out in the abortion debate, men shouldn't have say. A few days ago I was looking on a thread another another message board which dealt with the abortion debate from an almost exclusively female perspective. The irony wasn't lost on me that a plea for the women involved to 'tell your husbands, tell your brothers, tell your bf's..get them to like us on facebook because we need all the male support we can get' was located right next to a complaint about the number of men versus women in Dáil Éireann debating the private members bill.

    I remember one comment along the lines of 'I don't expect a Dáil controlled by men to pass abortion legislation anyway'.... all I could think was if she could provide any example of any country in the world passing abortion legislation through a parliament with a female majority I'd eat my hat.


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    #852
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    partyatmygaff wrote: »
    This issue solely revolves around whether or not we as a society should allow parents to kill their children.

    No, the issue is entirely about when the unborn child is entitled to a right to life.

    Is it from conception?
    From when it becomes an organism (human)?
    When it becomes viable?

    And so on.


    To a lesser extent it's also about what conditions the unborn must meet to maintain it's right to life (does it pose a health risk to the mother, is it viable at all, etc.)


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    #853
    Stupify
    Registered Users Posts: 568 ✭✭✭Stupify


    Min wrote: »
    The stats show Ireland has the lowest abortion rate in Europe.

    From the Guttmacher institute: • In Europe, 30% of pregnancies end in abortion. A higher proportion of pregnancies end in abortion in Eastern Europe than in the rest of the region
    http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html


    Abortion rate map: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/mapeuropeabrate.html

    http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/index.html#ST
    The % of pregnancies aborted by people who live in Ireland is 5.6%
    The % for the UK is 20.7%
    The % in the USA is 22.2%
    The % for France is similar to the UK.

    If anything the rate of abortions would increase if abortion was legalised. So one could argue the current policy lowers the numbers of abortions.

    But couldn’t those figures be down to the attitudes towards abortion in the respective countries?

    Here it is still a bit of a taboo subject and although legalizing it may increase abortion rates it is possible it won’t (particularly when combined with better education and such).

    And how do these institutes know the true figure for Irish abortion rates?


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    #854
    eviltwin
    Registered Users Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    Stupify wrote: »
    But couldn’t those figures be down to the attitudes towards abortion in the respective countries?

    Here it is still a bit of a taboo subject and although legalizing it may increase abortion rates it is possible it won’t (particularly when combined with better education and such).

    And how do these institutes know the true figure for Irish abortion rates?

    How do they get those figures? There would be no abortion figures here. Are they basing it on numbers travelling to the UK? Thats quite an assumption then.


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    #855
    OldNotWIse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    Stupify wrote: »
    But couldn’t those figures be down to the attitudes towards abortion in the respective countries?

    Here it is still a bit of a taboo subject and although legalizing it may increase abortion rates it is possible it won’t (particularly when combined with better education and such).

    And how do these institutes know the true figure for Irish abortion rates?
    HOw can you claim that legalising something wont result in an increase? :confused: Are you implying that the women who travel for an abortion do so just because they cannot get them here? that if abortion was availbale here on demand we would have less people seekign them out? have I missed something? If X amount of women are willing to travel abroad for abortions then X number of women would certainly have availed of them here instead if possible. At the very least, this means legalisation will lead to the same number of abortions, at the very least. More likely is that we will have th "X" number of abortions (who would have travelled and now dont have to) added to "Y" number of abortions (the ones who would not have travelled but will avail of the abortion here) and possibly (at the risk of having my head bitten off) we could add in the "Z" abortions (the ones who are having abortions because they simply didn't take the same precautions they would have taken if abortion were not available)


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    #856
    hooradiation
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,922 ✭✭✭hooradiation


    partyatmygaff wrote: »
    Except that it does.
    really? this'll be interesting.
    partyatmygaff wrote: »
    This issue solely revolves around whether or not we as a society should allow parents to kill their children.

    I'm sorry, i thought we were talking about abortion, what with the thread title and the constant talks about the womb and such. You seem to want to talk about something else.
    So, good luck with that.


    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    But does this mean that only those who are at risk of direct consequences should have a say? So we were all children at some point (and reading this thread it appears some of us still are), but we are no longer children. Should we not have a say in how paedophiles are prosecuted and registered? By your logic, a paedophile cannot affect us since we are no longer children. Same could be said for racism. Should only those with a minority status be allowed to formulate and vocalise an opinion? Sounds riciculous I know but I absolutely hate this thing of "well only women of chilbearig age and ability should have a say" - what? Does this mean infertile women should not be allowed to hold an opinion on the matter? And btw I am a woman (of childbearing age) but I support a man's right to an opinion as much as my own. Saying that men should more or less stay out of it is nothing short of feminist bigotry.

    Ultimately only one person will make the decision on whether to have an abortion. Have a nice think about who that might be.
    Thusly the rest of your post is nonsense and I am sorry you had to waste your time typing it out.


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    #857
    Stupify
    Registered Users Posts: 568 ✭✭✭Stupify


    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    HOw can you claim that legalising something wont result in an increase? :confused: Are you implying that the women who travel for an abortion do so just because they cannot get them here? that if abortion was availbale here on demand we would have less people seekign them out? have I missed something? If X amount of women are willing to travel abroad for abortions then X number of women would certainly have availed of them here instead if possible. At the very least, this means legalisation will lead to the same number of abortions, at the very least. More likely is that we will have th "X" number of abortions (who would have travelled and now dont have to) added to "Y" number of abortions (the ones who would not have travelled but will avail of the abortion here) and possibly (at the risk of having my head bitten off) we could add in the "Z" abortions (the ones who are having abortions because they simply didn't take the same precautions they would have taken if abortion were not available)

    Where did I say there would be fewer abortions if it was legalized?


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    #858
    eviltwin
    Registered Users Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    We don't know what legal abortion will do to the figures. The 5000+ women who go to the uk every year will increase because those are the women clinics know are Irish, a lot don't give any personal details, some also go to other countries, some do the abortion here at home. So yes the numbers will increase but thats to be expected when you are dealing with skewed numbers from the outset.


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    #859
    Stupify
    Registered Users Posts: 568 ✭✭✭Stupify


    eviltwin wrote: »
    We don't know what legal abortion will do to the figures. The 5000+ women who go to the uk every year will increase because those are the women clinics know are Irish, a lot don't give any personal details, some also go to other countries, some do the abortion here at home. So yes the numbers will increase but thats to be expected when you are dealing with skewed numbers from the outset.

    Exactly, the exact number of Irish woman having abortions is unknown so we will never know if it is legalized will there be increase in numbers partaking.


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    #860
    OldNotWIse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    hooradiation wrote: »
    really? this'll be interesting.



    I'm sorry, i thought we were talking about abortion, what with the thread title and the constant talks about the womb and such. You seem to want to talk about something else.
    So, good luck with that.





    Ultimately only one person will make the decision on whether to have an abortion. Have a nice think about who that might be.
    Thusly the rest of your post is nonsense and I am sorry you had to waste your time typing it out.

    Gawd talk about tetchy. Thanks for addressing my argument lol


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    #861
    OldNotWIse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    Stupify wrote: »
    Where did I say there would be fewer abortions if it was legalized?
    My mistake, sorry :mad:


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    #862
    hooradiation
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,922 ✭✭✭hooradiation


    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    Gawd talk about tetchy. Thanks for addressing my argument lol

    No problem, it was a pretty simple one but I'm glad I could help.


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    #863
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,340 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Stupify wrote: »
    But couldn’t those figures be down to the attitudes towards abortion in the respective countries?

    The figures are likely "down to" a multitude of things. However in debates like this you tend to get the "correlation = causation" fallacy played everywhere where people correlate two things and then just declare if you change one you will change the other.

    The links say in them things like "figures are estimates, some of which are derived from reported data." because it is hard to get figures on such things when people have to engage in the practice surreptitiously.

    One can try and claim, which I think the user with the links above was trying to, that if you make it available here then you will get more abortions because if X number will go to the effort of traveling to have them then X+Y people will do it if the required effort is less.

    However there is little reason to think this is so and in fact women here going through the proper channels rather than underground ones to get abortions will have access to more educations, support and other things which may change their mind on the issue.

    Also one can also turn the argument to say something like "If X people went through with their abortions having had to go through all the effort to get to the UK and into the clinic, then perhaps X-Y people will do it if the required effort is less and hence the loss of time, money and resources from reversing ones decision is reduced".

    Equally valid a hypothesis if we were prone to just declaring such things and running with them. However one can look at something like the "drugs" issue and we find that countries that have increased their tolerances of certain drugs have reported reduced use, not increased. So it is always not so clear cut as assumption and declarations by fiat attempt to paint it.


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    #864
    Pegasus Galactica
    Site Banned Posts: 44 ✭Pegasus Galactica


    I would be pro choice.... However I don't think I ever could.. It should however be legalised here and regulated, it would be better to save a desperate woman's life from a back street abortion like..


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    #865
    partyatmygaff
    Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    Seachmall wrote: »
    No, the issue is entirely about when the unborn child is entitled to a right to life.

    Is it from conception?
    From when it becomes an organism (human)?
    When it becomes viable?
    Gastrulation would be the best stage to determine when most individual's lives begin.


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    #866
    Stupify
    Registered Users Posts: 568 ✭✭✭Stupify


    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    My mistake, sorry :mad:

    That is Ok. I can understand that you would be angry if I did clam there could be fewer abortions if it was legalized in Ireland.


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    #867
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    partyatmygaff wrote: »
    Gastrulation would be the best stage to determine when most individual's lives begin.

    I'd suggest when it can be classified as an organism.


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    #868
    OldNotWIse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    Stupify wrote: »
    That is Ok. I can understand that you would be angry if I did clam there could be fewer abortions if it was legalized in Ireland.

    I wasn't really angry, just confused. But like a lot of people have said, how do we know the true figures now?


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    #869
    OldNotWIse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    hooradiation wrote: »
    No problem, it was a pretty simple one but I'm glad I could help.
    Amazing that you seem capable of using sarcasm...yet are completely incapable of detecting it in other people's posts... Funny that :D


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    #870
    eviltwin
    Registered Users Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    I wasn't really angry, just confused. But like a lot of people have said, how do we know the true figures now?

    We can't. The 5000+ is just the known figures. What the actual numbers are is anyones guess


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    #871
    partyatmygaff
    Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    Seachmall wrote: »
    I'd suggest when it can be classified as an organism.
    Fertilisation would be the point at which you could safely say "Human life(lives)". Gastrulation is by and large the first stage where you could relatively speaking safely say "Human life" in the singular.


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