"Abortions would deprive future Special Olympians of life"

Manach wrote: »

So unborn anomalies that indicate a less than societal acceptable norms are not a precursor to abortions in a vast majority of the cases according to the various studies?

Zen65 wrote: »

They're debating an amendment to the bill, not the bill itself. Unless something changed while I was out of the country for a few days, the current bill only allows for abortions in the case of potential threat to the woman's health, or if she can persuade a panel of medical professionals that she's going to kill herself unless the pregnancy is terminated.

That last bit is where the law is flawed. In effect, a woman who discovers that her child has a disability and then says she would not be able to go through with it without killing herself could gain the right to have an abortion performed.

So yes, potentially the enactment of this legislation could permit an abortion to be carried out because the baby is disabled.

But up to now, that same pregnant woman would simply hop on a plane to the UK and have the abortion carried out there. In essence all that is being determined by this law is where the abortion gets carried out.

So I would guess that the law, though fundamentally flawed, will not result in a single additional voluntary abortion over what would happen without that law. At worst (if you consider it worse) is that these abortions may take place in Ireland rather than in UK. The only additional abortions that may arise will be where doctors are faced with a situation where a pregnancy is going seriously wrong and an abortion is the only way to secure the life of the mother, such as in the Savita Halappanavar case.

The fundamental flaw in the law is allowing for abortions in the case of a threat of suicide, which begs the question why a woman (or man) cannot have their spouse executed on the basis that living with him/her will lead to them committing suicide. If an act is deemed to be illegal for the good of society, then a claim of suicide cannot justify making that act temporarily legal.

However as a society it seems we cannot have an intelligent debate on the matter. The hate messages to Praveen Halappanavar by certain pro-life campaigners are an indication that some people cannot judge a law on its merit without being blinded by a religious fervour / dogma. In a rational society we would have a referendum to remove the idea that suicide would be a legitimate case for abortion, then pass laws to allow limited abortions (which would include abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormality, and possibly also rape or incest). As it stands I think we actually need to pass the current law, then later look at a referendum on the broader question of suicide, because we are still a long way away from being mature enough about this topic.


Z