oscarBravo wrote: » That's the sort of thing that happens when women are denied better options. The single strongest argument in favour of making abortions freely, safely and legally available is that women who are desperate to end a pregnancy will find a way to do so. As scary as the prospect of buying drugs on the Internet may be, it's somewhat better than a coathanger.
MrPudding wrote: » Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am not sure I agree with your analysis. The link you have given is interesting, but I am not sure it is 100% applicable to what we are talking about. That particular case, of the guy driving over the policeman's foot, is generally used to explain the temporal connection between actus reus and mens rea. It is saying that thinking about murdering someone, having the guilty mind is not sufficient to make one guilty of murder, without the actus reus. That particular page is in an introduction to criminal law and is simply explaining, in basic and introductory terms, that for most criminal acts actus reus and mens rea are both required for there to be an offence. Inchoate offence are different. I believe it is generally accepted that acts that are "more than merely preparatory" are what is required for there to be an offence. I think "close to completion" sets the bar a little too high. Now, what more than merely preparatory is suitably vague, and of course there is little guidance as to what was meant. I think it is fair to say that things are suitably vague to suggest that it is not beyond the realms of possibility to make out a reasonable case for attempted murder when a person has researched the requirements, booked and paid for the murder, made the required travel plans, all of which could be said to be merely preparatory, and then attempted to get on the plane. Getting on the plane could be argued to be more than merely preparatory, to use the phrase from Osborn in 1919, they are "on the job". Do I think it is a guaranteed conviction? No. But I do believe there is a argument to be made. Yes. Of course, I don't actually believe abortion is murder, either morally or legally. The point I am making in all this is that there are plenty of people that believe abortion is murder and it should be stopped. I believe, if abortion is considered to be murder*, that there is an argument to be made for travelling for an abortion to be considered attempted murder. Clearly you disagree, surely the courts would have to decide? And the point is this, why aren't those who are trying to stop abortions calling for abortions to be considered murder and to prevent women from travelling, possibly by stopping them and charging them with attempted murder? Come on, we are talking about the live of innocent children here... Even if it is unlikely to work should it not be attempted? * Clearly it would require a redefinition of murder as, which you point out yourself, abortion is not legally murder. I also find this interesting. You appear to consider that a foetus is a human, yet you seem to have no issue with them being killed not being classified as murder.
volchitsa wrote: » Ref travelling to commit a crime, the woman who was shopped to the police by the travel agent with whom she tried to book a trip to Switzerland to accompany her friend to die there certainly seemed to have been considered as having planned a crime. She didn't even travel in the end, and yet was still tried in court for her attempt.
Lingua Franca wrote: » What would you have done to the women who leave their miscarriages in the toilet or a bin, out of curiosity?
frostyjacks wrote: » I'd name and shame them. Publish a list each week of women who've ordered these pills or travelled to England for an abortion, with their reasons for doing so. Mary had a one night stand, Sinead wants to focus on her career, Aimee wanted a girl instead of a boy etc. A suspended sentence is a joke.
Lingua Franca wrote: » I asked about the women who dispose of their miscarriages in toilets and bins. My sister's recent miscarriage mostly went into the bathroom bin on tissues and pads, for example. Would you like to reframe your answer?
frostyjacks wrote: » Throwing a baby in a bin like it was a piece of trash; that speaks volumes about the values of the pro-choice people.
frostyjacks wrote: » This is a thread on abortion, not miscarriages.
lazygal wrote: » Should all miscarriages be investgated to make sure they aren't actually abortions? Should women who fail to report a miscarriage so it can be investigated face being on The List?
lazygal wrote: » Binchy would want a women like me prevented from travelling because while over in the UK I could have had an abortion, or he'd want me to have to travel with some sort of 'proof' I wasn't going to have an abortion, never mind my right to privacy. A scary, scary man.
seamus wrote: » Don't worry, you'd have no reason to be in the UK anyway, I doubt Binchy would look favourably on a married woman engaging in work outside the home. Preposterous!
Lingua Franca wrote: » It's discussion around abortion (which these days are mostly forced miscarriages) and it's certainly on topic. What of miscarrying women who don't carefully save the remains to have them disposed of to your liking?
inocybe wrote: » +1 I'm one of those women. It's all very well to manipulate people with language like 'throwing the baby in the bin'. What do people think happens to foetal remains in the real world?
Woman who reported housemate for buying abortion drugs defends actions
The housemate who reported the woman to police insisted people had to live by the law in Northern Ireland, whether they agreed with it or not. “I know people may say it’s stupid (the law) and things like that, but it’s still the law, you have to abide by the law that’s here until that changes,” said the woman, who wished to remain anonymous. “If this (case) even makes it change then fair enough, but if you break the law you have to be punished . . . At the minute it’s the law and if you break the law you have to be punished.”
“A week went by and the guilt of a baby in the bin was eating us up,” she said. “I did want justice for the baby because obviously it wasn’t the wee baby’s fault.”
Captain Flaps wrote: » Name and shame? To what end? Do you get off on making others miserable?
volchitsa wrote: » You're sounding a bit desperate here yourself, OEJ. "Let's assume the worst of the woman having had the abortion, despite the fact that she was 19 and had tried and failed to get funds to travel for an abortion, and let's assume the best of the 38 year old woman who reported her to the police because the 19 year-old wasn't upset enough for her liking, and most of all let's not discuss any real life case where we might end up feeling sorry for the woman having the abortion - that would never do at all at all." That about sums up your post there, afaict. Am I wrong?
One eyed Jack wrote: » I'm actually not sure which, or who is worse - the housemates that reported the woman a week later for having induced an abortion, or the clinic that "advised" (and I use that term loosely) her on where to get the pills over the internet to induce an abortion without any kind of medical supervision and support. The actions of whoever advised her were irresponsible, and the actions of her housemates were reprehensible. I do hope for this woman's sake that she is able to rebuild her life and her anonymity is respected and protected, rather than leaked on social media.
One eyed Jack wrote: » It's not clear at all that they weren't overly concerned, as the article mentions that they agonised over what to do for a week before they went to police. I'm not suggesting what they did was right, but then we have the advantage of hindsight. If I had found the remains in the bin, knowing what had happened, I would likely have a crisis of conscience about what the best thing to do in that situation would be too. I probably wouldn't go to the police, but then if I were the girl I wouldn't dispose of the remains in a household bin either (I say that now, but at 19 I wasn't thinking like I do now either). Her flatmates according to the article suggest that she was "blase" about having just had an abortion (and they had discovered the remains in the bin the next day), which contradicts Cabaal's earlier assertion that she was likely in a distressed state. So, if Cabaal can assume that, why would it be unreasonable for her flatmates to expect that she would be in a distressed state, and yet she didn't appear to be in a distressed state? The fact that she wasn't, coupled with the discovery of the remains in the bin... I'm not sure I'd have been thinking rationally about the right course of action under those circumstances either, and the article doesn't say what age her flatmates are, but since we're all assuming stuff here, it's also reasonable to assume her flatmates were around the same age as she was at the time, and they may have thought they were doing the right thing and made some bad decisions too. Her flatmates made a bad call IMO, but having thought about it, I condemned their actions on first hearing about the case. Now, I'm not so sure.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » Not at all. There is a reason we do it. The opinions of the masses can, and many times have been, swayed by a single example case or situation. It gets to people deeper. People can relate to that better than arguing at a larger or meta scale. Kind of similar to how many people will read a news story of how some old man in inner city dublin tripped over and broke his legs on a pavement.... and feel like this is horrific.... but then on the next news item hear how 1000s of people died in some bloody conflict in the east and act like "meh". Single examples and single cases can be more accessibly to people, and can provide a useful platform to example and argue a specific argument.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » But, unlike your own horrific views of abortion where it should be accessible without any terms, including aborting children a week before birth under the mangled use of the term "Euthanasia"........ many people do have well thought out cut offs about when and how abortions should be performed.... and at some point in the process therefore there is a point where it stops being an entirely private matter.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » Just because YOU might not like a persons reason for doing X, that does not mean X is bad or morally wrong. This is a distinction you would do well to learn. Either you can argue that abortion is wrong.... therefore the reasons anyone have them becomes irrelevant.... or you can not (and it really seems you can not) in which case the reasons they have them is also irrelevant.
The Randy Riverbeast wrote: » What about spontaneous abortions?
frostyjacks wrote: » A miscarriage is natural. Abortion is not. What this girl did was grotesque, and I'm surprised the judge didn't send her off for psychiatric evaluation. You'd want to have some kind of mental imbalance to do what she did.
