Your right to an Abortion

Wibbs

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Not when the disease is caused by over-crowding and poverty - the plague alone is estimated to have caused 200 million deaths to date.

never mind all the other "plagues" that swept through Europe over the guts of 500 years(up to the 1700's). The black death/bubonic plague itself was only one. Though the chroniclers call everything pestilence/plague there were a number of different causative agents going by symptoms reported. Wave upon wave of them annually, lowering the average age of death to mid 20's at times. Europe was a charnel house for centuries. It has given people of that ancestry robust immune systems though. Witness how a sniffle or childhood illness for us wiped out more native Americans than any gun or blade. And it helped give us the enlightenment when people started to say "God eh? we've done nada and it's his will we're all dying? Sounds like bollocks Ted".

And thanks to the blood thirsty twentieth century, neither disease nor childbirth claims anywhere near as many lives...

Yep. Women live longer than men. That's almost a given. It's about the first time in our history that that's the case. Go back a couple of centuries and there were often more widowers than widows even with all the wars. Childbirth was dangerous. If you were a woman sex was akin to playing russian roulette with your fanny. The amount of patron saints and prayers and superstitions around fertility and birth was mad. Rich or poor, pious or dissolute, women died. To a degree accepted then that would stagger us today. The input to nunneries was high. One reason was to avoid all that.

Morag

K-9 wrote: »

I don't really care what the Church thinks now or did in the past. I'm aware of the influence it had and was affected by it but all it is what some group of men think. My mother didn't go to my sons christening because of guilt, TBh, she was more concerned about the neighbours and the family members also having a christening in the same church on the same day, the shame, rather than what the CC wanted. If the Govt. had the same view she'd have been the same.

I'm able to make my mind up, thank you very much.

Fair enough but many people don't know the history of the Christian church and abortion and think it has always been anti-abortion.,

Macha

Sharrow wrote: »

Fair enough but many people don't know the history of the Christian church and abortion and think it has always been anti-abortion.,

Well if you look in the bible, I don't think abortion is mentioned at all..Actually, I don't know what part of the bible is normally used to justify opposition to abortion.

ztoical

Wibbs wrote: »

akin to playing russian roulette with your fanny

Is it wrong I want that on a t-shirt now

southsiderosie

K-9 wrote: »

I can't think of another "modern" country that has gone under the amount of change socially Ireland has done in the last 30 years.

Spain.

coffee_cake

Macha wrote: »

Well if you look in the bible, I don't think abortion is mentioned at all..Actually, I don't know what part of the bible is normally used to justify opposition to abortion.

Usually it's "before you were in the womb I knew you"; the problem there is that that's in reference to a prophet who was so distinguished and set apart that god knew him beforehand. It's a complete non-argument.
The rest is usually "well god created life so only god could decide to take it away".

Malari

bluewolf wrote: »

Usually it's "before you were in the womb I knew you"; the problem there is that that's in reference to a prophet who was so distinguished and set apart that god knew him beforehand. It's a complete non-argument.
The rest is usually "well god created life so only god could decide to take it away".

Is that where the "life begins at fertilisation" comes from? Or is it just because "Before you were in the fallopian tubes I knew you" probably wouldn't be as well understood? :rolleyes:

Wibbs

southsiderosie wrote: »

Spain.

I dunno S. They're similar but even then not nearly to the same degree. They always had a larger, more liberal and socialist factions than Ireland, even under Franco*. Indeed especially because of that twat it was almost stubbornly so. The second that git was under the ground they started to relax the kacks and rapidly. They passed divorce in 81(even under Franco couples divorced in all but name and a blind eye was turned) and contraception in 78 and homosexuality(and now have full same sex marriage). Abortion under limited circumstances(though such circumstances were flexible in practice) since 85 and fully legal since 09 Even with their catholic church ranting against all of the above. IMH They're at least a generation ahead of us anyway.





*the last fascist ruler in Europe. The great survivor and all around prick. A contemporary of Hitler and Mussolini.

Wibbs

Macha wrote: »

Well if you look in the bible, I don't think abortion is mentioned at all..Actually, I don't know what part of the bible is normally used to justify opposition to abortion.

Exactly and given as Sharrow has pointed out abortion by herbal* and other means was well known and used in the ancient world it would have been known to the various players in Christianity. Ditto for contraception. Certainly there is an omission of those subjects as far as Jesus was concerned. Of course slaverly was everywhere and he didn't specifically say it was bad. Indeed the Muslims following from and sharing similar roots to christianity had no great issue with abortion under certain circumstances and cut off points.








* one Roman and Greek world herb, siliphium(sp) as well as seasoning was noted by Pliny and used for contraception and as an abortifacient. It was so popular to the degree it went extinct.

southsiderosie

Wibbs wrote: »

I dunno S. They're similar but even then not nearly to the same degree. They always had a larger, more liberal and socialist factions than Ireland, even under Franco*. Indeed especially because of that twat it was almost stubbornly so. The second that git was under the ground they started to relax the kacks and rapidly. They passed divorce in 81(even under Franco couples divorced in all but name and a blind eye was turned) and contraception in 78 and homosexuality(and now have full same sex marriage). Abortion under limited circumstances(though such circumstances were flexible in practice) since 85 and fully legal since 09 Even with their catholic church ranting against all of the above. IMH They're at least a generation ahead of us anyway.

Well I've always thought the biggest difference between Spain and Ireland (besides size) was that Spain had a radical, secular left that got institutionalized into politics, while Ireland's left were either killed, or sidelined by the 'national question'. Plus, with partition, Ireland largely lost its urban proletariat that formed the backbone of most socialist/social democratic parties of Europe. Subsequently the Labour Party has been the eternal bridesmaid of Irish politics.

That said, there is a lot of fear in Spain right now that if (when) the conservatives get back into power next year, the laws on abortion and gay marriage will be 'reviewed'.

metrovelvet

southsiderosie wrote: »

Well I've always thought the biggest difference between Spain and Ireland (besides size) was that Spain had a radical, secular left that got institutionalized into politics, while Ireland's left were either killed, or sidelined by the 'national question'. Plus, with partition, Ireland largely lost its urban proletariat that formed the backbone of most socialist/social democratic parties of Europe. Subsequently the Labour Party has been the eternal bridesmaid of Irish politics.

That said, there is a lot of fear in Spain right now that if (when) the conservatives get back into power next year, the laws on abortion and gay marriage will be 'reviewed'.

Plus all the emigration from Ireland. This is round 4 of the nations hemorraging its youth.

In the meantime, a woman, well a 15 year old, got a prison sentence for her stillborn baby, doing coke while she was pregnant.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges

K-9

southsiderosie wrote: »

Well I've always thought the biggest difference between Spain and Ireland (besides size) was that Spain had a radical, secular left that got institutionalized into politics, while Ireland's left were either killed, or sidelined by the 'national question'. Plus, with partition, Ireland largely lost its urban proletariat that formed the backbone of most socialist/social democratic parties of Europe. Subsequently the Labour Party has been the eternal bridesmaid of Irish politics.

That said, there is a lot of fear in Spain right now that if (when) the conservatives get back into power next year, the laws on abortion and gay marriage will be 'reviewed'.

FF would have been the traditionally left party internationally but their problem was they they were the party for everybody and ended up standing for nothing, just money.

In Dev's time they were the both the small farmer and working class party and it worked, you don't become the most successful party in Europe by not appealing to everybody. People have finally copped onto to the consequences of that and I'd say FF as we know it will be a remnant of history in 10 years time.

Ireland has had a varied history of radical parties, the 40's to 60's is full of them. The PD's was the most successful in recent history but they got subsumed and plagiarised.

The problem is we don't have a left vs. right divide, Garret vs. Charlie was the nearest and FG have retracted from the socially liberal side of that.

So FF and FG are the same and I think voters are finally copping into that, the problem is Labour are too busy looking over their shoulder at SF that they are showing no leadership.

There's a few social issue that Labour could lead on atm, father's rights, abortion, modernising divorce laws etc. but they are in fear of rocking the boat with FG. Labour will suffer next time as they always do out of FG coalitions. They'd a big chance to be the main party of opposition and mark themselves out as different and radical. People know we are in bad times economically, this is the time to be socially radical.

Suaimhneach

See, this is my problem. I'm not political. I'm not incredibly well versed in historical political who-fucked-who. And if you're going to play the "activist trying to help change" game, you kind of need to know those, right?

I guess thats why its so hard for people to get involved, it's not enough (for debate anyway) to simply want change, you need to fight with years and years of knowledge backing your position.

I don't know if I could be bothered (not out of ignorance or anything) to learn the vast history that exists. I think (to a certain extent) just knowing how things are now and wanting to change that should be enough?

Monty Burnz

K-9 wrote: »

There's a few social issue that Labour could lead on atm, father's rights, abortion, modernising divorce laws etc. but they are in fear of rocking the boat with FG. Labour will suffer next time as they always do out of FG coalitions. They'd a big chance to be the main party of opposition and mark themselves out as different and radical. People know we are in bad times economically, this is the time to be socially radical.

I think there's still a strong socially liberal element in FG, far more so than in Fianna Failure, as FG would have won liberal members and support back in the days when they introduced divorce in the teeth of fierce opposition from FFailure and the Catholic Church.

The problem from the point of view of social progressives is that right now both Labour and FG are up their oxters in the economic situation, and I don't think social issues are at the forefront of the public's mind. We may have to wait for another 5 years when things hopefully get back on a relatively even keel before issues like abortion and gay marriage are addressed, and it will probably be far longer again for fathers' rights.

metrovelvet

^ Whenever its campaign time and the politicians come to the door I always ask them what their parties policies are and where they stand on various issues, and none of them so far have been able to answer in any concrete way. It just always looks like improvisational politics to me.

Monty Burnz

metrovelvet wrote: »

^ Whenever its campaign time and the politicians come to the door I always ask them what their parties policies are and where they stand on various issues, and none of them so far have been able to answer in any concrete way. It just always looks like improvisational politics to me.

Irish politics is populated by cowards, probably the fault of the electorate. In (some) other countries, politicians stand for things and have beliefs. In this country, they usually stand for nothing other than financial vested interests (e.g. farmers, developers, public sector workers) and rather than trying to win votes, they strive not to lose them. Thus they will tell anyone what they think they want to hear, instead of telling us what they believe and what they intend to do.

metrovelvet

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Irish politics is populated by cowards, probably the fault of the electorate. In (some) other countries, politicians stand for things and have beliefs. In this country, they usually stand for nothing other than financial vested interests (e.g. farmers, developers, public sector workers) and rather than trying to win votes, they strive not to lose them. Thus they will tell anyone what they think they want to hear, instead of telling us what they believe and what they intend to do.

Yeah, ok I know im going to get my wrist slapped for this, but I find a lot of telling you want you want to hear happens in these parts, across the board and not just from politicians.

K-9

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I think there's still a strong socially liberal element in FG, far more so than in Fianna Failure, as FG would have won liberal members and support back in the days when they introduced divorce in the teeth of fierce opposition from FFailure and the Catholic Church.

The problem from the point of view of social progressives is that right now both Labour and FG are up their oxters in the economic situation, and I don't think social issues are at the forefront of the public's mind. We may have to wait for another 5 years when things hopefully get back on a relatively even keel before issues like abortion and gay marriage are addressed, and it will probably be far longer again for fathers' rights.

Well the country was fecked in the 80's and FG did try on divorce, in some ways it's the ideal time to address social change. FG have their fair share of Oliver J. Flanagan types as well, raise their head every now and again. Labour seemed to have a more liberal approach than FG but the solution was the usual working group which findings will gather dust again.