Abortion Discussion

Bannasidhe

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

One thing that I noticed the other day re the opening meeting of the Irish branch of UKIP, was that Lucinda Creighton was still spouting the lie that Fine Gael reneged on a promise before the election to ensure abortion didn't happen with their recent protection of life bill.

Is she so stupid that she can't read her own party's election manifesto, or is she so stupid that she thinks she won't be caught out with so transparent a lie?

Shure Party Manifesto's aren't worth the paper they are written on. Both FG's and Labour's should be filed under 'fantasy'.

What scares me is that she doesn't seem to understand what a Referendum result means in a legislative context.


The Govt, in particular the FG wing, introduced only what they had to - nothing more - because they had no choice. That particular can could no longer be kicked down the road after Savita Halappanavar's death. If it weren't for her tragic death and Praveen's determination to refuse to be silenced they would have gladly kept kicking the can for another 20 years.

Brian Shanahan

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Shure Party Manifesto's aren't worth the paper they are written on. Both FG's and Labour's should be filed under 'fantasy'.

The problem is that she's saying the manifesto was saying "we'll legislate against abortion" whereas what it actually said was "we'll get advice from experts who know what they're doing, and Patricia Casey (because it's always nice to have an occasional laugh when talking about something serious), and legislate according to their advice", which uniquely for any party anywhere is exactly what they did.

Shocking I know, but it really doesn't paint Loose Lips in a good light, especially as she'll probably* be running in a constituency where they're more pro-choice than she is, and can read even if their fingers are chopped off.

*You never know, Enda mightn't let her back in, and she might get a bit of brains and bow out of politics.

The Black Oil

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/a-lesson-in-abortion-1.1675360?page=1

Some questionable stuff going on in secondary schools. What's new?

Nodin

The Black Oil wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/a-lesson-in-abortion-1.1675360?page=1

Some questionable stuff going on in secondary schools. What's new?

Until the age of 15 or 16 if you asked me to define abortion I would have said 'its when they kill the baby'. Catholic education is a great man.

lazygal

I would love to set up the Lazygal Institute and go around to schools giving talks on abortion. And other hot topics.

_rebelkid

lazygal wrote: »

I would love to set up the Lazygal Institute and go around to schools giving talks on abortion. And other hot topics.

No need. I asked a cross section of people in my school about abortion last year, around this time actually. 1st years all the way to 6th years. Essentially the main feelings were "I don't think I'd have one, but it should be there." The student body were from different religious backgrounds and none, multiple countries and of both genders.

Generally, I think anti-choice tendencies seem to start to fade away once you get to around ~25 when counting backwards. But even at that, the majority of teachers felt that there should be the option there.

So all is good down south anyway (no pun intended).

pauldla

lazygal wrote: »

I would love to set up the Lazygal Institute and go around to schools giving talks on abortion. And other hot topics.

So long as you keep your views on pizza to yourself. No place in the classroom, if you please. :pac:

lazygal

pauldla wrote: »

So long as you keep your views on pizza to yourself. No place in the classroom, if you please. :pac:

The childers deserve to hear the truth!

aloyisious

Lazygal gave me the idea to research Pro-abortion institutes and I found this from The National Catholic Register, a US paper, dated Oct 2013. Before you read the item in the address below, have a glass of water on the table beside you to sip and keep you calm. I'm wondering if the course can be done correspondence-like, so's you can get a degree posted to you and set yourself up as a qualified expert adviser on the Pro-abortion rights side.

Print Article | Email Article | Write To Us
DAILY NEWS
Daily News
Georgetown Class Requires Advocacy Work With Pro-Abortion Group (5324)
The Georgetown course is ‘a disgrace to its Catholic identity,’ comments Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network.

WASHINGTON — A Georgetown University Law Center class offered next spring will require students to work with a lobbying group that a lawyer said is known for its work promoting abortion rights.

“Georgetown offers a course that will require students to work with an organization dedicated to promoting abortion and contraception and actively attacking religious freedom,” Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network, told CNA Oct. 25.

She added that Georgetown's offering of a course “that will require students to work with an organization dedicated to promoting abortion and contraception and actively attacking religious freedom” is “a disgrace to its Catholic identity.”

“Georgetown students will be given course credit for advancing the very policies that our bishops are fighting in court and promoting abortion and contraception that, as our faith teaches us, do violence to both women and children.”


https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CD4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncregister.com%2Fdaily-news%2Fgeorgetown-class-requires-advocacy-work-with-pro-abortion-group%2F&ei=pR7uUuiBBpOO7QakjIHoCQ&usg=AFQjCNFpzU2ZhhkJBoh3Q0dSTtYUljwaZA&bvm=bv.60444564,d.ZGU

Edit: and there's this story of conversion from the Pro-life to the Give-Women-The-Choice side.....

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CEQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Flovejoyfeminism%2F2012%2F10%2Fhow-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-life-movement.html&ei=pR7uUuiBBpOO7QakjIHoCQ&usg=AFQjCNEbZzGTuJIKD5LuQCsOWv5m9yRkCg&bvm=bv.60444564,d.ZGU

robindch

The long-term abortion rate in the USA has declined to its lowest level for over 40 years, helped on, a report claims, by the effects of the recession and improved access to regular contraception.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26020222

Cabaal

You can bet this part will be left out by an awful lot of christian people talking about this story

Researchers said the drop coincided with a declining pregnancy rate and increased use of contraceptives.

nagirrac

robindch wrote: »

The long-term abortion rate in the USA has declined to its lowest level for over 40 years, helped on, a report claims, by the effects of the recession and improved access to regular contraception.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26020222

Positive news and confirmation that sex education and easy / affordable access to contraception is effective.

nagirrac

Cabaal wrote: »

You can bet this part will be left out by an awful lot of christian people talking about this story

Considering that 98% of Catholics, the ones with the supposed "objections" to contraception, use or have used contraception, I am not sure what leg they have to stand on to do anything but welcome this report and its conclusions.

aloyisious

robindch wrote: »

The long-term abortion rate in the USA has declined to its lowest level for over 40 years, helped on, a report claims, by the effects of the recession and improved access to regular contraception.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26020222

I'd imagine that one could get white folk of a certain kind excited if one extrapolated from the report that the birth rate of white kids was also falling, due to contraceptives

Delirium

Abortion scandal: women told 'terminations increase chance of child abuse'

In this undercover film, a reporter from The Telegraph is told by an abortion counsellor that a termination could make them more likely to sexually abuse children in the future (Video on linked page)

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have said there is no scientific evidence to suggest an abortion could make women more likely to abuse a child.

It follows claims by a counsellor at Crisis Pregnancy Centres (CPCs) that there was “an increased statistical likelihood of child abuse” following a termination.

Last month, Telegraph reporters approached the centres - a network of clinics that provide advice to women considering a termination - claiming to be considering an abortion.

At the London CPC, named the Central London Women’s Centre (CLWC), an undercover reporter was told by an adviser, who gave her name as Annabel, that an abortion carried various “risks”.
“There’s also, an increased statistical likelihood of child abuse”, Annabel said.

Absolutely vile stuff. :mad::mad:

Bannasidhe

SW wrote: »

Abortion scandal: women told 'terminations increase chance of child abuse'



Absolutely vile stuff. :mad::mad:

What the uckin uck uck is wrong with people?????

More and more I prefer the company of my dogs.

Absolam

Would the logic perhaps be:
The number of child molesters remains constant, so if the number of children born decreases (due to abortion), then the statistical probability of the remaining children being abused is increased (due to the limited field)?

Peregrinus

This is an old, old argument that turns up in various forms. As far as I can make out, the straight dope is this.

1. In the US, back in the pre-Roe v Wade days, when pro-choice advocates had to try and persuade legislators to repeal laws criminalising abortion, or the public to support such repeals, one of the arguments routinely offered was that making abortion accessible to women would reduce the incidence of child abuse since, to oversimplify, “every child would be a wanted child”, and children would not be born into stressed, deprived conditions or to parents who did not want them, so the factors which lead to abuse would not be present.

2. This was always somewhat wishful thinking, and was I suspect based on a very shallow and stereotyped view of the phenomenon of child abuse.

3. Following Roe v Wade, abortion did of course become much more accessible, and abortion rates rose steeply. Contrary to what the argument would imply, rates of child abuse and child neglect did not fall; in fact they rose sharply.

4. This fed straight into an entirely different stereotype, much cherished by pro-life advocates, in which far from being an alternative to child abuse, abortion is simply another form of child abuse - you attack a child after it’s born, you attack a child before it’s born, what’s the difference? A society in which one form of child abuse is practiced should expect to see other forms flourish also.

5. All the discussion I’ve seen about this that refers to any actual figures comes from the US. I have no idea whether a pattern can be seen in the figures from other countries. Still, much of our discourse about abortion - on both sides - is imported wholesale from the US without acknowledgement and without asking whether it’s relevant to our conditions or our experience, so we shouldn’t be surprised that this is too.

6. Even assuming there is a correlation between abortion rates and child abuse rates in Ireland, or in any European country, the correlation is not necessarily causal. At various times, as outlined above, both the pro-life and pro-choice movements have advanced arguments for a causal link one way or the other, but those arguments are basically ideological, not evidence-driven. A correlation between abortion rates and child abuse rates could easily (and to my mind more plausibly) be explained other than with the hypothesis that the abortion rate is driving the abuse rate.

7. And there is no basis at all from what I can see for any suggestion that an individual woman who chooses abortion creates a greater risk of child abuse within her own family or household. I’ve not seen any statistics from any country suggesting any correlation between abortions in a family/household and child abuse in that family or household. I’m not saying that there are no such figures, but I have never come across them. There’s a 1979 study from Canada observing that women who have had abortions are more likely to display low self-esteem, and that child abusers also display low self-esteem, and says that the hypothesis of a causal link is “plausible”, but I don’t think the study joined the dots much beyond that.

Bannasidhe

What is enraging me is the thought that a woman faced with a crises pregnancy seeks advice from a 'professional' only to have this kind of guilt trip laid on top.

Delirium

Bannasidhe wrote: »

What is enraging me is the thought that a woman faced with a crises pregnancy seeks advice from a 'professional' only to have this kind of guilt trip laid on top.

+100000000

According to the article, the centres like the one mentioned in the story are entirely unregulated.

kylith

Peregrinus wrote: »

6. Even assuming there is a correlation between abortion rates and child abuse rates in Ireland, or in any European country, the correlation is not necessarily causal. At various times, as outlined above, both the pro-life and pro-choice movements have advanced arguments for a causal link one way or the other, but those arguments are basically ideological, not evidence-driven. A correlation between abortion rates and child abuse rates could easily (and to my mind more plausibly) be explained other than with the hypothesis that the abortion rate is driving the abuse rate.

I would agree that there is more to it than abortion causing child abuse. With anything that mentions the 'soaring rate of' or any other 'this never happened back in the old days' claim my first reaction is to wonder if it is just being reported more now than it was back then.

Families would often have had a weird uncle who wasn't to be left unaccompanied with the children, rapes were just as prevelant, men were abused by their wives, we just never heard of it because it wasn't something to be spoken of. Even the soaring rate of autism is down to the fact that until a decade or so ago they where labelled as 'idiots'.

eviltwin

Absolam wrote: »

Would the logic perhaps be:
The number of child molesters remains constant, so if the number of children born decreases (due to abortion), then the statistical probability of the remaining children being abused is increased (due to the limited field)?

No, the "logic" seems to be that having an abortion is something that only the kind of woman who hates children would do and that of course with that amount of hated for kids in her why wouldn't she think nothing of sexually abusing one? Sure if she can just murder a child like its nothing child abuse should be a walk in the park! :mad:

This kind of absolute horsesh!t makes my blood boil, you think you have seen these groups scrape the bottom of the taste barrel with their claims but this is a whole new level of sick even for them.

My heart breaks for any woman who maybe has been a victim of sex abuse herself or has someone of that nature in her family who may be swayed by this kind of guilt tripping. How are they allowed to get away with it!!!!

Absolam

eviltwin wrote: »

No, the "logic" seems to be that having an abortion is something that only the kind of woman who hates children would do and that of course with that amount of hated for kids in her why wouldn't she think nothing of sexually abusing one? Sure if she can just murder a child like its nothing child abuse should be a walk in the park! :mad:
This kind of absolute horsesh!t makes my blood boil, you think you have seen these groups scrape the bottom of the taste barrel with their claims but this is a whole new level of sick even for them.
My heart breaks for any woman who maybe has been a victim of sex abuse herself or has someone of that nature in her family who may be swayed by this kind of guilt tripping. How are they allowed to get away with it!!!!

But the report starts with "a reporter from The Telegraph is told by an abortion counsellor that a termination could make them more likely to sexually abuse children in the future", which, when it comes to quoting what was said, becomes "“There’s also, an increased statistical likelihood of child abuse”, Annabel said", which is actually not the same as the headline. Both the clinic and the reporter are being more than slightly selective with the truth in my opinion.

Watching the video, there's no doubt the woman in the clinic is trying to lead the reporter to that conclusion, which is appalling, but there's no doubt either that the reporter wasn't actually told that a termination could make them more likely to sexually abuse children in the future, so the headline is also appalling.

eviltwin

Absolam wrote: »

But the report starts with "a reporter from The Telegraph is told by an abortion counsellor that a termination could make them more likely to sexually abuse children in the future", which, when it comes to quoting what was said, becomes "“There’s also, an increased statistical likelihood of child abuse”, Annabel said", which is actually not the same as the headline. Both the clinic and the reporter are being more than slightly selective with the truth in my opinion.

Watching the video, there's no doubt the woman in the clinic is trying to lead the reporter to that conclusion, which is appalling, but there's no doubt either that the reporter wasn't actually told that a termination could make them more likely to sexually abuse children in the future, so the headline is also appalling.

My reading of it was that the woman in the clinic was saying women who have abortions are more likely to abuse children if they have an abortion than they would if they kept the baby.

“When you have a child you have natural maternal instincts towards the child and there are also natural barriers that surround the child that you don’t cross.
"In order to have an abortion you have to break through both those sets of barriers, basically, and some people can find it hard to put them back in place."

Absolam

But she didn't actually say that a woman is more likely to sexually abuse children if she has an abortion; the reporter paraphrased her apparent intent to create a shocking headline, just as 'Annabel' took some shaky statistics to create a shocking correlation. Both parties attempting to mislead in my opinion.

28064212

Absolam wrote: »

But she didn't actually say that a woman is more likely to sexually abuse children if she has an abortion; the reporter paraphrased her apparent intent to create a shocking headline, just as 'Annabel' took some shaky statistics to create a shocking correlation. Both parties attempting to mislead in my opinion.

I'm not sure I get your point. The quote:

Absolam wrote: »

"“There’s also, an increased statistical likelihood of child abuse”, Annabel said"

If she was in hospital getting a breast augmentation, and the doctor says to her "There’s also an increased statistical likelihood of impeded breast-feeding function", what other meaning could you take than that being as a result of the operation?

Absolam

The point is, she said "There is an increased statistical likelihood of sexual abuse". She did not say "You are statistically more likely to sexually abuse children". She may have given the reporter cause to infer it; she was apparently trying to, but the report didn't say it was inferred, it was presented as a statement made by the counselor, which she didn't make. I think it's disingenuous to decry misleading tactics used by the anti-abortion camp, whilst ignoring the same tactics from the pro camp.

28064212

Absolam wrote: »

The point is, she said "There is an increased statistical likelihood of sexual abuse". She did not say "You are statistically more likely to sexually abuse children". She may have given the reporter cause to infer it; she was apparently trying to, but the report didn't say it was inferred, it was presented as a statement made by the counselor, which she didn't make. I think it's disingenuous to decry misleading tactics used by the anti-abortion camp, whilst ignoring the same tactics from the pro camp.

How is it any different from the example I gave?

I see zero semantic difference between these two statements:

• There is an increased statistical likelihood of sexual abuse if you have an abortion
• You are statistically more likely to sexually abuse children if you have an abortion

Cabaal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26151422

A controversial Spanish bill to end women's right to abortion on demand is set to be passed after an opposition challenge is defeated in parliament.

Absolam

28064212 wrote: »

I see zero semantic difference between these two statements:

• There is an increased statistical likelihood of sexual abuse if you have an abortion
• You are statistically more likely to sexually abuse children if you have an abortion

Really?
The first statement says that the likelihood of sexual abuse will increase.
The second says that a specific person is more likely to commit sexual abuse.
You honestly can't tell the difference between the two?