Abortion Discussion

aloyisious

Peregrinus wrote: »

But HL are doing precisely the opposite of that; objecting strongly to having to pay themselves for what they consider to be "immoral" insurance policies, but making no attempt to influence or control how employees invest their retirement savings.

As I say, I don't like HL's stance. But there's no inconsistency or hypocrisy in saying (a) I don't want to spend my money on this, but (b) I'm not telling other people how they should spend their money.

Going off-track now into another topic. Maybe it's not legal for US Companies to "control or influence" the (O/P) employees retirement funds. I'm just looking at how some managers etc on Wall St used funds before the last crash, and how other fund managers misused funds they had access to (thinking of Jimmy Hoffa - a whole other ballgame).

Peregrinus

aloyisious wrote: »

Going off-track now into another topic. Maybe it's not legal for US Companies to "control or influence" the (O/P) employees retirement funds. I'm just looking at how some managers etc on Wall St used funds before the last crash, and how other fund managers misused funds they had access to (thinking of Jimmy Hoffa - a whole other ballgame).

That's a problem, all right, but it's a different problem.

Wall Street fund managers are given money to manage - they're handed a bunch of dollars, plus instructions to invest them in acccordance with a stated investment strategy. But, within the parameters of that strategy, it's up to them to select the particular investments to be made, and to make them.

With that degree of effective control, there are obviously opportunities for the fund manager to commit various wrongs - steal the money outright, for example, or "borrow" it for its own purposes, or invest outside the terms of the mandate, or take kickbacks on investments, or whatever. And you have audits, etc, to try to minimise that risk.

But an employer who contributes to a pension fund is in a different position. He doesn't have control over the pension fund money. He's not even at one remove from control - he doesn't appoint the investment manager, or set the investment strategy. So for him actually to control what happens to the money is quite difficult.

Thats not to say that it's impossible - Robert Maxwell famously stole money from the Mirror Group pension funds. But if an employer does get his hands on the money and abuse it, he's likely to do so for his own benefit. Typically, he will use it to capitalise his own business (which is what Maxwell did). And he usually does this because he's under extreme pressure, and can't raise capital elsewhere (which was Maxwell's situation).

Even if HL had obtained control over the investment of the HL pension fund money , it would make no sense for them to get the pension fund to make what they consider to be "immoral" investments. You might assume that they are hoping to get a share of the sweet, sweet profits of immorality, but no - nobody is suggesting that the returns from the pension fund's investments were coming back to HL. They were going to the pension fund members.

So the hypothesis has to be that HL claimsto object to investment in companies making (what they consider to be) abortifacients, or providing abortion-related products/services, but it illegally obtains control over pension fund investments and uses that control to make the penson funds invest in those companies, even though HL does not benefit in any way from the investments made by the pension fund. Even if HL could do this, why would they? What's in it for them? It just doesn't make sense.

The alternative, non-conspiracy theory is that HL is not involved in pension fund investment decisions, and the fund managers appointed by the pension fund trustees are implementing a (very common) strategy of diversified investment in all major market sectors, including pharmaceuticals and medical technology. That makes sense.

Delirium

derp :pac:

(pro-life conference in Dublin)

Turtwig

IT'S A MIRACLE! A MIRACLE!

PopePalpatine

Given that McGuirk is dressed as Napoleon, if all of the Corpus Crusties there also have Napoleon Complexes they could squeeze a few more in. :pac:

Turtwig

Devil advocate for a mo? Maybe not everyone got in or opted for seating?

Sulla Felix

Turtwig wrote: »

Devil advocate for a mo? Maybe not everyone got in or opted for seating?

Pretty sure it was allocated seating. You had to email in if you were going at least.

PopePalpatine

Then again, these are the morons who claim that they can fit 40,000 people onto the pavement of Merrion Street. Estimating crowd size is never their strong point.

aloyisious

Is that the meeting arranged by The Life House people, with a reference made to Dublin City Hall as the venue?

Richard Bingham

SW wrote: »

derp :pac:

(pro-life conference in Dublin)

I was there. There were 600 chairs laid out at 9am when people started arriving. As all of these filled up and there were a lot of people standing, they brought in an additional 200 chairs. There were still approximately between 20 and 45 or 50 people standing (varied over the course of the day) so the attendance was 820 - 850. Also, there were definitely people who only attended for the speakers they were particularly interested in so more than 850 attended some part of the event.

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Pretty sure it was allocated seating. You had to email in if you were going at least.

It wasn't allocated seating. You were supposed to register but either people came without registering or they didn't cap the number of places.

Richard Bingham

Big reaction to the plan by Josie Cunningham to have an abortion in the UK so she can get on big brother and pursue a career as a model but doesn't seem to have been picked up by any of the main papers here in Ireland - surprising when you consider that the media here often adopt stories covered by the UK media and also that our parliament has recently passed laws to permit abortion so you would think this would be deemed relevant.

There seems to have been almost exclusively negative comments about her plan and more than 6,000 people have signed a petition to keep her off Big Brother if she goes ahead with it. I think its fair to say that a huge amount of her critics are pro-choice.

It's remarkable as there is no more reason to criticize this girl for wanting to pursue her career choice than there is to criticize another girl who chooses to have an abortion so that she can go to college to study to be say and engineer or a chef. Surely her choice of career isn't the issue?

Obliq

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Big reaction to the plan by Josie Cunningham to have an abortion in the UK so she can get on big brother and pursue a career as a model but doesn't seem to have been picked up by any of the main papers here in Ireland - surprising when you consider that the media here often adopt stories covered by the UK media and also that our parliament has recently passed laws to permit abortion so you would think this would be deemed relevant.

There seems to have been almost exclusively negative comments about her plan and more than 6,000 people have signed a petition to keep her off Big Brother if she goes ahead with it. I think its fair to say that a huge amount of her critics are pro-choice.

It's remarkable as there is no more reason to criticize this girl for wanting to pursue her career choice than there is to criticize another girl who chooses to have an abortion so that she can go to college to study to be say and engineer or a chef. Surely her choice of career isn't the issue?

I would say you're correct and there should be no more reason to criticise this girl for her choices than any other, selfish though it may be. We're selfish animals, and my take on this is that she is plainly too selfish to continue her pregnancy and have another human depend on her at this point. So? Do you have an issue with that?! To my mind, at least she knows now rather than somewhere down the line after a baby might be passed from pillar to post. This way, the small human embryo that may get killed off will at least know nothing about it.

Ps. First I heard of this woman - it's a strange world right enough, when someone is wanting to go on big brother at all, never mind straight after telling the world how her career means more to her than any other person. I find it quite honest though, if misguided in thinking this attention will do her any favours at all.

Richard Bingham

Obliq wrote: »

So? Do you have an issue with that?!

Don't you think that response is a bit adversarial. I didn't give my view other than to say I thought the criticism is remarkable. There were 196,000 abortions in the UK in 2011 and the vast majority of them were societal as opposed to medical. I think the backlash against what is merely one more societal abortion is remarkable.

Obliq wrote: »

To my mind, at least she knows now rather than somewhere down the line after a baby might be passed from pillar to post.

A baby or the baby. I'd prefer to be passed from pillar to post myself or just put up for adoption by one of the thousands of people trying to adopt in the UK and Ireland at present.

Obliq wrote: »

I find it quite honest though, if misguided in thinking this attention will do her any favours at all.

Crediting her with honesty is very charitable (to her), its not much praise really, you could credit any one of a number of people with honesty - a racist, a homophobe, a woman hater, a man hater. It is small recommendation.

gillmelly

Can't see how killing the child solves anything

lazygal

gillmelly wrote: »

Can't see how killing the child solves anything

A child isn't being killed. Do you mean terminating a pregnancy? What needs to be solved in this case?

eviltwin

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Big reaction to the plan by Josie Cunningham to have an abortion in the UK so she can get on big brother and pursue a career as a model but doesn't seem to have been picked up by any of the main papers here in Ireland - surprising when you consider that the media here often adopt stories covered by the UK media and also that our parliament has recently passed laws to permit abortion so you would think this would be deemed relevant.

There seems to have been almost exclusively negative comments about her plan and more than 6,000 people have signed a petition to keep her off Big Brother if she goes ahead with it. I think its fair to say that a huge amount of her critics are pro-choice.

It's remarkable as there is no more reason to criticize this girl for wanting to pursue her career choice than there is to criticize another girl who chooses to have an abortion so that she can go to college to study to be say and engineer or a chef. Surely her choice of career isn't the issue?

she changed her mind so a bit of a non story really

Richard Bingham

lazygal wrote: »

A child isn't being killed. Do you mean terminating a pregnancy?

Is this where I'm supposed to say Oi, Hitler didn't recognise the Jews as being human either. And then you come back and quote Godwins Law - it's all a bit old really. You can call it what you like, abortion, termination, choice etc. It doesn't matter what name you give it. Everyone knows the end result. Not everyone knows how it is achieved mind you. Best not to dwell on that or describe how an induced labour abortion works or mention the Gosnell fella. Even Hollywood, to which nothing is sacred, refuses to make a movie about the most prolific serial killer in the history of the world.

lazygal wrote: »

What needs to be solved in this case?

1) Josie Cunningham was initially happy about her pregnancy and the free dental that came with it.
2) When the company who produce Big Brother stopped calling she realised that it might affect her career. This was the problem.
3) She decided to solve the problem by having an abortion.
4) Gillmelly's comment "Can't see how killing the child solves anything" was in the context of Josie Cunningham's proposed solution to her problem.

Her solution was ill conceived because you can't do the abortion thing in public - it will cause outrage. Best to keep it off Twitter lest you get abused by thousands of people, many of whom admitted to being pro-choice.

PopePalpatine

Talking about Gosnell in the context of abortion is like referencing Harold Shipman when it comes to caring for the elderly.

I won't be surprised to see the anti-choice groups use Josie as a bizarre sort of anti-"poster girl" to shame women who've had abortions.

eviltwin

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Is this where I'm supposed to say Oi, Hitler didn't recognise the Jews as being human either. And then you come back and quote Godwins Law - it's all a bit old really. You can call it what you like, abortion, termination, choice etc. It doesn't matter what name you give it. Everyone knows the end result. Not everyone knows how it is achieved mind you. Best not to dwell on that or describe how an induced labour abortion works or mention the Gosnell fella. Even Hollywood, to which nothing is sacred, refuses to make a movie about the most prolific serial killer in the history of the world.



1) Josie Cunningham was initially happy about her pregnancy and the free dental that came with it.
2) When the company who produce Big Brother stopped calling she realised that it might affect her career. This was the problem.
3) She decided to solve the problem by having an abortion.
4) Gillmelly's comment "Can't see how killing the child solves anything" was in the context of Josie Cunningham's proposed solution to her problem.

Her solution was ill conceived because you can't do the abortion thing in public - it will cause outrage. Best to keep it off Twitter lest you get abused by thousands of people, many of whom admitted to being pro-choice.

The outcome of pregnancy is a child, a foetus/embryo is not a child. Many more of these 'children' are lost to natural terminations ie miscarriage but it seems they don't carry the same significance. Where is the moral outrage? Where is the insistence that government put money into saving the lives of these 'children'.

Implying Gosnell is representative of those who perform abortions is akin to saying Harold Shipman is a good representative of GP's. He was a killer who used the ILLEGAL clinic he ran to carry out his CRIMES.


Again, Cunningham has now decided to keep her baby, what a surprise. Most people had it sussed from when this story first appeared that this would be the outcome. She wanted media attention and she picked a guaranteed way to get it. Mission accomplished.

lazygal

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Is this where I'm supposed to say Oi, Hitler didn't recognise the Jews as being human either. And then you come back and quote Godwins Law - it's all a bit old really. You can call it what you like, abortion, termination, choice etc. It doesn't matter what name you give it. Everyone knows the end result. Not everyone knows how it is achieved mind you. Best not to dwell on that or describe how an induced labour abortion works or mention the Gosnell fella. Even Hollywood, to which nothing is sacred, refuses to make a movie about the most prolific serial killer in the history of the world.

Nature is the most prolific serial killer in the history of the world. I don't see a clamor for a Hollywood movie on most abortions/terminations carried out by nature. Do you know what happens in Ireland if you turn up at a hospital at under 12 weeks with a suspected miscarriage? Nothing. You're sent home. No effort whatsoever is made to save the unborn child/foetus/whatever you want to call it. The medical profession won't generally investigate why nature has terminated those pregnancies until you've had three. Where' the outrage about that, unborn children left to die with no medical help to save them? Why is there no effort made to ensure such pregnancies aren't terminated by nature? Why such efforts to prevent non natural terminations from occurring, while nature is left to its own devices?
I've had two pregnancies terminated/aborted. By c section. I've no particular desire to dwell on the intimate details of how the surgery was carried out. Nor have I any desire to force a child or woman to undergo surgery like that when she didn't want to continue a pregnancy in the first place.

oldrnwisr

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Is this where I'm supposed to say Oi, Hitler didn't recognise the Jews as being human either. And then you come back and quote Godwins Law - it's all a bit old really. You can call it what you like, abortion, termination, choice etc. It doesn't matter what name you give it. Everyone knows the end result. Not everyone knows how it is achieved mind you. Best not to dwell on that or describe how an induced labour abortion works or mention the Gosnell fella. Even Hollywood, to which nothing is sacred, refuses to make a movie about the most prolific serial killer in the history of the world.

Well, no it is best not to mention induced labour abortion or Kermit Gosnell actually.

Firstly, if we look at induced labour abortion (listed in the stats under "feticide with a medical evacuation") we can see that there were just 436 such abortions out of a total of 189,931 in the UK in 2011 or just 0.2% of all abortions. So how you think this is relevant to this or any abortion debate is confusing.

Secondly, Kermit Gosnell was a criminal. A man who committed unspeakable crimes. How exactly is he relevant to an abortion debate at all. I mean should we start bringing up Eric Robert Rudolph, given two life sentences for the murder of Robert Sanderson and the bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic in 1998, or Scott Roeder who shot and killed Dr. George Tiller or Rev. Paul Jennings Hill who was executed in 2003 for the murder of Dr. John Britton and James Barrett. Are these criminals representative of the pro-life position?
As other posters have pointed out, Kermit Gosnell belongs in an abortion debate about as much as Harold Shipman belongs in a debate on elderly care.

I'm sure you probably had a point but it is difficult in the midst of all the red herring fallacies to see what it was.

Obliq

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Don't you think that response is a bit adversarial. I didn't give my view other than to say I thought the criticism is remarkable. There were 196,000 abortions in the UK in 2011 and the vast majority of them were societal as opposed to medical. I think the backlash against what is merely one more societal abortion is remarkable.

No, not adversarial, merely curious. I asked you do you have a problem with woman having an abortion for selfish reasons. You haven't answered. Still.

robindch

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Then again, these are the morons who claim that they can fit 40,000 people onto the pavement of Merrion Street.

"Morons" is perhaps a little strong here - no need to descend to the levels of operatic rhetoric plumbed by certain elements within the "pro-life" crowd.

Brian Shanahan

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Even Hollywood, to which nothing is sacred, refuses to make a movie about the most prolific serial killer in the history of the world.

Watcha talking about? There've been lots of films about Uncle Joe!

Oh wait, you're just repeating the "abortion is murder" lie. Well bud, what is not yet alive is not capable of being killed.

Cabaal

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Kermit Gosnell belongs in an abortion debate about as much as Harold Shipman belongs in a debate on elderly care.

I personally use Harold Shipman as a comparison for every GP in the UK & Ireland,

He was crazy and killed women, as such by extention all GP's will try to kill women. Oh he also had a beard, so all people with beards are evil too!

Makes as much sense as what Richard Bingham has done

Cabaal

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Big reaction to the plan by Josie Cunningham to have an abortion in the UK so she can get on big brother and pursue a career as a model but doesn't seem to have been picked up by any of the main papers here in Ireland

Its her body, its her choice.
You don't have to agree with it.

Would you prefer she is strapped to a bed, forced to give birth and then the child is taken into care until its 18 because she doesn't want it?

surprising when you consider that the media here often adopt stories covered by the UK media and also that our parliament has recently passed laws to permit abortion so you would think this would be deemed relevant.

So you'd rather a Ireland where if a women's life is at risk the doctor allow her to die at the cost of saving the embryo? Or they don't do enough to save the women's life because they worry about embryo?

I know if it was my wife and it became a choice between her and the embryo I know which I'd choose 100% of the time!

There seems to have been almost exclusively negative comments about her plan and more than 6,000 people have signed a petition to keep her off Big Brother if she goes ahead with it. I think its fair to say that a huge amount of her critics are pro-choice.

You only see a majority of negative comments because thats the sort of website you read and the sort of people you hang around. When it comes to the media only the gutter press keep reporting on such a none issue.

The fact you went to the "pro-life" conference even supports your mindset even further by the way.

Brian Shanahan

Cabaal wrote: »

He was crazy and killed women, as such by extention all GP's will try to kill women. Oh he also had a beard, so all people with beards are evil too!

I can confirm that hypothesis, I have a beard and I too am evil, when I'm not forgetting my evillity nor are too lazy to practise it.

Being evil is hard, I tells ya.

pauldla

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

I can confirm that hypothesis, I have a beard and I too am evil, when I'm not forgetting my evillity nor are too lazy to practise it.

Being evil is hard, I tells ya.

I'm wicked but I'm lazy.

PopePalpatine

pauldla wrote: »

I'm wicked but I'm lazy.

I remember that song fondly.

Cabaal

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

I can confirm that hypothesis, I have a beard and I too am evil, when I'm not forgetting my evillity nor are too lazy to practise it.

Being evil is hard, I tells ya.

I further backup my theory with the fact that my wife gets concerned anytime I say I want to grow a beard, I think she's scared I'll turn evil

It all makes perfect sense!