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Abortion Discussion
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Richard Bingham, how do you feel about the treatment of the miscarriage of pregnancy in Ireland? Should medical intervention be available for very early pregnancies rather than letting nature take its course?
No. Some pregnancies end in miscarriage and likely always will. I doubt if there are many people who don't know that the first 12 weeks are the risky stage. Medical science can't cure every ill. It's not comparable to abortion.Should child benefit be paid from conception too?
I don't recall saying any such thing but I wouldn't be against your suggestion. A woman has to look after herself, eat healthy etc during pregnancy so if the govt decided to pay an allowance to help this to happen, especially for people on social welfare, I wouldn't be at all against it. It would be similar to the way money spent by coeliacs on gluten free food was tax deductable until very recently. I doubt if they'd call it child benefit although I'm sure its an undisputed fact that it would benefit the child, so good idea Lazygal. I knew your were a good person!0 -
Richard Bingham wrote: »Not alive? Is it dead or undead or un-alive?
A foetus is incapable of Autopoiesis while still in the womb, therefore it is not yet alive. Yes it has the potential for life, but on the other hand so do all of the thousands of ova in the womb that never get fertilised by spermatoaza, and we're not agitating for legal sanctions against women who menstruate.0 -
Hi we seen the uproar the recent amendment caused could you imagine if they attempted to legislate for abortion on demand,I think ireland will never see the day, support for abortion is on the decline in the developed world. I think its time we invested in some condoms dont you?
Its your body protect it or dont have sex.
Currently the country has legal abortion, as it has no way of stopping pregnant women travelling to Britain. It just decides to lump the administrative and health burden on the women and another country.
Also the majority of the population are currently in favour of a more liberal system than we have, and in a few years this will be the vast majority (we are not Dumberica where the majority parrot whatever the snake oil salesman currently fleecing them is using his pulpit to tell them to say). So I don't think we'll have a problem if an Irish government get the cojones to tell the bunch of kiddie-fiddlers over in Italy (I don't recognise the sovreignty of a state only ever officially recognised by Mussolini and Hitler) get the fcuk out of our country and our laws and finally legislate properly and sensibly for a woman's right to have an abortion if she so chooses.0 -
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Citations? How does a rape victim protect her body? What about the pregnancies that threaten the lives of women?
Your using the minority case to justify legislation - it doesn't work that way. Extreme cases make for bad law.
If I have a valid reason to speed (such as transporting a sick child to hospital) it doesn't mean the law needs to be changed so that you can speed if you have a good excuse.
The reason for this is that if the law was changed in this way, it would be abused and everyone would speed.
On the subject of pregnancies that threaten the lives of women, this is a total misnomer. Even if the pregnancy has to be ended because not to do so would result in the woman's death, this is not referred to as an abortion by doctors in Ireland and pregnancies were ended for this reason before the abortion act was passed and no doctor did a day in jail. Rhona Mahony from the National Maternity Hospital confirmed during the hearings last year that there were three terminations in the hospital in 2012 where the woman’s life was at risk and Sam Coulter Smith from the Rotunda confirmed that there had been six terminations in the Rotunda last year in these circumstances.
There's no point regurgitating the "woman's life at risk" argument ad nausem. It can't be an argument for abortion because doctors don't call this abortion, and no woman who needs a termination in these circumstances should be made to feel like she had an abortion.0 -
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Richard Bingham wrote: »The legislation doesn't provide for input from the father. If he has input it is because the woman allows him to have an input. As far as the law goes, he doesn't have a say.
A lot of the time though the father is involved though, is part of the decision making process, travels over etc.0 -
Brian Shanahan wrote: »Currently the country has legal abortion, as it has no way of stopping pregnant women travelling to Britain. It just decides to lump the administrative and health burden on the women and another country.
Also the majority of the population are currently in favour of a more liberal system than we have, and in a few years this will be the vast majority (we are not Dumberica where the majority parrot whatever the snake oil salesman currently fleecing them is using his pulpit to tell them to say). So I don't think we'll have a problem if an Irish government get the cojones to tell the bunch of kiddie-fiddlers over in Italy (I don't recognise the sovreignty of a state only ever officially recognised by Mussolini and Hitler) get the fcuk out of our country and our laws and finally legislate properly and sensibly for a woman's right to have an abortion if she so chooses.
Calm down this post is incredibly flustered we are having a debate insulting americans and the church adds little to the debate.0 -
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Richard Bingham wrote: »Sorry I initially thought it was more of rhetorical question. Then I had to go to work so I didn't get around to answering you. I'm back now and have a small amount of downtime so I'll answer.
I have of course got a problem that a human being must be killed so that this woman can be on Big Brother and so she can afford to drive a pink Range Rover (as she has stated).
Ok. Leaving aside for a moment that you think an embryo has full human rights and I don't at all, answer me these.
Do you spend as much time stressing about and advocating against humans beings sent to war?
Do you make sure not to contribute to the deaths by disgusting work conditions of the children who make shoes and pants for chainstores?
Do you campaign relentlessly against world hunger/famine and the unnecessary deaths that are occuring world wide to actual grown human's with full human rights already?
Do you or your wife own any diamonds and if so, do you know where they came from and who died to get them?
You see, human selfishness causing death takes many forms, and tbh I'm well sick of the self-righteousness about this most easy and traditional of targets. Why don't you equally point the finger at the kind of selfishness that causes death every day, in places where "the right to life" is only aspirational, at best?0 -
I have a question. When do you believe a sperm and an egg become a human? Is it as soon as the egg is fertilised or at some later point?Richard Bingham wrote: »{...}0 -
Brian Shanahan wrote: »A foetus is incapable of Autopoiesis while still in the womb, therefore it is not yet alive. Yes it has the potential for life, but on the other hand so do all of the thousands of ova in the womb that never get fertilised by spermatoaza, and we're not agitating for legal sanctions against women who menstruate.
There are multiple criticisms in relation to the use of the term in both its original context, as an attempt to define and explain the living, and its various expanded usages, such as applying it to self-organizing systems in general or social systems in particular.[9] Critics have argued that the term fails to define or explain living systems and that, because of the extreme language of self-referentiality it uses without any external reference, it is really an attempt to give substantiation to Maturana's radical constructivist or solipsistic epistemology,[10] or what Danilo Zolo[11][12] has called instead a "desolate theology". An example is the assertion by Maturana and Varela that "what we do not see does not exist"[13] or that reality is an invention of observers. The autopoietic model, said Rod Swenson,[14] is "miraculously decoupled from the physical world by its progenitors [...] (and thus) grounded on a solipsistic foundation that flies in the face of both common sense and scientific knowledge".
I wouldn't pretend to know anything about autopoiesis. The above is from the link which you provided. It is by no means the arbitrator of when life begins, it's just one suggested yardstick which is widely disputed.0 -
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Richard Bingham wrote: »If my aunty had balls she'd be my uncle.
She hasn't.
What exactly is your point?
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funnily enough a lot of right wing conservatives think gay marriage and gay righs in general are up there with abortion.
This would be an extreme view. Same sex marriages don't hurt anyone or infringe on their rights.Can you imagine 20-30 years ago anyone believing that Fine Gael would legislate for abortion?
Sounds like you are giving Enda Kenny credit for a job well done. Bear in mind that he didn't intend to legislate for abortion in fact he promised the electorate that they wouldn't. When two political parties form a government they can't both keep all their election promises. Eamon said he wanted abortion and Enda put aside his morals and integrity to give it to him.The foetus is not as important, or ever will be as important as the woman/couple who have the termination.
Pro-life people don't generally maintain that the unborn baby is more important, just 'as important'.0 -
Brian Shanahan wrote: »Currently the country has legal abortion, as it has no way of stopping pregnant women travelling to Britain.
No. We are a republic and, prior to the abortion act, last year we didn't have abortion. You might as well say that cannabis is legal because you can jump on a €9.99 flight to Amsterdam. By your logic we should just copy the laws of any country which is a convenient plane journey away.Brian Shanahan wrote: »Also the majority of the population are currently in favour of a more liberal system than we have
No, not true. The debate last year was coloured by two big factors;
1) the death of Savita Halappanavar which was a tragedy but was not due to the non availability of abortion as has been proven by the reports into her death which stated that the key causal factor was inadequate assessment and monitoring.
2) a skewed Irish Times poll which asked leading questions such as do you believe that abortion should be allowed when the woman's life is at risk? This is a leading question. Statistical results based on leading questions are prone to give an unrealistic picture of public opinion.
Furthermore the Irish Times poll was done by face to face interviews. Are we to believe that all respondents answered a straight yes or no. What was recorded when some said, "oh let me see, yes I suppose, although it could lead to a huge amount of unecessary abortions, I don't know, maybe ... I suppose... when you put it like that..". We would need to see the guidelines given to the interviewers - note I use the plural interviewers as I hope there was more than one otherwise the results could be skewed by a single interviewers personal view or something the editor said at a briefing that morning
The Irish Times got exactly the headline they wanted to get. A statistician wouldn't even give it the time of day.
As for how it was passed in the Dail - a complete joke.
Bullying - forced by the whip system to vote it in or get kicked out on their asses.
Sleep deprivation - they were kept up all night - basically told like a shower of children that they weren't going home until it was passed, and remember a lot of the TD's are getting on - it might be easy to stay up all night when your 25 but I'd say its gets a lot harder when your 55.
Drunkenness - what was the bar tab again €7 or 8k. Disgraceful that they couldn't stay sober for such an important vote.
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Ok. Leaving aside for a moment that you think an embryo has full human rights and I don't at all, answer me these.
I never said "full human rights" and I don't think that the term has one definition so I'm not going to get dragged into a polemic statement which can be used to beat me with later. I certainly believe it has the right to life (I'm not going to get into semantics about whether we call it an embryo or a baby).
I will try to answer your questions.Do you spend as much time stressing about and advocating against humans beings sent to war?
Not if they willingly elect to join an army. I wouldn't be in favour of conscription as this could effectively be a death sentence if the chance of survival in a particular war was low. Less war would be good - there are victims on both sides.Do you make sure not to contribute to the deaths by disgusting work conditions of the children who make shoes and pants for chainstores?
I am probably not pro-active enough in this but I can't fight every battle. If I heard on a credible news channel tonight that a particular brand of shoe was made in dangerous factories in a developing country I certainly wouldn't go out and buy a pair tomorrow no matter how cheap they were / how much I liked them.Do you campaign relentlessly against world hunger/famine and the unnecessary deaths that are occuring world wide to actual grown human's with full human rights already?
No, again I find that I am most motivated to work on the issues which are closest to me and I only have so many hours in the week. I do feel for famine victims but I don't agree with you that they have what could be called "full human rights" as many of these are victims of corruption or other ills. They were afforded a life though which is the most basic right and a right without which all other rights are meaningless.Do you or your wife own any diamonds and if so, do you know where they came from and who died to get them?
We own one diamond - the one in my wife's engagement ring. I remember that we did address it's origin i.e. whether it could be a blood diamond and I know that we were assured it was not however as its some years ago I don't recall the wording or where it did originate.You see, human selfishness causing death takes many forms, and tbh I'm well sick of the self-righteousness about this most easy and traditional of targets. Why don't you equally point the finger at the kind of selfishness that causes death every day, in places where "the right to life" is only aspirational, at best?
I agree with you on most of that but you could criticize any person fighting for good on the basis that there are goods they are not fighting for. The pro-life cause is not the only cause I believe in.0 -
gaynorvader wrote: »I have a question. When do you believe a sperm and an egg become a human? Is it as soon as the egg is fertilised or at some later point?
I don't think about it that much. This is just an arbitrary definition. It's defined by different people using different criteria, none of which are supreme.
I certainly believe it is life when the heart starts to beat which is at about 18 to 22 days and if it is life, it is human life. Dogs have dogs. Cats have cats. Humans have humans.0 -
Calm down this post is incredibly flustered we are having a debate insulting americans and the church adds little to the debate.
Do you want to know why I get annoyed when people like you and Richard come along spouting the rubbish ye spout. Because ye are insisting on the whole world following the fcuked up thinking that allows shíte like this to happen, actually no, that thinks shíte like this is more moral than natural human behaviour:This is horrific:
http://www.alternet.org/how-christian-purity-culture-enabled-my-step-dad-sexually-abuse-me?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark
The whole control that religions have over sex is just the creepiest **** in the world. It's why people who have the attitude "sure what harm does religion do" piss me off so much.To better understand the role that Purity Culture played in my step-father’s abuse, I would ask that you bear with me while I explain a little about the beliefs and practices of that culture.
I should distinguish first the difference between the emphasis placed on purity in mainline Christian circles, and the hardcore Purity Community. The latter is best known for their the icky tradition of Purity Balls.
At these annual events, daughters as young as five dress in elaborate white gowns and “gift” their virginities to their fathers for safekeeping.
I will grant you that purity balls are indeed cringe-worthy. But it is important that we not stop our examination of the culture at that point because the Purity Culture is far more troubling, and the relationship between father and daughter becomes far more enmeshed and emotionally incestuous than most articles about purity culture expose.
For starters, the balls are celebrations of the vow that these girls have made and the contract that they sign. They are agreeing to being spiritually married to their father and to God until such time as their father sees fit to give her to a husband.
For their part, fathers pledge to protect their daughters’ virginity, which is the “most precious gift that she can offer her future husband.”
You can't challenge one part of it and not the others and the sort of revolting scumbaggery that occurs in the article is pretty much guaranteed at some point if you have these backwards and unchallengable beliefs.
Is it any wonder that any sane moral person gets angry when told what they can and can't do by somebody too thick to actually look at the evidence and make up their own mind but have to get their direction in the world from a 2,500 year old con artist.0 -
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Brian Shanahan wrote: »Do you want to know why I get annoyed when people like you and Richard come along spouting the rubbish ye spout. Because ye are insisting on the whole world following the fcuked up thinking that allows shíte like this to happen, actually no, that thinks shíte like this is more moral than natural human behaviour:
Is it any wonder that any sane moral person gets angry when told what they can and can't do by somebody too thick to actually look at the evidence and make up their own mind but have to get their direction in the world from a 2,500 year old con artist.
Belittlement is a wonderfully amusing tactic.
Frank Underwood, House of Cards
I didn't click on your link Brian and I don't intend addressing whatever point you are trying to make. If you want to be civil I will but if your going to act like you have a monopoly on righteousness I won't.0 -
Abortion is a very emotive issue and the extremes range from those who think that it is OK to murder a doctor who worked in an abortion clinic (US) to the women (13 I think the report said) who, in the UK were on 9 or more abortions. I find it very hard, as a man and in the UK, to have a position I can defend. I am in favour of a woman's right to chose but I also think that the counselling needs to be appropriate. At the moment in the UK (not NI) you have abortion on demand. That is not what the law says nor is it what the BMA says either BUT from a practical point of view it IS what happens. A woman goes to her doctor and simply has to make out that she is deeply distressed and two signatures will be forthcoming.
In my very humble and male opinion, NO abortion is untenable AND cruel. Having to leave your country and go to another one for a legitimate abortion is equally untenable. On the other hand abortion on demand as a form of contraception is also completely unacceptable. But then again it requires a proper approach to contraception and the RCC has a lot to answer for in its Luddite approach.
I have read this through again and have to admit that it adds little to the discussion other than I recognise that this is a hard issue. Either extreme position is wrong but where right is is a matter for careful debate. Maybe there is no 'right' just the least worst wrong.0 -
Abortion is a very emotive issue and the extremes range from those who think that it is OK to murder a doctor who worked in an abortion clinic (US) to the women (13 I think the report said) who, in the UK were on 9 or more abortions. I find it very hard, as a man and in the UK, to have a position I can defend. I am in favour of a woman's right to chose but I also think that the counselling needs to be appropriate. At the moment in the UK (not NI) you have abortion on demand. That is not what the law says nor is it what the BMA says either BUT from a practical point of view it IS what happens. A woman goes to her doctor and simply has to make out that she is deeply distressed and two signatures will be forthcoming.
In my very humble and male opinion, NO abortion is untenable AND cruel. Having to leave your country and go to another one for a legitimate abortion is equally untenable. On the other hand abortion on demand as a form of contraception is also completely unacceptable. But then again it requires a proper approach to contraception and the RCC has a lot to answer for in its Luddite approach.
I have read this through again and have to admit that it adds little to the discussion other than I recognise that this is a hard issue. Either extreme position is wrong but where right is is a matter for careful debate. Maybe there is no 'right' just the least worst wrong.
A problem we have in Ireland right now is that we have ridiculously restrictive access to abortion, so I agree that the ban on abortion in Ireland is cruel and unreasonable.
However I believe that any decision on abortion should be entirely the choice of the woman, because I don't think that any woman should be forced to continue with a pregnancy that she really doesn't want. Her reasons are her own business too, I think it's very dangerous territory to have some sort of "acceptability scale" where we judge whether a woman's reasons for not wanting to be pregnant are good enough or not.
Your last point is, I think, an important one:Maybe there is no 'right' just the least worst wrong.
Too many people opposed to abortion are unwilling to accept that abortion is, for want of a better phrase, a necessary evil. They insist that abortion is never necessary, when common sense and medical evidence say otherwise.
People who are opposed to abortions don't have to have them, and people who do want an abortion shouldn't have to travel or buy pills over the internet or do whatever else desperate women have done down through the centuries, when safe medical procedures are possible.0 -
On the other hand abortion on demand as a form of contraception is also completely unacceptable. But then again it requires a proper approach to contraception and the RCC has a lot to answer for in its Luddite approach.
Agreed. I think the whole contraception thing with the RC church is a numbers game. Obviously it serves to expand the church exponentially. Abortion is of course not solely a religious issue, it's a human issue and Irish people are well out from under the thumb of the RC church so lack of contraception is no longer an issue.Maybe there is no 'right' just the least worst wrong.
Definitely agree with this. Life will never be perfect and abortion on demand is clearly not the 'least worst wrong'. I think a ban on abortion is the least worst wrong. You seem to think that this view is extreme but I think that taking a life is extreme. There is no middle ground with abortion. Once you embed the practice of taking life in hard cases, the envelope gets pushed out until you have abortion on demand. The British Government intended to legislate for limited abortion but got abortion on demand and obviously that could happen here too.0 -
Richard Bingham wrote: »I never said "full human rights" and I don't think that the term has one definition so I'm not going to get dragged into a polemic statement which can be used to beat me with later. I certainly believe it has the right to life (I'm not going to get into semantics about whether we call it an embryo or a baby).
The issue is how far you are willing to go to force somebody else, another adult human being, to follow your interpretation of when a baby/embryo/foetus can be terminated/killed/<insert emotive word here>.
Sure, you believe that an unborn entity has a right to life, but do you also believe that you have the right to force your belief onto other people who disagree with you?
This, I think, is the crux of the abortion issue - not whether people themselves think abortion is right or not, but whether they think their own beliefs on the matter should be legally enforced on everyone else.0 -
Say you (and many others), I disagree (and so do many others). Why should your version (which you admit is on the extreme end of the scale) be enforced on everyone? Are you really so determined to act as everyone else's conscience?Richard Bingham wrote: »I think a ban on abortion is the least worst wrong. You seem to think that this view is extreme but I think that taking a life is extreme. There is no middle ground with abortion.Once you embed the practice of taking life in hard cases, the envelope gets pushed out until you have abortion on demand. The British Government intended to legislate for limited abortion but got abortion on demand and obviously that could happen here too.
I suggest that there is tacit acceptance by many doctors and people in the UK that abortion on demand is exactly what they want. And, at the risk of repeating myself, nobody is suggesting abortions should be forced on anyone that doesn't want one.0 -
Richard Bingham wrote: »...I think a ban on abortion is the least worst wrong. You seem to think that this view is extreme but I think that taking a life is extreme. There is no middle ground with abortion. Once you embed the practice of taking life in hard cases, the envelope gets pushed out until you have abortion on demand. The British Government intended to legislate for limited abortion but got abortion on demand and obviously that could happen here too.
That's the bottom line. A 12 year old rape victim is pregnant. A full term pregnancy will almost certainly kill her because she was a small child.
Is killing that 12 year old 'the least worst wrong'?
A law that refuses to deal with hard cases is no law at all. The law in GB is not, in my opinion, fit for purpose but a blanket ban is absolutely extreme. It would fail this child and that is unacceptable. The reason we have laws and parliaments is because these things are difficult and compromises have to be found. If these things were easy we would not need politicians (now there's a thought!).
Religion makes for bad law because it passes the buck from us humans to someone's invisible friend. Saying absolutely no is an abrogation of personal responsibility, essentially one is turning ones back on a problem and hoping it goes away, Worse would be saying it because a religion says this is how it should be which, again, in my opinion is morally reprehensible.0 -
Sure, you believe that an unborn entity has a right to life, but do you also believe that you have the right to force your belief onto other people who disagree with you?
Your treating this like it was a debate about tanning salons. Tanning salons don't harm anyone except the people who use them, therefore I don't care if someone wants to use them every day.
Abortion does harm other people. I don't believe that anyone has the right to terminate/kill/<insert emotive word here> her baby/embryo/foetus.0 -
Why should your version (which you admit is on the extreme end of the scale) be enforced on everyone? Are you really so determined to act as everyone else's conscience?
1) I never said my views were at the extreme end of the scale, I saidRichard Bingham wrote: »You seem to think that this view is extreme but I think that taking a life is extreme.
2) Again I refer to the tanning salon comment in my above post. I would point out that one persons decision to have an abortion affects other people, most of all the baby whose life will be ended. It also shapes the society we live in, which I have a stake in.
Don't have one if you don't want one is a stupid argument.I suggest that there is tacit acceptance by many doctors and people in the UK that abortion on demand is exactly what they want.
"they" doesn't include the unborn babies obviously.nobody is suggesting abortions should be forced on anyone that doesn't want one.
And you think that nobody is forced to have an abortion? Seriously. You think that a girl is never driven to the clinic by her parents, boyfriend, pimp, abuser or put under pressure to get if fixed, sort it out etc.0 -
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Richard Bingham wrote: »Your treating this like it was a debate about tanning salons. Tanning salons don't harm anyone except the people who use them, therefore I don't care if someone wants to use them every day.
Abortion does harm other people. I don't believe that anyone has the right to terminate/kill/<insert emotive word here> her baby/embryo/foetus.
I take abortion as an issue very seriously. Yes abortion does kill a foetus or embryo, which is very much not a trivial matter, however the life, health and mental well-being of the pregnant woman is - in my opinion - more important. I don't think life has any special sanctity - it has the value we give it. The death of a 5-year old child is not the same thing as a miscarriage at 10 weeks, to give an example of what I mean by that.
If you want to protect the unborn with a blanket ban you have to accept that you are prepared to do a lot of damage to the lives, health and well-being of girls and women who might actually need or want an abortion. You must also accept that you are insisting on denying them what they want or need because you think your morality is so much better than theirs, that you are prepared to live with the unnecessary deaths of some women as part of your blanket ban.0
This discussion has been closed.
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