Abortion Discussion

lazygal

Richard Bingham wrote: »

That's interesting, I didn't know that. They can be fostered though and there is nothing to prevent the law on adoption from being changed.

There is a constitutional issue which was supposed to be addressed by the referendum on children's rights but no legislation as yet. Suppose a woman wants an abortion but her partner doesn't, should she be prevented from traveling abroad with the express purpose of killing the child?

eviltwin

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Give the child up for adoption so, and one of the thousands of childless couples will happily live with the consequences, as you put it.

Ah yes, the old "put it up for adoption" solution. Because its only the childless couple that matter here isn't it? What about the birth mother and her feelings or do they not matter in all this?

You would think the way some people like Richard throw out the adoption answer that women aren't aware it exists. Believe me Richard if you contact a crisis pregnancy agency adoption is mentioned a great deal. I'm sure every single woman who has an abortion thinks about it but has obviously discounted it for whatever reason and that is their right.

You also forget the stigma that goes with adoption, I can only imagine how people would treat me if I were to get pregnant and have the baby only to hand it over, its a wonderful thing to do but that decision would be your legacy forever, not everyone would be kind and respectful and you would never be able to escape it. It takes a very strong woman to do that, its not a bad thing to feel its not for you.

Bannasidhe

eviltwin wrote: »

Ah yes, the old "put it up for adoption" solution. Because its only the childless couple that matter here isn't it? What about the birth mother and her feelings or do they not matter in all this?

You would think the way some people like Richard throw out the adoption answer that women aren't aware it exists. Believe me Richard if you contact a crisis pregnancy agency adoption is mentioned a great deal. I'm sure every single woman who has an abortion thinks about it but has obviously discounted it for whatever reason and that is their right.

You also forget the stigma that goes with adoption, I can only imagine how people would treat me if I were to get pregnant and have the baby only to hand it over, its a wonderful thing to do but that decision would be your legacy forever, not everyone would be kind and respectful and you would never be able to escape it. It takes a very strong woman to do that, its not a bad thing to feel its not for you.

When I birthed my sprog in the UK - where there is abortion - there was a woman in the ward who was putting her baby up for adoption. My heart went out to her tbh as she was treated with such utter insensitivity by the staff. She was put in a ward with first time mothers (not her first child btw - she had two. Contraception failed and her finances just wouldn't support a third child so rather than abort she went down the put up for adoption route). The child was with her for the first 3 days while she was urged to 'reconsider her position', after that he was brought to for feeding and taken away again because 'she didn't want it anyway'. She was treated with disdain and told she was 'unfit' to be a mother and her other children should be taken off her since she was able to give away her baby how could she be interested in her other children.

And no - this should not be read as the staff believing she should have had an abortion - they believed that one she 'held' her baby she would change her mind and keep it. She didn't and was harshly judged for that.

eviltwin

Bannasidhe wrote: »

When I birthed my sprog in the UK - where there is abortion - there was a woman in the ward who was putting her baby up for adoption. My heart went out to her tbh as she was treated with such utter insensitivity by the staff. She was put in a ward with first time mothers (not her first child btw - she had two. Contraception failed and her finances just wouldn't support a third child so rather than abort she went down the put up for adoption route). The child was with her for the first 3 days while she was urged to 'reconsider her position', after that he was brought to for feeding and taken away again because 'she didn't want it anyway'. She was treated with disdain and told she was 'unfit' to be a mother and her other children should be taken off her since she was able to give away her baby how could she be interested in her other children.

And no - this should not be read as the staff believing she should have had an abortion - they believed that one she 'held' her baby she would change her mind and keep it. She didn't and was harshly judged for that.

That poor woman. As if having a child you know you aren't going to keep is not hard enough.

I'm so fed up of this idea society has that motherhood is the ultimate achievement and something all woman should aspire to, women who don't want kids or who don't bond with their kids are judged as being cold or abnormal in some way. Having a uterus and the ability to have a child does not make one required to do so. :mad:

kylith

eviltwin wrote: »

Ah yes, the old "put it up for adoption" solution. Because its only the childless couple that matter here isn't it?

Only if they're heterosexual, probably.

What about the birth mother and her feelings or do they not matter in all this?

You would think the way some people like Richard throw out the adoption answer that women aren't aware it exists. Believe me Richard if you contact a crisis pregnancy agency adoption is mentioned a great deal. I'm sure every single woman who has an abortion thinks about it but has obviously discounted it for whatever reason and that is their right.

You also forget the stigma that goes with adoption, I can only imagine how people would treat me if I were to get pregnant and have the baby only to hand it over, its a wonderful thing to do but that decision would be your legacy forever, not everyone would be kind and respectful and you would never be able to escape it. It takes a very strong woman to do that, its not a bad thing to feel its not for you.

What gets me about the 'just give it up for adoption' people is the fact that it seems they think it's easy to go through pregnancy, with all the physical and hormonal changes, and that childbirth is a simple affair instead of the traumatic and potentially lethal experience that it actually is. Not to mention the fact that you'll have to come up with something to tell your friends, neighbours, and co-workers; do you tell them you're giving it up and suffer their judgemental looks, or do you lie and say something like it was stillborn and suffer their pity?

aloyisious

Richard Bingham wrote: »

Call it a proposition. Are you proposing that Irish people favour abortion on demand?

(me) yes, for the woman who's left otherwise carrying the pregnancy around with her for approx nine months otherwise to satisfy the judgements of others. Or as oldernwiser puts it so excellently: Well it kind of depends on who you ask. While the overall percentage of voters who support "on-demand" abortion is typically 35-40%, multiple polls have shown that a majority of younger voters (i.e. 18-45) favour legal abortion when the woman deems it to be in her best interest.

It seem's regardless of how the question is asked, the answer from different groups end's in a pro-abortion result.. It's OK for pregnant women to have abortion here when the woman feel's it's necessary. The "on-demand" supporters presumably think that the demand will be from a pregnant woman, and the intent of the "majority of young votes" seem's fairly clear.

oldrnwisr

Richard Bingham wrote: »

An explanation of one of the many reasons why abortion doesn't help pregnant women;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8szDctI9lXM

I expect that Pro-Choice people won't watch this to the end, as its hard to listen to.

We won’t be able to stop every violent act, but if there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try.
Barack Obama (when speaking about Newtown)

I would hope that anyone, pro-choice or otherwise, would find it hard to listen to that testimony given that a) it is an appeal to authority and b) it is filled with fallacious and unrepresentative arguments and blatant untruths.

For example, Dr. Levantino states:

"If you refuse to believe that this procedure inflicts severe pain on that unborn child, please think again."

This is just flat wrong. The current medical consensus is that the foetus is incapable of feeling pain before the end of the second trimester. The available evidence suggests that the thalamic connections for the perception of pain are not sufficiently developed until around week 28.


Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multi-Disciplinary Review of the Evidence


Secondly, Levantino quotes a paper from Martin Haskell which doesn't support his argument in the way Levantino thinks it does. The bulk of Levantino's testimony is taken up with a description of an D&E abortion performed at 24 weeks. However, Haskell's study finds that:

"However, most surgeons find dismemberment at twenty weeks and beyond to be difficult due to the toughness of fetal tissues at this stage of development. Consequently, most late second trimester abortions are performed by an induction method."

Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion


Thirdly, Levantino is making a thoroughly unrepresentative argument, at least for the purposes of this discussion. In the UK, D&E accounts for only 5% of all abortions with a peak usage between 15 and 19 weeks. Any abortions performed at or beyond 24 weeks is performed under ground E (i.e. fatal foetal abnormality). So all we're left with from Levantino is a red herring argument.

Levantino's testimony is flawed and unsupported by medical evidence. That alone would make it hard to listen to even if he didn't try to sneak in an appeal to fear under the guise of graphic details of an abortion.

old hippy

Richard Bingham wrote: »

An explanation of one of the many reasons why abortion doesn't help pregnant women;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8szDctI9lXM

I expect that Pro-Choice people won't watch this to the end, as its hard to listen to.

We won’t be able to stop every violent act, but if there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try.
Barack Obama (when speaking about Newtown)

Please excuse my ignorance but what happened in Newtown?

Brian Shanahan

eviltwin wrote: »

Ah yes, the old "put it up for adoption" solution. Because its only the childless couple that matter here isn't it? What about the birth mother and her feelings or do they not matter in all this?

You would think the way some people like Richard throw out the adoption answer that women aren't aware it exists. Believe me Richard if you contact a crisis pregnancy agency adoption is mentioned a great deal. I'm sure every single woman who has an abortion thinks about it but has obviously discounted it for whatever reason and that is their right.

You also forget the stigma that goes with adoption, I can only imagine how people would treat me if I were to get pregnant and have the baby only to hand it over, its a wonderful thing to do but that decision would be your legacy forever, not everyone would be kind and respectful and you would never be able to escape it. It takes a very strong woman to do that, its not a bad thing to feel its not for you.

And it also conveniently omits the fact that even in countries where abortion is legal, such as the US, there are far more kids in the care system than there are people willing to adopt. For example, using US data in 2007 there were slightly over 136,000 adoptions, with slightly under in 2008, and nearly half (47% in 2007, 46% in 2008) were overseas adoptions, so only c. 64,000 adoptions were of US children {source}. Given that there were 488,000 children in foster care in 2007 and 457,000 in 2008 (Sept. 30th snapshot, source), even if we allow for a large percentage of children in care (say half) returning to their own families (parents, grand parents, older siblings, uncles, aunts &c.) then there is c. 4 children for every potential adopter in the US. Given that WolframAlpha give an estimate of 825,564 abortions per year (2008 estimate) we have to conclude that if abortion were banned in the US the foster care system there would be irreprably and terminally swamped from the sheer numbers of unwanted babies put up for adoption.

Brian Shanahan

old hippy wrote: »

Please excuse my ignorance but what happened in Newtown?

The most recent major school shooting, the aftermath of which saw the NRA calling for every adult in a school environment be forced to wear loaded firearms, because as they maintain "if we give everybody weapons, then the good guys will always come out on top because they'll shoot the bad guys".

Basically its simply the anti-abortion, anti-life* Richard trying to equate a living breathing child with a foetus as part of an appeal to emotion.

*Richard, if you are ever going to be truly honest with yourself you'd admit that banning abortions doesn't save lives and only leads to premature deaths of living breathing women.

lazygal

It's also.worth saying that it is not the job of women with unwanted pregnancies to provide children for others.

old hippy

lazygal wrote: »

It's also.worth saying that it is not the job of women with unwanted pregnancies to provide children for others.

Indeed. It would suggest a certain modicum of misogyny.

aloyisious

The comparison between Pres Obama's statement about (Newtown) saving even one child (from an armed person with pre-intent to kill unselected victim randomly) as distinct from a medically trained and registered practitioner carrying out an abortion for whatever life-saving medical reason thought necessary was a clever use of comparison between Obama's position on different US National Affairs, a tug at the heartstrings of voters. The weapons in the school analogy premise referred-to by the doctor isn't relative to abortion. It's about an entirely different matter and desire to protect people from a person wielding weapon/s with the sole intent of killing and maiming O/P's randomly. That's as far as it goes, period.

I heard Doctor Levantino (at 37 seconds into his presentation) describe himself as a "former pro-choice obstetrician gynaecologist". I assume from that description that he NO LONGER agrees with performing abortions. A question spring's up instantly that (maybe) he might NOT do so in a situation where a pregnant woman's life was at risk, due to a combination of her health and the feotus in her womb (but that's supposition on my part -due to his testimony) He also referred to earlier testimony he gave to the committee. His referral, late in the video'd testimony above, to pregnant female patients with various life-threatening ailments did not include how he dealt with them, and did not state whether they had/were asking for life-saving abortions due to their medical complications. He instead referred to a High-Blood-pressure patient and described how he brought it under control and delivered her of a baby. He did not state if that patient had come looking for an abortion, he stated that she came into hospital suffering from high blood pressure. All else in his testimony regarding her make's the connection between saving her life and abortion (27 week gestation and 3 days to prepare her for an abortion operation) lead's one to suppose that an abortion was part of the pregnant woman's thoughts or medical-team discussion, a proofless supposition.

Lingua Franca

It took you 9 days to come back with just this?!

Richard Bingham wrote: »

I haven't been proved wrong or invented anything.

You invented my belief "that abortion should be available to people in place of contraception (or cop on)"

In an argument for abortion, you said "Then of course there is me who has three but wishes I had fewer".

Were you saying that you should have been more careful?

No, I'm clearly saying I wished I'd had fewer children.

Besides, are you saying it isn't used in place of contraception. What about the women in the UK discussed earlier in the thread, who have had multiple abortions. Are these just really unlucky with their efforts at contraception?

How much earlier? Surely a lot more than 9 days. Perhaps you could take time out of your busy schedule to link it. But yes, that is the most likely reason.

I said that "The majority of people in Ireland do not believe in abortion for lifestyle reasons."
What, you want me to trot out a biased poll conducted by say the Workers Solidarity Movement or some similar type authority!

No, I merely asked you to provide your source for your definite statement.

Call it a proposition.

I'll call it backpedalling.

Are you proposing that Irish people favour abortion on demand?

No, I was asking you for your source.

old hippy

I'm never sure what "abortion on demand" means. Is it like on tap or what?

Or is it
- I need an abortion, can I have one
- of course you can, it's your right

If the latter, what on earth is wrong with abortion on demand?

Mr. CooL ICE

old hippy wrote: »

I'm never sure what "abortion on demand" means. Is it like on tap or what?

Crazy mental image right there

That thread in AH is an absolute car crash. I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved.

old hippy

LordChessington wrote: »

Crazy mental image right there

That thread in AH is an absolute car crash. I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved.

I'll have to take your word for that, as I'm persona non grata on AH these days

Anyways, that a.o.d. line is always trotted out but surely most abortions are just that, people demanding a termination for whatever reason?

Lingua Franca

No, no, for lifestyle reasons. Which always makes me think of those "Home and Country" magazines.

"Oh we were going to have more children but we really, really wanted a white rug and some rattan furniture for the conservatory and they just wouldn't mix."

lazygal

I was going to have a baby but I had a holiday booked, plus I don't want piles and stretch marks.

PopePalpatine

I was going to have a baby, and then I realised I'm a man and I can easily run away without a foetus weighing me down.

Bellatori

old hippy wrote: »

...If the latter, what on earth is wrong with abortion on demand?

AS I see it there are two problems and both are on the Doctor side of the issue.

1. They like the idea of counselling between demand and act. The reason being that if they simply go demand->act and there is no pause there might be legal consequences if the woman regrets the decision.

This following may sound strange but it is a propos. I had a vasectomy some 30 years ago. Before the doctor (moonlighting at a dentists!!) would perform the vasectomy (is the RCC against vasectomies?) I had to write a letter stating that I did not want more children and I was of sound mind (the latter could be debatable but hey...). All of which was to ensure that, once he had his money I would not come back and sue for some reason - PTSD? When I think back it sounds silly but law suits can be very expensive.

2. The Doctors are in a very difficult position. They get ranted at by both sides of the argument. They have to steer a careful course between the pro-life and the freedom to chose which means that on demand is a nono. When they fail some fanatic is going to shoot them or you get the Irish solution of pushing the problem oversees

Mark Hamill

old hippy wrote: »

I'm never sure what "abortion on demand" means. Is it like on tap or what?

Or is it
- I need an abortion, can I have one
- of course you can, it's your right

If the latter, what on earth is wrong with abortion on demand?

The only problem with "abortion on demand" is that you shouldn't have to demand something that should be your right.

Absolam

old hippy wrote: »

I'm never sure what "abortion on demand" means. Is it like on tap or what?
Or is it
- I need an abortion, can I have one
- of course you can, it's your right
If the latter, what on earth is wrong with abortion on demand?

In the case of the latter the problem is, it's not someone's right.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

The only problem with "abortion on demand" is that you shouldn't have to demand something that should be your right.

That's more to the point, but obviously whether or not it should be somebody's right is a matter of (often strongly held) opinion. Repeating it is, or should be, someone's right doesn't really do anything to convince anyone that it should be the case.

iwantmydinner

Absolam wrote: »

In the case of the latter the problem is, it's not someone's right.

That's more to the point, but obviously whether or not it should be somebody's right is a matter of (often strongly held) opinion. Repeating it is, or should be, someone's right doesn't really do anything to convince anyone that it should be the case.

Repeatedly telling me I don't have the right to end a crisis pregnancy isn't doing much to convince me either.

Absolam

iwantmydinner wrote: »

Repeatedly telling me I don't have the right to end a crisis pregnancy isn't doing much to convince me either.

Convince you of what?

iwantmydinner

Absolam wrote: »

Convince you of what?

...that I don't have the right to end a pregnancy, obviously.

Absolam

iwantmydinner wrote: »

...that I don't have the right to end a pregnancy, obviously.

Why would you need convincing of that?

Kiwi in IE

Richard Bingham wrote: »

An explanation of one of the many reasons why abortion doesn't help pregnant women

I somewhat agree with you here. Abortion does not help the majority of pregnant women, because the majority of pregnant women want to be pregnant. Abortion does however greatly help those pregnant women who don't want to be pregnant, because once they have an abortion they are no longer pregnant, and I imagine that is quite helpful to them!

Richard Bingham

oldrnwisr wrote: »

OK, two things here.

Firstly, it's not as if a pregnant woman goes into a hospital and asks for an induced labour abortion. The reason that induced labour abortion is selected over another method like, IDX, for example is because it is in line with best medical practice.

"In line with best medical practice" - that's a very non specific way of expressing it Doctor. Oh no your not a doctor are you?

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Induced labour abortion is favoured in situations where a fatal foetal abnormality is present, particularly since it allows the parents some time with the foetus and a degree of closure.

Better to rip it out of the womb before it can survive, spend some time with it and get closure.

Sick.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Secondly, as I already pointed out, however unpalatable the procedure may be to you or the number of these abortions carried out, they are unrepresentative of abortions in general and irrelevant to any debate on abortion. What you are doing is arguing the red herring fallacy, trying to tar the entire abortion debate with something you find to be distasteful.

I'm glad you brought that up. The Abortion Bill was passed last year on the back of an argument that it would save women's lives when the truth is that abortion is never necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman - ask the 225 Obstetricians/Gynaecologists, the 307 Medical Professionals, the 41 Midwives and Nurses or the 34 Neonatalogists and Pedriticians who signed the Dublin Declaration;

“As experienced practitioners and researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion – the purposeful destruction of the unborn child – is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child.

We confirm that the prohibition of abortion does not affect, in any way, the availability of optimal care to pregnant women.”

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Bingham
I've addressed the problem with this analogy in an earlier post.

No, you really didn't. In fact, you pointed out here:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Bingham
Shipman was supposed to be curing patients and he was instead killing (some) of them.

Gosnell was supposed to be aborting babies and he was instead killing them.

exactly why the analogy is valid. They were both killing people when they should have been doing their appointed duties.

Doing their appoint duties. Now your really playing at being the wordsmith. Shipman's appointed duty was to cure patients and Gosnell's was to abort babies. Substituting my more specific words for your less specific euphemisms you could not unreasonably state;

Shipman was supposed to be curing patients and he was instead killing (some) of them. Gosnell was supposed to be aborting babies and he was instead killing them.

Oh wait, that's what I did say!

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Furthermore, there is another reason why this analogy holds. Harold Shipman is not representative of geriatricians and thus you can't use his example as a stick to beat his entire field with.

I was trying to beat his field at all - we're not discussing GP's.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Similarly Gosnell isn't representative of abortion doctors and yet you seek to make generalisations about abortion in general based on this one unrepresentative example.

No, he killed some of them outside the womb which technically means he broke the law. It's remarkable how society doesn't want to shine a light on what he did wrong thought isn't it. Probably the most prolific murderer in history and not a single film made about him. Is it that the Pro Abortion side is afraid that if we all had a good look at Gosnell at work and an abortionist who didn't break the law at work, we would be equally disgusted by both of them?

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Eh, no. We've heard this "doctors don't call it an abortion" argument before and it doesn't hold any water. Doctors do refer to it as an abortion. What doctors also do, however, is add extra descriptors to the term abortion to distinguish the reasons for performing an abortion.

Excuse me are you speaking for all doctors?

From above;

"We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child

My point holds - abortion and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother are fundamentally different. Sorry if that doesn't suit your purpose (of trying to twist the terms to make your view seem more acceptable).

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Options for early therapeutic abortion: a comparative review.

When doctors perform an abortion for medical reasons it is commonly referred to as a therapeutic abortion but an abortion nonetheless.

No. That was a U.S. review you cited. We know where they stand. This is Ireland and we don't call them therapeutic abortions. You just want to use the word 'abortion' to get people thinking "Why yes, these are good, we should have more of them".

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Well, actually it is true:

<Worthless poll results omitted>

How many of them polls asked leading questions? A poll which states that people are in favour of something which will save the life of a woman is not big news. We (even I, believe or not) want to save women's lives. The problem is that abortion doesn't save lives. The respondents to the poll however don't get to express this view, if they even know it to be true. In fact they could be forgiven for believing that abortion does save women's lives if a seemingly trustworthy organisation such as the Irish Times says it is so (although the I.T. has certainly slipped in the credibility stakes in recent years, what with printing absolute fictional stories and propaganda and the like).

oldrnwisr wrote: »

If there is no supreme definition and its just arbitrary then why do you hold to life beginning when the heart starts to beat. What makes that a more authoritative starting point than any other? After all, you can have a heart beat and still be legally dead.

Are you proposing that there is no definition of when life begins and ends so? Do you want to use this to justify not only abortion but euthanasia and sure can't we kill middle aged people in their forties so?

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Well, yes actually. The UK are quite comprehensive in publishing abortion statistics and we know that approximately 3,000 women travelled to the UK for medically necessary abortions in the period specified by Bellatori.

No. Not at all. A handful per year. Maybe two handfuls. Oby/gyn's gave evidence to this effect at the Committee hearings last year. I couldn't be bothered looking for the quote as your figure is so far out there's no need.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Bingham
There would be close to 200,000 illegal or exported abortions among the poplulations of England and Wales each year if abortion was legalised? Seriously?

A ban on murder would only drive it underground....


I'm not sure why you're so surprised by Bellatori's comment. It should be plain to most people that there is no relationship between the restrictiveness of abortion laws and the amount of abortions carried out.


There is no correlation, much less causation, between the restrictiveness of abortion laws and abortion rates.

I didn't express surprise. I suggested that his post posits that there would be close to 200,000 illegal or exported abortions among the population of England and Wales each year if abortion was made illegal. This is simply not true. Availability is a factor.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

From this link, out of 53 African countries, only 3 have abortion on demand (i.e. Tunisia, South Africa, Cape Verde). However, the abortion rate for this group (defined number of abortions per 1000 women aged 15-44t) for 2003 is 29.
Again from the link, the number of countries comprising Latin America and the Caribbean is 30. Again, only 3 countries have abortion on demand (Cuba, Guyana, Uruguay). The abortion rate for this group is 31.
Now, let's look at North America. Both countries have a category 4 (i.e. abortion on demand) legal system. However, the abortion rate is just 21.
Finally, if we look at the developed world (Europe, USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand) we see that out of 40 countries there are 26 with abortion on demand laws and yet the abortion rate is 19.

We have a good understanding of the causal factors of social issues like abortion. The real issues that we need to tackle if we want to reduce abortions globally are women's rights, education, access to and promotion of modern contraceptive methods and access to safe abortion.

We already know that one of the principal factors in the procurement of an abortion is an unplanned pregancy and in this we know that 82% of unplanned pregancies in developing countries result from a lack of uptake in contraception.

The numbers of Irish women seeking abortions abroad has already been falling over the last 10 years from 6320 in 2003 to 4402 in 2010. This has not been implemented through toughening abortion legislation.

Finally, just to put a point on this topic, the people who actually research this area have already concluded that abortion laws have no impact on abortion rates or demand:

"The findings presented here indicate that unrestrictive abortion laws do not predict a high incidence of abortion, and by the same token, highly restrictive abortion laws are not associated with low abortion incidence. Indeed, both the highest and lowest abortion rates were seen in regions where abortion is almost uniformly legal under a wide range of circumstances."

If you think that the rate of abortions in Ireland is going to stay static, even if it becomes far easier to have one, then I believe you are incorrect. There are a multitude of other factors (societal, economic, religious, geographical, technological, medical etc) at work which can affect the rate of abortions. Throwing out a stack of numbers without getting behind the figures is worthless.

Furthermore, grouping countries together when quoting the incidence rate is probably one of the oldest and cheapest tricks in the book. I'm not suggesting that you grouped them, they may have been presented this way, but the fact is that at the best of times statistics lie, but in the hands of a biased person they are positively useless as there are hundreds of strokes that can be pulled to make the result show anything you want it to show.

I'm sure you heard the one about the statistician who drowned whilst crossing a stream with an average depth of 4 ft......

Richard Bingham

Mark Hamill wrote: »

The only problem with "abortion on demand" is that you shouldn't have to demand something that should be your right.

The irrationality of the above statement is astounding even for a Pro Abort.

'Abortion on demand' doesn't mean that you have to bang the counter several times very loudly and demand an abortion before they will give you one, it means that if you ask for it you get it without having to justify it.

What do you want - a system where you don't even have to ask, if you look pregnant and unhappy someone will shoot you in the abdomen?