Abortion Discussion

Absolam

volchitsa wrote: »

It's not murder because for example (the one we discussed earlier on the thread) the unborn twins who died in the Omagh bombs, and who were the object of a Child Destruction charge are never counted in the number of victims of the bombing but are mentioned separately.

Even JC hasn't (yet) said it's murder; you introduced the idea when you said "It's closer to the concept of the destruction of a possession than to the murder of a person".
I was asking how do you come to that conclusion?

volchitsa

Absolam wrote: »

Even JC hasn't (yet) said it's murder; you introduced the idea when you said "It's closer to the concept of the destruction of a possession than to the murder of a person".
I was asking how do you come to that conclusion?

By summing up the discussion that was had pages and pages back with (I think) Conor something and possibly you, I forget. One poster claimed that the fact that the unborn victims were referred to as victims meant that they had some individual status, when in fact that isn't clear at all.

Now, I don't care now you try to twist the facts into some semblance of an argument, but the principle of "en ventre sa mere" does not confer any sort of personhood on the fetus. Nor does it give it any rights, it simply prevents it from losing those rights it would normally have had at birth if its parents had still been alive.

So your claim is nonsense. Kay?

Loafing Oaf

J C wrote: »

I'm approaching this from a common sense and common law point of view ... while sticking to secular, i.e. non-religious, arguments

And yet you resort to jesuitical gobbledegook to pretend that an abortion to save a woman's life is not an abortion...

I see you're advancing 'arguments' against evolution in another thread, which I presume are similarly 'secular'...

Absolam

volchitsa wrote: »

Now, I don't care now you try to twist the facts into some semblance of an argument, but the principle of "en ventre sa mere" does not confer any sort of personhood on the fetus. Nor does it give it any rights, it simply prevents it from losing those rights it would normally have had at birth if its parents had still been alive.
So your claim is nonsense. Kay?

Not my claim. I asked how you came to the conclusion that the intentional destruction of unborn human life is closer to the concept of the destruction of a possession than to the murder of a person.

J C

volchitsa wrote: »

It's child destruction, not murder, we've been over all this before.

Child destruction is the deliberate killing of a child ... which is regarded as one of the most heinous crimes when perpetrated on a born child ... and from an ethical point of view the deliberate destruction of an unborn child, is similar ... and the offense of foetal homicide recognizes this.

volchitsa wrote: »

It's closer to the concept of the destruction of a possession than to the murder of a person.
One thing it certainly doesn't do is establish the principle of the unborn as a person.

Those whom society wishes to kill with legal impunity, must first have their legal person-hood removed or disregarded.
It's happened down the centuries ... slaves have been killed by their owners or castrated without any legal consequences, because they were deemed to be the owner's property and not the Human Persons that they objectively were.
... and the more recent concept of 'life unworthy of life' falls into the same category of legal fictions being used to remove person-hood, with devastating effect.

The legal concept that any person, born or unborn is the property of another person or is a non-person, is a very dangerous concept indeed.
Once such a concept is applied to any Human Being ... we are all but one step away from it being applied to us.

J C

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

And yet you resort to jesuitical gobbledegook to pretend that an abortion to save a woman's life is not an abortion...

It isn't either Jesuitical nor Secular 'gobbledegook' ... where a person's life is on the line and another person is the reason for the threat to that person's life, it is legitimate self-defense to take all necessary actions to save the person whose life is under direct threat from the other person, even if there is no other way than killing the person causing the threat.

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

I see you're advancing 'arguments' against evolution in another thread, which I presume are similarly 'secular'...

My arguments against evolution are both secular / scientific, as well as religious ones. The 'evolution' thread is a 'mega-thread' that has been given special dispensation by your mods to discuss all arguments (including religious ones) surrounding the 'origins' issue - and I respect their decision, in this regard.

No such dispensation applies to this thread and I am therefore confining myself to purely secular arguments ... and indeed, there are many secular arguments that are among the most compelling arguments against abortion on demand.

volchitsa

J C wrote: »

The creation of a legal concept that any person, born or unborn is the property of another person or is simply a non-person is a very dangerous concept indeed.

So why is the youngest official victim of the Omagh bombing an 18 month old girl?

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/omagh/dead.htm
Avril Monaghan (30), from Augher, County Tyrone. Avril was seven months pregnant with twins. She had four children under 7. She was in town with her 18-month-old daughter Maura and her mother, Mary Grimes, to celebrate Mary's birthday. All three family members died in the explosion as well as the two unborn children.

Maura Monaghan (18 months), from Augher, County Tyrone. Maura's mother and grandmother were also killed. Maura was the youngest victim of the bombing.

J C

volchitsa wrote: »

So why is the youngest official victim of the Omagh bombing an 18 month old girl?

The youngest victims were the unborn twins.
This is an established fact - they were the youngest children killed in that terrible atrocity.

volchitsa

J C wrote: »

The youngest victims were the unborn twins.
This is an established fact - they were the youngest children killed in that terrible atrocity.

So everyone is out of step except you, Johnny? :rolleyes:

The youngest official victim was 18-month-old Maura Monaghan. I gave you the CAIN link, which is a universally accepted list of the victims of the Northern Ireland conflict. I can do no more than that for you.

But put simply, you're talking nonsense. How things are and how you would like them to be are two different things.

J C

volchitsa wrote: »

So everyone is out of step except you, Johnny? :rolleyes:

The youngest official victim was 18-month-old Maura Monaghan. I gave you the CAIN link, which is a universally accepted list of the victims of the Northern Ireland conflict. I can do no more than that for you.

But put simply, you're talking nonsense. How things are and how you would like them to be are two different things.

So please tell me why a 7 month old unborn child (long past the age of viability) shouldn't be regarded as a victim of a murderous atrocity committed against them?
Of course, they are just as much a victim as anybody else that was killed in this outrageous act.
... and that's an objective fact - and why they are mentioned every time a list of the victims is made.

I am quite frankly, appalled, that anybody would not believe the death of these two children to be just as outrageous as the deaths of everybody else in this bombing.
Why does their presence in their mothers womb make them any less a victim than if they were in their mother's pram?

This is where the moral bankruptcy of the so-called 'choice' movement shows it true colours ... arguing that the deliberate killing of these unborn children in Omagh shouldn't count ... in order to justify, in your own mind, the deliberate killing of unborn children somewhere else, in procured abortion.:(

volchitsa

J C wrote: »

So please tell me why a 7 month old unborn child (long past the age of viability) isn't regarded as a victim of a murderous atrocity committed against them?
Of course, they are just as much a victim as anybody else that was killed in this outrageous act.
... and that's an objective fact - and why they are mentioned every time a list of the victims is made.

You're asking me to justify the law? I'm only explaining what it says, I don't have to justify it. Check it out for yourself. :rolleyes:

Officially, the unborn twins are not counted among the number of victims, because they were unborn and therefore had no legal existence. Not sure how to be clearer than that.

And it wasn't 7 months old, that's the point. They were unborn babies, or fetuses, of 7 month's gestation. Not the same thing.

J C

volchitsa wrote: »

You're asking me to justify the law? I'm only explaining what it says, I don't have to justify it. Check it out for yourself. :rolleyes:

Officially, the unborn twins are not counted among the number of victims, because they were unborn and therefore had no legal existence. Not sure how to be clearer than that.

And it wasn't 7 months old, that's the point. They were unborn babies, or fetuses, of 7 month's gestation. Not the same thing.

There is no law that says unborn children aren't persons with all of the rights of born persons ... other than Abortion Acts that remove personhood as a legal mechanism to facilitate their deliberate killing ... and even then, only in strictly defined circumstances.

Please stop hiding behind non-existent laws to justify your invalid and illogical claims that the killing of 7 month old unborn children isn't just as great an atrocity as the killing of the other people in that terrible bombing.

lazygal

J C wrote: »

There is no law that says unborn children aren't persons with all of the rights of born persons ... other than Abortion Acts that remove personhood as a legal mechanism to facilitate their deliberate killing ... and even then, only in strictly defined circumstances.

Please stop hiding behind non-existent laws to justify your invalid and illogical claims that the killing of 7 month old unborn children isn't just as great an atrocity as the killing of the other people in that terrible bombing.

Why don't we pay child benefit from conception and issues death certs for all miscarried foetuses in Ireland where unborn and born children are supposed to be the same and abortion is virtually impossible unless ones life is at risk?

volchitsa

J C wrote: »

There is no law that says unborn children aren't persons with all of the rights of born persons ... other than Abortion Acts that remove personhood as a legal mechanism to facilitate their deliberate killing ... and even then, only in strictly defined circumstances.

Please stop hiding behind non-existent laws to justify your invalid and illogical claims that the killing of 7 month old unborn children isn't just as great an atrocity as the killing of the other people in that terrible bombing.

That is most certainly not what I said. It was an atrocity, and even if their mother had lived, losing her unborn twins would have been horrendous for her. But it would be violence done against her, and nothing like the situation if she had chosen to have a termination, for her own reasons.

I'm saying that in law, an unborn child has no legal existence in the UK or Northern Ireland. The situation is less clear in the south, but still very vague. And totally unrelated to this "en ventre sa mere" principle, which was being falsely used earlier to pretend that the unborn had some legal existence in British law, when in fact they don't.

J C

lazygal wrote: »

Why don't we pay child benefit from conception and issues death certs for all miscarried foetuses in Ireland where unborn and born children are supposed to be the same and abortion is virtually impossible unless ones life is at risk?

The non-payment of child benefit to unborn children can be justified on administrative and logical reasons, such as the increased risk of fraud and the fact that an unborn child isn't directly costing anything financially to support, anyway.
Death Certs are administrative documents that certify the fact and the cause of death - and are of primary use in administering estates and other related matters.
None of these things are of import in the case of the death of an unborn child - but that doesn't negate the importance of the life of such a child.

lazygal

J C wrote: »

The non-payment of child benefit to unborn children can be justified on administrative and logical reasons, such as the increased risk of fraud and the fact that an unborn child isn't directly costing anything financially to support, anyway.
Death Certs are administrative documents that certify the fact and the cause of death - and are of primary use in administering estates and other related matters.
None of these things are of import in the case of the death of an unborn child- but that doesn't negate the importance of the life of such a child.

Why would a foetus born dead at 23 weeks not get a death cert but one a week later does? What's the problem with overcoming any practical difficulties with treating born and unborn children the same? Why wouldn't we change the law to stop unborn children being taken to other countries to be killed? There are lives at stake yet mere legal issues mean nothing can be done to stop abortion happening?

J C

lazygal wrote: »

Why would a foetus born dead at 23 weeks not get a death cert but one a week later does? What's the problem with overcoming any practical difficulties with treating born and unborn children the same? Why wouldn't we change the law to stop unborn children being taken to other countries to be killed? There are lives at stake yet mere legal issues mean nothing can be done to stop abortion happening?

A lot of these practices have arisen in less-enlightened times ... when our knowledge of what exactly was happening during pregnancy was limited - and children, both born and unborn had limited rights.
As the concept of child rights and our knowledge of what exactly happens in pregnancy develops, I have no doubt that similar developments will occur in the legal framework surrounding the legal rights of born and unborn children.

Ironically, abortion may eventually be severely restricted due to developments in secular science and secular rights-based law.

volchitsa

J C wrote: »

A lot of these practices have arisen in less-enlightened times ... when our knowledge of what exactly was happening during pregnancy was limited - and children, both born and unborn had limited rights.
As the concept of child rights and our knowledge of what exactly happens in pregnancy develops, I have no doubt that similar developments will occur in the legal framework surrounding the legal rights of born and unborn children.

Ironically, abortion may eventually be severely restricted due to developments in secular science and secular rights-based law.

That's a nice bit of wishful thinking.

Goes against current ethical developments which give priority to the mother contrary to tradition where the woman was the vessel for production of the heir, but never mind that, I'm sure it makes you happy to convince yourself of it.

lazygal

J C wrote: »

A lot of these practices have arisen in less-enlightened times ... when our knowledge of what exactly was happening during pregnancy was limited - and children, both born and unborn had limited rights.
As the concept of child rights and our knowledge of what exactly happens in pregnancy develops, I have no doubt that similar developments will occur in the legal framework surrounding the legal rights of born and unborn children.

Ironically, abortion may eventually be severely restricted due to devaelopments in secular science and secular rights-based law.

But why aren't those who oppose abortion campaigning vigorously to repeal the constitutionally protected right to travel to kill the unborn? We don't need any scientific advances to pay child benefit from conception or treat miscarriage before 24 weeks the same as after 24 weeks. Why aren't those who oppose abortion calling on women to be prevented from travelling to kill the unborn elsewhere?

J C

volchitsa wrote: »

That's a nice bit of wishful thinking.

Goes against current ethical developments which give priority to the mother contrary to tradition where the woman was the vessel for production of the heir, but never mind that, I'm sure it makes you happy to convince yourself of it.

As the concept of child rights and our knowledge of what exactly happens in pregnancy develops, it's a logical follow-on that similar developments will occur in the legal framework surrounding the legal rights of born and unborn children.

People of Faith ... and Secularists coming together to protect women and their unborn children with enlightened knowledge and attitudes ... something to look forward to, I guess.

J C

lazygal wrote: »

But why aren't those who oppose abortion campaigning vigorously to repeal the constitutionally protected right to travel to kill the unborn? We don't need any scientific advances to pay child benefit from conception or treat miscarriage before 24 weeks the same as after 24 weeks. Why aren't those who oppose abortion calling on women to be prevented from travelling to kill the unborn elsewhere?

Such a law would be incredibly draconian.
How would you even phrase such a law?

Laws are not a panacea for every problem ... and are actually a very blunt and fallible instrument ... with all kinds of unintended consequences, always assuming that the consequences are even agreed in the first place.

However, a reasonable framework of law based on agreed general principles is a very good idea ... to protect us from ourselves ... and others.

lazygal

J C wrote: »

Such a law would be incredibly draconian.
How would you even phrase such a law?

I don't know. Are you in agreement with a law allowing women to travel to kill the unborn? Are you in agreement with all women being legally obliged to remain pregnant regardless of their wishes unless their lives are at risk?

volchitsa

J C wrote: »

As the concept of child rights and our knowledge of what exactly happens in pregnancy develops, it's a logical follow-on that similar developments will occur in the legal framework surrounding the legal rights of born and unborn children.

No, not unless it becomes a legal obligation to save someone else's life by donating blood or bone marrow. Unless that happens, any changes in children's rights won't lead to a loss in women's rights, which is the current situation in Ireland, but nowhere else, and goes against the ECHR.

It's simple. Ireland is on the wrong side of history here.

Tim Robbins

lazygal wrote: »

None because they lack the brain to think for themselves.

Ok so kill mentally retarted people then?
Or 6 month old babies?
Where do you draw the line?

How many instances have born children been allowed to compel another person to have his or her bodily integrity violated to vindicate their right to life? Why can a foetus as a result of rape be killed but not one as a result of contraception failing or a foetus suffering from a fatal abnormality?

By your logic, it would be possible for a woman to kill her baby if science had not invented another way of feeding the baby so the Mother didn't have to use her breasts.

The mother, could say: "I don't want my breasts violated to keep this child alive."

J C

volchitsa wrote: »

No, not unless it becomes a legal obligation to save someone else's life by donating blood or bone marrow. Unless that happens, any changes in children's rights won't lead to a loss in women's rights, which is the current situation in Ireland, but nowhere else, and goes against the ECHR.

Donating bone marrow or blood isn't a natural process ... pregnancy is.

Equally, if blood donations weren't made voluntarily, I'm quite sure that societies that have conscripted people to die in the armies of the world would have no hesitation in making blood donation mandatory ... if somebodies life depended on it ... and there was no other way of obtaining it
If you are suspected of drinking and driving ... you must make a blood donation, if the police requests you to do so ... and nobody's life is directly depending on the donation.
Forcefully extracting body fluids in accordance with law, isn't something that society is in the least bit squeamish about ... if the need to do so is sufficiently serious.

volchitsa wrote: »

It's simple. Ireland is on the wrong side of history here.

History will decide that.
... and I think that current trends are tending towards an opposite conclusion.

J C

lazygal wrote: »

I don't know. Are you in agreement with a law allowing women to travel to kill the unborn?

I'm in agreement with women travelling freely, whether pregnant or not. What they get up to when abroad is largely between themselves and the authorities in the state they are visiting.

lazygal wrote: »

Are you in agreement with all women being legally obliged to remain pregnant regardless of their wishes unless their lives are at risk?

I'm in agreement with unborn children not being killed unless their mother's life is at risk.
Deliberate killing is only legal as a last resort in situations of extremis with no other viable solution ... this is the case with born people ... and the same principle also logically applies to unborn people.

lazygal

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Ok so kill mentally retarted people then?
Or 6 month old babies?
Where do you draw the line?


By your logic, it would be possible for a woman to kill her baby if science had not invented another way of feeding the baby so the Mother didn't have to use her breasts.

The mother, could say: "I don't want my breasts violated to keep this child alive."

Ever heard of wet nurses? Women throughout history have avoided breastfeeding. And I breastfeed two children. I'm not legally obliged to do so however.

J C

lazygal wrote: »

Ever heard of wet nurses? Women throughout history have avoided breastfeeding. And I breastfeed two children. I'm not legally obliged to do so however.

All very true and right.
However, when it comes to abortion, we're not talking about wet nursing ... or the brand of baby milk (which are the personal choice of the mother) as the effects between different options on the child, are marginal.
We're talking about a life or death issue with abortion ... and that's in a whole different ethical league, compared to whether you feed your child ... or somebody else does.

lazygal

J C wrote: »

All very true and right.
However, when it comes to abortion, we're not talking about wet nursing ... or the brand of baby milk (which are the personal choice of the mother) as the effects between different options on the child, are marginal.
We're talking about a life or death issue with abortion ... and that's in whole different ethical league, compared to whether you feed your child ... or somebody else does.

So what should happen when a woman is pregnant and doesn't want to remain pregnant?

J C

lazygal wrote: »

So what should happen when a woman is pregnant and doesn't want to remain pregnant?

What should happen if she is healthy and pregnant and doesn't want to pay tax ... or a thousand other things that society deems to be legally important?

Pregnancy isn't some kind of excuse to do as one pleases.