Abortion Discussion, Part Trois

Calina

end of the road wrote: »

....... wrote: »

Clearly there was plenty wrong with it and a landslide majority of the electorate thought so as well.

of course there were issues with the act but it's aim was certainly 100% right.

It was a constitutional amendment not an act.

Its aim was to ban abortion in all cases. But in fact it made abortion a constitutional right in very limited circumstances. So it failed in its aim and it put women's lives at risk.

And that was considered adequate collateral damage, I suppose because it was only women...

King Mob

end of the road wrote: »

i will never respect any law that allows the taking of life of others against their will.

So abortion is back to being murder again.

Why then did you claim that abortion wasn't murder and that you never said that abortion was murder?

I'm very confused about your opinion...
I don't understand why you lied about it. I just don't get how it helps your position to pretend that you never said that.

I understand why you are ignoring the points about it, as it's very embarrassing and undermines the credibility of yourself and your side.
I just don't know why you though it was a good idea to say something blatantly untrue and easily disprovable.

If you lied about that small, inconsequential thing for no reason at all, then it's a very good possibility that you, and your felt no voters are lying about other stuff.

end of the road

uptherebels wrote: »

no one needs your approval as they have the approval of the majority.

only to repeal the 8th and allow the government to legislate. not for abortion on demand itself.

uptherebels

end of the road wrote: »

only to repeal the 8th and allow the government to legislate. not for abortion on demand itself.

I'm sorry did you miss where the government were very transparent on the proposed legislation beforehand? The people voted to allow the government to legislate knowing that the legislation would be 12 weeks, trying to argue otherwise is farcical

aloyisious

end of the road wrote: »

only to repeal the 8th and allow the government to legislate. not for abortion on demand itself.

Do you think EDIT: any Govt legislation in the future will include the words "abortion on demand" or are you simply regurgitating the same old abortion on demand line as a means of distraction again? To most people, that line is passe, as they showed in the result of the referendum that the 8th, as a hindrance to womens health and integrity, had no right of presence in our constitution.


Reminder re The 8th, it did not stop women from travelling for abortion, merely stopped abortion in any modern medicinal form occurring here. The right to travel amendment was added to the 8th after two legal geniuses tried to use the 8th to stop a pregnant girl from travelling for an abortion outside Ireland, an attempt to extend the meaning of the 8th beyond it's legal limits.

As for the 8th, abortion was NOT legal here before the 8th was in the constitution so it did not contribute to deterring abortion by the usual methods here. The undeniable modern medicine arrival of the pill into Ireland being a fact too much for some people brought the 8th into the constitution.

end of the road

aloyisious wrote: »

Do you think EDIT: any Govt legislation in the future will include the words "abortion on demand" or are you simply regurgitating the same old abortion on demand line as a means of distraction again? To most people, that line is passe, as they showed in the result of the referendum that the 8th, as a hindrance to womens health and integrity, had no right of presence in our constitution.

the legislation doesn't need to include the words "abortion on demand" to allow such abortion to happen, as it will be happening as it is what the proposed legislation is legalising.

aloyisious wrote: »

Reminder re The 8th, it did not stop women from travelling for abortion, merely stopped abortion in any modern medicinal form occurring here.

that is what it was designed to do, and that is what it did.

aloyisious wrote: »

The right to travel amendment was added to the 8th after two legal geniuses tried to use the 8th to stop a pregnant girl from travelling for an abortion outside Ireland, an attempt to extend the meaning of the 8th beyond it's legal limits.

agreed, and it probably would have been extended to other issues then abortion if that challenge hadn't happened. so an amendment to prevent the 8th from stopping pregnant women from traveling was necessary. however some of them engaging in the killing of their unborn was an unfortunate consiquence of that amendment, rather then it being the reason for that amendment.

aloyisious wrote: »

As for the 8th, abortion was NOT legal here before the 8th was in the constitution so it did not contribute to deterring abortion by the usual methods here. The undeniable modern medicine arrival of the pill into Ireland being a fact too much for some people brought the 8th into the constitution.

yes there were people importing pills, there still will be with abortion in ireland. the same is happening in the uk dispite legal abortion, people importing and taking pills. however i have no doubt the 8th amendment did deter some abortions from taking place. how many we will never know.

King Mob

end of the road wrote: »

yes there were people importing pills, there still will be with abortion in ireland. the same is happening in the uk dispite legal abortion, people importing and taking pills. however i have no doubt the 8th amendment did deter some abortions from taking place. how many we will never know.

Who do you think it deterred? Why do you think it deterred them?

aloyisious

end of the road wrote: »

however i have no doubt the 8th amendment did deter some abortions from taking place. how many we will never know.

I'll just respond to the last part of your's. Apparently it saved several thousand [over the past 35 years] if one is to read the statements of people opposing the deletion of the 8th from the constitution, ala the lines on their pre-referendum lamp-post advertising posters where they asked us not to allow what is happening in the UK re abortion to happen here.

The UK stats on abortion mentioned were regularly quoted here as being official figures so one might assume that the NO campaigners were NOT lying in what they stated on the Ad-posters, and here as well, just ever so slightly disingenuous by not mentioning the fact that a large number of Irish women and girls were, and continue to be, a component part of those stats due to the non-availability of abortion here.

If one was to also include the numbers of abortions in Holland and factor in the large number of Irish women and girls who went, and go, there for abortions, the abortion stats available for quoting by those opposing the deletion of the 8th would be even higher. It's obvious that what those opposing the deletion of the 8th knew, and didn't/don't like, is the home stats on abortions sky-rocketing due simply to there being no longer any need for Irish women and girls abroad for abortions if the 8th was deleted. Sure didn't they claim then, and still claim, that abortion on demand would be available here and we know they absolutely don't lie.

end of the road

aloyisious wrote: »

I'll just respond to the last part of your's. Apparently it saved several thousand [over the past 35 years] if one is to read the statements of people opposing the deletion of the 8th from the constitution, ala the lines on their pre-referendum lamp-post advertising posters where they asked us not to allow what is happening in the UK re abortion to happen here.

The UK stats on abortion mentioned were regularly quoted here as being official figures so one might assume that the NO campaigners were NOT lying in what they stated on the Ad-posters, and here as well, just ever so slightly disingenuous by not mentioning the fact that a large number of Irish women and girls were, and continue to be, a component part of those stats due to the non-availability of abortion here.

If one was to also include the numbers of abortions in Holland and factor in the large number of Irish women and girls who went, and go, there for abortions, the abortion stats available for quoting by those opposing the deletion of the 8th would be even higher. It's obvious that what those opposing the deletion of the 8th knew, and didn't/don't like, is the home stats on abortions sky-rocketing due simply to there being no longer any need for Irish women and girls abroad for abortions if the 8th was deleted. Sure didn't they claim then, and still claim, that abortion on demand would be available here and we know they absolutely don't lie.

when they say sky-rocket, they don't mean those who would have traveled to the uk now availing at home, they mean the numbers actually increasing.

King Mob

end of the road wrote: »

when they say sky-rocket, they don't mean those who would have traveled to the uk now availing at home, they mean the numbers actually increasing.

Ok, so who do you think was being deterred and why?
Why would the 8th being repealed allow them to have abortions?

end of the road

King Mob wrote: »

Ok, so who do you think was being deterred and why?

people were being deterred. for many reasons i'd imagine.

King Mob wrote: »

Why would the 8th being repealed allow them to have abortions?

because the government are going to legalise it.

King Mob

end of the road wrote: »

people were being deterred. for many reasons i'd imagine.

Reasons such as...?

volchitsa

King Mob wrote: »

Reasons such as...?

All those silly girls who will now stop being careful with the contraception now that an abortion will be just a hop skip and a jump away, seems to be the claim.

It seems that the ones that went to England or ordered pills from WOW must have been particularly silly, and now all the previously half-sensible ones will join them in silliness.

That or the birth rate will drop like a stone. Or both?

Cabaal

volchitsa wrote: »

All those silly girls who will now stop being careful with the contraception now that an abortion will be just a hop skip and a jump away, seems to be the claim.

That's exactly the claim, the no side may try and avoid saying it but underneath it all that's the claim.

Woman can't be trusted in their view, it's also always the womans fault. This same mindset brought us mother and baby homes.

aloyisious

end of the road wrote: »

when they say sky-rocket, they don't mean those who would have traveled to the uk now availing at home, they mean the numbers actually increasing.

Again what I'm pointing out is that with the 8th gone, contrary to the desires of those who wanted it kept in the constitution, a large proportion of Irish women and girls who have to travel to the UK and Holland for abortions will NOT have to in the future due to the 8th being deleted. They will be able to have those abortion operations at home here, consequently the abortions figures here will sky-rocket. That will be an actual increase in abortions here using anyone's arithmetic. Incidentally "sky-rocket" is my term to describe the increase in home abortions.

Is the formula of words: [when they say sky-rocket, they don't mean those who would have traveled to the UK now availing at home, they mean the numbers actually increasing] a claim by you that there will be a large increase in women and girls seeking abortions [abortion-demanders] here, over and above the figure of non-travellers?

The formula doesn't disguise what may be a hundred-fold increase in abortions here when Irish women and girls will no longer have to take the route abroad. They won't be women and girls showing up at GP's surgeries and hospitals "demanding" abortions, whatever fanciful terms are used by NO campaigners to describe the women and girls, but women and girls who are a part of the current official abortion stats.

Those opposed to abortions in the UK and Holland will probably be chuffed when the official abortions stats in those two countries drop after Irish women and girls begin using the newly legalized abortion system here in the near future, though those opponents probably won't mention the fact that the amount of Irish women and girls included in their stats will only be added to the stats here and actual Irish abortions figures won't lessen, in the same way that the NO campaign here chose to ignore the presence of Irish women and girls in the UK stats, just rattling on about the risk of an increase in abortions here if the 8th was deleted. Our NO campaigners chose to ignore those officially-existing women and girls choosing instead to prophesy about abortion-on-demand'ers appearing here in the future.

The only occasions I saw the Irish women and girls mentioned by the NO campaign were in the UK stats small print [occasional Irish home-addresses] used by the NO campaigners here and elsewhere. That address info was not volunteered by the campaign for obvious reasons but ferreted out by research into the NO campaign's use of UK "official facts and figures".

end of the road

aloyisious wrote: »

Is the formula of words: [when they say sky-rocket, they don't mean those who would have traveled to the UK now availing at home, they mean the numbers actually increasing] a claim by you that there will be a large increase in women and girls seeking abortions [abortion-demanders] here, over and above the figure of non-travellers?

i personally believe it's likely there will be an increase beyond the amount that would once have traveled, yes.

King Mob

end of the road wrote: »

]

i personally believe it's likely there will be an increase beyond the amount that would once have traveled, yes.

You seem to have missed my question.
What reason would these people have to be deterred?
Why would they not have gotten abortions before?

Peregrinus

aloyisious wrote: »

Again what I'm pointing out is that with the 8th gone, contrary to the desires of those who wanted it kept in the constitution, a large proportion of Irish women and girls who have to travel to the UK and Holland for abortions will NOT have to in the future due to the 8th being deleted. They will be able to have those abortion operations at home here, consequently the abortions figures here will sky-rocket. That will be an actual increase in abortions here using anyone's arithmetic. Incidentally "sky-rocket" is my term to describe the increase in home abortions.

But you're assuming, I think, that the requirement, up to now, to travel to the UK for abortion effectively deterred or prevented many abortions.

I'm sceptical of this. The considerations which lead women to have abortions are weighty ones, and even if we exclude emotional factors and consider the issue in purely cost/practical terms, the direct and indirect costs and inconvenience of going to the UK for an abortion are easily outweighed by the direct and indirect costs and inconvenience of carrying a pregnancy to term, never mind what happens afterwards. So while it may be oppressive, etc, to require women to go to the UK for an abortion, I doubt that it stops a signficant proportion of women who are seeking an abortion.

The abortion rate may rise if, as a consequence of the legal change, social attitudes to abortion change, and women who previously chose not to seek abortions now choose to seek one.

There's no possiblity of the abortion rate rising "a hundred fold". The abortion rate in Ireland has been falling for the past decade or so, mirroring a broader European trend. Currently it's about one-third of the western European average. (This may reflect some degree of under-reporting, of course.) If it were to increase a hundred-fold, Ireland would have an abortion rate more than 30 times larger than the average for the region; there is no reason to expect this.

Calina

Actually the short term upfront costs prevent poorer women from travelling. It prevents younger non-earning women from travelling.

Sure the overall costs of a child are way higher but the upfront costs of travelling for a termination can be insurmountable. Leading to greater child poverty in some families but that is less an argument for abortion and more an argument for better family services and support. The problem there though is that people then whinge about career single mothers and not wanting their taxes to go go feckless families.

I get the vague impression sometimes that there is an overlap between people who whinge about their taxes supporting career single mothers and peopke who whinge women will just use abortion as birth control. And some of them were not happy when you could eventually get the morning after pill without prescription too...

Peregrinus

Calina wrote: »

Actually the short term upfront costs prevent poorer women from travelling. It prevents younger non-earning women from travelling.

Sure the overall costs of a child are way higher but the upfront costs of travelling for a termination can be insurmountable . . .

I take your point, but I think this would only affect the very poorest. The financial consequences of not having an abortion are such that I think even the financially-strapped will generally manage to raise the money for a flight to England, if that is what they want to do.

There's relevant evidence from the US. Abortions are available, but in many places are not publicly funded, and therefore cost is a barrier to those in poverty. Nevertheless, actual abortion rates among those in poverty are higher than average and, the poorer you are, the more this is true. Which suggests that, on the whole, poverty does more to cause women to choose abortion than it does to impede access to abortion. I don't have direct evidence, but my guess is that the same would be true in Ireland.

Cabaal

Peregrinus wrote: »

I take your point, but I think this would only affect the very poorest. The financial consequences of not having an abortion are such that I think even the financially-strapped will generally manage to raise the money for a flight to England, if that is what they want to do.

No doubt some will and some did, when I went canvassing for yes during the ref the first door I called to I was told their story about how they had to get a credit union loan to travel to Manchester.

For somebody to open up like this to a perfect stranger really floored me, but it I guess it showed how tired some people were of remaining silent! It was part of a greater shift in society that resulted in yes being a landslide.

That's fine, they could manage a loan, but in all honesty some people don't seem to realise just how poor some people are. Getting a loan is all fine and we'll but I've known people that got loans to pay a electric bill of 150euro.

Now, Manchester could cost you closer to 1k plus depending on short notice flights, accom (if needed), type of procedure, food, taxi etc.

A loan of this amount could really cripple a person and prevent them from paying other bills.

Peregrinus

Cabaal wrote: »

No doubt some will and some did, when I went canvassing for yes during the ref the first door I called to I was told their story about how they had to get a credit union loan to travel to Manchester.

For somebody to open up like this to a perfect stranger really floored me, but it I guess it showed how tired some people were of remaining silent! It was part of a greater shift in society that resulted in yes being a landslide.

That's fine, they could manage a loan, but in all honesty some people don't seem to realise just how poor some people are. Getting a loan is all fine and we'll but I've known people that got loans to pay a electric bill of 150euro.

Now, Manchester could cost you closer to 1k plus depending on short notice flights, accom (if needed), type of procedure, food, taxi etc.

A loan of this amount could really cripple a person and prevent them from paying other bills.

Yes. I accept that for some people finding the money to get an abortion is a real challenge. I'm not defending that situation for an instant.

But, note, in that case they did find the money. And I think most people for whom not being pregnant is a critical economic imperative do find the money.

I'm not for an instant suggesting that this is an acceptable state of affairs. My point is purely that making abortion available in Ireland is not going to lead to a huge rise in abortions, representing people who wanted abortions but couldn't afford them. Most people who couldn't afford abortions even more couldn't afford childbirth, so they found they money anyway.

If there's a rise in the short term, my guess is that it will represent people who were undercounted in the past, since they not only went to the UK but used UK addresses, and so didn't turn up as Irish abortions.

In the medium to long term, if there's a steady rise, it will suggest that people's willingness/propensity to choose abortion is increasing, which may in turn social attitudes are changing. And this could be partly the result of the debate about abortion we have had over the last couple of years, partly the influence of the legal change leading some to think that abortion is more ethically acceptable than when it was tightly restricted, and of course partly other factors.

Calina

I really think you overestimate the resources available to some people. Not just financial but mental support. Pregnancy is a long term cost. 1000E minimum for an abortion is insurmountable for a lot of young people in Dublin on average income. They cannot afford rent never mind a weekend break in a Liverpool hospital.

You can add women in direct provision to the list of most likely couldn't travel both for cost and visa reasons.

But I take issue with the idea the 8th necessarily 'saved' kids in cases where poverty was a factor. It got them to birth but hasn't necessarily done anything for their lives after birth.

.......

This post has been deleted.

Peregrinus

Calina wrote: »

I really think you overestimate the resources available to some people . . . .

Perhaps I am. And I particularly take your point about women in direct provision.

Calina wrote: »

But I take issue with the idea the 8th necessarily 'saved' kids in cases where poverty was a factor. It got them to birth but hasn't necessarily done anything for their lives after birth.

This is true. But perhaps it also presents a challenge to pro-choice advocates. If a woman is constrained by poverty to abort a pregnancy, in what sense is she exercising a freedom to choose?

Just as there has to be more to being genuinely pro-life than banning abortion, so there has to be more to being genuinely pro-choice than permitting abortion. If we're serious, we need to be committed to creating the conditions in which women are substantially, and not just formally, free to choose between continuing a pregnancy and terminating it.

ohnonotgmail

Peregrinus wrote: »

Perhaps I am. And I particularly take your point about women in direct provision.


This is true. But perhaps it also presents a challenge to pro-choice advocates. If a woman is constrained by poverty to abort a pregnancy, in what sense is she exercising a freedom to choose?

Just as there has to be more to being genuinely pro-life than banning abortion, so there has to be more to being genuinely pro-choice than permitting abortion. If we're serious, we need to be committed to creating the conditions in which women are substantially, and not just formally, free to choose between continuing a pregnancy and terminating it.

Repealing the 8th wont magically improve the situation of people in poverty. Nor was it intended to. But now they do have a choice. A choice that would stop their situation getting worse. Previously the choice to abort was not available to them. They were forced to continue their pregnancy and have children they could not afford which only worsened their situation financially. Now they actually have a choice in that.

Calina

Peregrinus wrote: »

Calina wrote: »

I really think you overestimate the resources available to some people . . . .

Perhaps I am. And I particularly take your point about women in direct provision.

Calina wrote: »

But I take issue with the idea the 8th necessarily 'saved' kids in cases where poverty was a factor. It got them to birth but hasn't necessarily done anything for their lives after birth.

This is true. But perhaps it also presents a challenge to pro-choice advocates. If a woman is constrained by poverty to abort a pregnancy, in what sense is she exercising a freedom to choose?

Just as there has to be more to being genuinely pro-life than banning abortion, so there has to be more to being genuinely pro-choice than permitting abortion. If we're serious, we need to be committed to creating the conditions in which women are substantially, and not just formally, free to choose between continuing a pregnancy and terminating it.

I don't argue against that. You will find occasional references to the fact that I see having and raising children as a fundamental contribution to society but which is not acknowledged economically at all for women. Having children contributes to lower pay for women, lower average pension provision and poorer career progression and options. As women live longer they are as a result more likely to suffer serious poverty in old age.

Interestingly I also see a way to improving that not by giving women more of all that but by getting parental duties shared more effectively.

aloyisious

Peregrinus wrote: »

But you're assuming, I think, that the requirement, up to now, to travel to the UK for abortion effectively deterred or prevented many abortions.

I'm sceptical of this. The considerations which lead women to have abortions are weighty ones, and even if we exclude emotional factors and consider the issue in purely cost/practical terms, the direct and indirect costs and inconvenience of going to the UK for an abortion are easily outweighed by the direct and indirect costs and inconvenience of carrying a pregnancy to term, never mind what happens afterwards. So while it may be oppressive, etc, to require women to go to the UK for an abortion, I doubt that it stops a signficant proportion of women who are seeking an abortion.

The abortion rate may rise if, as a consequence of the legal change, social attitudes to abortion change, and women who previously chose not to seek abortions now choose to seek one.

There's no possiblity of the abortion rate rising "a hundred fold". The abortion rate in Ireland has been falling for the past decade or so, mirroring a broader European trend. Currently it's about one-third of the western European average. (This may reflect some degree of under-reporting, of course.) If it were to increase a hundred-fold, Ireland would have an abortion rate more than 30 times larger than the average for the region; there is no reason to expect this.

Re your 1st Para, that angle hadn't been in my mind when I wrote my post. I was referring to the women who actually travelled. Ta for writing that Para BTW. There has to be the assumption that those women who couldn't travel must have resolved their dilemma one way or the other here at home, a known unknowable because people didn't pry into that side of the pregnancy V abortion issue.

Re your 2nd Para, I had to look twice at it before the essential point of the words OPPRESSIVE and OUTWEIGHED in it explained it.

Re your 3rd Para, would those women be what the NO campaigners refer to as women demanding abortion merely because it's on the law books?

Re mu use of a hundred-fold, I used that because dozen-fold didn't sit tight with me in grammar. I was referring to the rise in abortions stats here [which is inevitable] above those in the POLDPA stats available here, when the law changes enter our law books.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Just as there has to be more to being genuinely pro-life than banning abortion, so there has to be more to being genuinely pro-choice than permitting abortion. If we're serious, we need to be committed to creating the conditions in which women are substantially, and not just formally, free to choose between continuing a pregnancy and terminating it.

It is a fair point, I'd think many pro-choice people consider abortion as a small but occasionally necessary part of planned parenthood and reproductive health. A larger part of this is pragmatic sex education and easy access to contraception and emergency contraception. These are all things that many in the pro-life movement have campaigned against in the past and the Catholic church stand against today. What is interesting is that the number of teenage pregnancies in this country has decreased significantly in recent decades with greater availability of contraception, so from one point of view you could say that Catholic dogma and attendant pro-life rhetoric has been a significant causal factor for abortion.

Cabaal

Today outside the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street

No campaigners still busy invading people's privacy (they have gopro's) and generally trying to upset people while they go to have medical procedures carried out, intimidation is the name of the game from the no side!

funny how no yes campaigners are protesting outside of Iona....




http://www.broadsheet.ie/2018/06/18/meanwhile-outside-the-national-maternity-hospital/