Abortion Discussion, Part Trois

Absolam

oldrnwisr wrote: »

No, I don't "feel" that the information is wrong, I have demonstrated that it is. I already posted a link to the actual paper in post #1324 and yet you have continued, even after being corrected, to quote the incorrect information quoted by Dr. Brian Marsh in the trial.

I think I did mention it (twice) already; I wasn't claiming that the evidence presented was in any way authoritative, or complete. Only that it was presented. No matter what evidence you want to present to contradict Dr Marsh, it's not what was presented. And what was presented is what the High Court used in considering just how likely survival might be for the unborn child.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

No, the misleading part was not the comparison in the transcript. The misleading part was your restatement that there was a "28% survival rate" which implies something not put forward by either witnesses in the trial or the authors of the paper. The attempt to mislead was entirely yours, not the transcript.

OK, in fairness 2 out of 7 is actually 28.57142857142857% (ish), but I submit my misleading was no more than an act of brevity, and made no appreciable difference to the notion that, according to Dr Marsh, 2 of the group of 7 he specified did initially survive. And that is 28%(ish).

oldrnwisr wrote: »

But statistical power isn't a matter of subjective choice as you claim here.

Ah now. I didn't claim that here. Thanks for the enormously authoritative looking enlightenment, I do appreciate the great effort you're going to to provide the appearance of overwhelming backup for your position. But it's not much use if the assertion it's supposed to support is in error, is it? Whether Doctors chose, or may choose, to use the literature that was provided to draw conclusions with any kind of what they think is statistical power, or even simply use what they can learn from the literature to try and make decisions that may increase the possibility of viability of unborn children in similar circumstances, I can't say; I'm not one of them. I think I did mention that...

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Actual hyperlinks to sources your argument relies on would be useful in this case. Without said links we only have your word to go on that the above named cases say what you say they do (or that they even exist).

Well, you yourself provided the link to the Court transcript, which was my source. Apologies if you didn't recognise the text.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Actually Dr. Marsh does no such thing. He doesn't attach any significance to the study other than to demonstrate to the court the paucity of evidence on cases like this. He makes explicit reference to the cautions of the authors:"The paper itself made the point that the number of reported cases was too small to determine the rate at which intensive care support for the mother could result in a healthy infant."to which he adds his own view about how little information there is:" There were in addition, he believed, many cases where reports had not been submitted, probably because they had not had successful outcomes."

And yet he presented the study, including the information specified in the transcript "Only 7 fitted into the category of 17 weeks or less gestation at the death of the mother. Of those there were two survivors, one of whom died at 30 days post delivery."
Are you really now trying to say that Dr Marsh presented a study that he thought was not significant? I have to say I find that unlikely.

frostyjacks

Throwing a baby in a bin like it was a piece of trash; that speaks volumes about the values of the pro-choice people. If she did this to a dog she would have got a worse punishment.

"She called the baby 'the pest' and kept saying she just wanted rid of it." What a horrible, disgusting woman.

Cabaal

frostyjacks wrote: »

Throwing a baby in a bin like it was a piece of trash; that speaks volumes about the values of the pro-choice people. If she did this to a dog she would have got a worse punishment.

"She called the baby 'the pest' and kept saying she just wanted rid of it." What a horrible, disgusting woman.

Its a fetus not a baby, lets perhaps stick to the proper word use here,

What would you prefer them to do with it? Incinerate it?, because thats what happens with medical waste normally in hospitals throughout the UK, Ireland and pretty much the world. From a biological hazard standpoint it should have been incinerated but her options were limited in fairness.

Putting a dog fetus in a bin would result in no fines and certainly no suspended sentence. So not sure what you're on about.

One eyed Jack

Cabaal wrote: »

Its a fetus not a baby, lets perhaps stick to the proper word use here,

What would you prefer them to do with it? Incinerate it?, because thats what happens with medical waste normally in hospitals throughout the UK. From a biological hazard standpoint it should have been incinerated but her options were limited in fairness.

Putting a dog fetus in a bin would result in no fines and certainly no suspended sentence. So not sure what you're on about.

And it's exactly that sort of "no idea what you're talking about because I call it a foetus, it's medical waste, and I'd do the same to a dog foetus".

It's that obvious and blatant attempt to wind everyone up, that turns people off the idea of supporting people who are advocating for abortion to be legislated for in Ireland.

A human life that is the equivalent of a dog foetus that we can either incinerate or throw in the bin. Well done. Honestly.

Delirium

frostyjacks wrote: »

Throwing a baby in a bin like it was a piece of trash; that speaks volumes about the values of the pro-choice people. If she did this to a dog she would have got a worse punishment.

"She called the baby 'the pest' and kept saying she just wanted rid of it." What a horrible, disgusting woman.

If she did it to a newborn infant/toddler she also would get a worse punishment. And it's somewhat cynical to suggest that pro-choice people think that's how abortions should be carried out.

If anything it's the consequence of legislation that pro-life people support. Pro-choice people would be saying that the abortion she wished to have should have been available in Northern Ireland. Which would have avoided the foetus been put in the bin. The scenario is a result of the legislation that's in place, which certainly wasn't put there by pro-choice advocates.

Cabaal

One eyed Jack wrote: »

And it's exactly that sort of "no idea what you're talking about because I call it a foetus, it's medical waste, and I'd do the same to a dog foetus".

It's that obvious and blatant attempt to wind everyone up, that turns people off the idea of supporting people who are advocating for abortion to be legislated for in Ireland.

A human life that is the equivalent of a dog foetus that we can either incinerate or throw in the bin. Well done. Honestly.

I never said it was equivalent to a dog fetus,
:rolleyes:

I merely pointed out the error in his post when he claimed somebody would be sentenced more seriously if they did it to a dog fetus. They would not, its silly to claim they would be.

Its also factual for me to state that medical waste would normally be incinerated. Or do you dispute this?
The women disposed of the fetus in a bin, was this ideal, no, but her options were somewhat limited and one way or another it would have likely ended up in a bin if she disposed of it the only question is where that bin would be.

Your post is amusing because no matter what the pro-choice side state you are against abortions happening, so forgive me if I don't value your viewpoint on the matter and your claims about what turns people off the idea.

The bottom line is polls show more people are in favor of abortions happening in Ireland and the current situation changing.
Changing the current situation would ensure that women in the Republic Of Ireland don't feel they have no options like this women in the North felt.

lazygal

frostyjacks wrote: »

Throwing a baby in a bin like it was a piece of trash; that speaks volumes about the values of the pro-choice people. If she did this to a dog she would have got a worse punishment.

"She called the baby 'the pest' and kept saying she just wanted rid of it." What a horrible, disgusting woman.

What exactly should happen to her?

groovyg

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/why-we-reported-abortion-pills-girl-to-police-34602857.html
One of the so called flatmates was 38 years old and apparently just had a miscarriage ..the story doesn't add up. If she had just had a miscarriage herself why didn't she call a doctor for the girl.

Delirium

One of the women who reported the woman has been interviewed.

Why we reported abortion pills girl to police

One of the housemates, who asked to remain anonymous after a backlash on social media over her decision to contact police, told the Belfast Telegraph she was so badly affected by the events that she had to receive counselling.

The 38-year-old claimed she offered to be legal guardian to the teenager's child if she still did not want the baby after giving birth.

"She called the baby 'the pest' and kept saying she just wanted rid of it. She said: 'I don't want this inside me.' I offered a number of times to become legal guardian to the child. I myself had just had a miscarriage.

"I really tried to help her. I talked through a number of options but she just didn't want to know," said the Belfast woman.

She said she was upset by the woman's attitude towards the termination. "This isn't anything to do with the rights and wrongs of abortion. I'm not anti-abortion. I believe there are circumstances, like rape, where it should be a woman's choice.

"This is about her attitude. It was as if she was getting rid of a piece of clothing," she stated.

"There was absolutely no remorse. Even the way she was up and away out and doing her own thing a day after the abortion, while me and our other house-mate just walked around in shock.

"She wasn't forced into anything.

So the woman should have a criminal record because she wasn't upset after terminating the pregnancy. :rolleyes:

lazygal

Apparently now one's attitude is a reason for reporting something to police.

One eyed Jack

Cabaal wrote: »

Your post is amusing because no matter what the pro-choice side state you are against abortions happening, so forgive me if I don't value your viewpoint on the matter and your claims about what turns people off the idea.

You're forgiven -

One eyed Jack wrote: »

We're in agreement insofar as I agree that an abortion itself is a private matter for a woman, but the issue of abortion, and legislating for it, even in terms of the time limits and so on, would be a public matter. Personally I think if we are going to legislate for abortion, it should be completely a woman's choice at every stage. It's a view that isn't as extreme as it sounds - IDX make up less than 1% of all abortions in the US.

The bottom line is polls show more people are in favor of abortions happening in Ireland and the current situation changing.
Changing the current situation would ensure that women in the Republic Of Ireland don't feel they have no options like this women in the North felt.

Nothing like a spot of mind reading and projection in the morning.

The Randy Riverbeast

wokingvoter wrote: »

Although I'm struggling to understand what your trying to saying, I would imagine it was the foul aroma from the bin that alerted the flat mates. I didn't want to mention that but as your obviously having trouble getting your head around what happened here I'd better spell it out for you.
Smell alerts flat mate. Tiny body of baby boy is uncovered. What do you expect them to do?

Well now we know. It was reported because she dared to continue going to work and not sit in the room crying all day. No actual concern over finding "babies" in the bin.

Cabaal

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

Well now we know. It was reported because she dared to continue going to work and not sit in the room crying all day. No actual concern over finding "babies" in the bin.

It certainly does look that way,
The flatmates only reported it because they were pissed she wasn't bawling in her room after it, that certainly explains the gap for going to the police.

If they really cared about the baby and the miscarriage happening they would have gone to the police before the event happened, but instead they only went when she wasn't upset.

oldrnwisr

Absolam wrote: »

I think I did mention it (twice) already; I wasn't claiming that the evidence presented was in any way authoritative, or complete. Only that it was presented. No matter what evidence you want to present to contradict Dr Marsh, it's not what was presented. And what was presented is what the High Court used in considering just how likely survival might be for the unborn child.

Except that that is not a fair representation of the transcript. The court did attempt to determine whether the foetus had a possibility of survival. To this end, Dr. Brian Marsh testified as to what had been recorded in the literature. He introduced (and misquoted) the study to which I have previously linked to show just how little evidence there was on this matter. The evidence which was presented was offered with no less than three separate caveats to indicate that no conclusion could be drawn from it's findings:

"A study had been carried out in Germany (the “Heidelberg Study”) which, while not consisting of scientific research, reported various outcomes of cases that have happened in individual hospitals internationally."

"The paper itself made the point that the number of reported cases was too small to determine the rate at which intensive care support for the mother could result in a healthy infant."

"There were in addition, he believed, many cases where reports had not been submitted, probably because they had not had successful outcomes."

The paper cannot, and this was made abundantly clear in the trial, be used to draw inferences about the survivability of the foetus in this case.

Absolam wrote: »

OK, in fairness 2 out of 7 is actually 28.57142857142857% (ish), but I submit my misleading was no more than an act of brevity, and made no appreciable difference to the notion that, according to Dr Marsh, 2 of the group of 7 he specified did initially survive. And that is 28%(ish).

OK, first of all, at the sake of repeating myself, there weren't 7 cases. There were 8 cases in which brain death occurred at 17 weeks or less. So there is no 28% survival rate. There is no survival rate at all since neither the authors of the paper or the expert witnesses offered such an unscientific and simplistic analysis of the results.

You see, there are 4 common types of experiment design, case-series, case-control, cohort and random controlled trial (not relevant here).

A case-series study which the Heidelburg study is a descriptive study, it simply reports observations of outcomes. It does not and cannot analyse causal relationships and cannot be used to make testable predictions. So, for example, Andrew Wakefield's initial (now retracted) paper on MMR and autism was a case-series study. It reported the outcomes of 12 patients he had treated who had been vaccinated and developed autism (from which he tried to fraudulently establish a causal link).

A case-control study is an analytical study. It looks at the outcome of a patient and then analyses the exposure to see if there's a difference. To continue with the autism example, if we look at the study conducted by Smeeth et al. we see a case control study using the data in the general practice research database. This study searched the database for any children who had a diagnosis of autism and then looked at their records for vaccinations to see if there was any difference. The rates of autism were no different.

A cohort study is an analytical study which looks at the exposure and then analyses differences in the outcome. Again with the autism example we have Madsen et al. a study which looked at all children born in Denmark between 1991 and 1998. There were over 500,000 children in total, 400,000 of which had been vaccinated and 100,000 who hadn't. Yet the rates of autism were the same in both groups.

So what has any of this got to do with brain death and foetal survival? Well, as ProfessorPlum has explained the cases listed in the Heidelberg study cannot be used to make inferences about the NP case because the circumstances were so different. The first problem is that you have to control for confounding factors. You need to isolate only the variable which you wish to test. So in terms of NP you would need previous research where the medical complications of the mother were the same as NP (of which there is none). The second problem is that the sample size in the study is far too low. 8 cases is not large enough to detect any kind of effect. If you went out on the street and asked 8 people if they supported the death penalty for abortion and 5 said yes, would you conclude that over 60% of the population is in favour of abortion? No, of course not. You simply haven't asked enough people.

The simple fact is that there is too little evidence in the literature to be useful in determining foetal survival in the NP case. The circumstances of the individual case (in this case an open wound to the brain and a lack of cerebral blood flow) were much more important factors.

Absolam wrote: »

Ah now. I didn't claim that here. Thanks for the enormously authoritative looking enlightenment, I do appreciate the great effort you're going to to provide the appearance of overwhelming backup for your position. But it's not much use if the assertion it's supposed to support is in error, is it? Whether Doctors chose, or may choose, to use the literature that was provided to draw conclusions with any kind of what they think is statistical power, or even simply use what they can learn from the literature to try and make decisions that may increase the possibility of viability of unborn children in similar circumstances, I can't say; I'm not one of them. I think I did mention that...

Yes, you did claim that, just as you have done just now (highlighted above). Statistical power is not something that can be decided upon retrospectively, and the fact that twice now you seem to think so just shows how little knowledge you have about scienctific research and statistics. There are two ways to view statistical power, prospectively and retrospectively. Prospectively, statistical power can be used in study design to determine what kind of sample size you need. Retrospectively, statistical power is a measure of how reliable your results are based on what kind of sample size you actually recruited.

You cannot think that a study has statistical power when it doesn't, you have to measure what it actually is:



It's not a matter of subjective choice, it's a calculated metric. I do wish you would attempt to understand this, instead of making off the cuff snide remarks as your profession is wont to do.

Absolam wrote: »

And yet he presented the study, including the information specified in the transcript "Only 7 fitted into the category of 17 weeks or less gestation at the death of the mother. Of those there were two survivors, one of whom died at 30 days post delivery."
Are you really now trying to say that Dr Marsh presented a study that he thought was not significant? I have to say I find that unlikely.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying and what Dr. Marsh opined in his expert testimony. He didn't introduce the study because it was significant or because it could be informative in predicting survival, he introduced it to show how little evidence exists on the matter.

Cabaal

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Nothing like a spot of mind reading and projection in the morning.

Not mind reading at all,
Its well known many women in Ireland buy these types of pills, they do this because they obviously feel they don't have the option to travel which is likely due to money restrictions.

Unless you are claiming no women in the Republic Of Ireland buy these pills?

seamus

Delirium wrote: »

So the woman should have a criminal record because she wasn't upset after terminating the pregnancy. :rolleyes:

Indeed, she says, "I'm not anti-abortion", but clearly her entire reasoning for reporting it is the fact that the girl wasn't completely distraught about her choice to have an abortion.

So like any good anti-choice person she took it upon her self to act in loco satanus because the girl wasn't suffering.

lazygal

lazygal wrote: »

Apparently now one's attitude is a reason for reporting something to police.

Orwellian

Captain Flaps

frostyjacks wrote: »

Throwing a baby in a bin like it was a piece of trash; that speaks volumes about the values of the pro-choice people this particular individual

Fixed that for you, and I still don't really agree with you.

Delirium

Seems there's a second case starting today.

A woman is accused of two charges of unlawfully procuring pills known for their use in terminating pregnancies. She cannot be named to ensure her daughter’s identity is not revealed. The alleged offences were said to have occurred at a location in Belfast on dates in 2013.

https://twitter.com/AmnestyIreland/status/717671952765345792

aloyisious

The Belfast story, as written - spoken about in the media, is most peculiar in regards to the two women who were house-mates of the girl. I don't know how much actual fact has been edited out of the reporters reports before media publication. One of the two women reportedly admitted that she herself was out of sorts in regard to what she should do, due to a miscarriage, and wanted the girl to continue with the pregnancy, that she would offer to be legal guardian to the baby born to the girl.

The Indo reports that the foetus was in the bin for 8 days before the PSNI were informed, and that the woman who made the report had checked the bin a bit later after she had seen the girl put a bag in the bin, seemingly around Friday night/Sat morning. The 2nd housemate was not in the house until Sunday. If reading a time-line of events by way of the media reports is correct, the PSNI were not brought into the picture til the next Friday/weekend during which time the feotus remained in a bag in the bin for around one week.

The Indo report refers to speculation about treatment of the pregnancy/feotus as an unwanted commodity by the girl, going on the girl's former housemate, without being able to verify that with the girl. It seem's to me that most of what's being written,spoken about the girl's situation is based on reading the media.

Indo link: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/housemates-of-teenager-who-selfterminated-pregnancy-speak-out-after-online-backlash-34603531.html.

nozzferrahhtoo

One eyed Jack wrote: »

And it's exactly that sort of "no idea what you're talking about because I call it a foetus, it's medical waste, and I'd do the same to a dog foetus".

It's that obvious and blatant attempt to wind everyone up

Or an attempt to call a spade a spade in order to stop the anti-abortion campaigners from hiding their lack of actual arguments behind linguistics.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

that turns people off the idea of supporting people who are advocating for abortion to be legislated for in Ireland.

I am not so sure that calling a fetus a fetus, when it is one, and describing and explaining how it does not differ in any useful way from any other fetus, is that much of a turn off.

It feels to me like the vast majority of people against abortion are against it due solely to emotional reasons, much of them born from spin put on emotive terms. So reducing the fetus down to WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS is a good approach I feel. Arguments from emotion that lack any substance or rigor seem to be what we have to combat in the abortion debate, and I am happy to divest them of such arguments any way we can.

If anything was going to turn people off abortion it would be the kind of crap YOU espouse in particular, such as allowing abortion at ANY stage in the process and trying to fly that under the banner of calling it "Euthanasia".

One eyed Jack

Cabaal wrote: »

Not mind reading at all

This is the part I was referring to as mind reading, the point being that you couldn't possibly know what anyone in that situation is thinking -

Cabaal wrote: »

Changing the current situation would ensure that women in the Republic Of Ireland don't feel they have no options like this women in the North felt.

Its well known many women in Ireland buy these types of pills, they do this because they obviously feel they don't have the option to travel which is likely due to money restrictions.

I wouldn't have known that before I read it here tbh. I wouldn't speculate as to how many pregnant women buy these pills on the internet, let alone how many of them actually do. I consider it an incredibly irresponsible act by the organisations making these pills available to order on the internet, and just as irresponsible are the people who advise any woman of their availability without medical supervision.

Unless you are claiming no women in the Republic Of Ireland buy these pills?

I'm not making any claims, I'm questioning the claims you're making though. You can't possibly know that she felt she had no options, or that any woman feels they have no options, unless you're a mind reader and you're projecting your opinion on those women as though they would agree with your opinion.

Again, why they might not choose to travel, why they even might choose to have an abortion in the first place, would be only speculation, and rather than likely due to money restrictions, could be due to any number of reasons.

volchitsa

Well actually we do know she felt she had no options other than to order the abortion pills because she initially told her flatmates she was gathering together the funds to travel to the UK for an abortion, and then later that she hadn't managed to get enough money so she contacted a UK abortion provider to ask what her options were.

So whatever you may feel about it, she clearly felt she had no other options.

One eyed Jack

volchitsa wrote: »

Well actually we do know she felt she had no options other than to order the abortion pills because she initially told her flatmates she was gathering together the funds to travel to the UK for an abortion, and then later that she hadn't managed to get enough money so she contacted a UK abortion provider to ask what her options were.

So whatever you may feel about it, she clearly felt she had no other options.

I wouldn't say we know anything about how the girl felt. We can make all sorts of assumptions as to how she might have felt, and we can can make all sorts of assumptions as to her motivations for whatever actions she took. We can make all sorts of assumptions as to how her flatmates felt and we can make assumptions as to their motivations, but we really can't know anything about the people involved in this case for certain.

It's also a bad idea IMO to use this case, to use any individual case, to argue for a change in legislation, because all that does is allows for the myth of desperation to be perpetuated - only if a woman is desperate should she be permitted an abortion, and the stigma to be perpetuated - that a woman should be ashamed of having to have an abortion.

The legislation should be argued for IMO as a woman's right to her choice to have an abortion, without of any terms and conditions attached. Arguing that women are in desperate situations and so on, would allow for terms and conditions to be imposed on what is a private matter for any woman, regardless of whether she is desperate, or isn't desperate enough to be permitted an abortion.

volchitsa

You're sounding a bit desperate here yourself, OEJ.

"Let's assume the worst of the woman having had the abortion, despite the fact that she was 19 and had tried and failed to get funds to travel for an abortion, and let's assume the best of the 38 year old woman who reported her to the police because the 19 year-old wasn't upset enough for her liking, and most of all let's not discuss any real life case where we might end up feeling sorry for the woman having the abortion - that would never do at all at all."

That about sums up your post there, afaict. Am I wrong?

Lingua Franca

wokingvoter wrote: »

Throwing the aborted baby in the bin afterwards, knowing that it would attract the attention of flat mates, when she could have so easily disposed of it more discreetly, would indicate that she is a very vulnerable person who hopefully now will get some counselling for what I would imagine are many many issues she is dealing with in her life.

I'd say right now her biggest issue is that she's the mother of a young baby and the "Love them both, we care so much about women" crowd are trying to have her sentenced to life on appeal.

Lingua Franca

frostyjacks wrote: »

Throwing a baby in a bin like it was a piece of trash; that speaks volumes about the values of the pro-choice people. If she did this to a dog she would have got a worse punishment.

What would you have done to the women who leave their miscarriages in the toilet or a bin, out of curiosity?

nozzferrahhtoo

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I wouldn't say we know anything about how the girl felt.

Seems a bit of a pedantic non-point to be following down the rabbit hole really though. Yes fine, no one really knows what anyone else is thinking of feeling. Coffee from Starbucks can be hot. Can we stop stating the obvious now I wonder?

One eyed Jack wrote: »

It's also a bad idea IMO to use this case, to use any individual case, to argue for a change in legislation

Not at all. There is a reason we do it. The opinions of the masses can, and many times have been, swayed by a single example case or situation. It gets to people deeper.

People can relate to that better than arguing at a larger or meta scale. Kind of similar to how many people will read a news story of how some old man in inner city dublin tripped over and broke his legs on a pavement.... and feel like this is horrific.... but then on the next news item hear how 1000s of people died in some bloody conflict in the east and act like "meh".

Single examples and single cases can be more accessibly to people, and can provide a useful platform to example and argue a specific argument.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

The legislation should be argued for IMO as a woman's right to her choice to have an abortion, without of any terms and conditions attached. Arguing that women are in desperate situations and so on, would allow for terms and conditions to be imposed on what is a private matter for any woman

But, unlike your own horrific views of abortion where it should be accessible without any terms, including aborting children a week before birth under the mangled use of the term "Euthanasia"........ many people do have well thought out cut offs about when and how abortions should be performed.... and at some point in the process therefore there is a point where it stops being an entirely private matter.

oscarBravo

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I consider it an incredibly irresponsible act by the organisations making these pills available to order on the internet, and just as irresponsible are the people who advise any woman of their availability without medical supervision.

That's the sort of thing that happens when women are denied better options.

The single strongest argument in favour of making abortions freely, safely and legally available is that women who are desperate to end a pregnancy will find a way to do so. As scary as the prospect of buying drugs on the Internet may be, it's somewhat better than a coathanger.

MrPudding

Absolam wrote: »

Actually travelling to commit a crime isn't an inchoate offense of itself; there are three inchoate offenses relating to murder:conspiracy, attempt and incitement.
As far as attempt goes, the physical aspect of an attempt should be defined as an act which is close to the completion of the target criminal offence and the mental/fault aspect of attempt should be defined as intention that an act constituting a criminal offence be completed. This ensures that the defendant really was trying to commit the target offence. Travelling alone doesn't come anywhere near; which is why every traveller isn't routinely arrested for attempted murder.
And I'm sure you're aware the requirements are greater than simple intent. To put it more succinctly:
"However, if an act is incomplete, the existence of a mens rea cannot convert it into an offense. In this sense, merely having a “guilty mind”, i.e. thinking about killing someone, and partially acting upon that (i.e. driving to their residence) but then backing down will not result in prosecution."
Which clearly points out that the act of travelling alone, without commiting the offense, at best is no more than preparatory (and at worst is entirely unrelatable), and doesn't convert the will to commit an offense into an offense.

Looks like Cabaal is going to have to get his placard painted, but maybe you'll keep him company?


That would amount to considerably more than simply travelling to commit murder though wouldn't it? It includes wilful direct preparation for the act of murder itself; booking the appointment at the murder center, or to follow the form; the death is a natural consequence of the defendant's voluntary act (booking the murder center, not booking the flight), and the defendant foresaw that consequence as being a natural consequence of her act (as in the murder centre is a centre that provides murders, rather than an airline, which provides flights).

In which case I suspect your career as a DPP is likely to be short, but filled with interesting if unsuccessful prosecutions.

And that's before we even get to considering how many of those who do consider abortion to be murder consider it to be morally a murder, whilst being perfectly aware that according to the law it's not legally a murder...

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am not sure I agree with your analysis. The link you have given is interesting, but I am not sure it is 100% applicable to what we are talking about. That particular case, of the guy driving over the policeman's foot, is generally used to explain the temporal connection between actus reus and mens rea. It is saying that thinking about murdering someone, having the guilty mind is not sufficient to make one guilty of murder, without the actus reus. That particular page is in an introduction to criminal law and is simply explaining, in basic and introductory terms, that for most criminal acts actus reus and mens rea are both required for there to be an offence.

Inchoate offence are different. I believe it is generally accepted that acts that are "more than merely preparatory" are what is required for there to be an offence. I think "close to completion" sets the bar a little too high. Now, what more than merely preparatory is suitably vague, and of course there is little guidance as to what was meant. I think it is fair to say that things are suitably vague to suggest that it is not beyond the realms of possibility to make out a reasonable case for attempted murder when a person has researched the requirements, booked and paid for the murder, made the required travel plans, all of which could be said to be merely preparatory, and then attempted to get on the plane. Getting on the plane could be argued to be more than merely preparatory, to use the phrase from Osborn in 1919, they are "on the job".

Do I think it is a guaranteed conviction? No. But I do believe there is a argument to be made. Yes. Of course, I don't actually believe abortion is murder, either morally or legally. The point I am making in all this is that there are plenty of people that believe abortion is murder and it should be stopped. I believe, if abortion is considered to be murder*, that there is an argument to be made for travelling for an abortion to be considered attempted murder. Clearly you disagree, surely the courts would have to decide? And the point is this, why aren't those who are trying to stop abortions calling for abortions to be considered murder and to prevent women from travelling, possibly by stopping them and charging them with attempted murder?

Come on, we are talking about the live of innocent children here... Even if it is unlikely to work should it not be attempted?






* Clearly it would require a redefinition of murder as, which you point out yourself, abortion is not legally murder. I also find this interesting. You appear to consider that a foetus is a human, yet you seem to have no issue with them being killed not being classified as murder.