20 yrs since 8th Amendment.

by pro choice Wed Sep 03, 2003 14:52

New structures needed to tackle growing acceptability of abortion

By Ronan Mullen
IN March 1981, the Women’s Right to Choose movement organised a public meeting in Dublin’s Liberty Hall to push the case for legalised abortion in Ireland.

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/opinion/index.asp

by prankster Wed Sep 03, 2003 15:48

He wants the US authorities(Littler Bush, Jeb, in particular)to spare the life of Paul Hill, that psycho who killed the doctor, as it 'only perpetuates the cycle of life taking'. Wonder if he has also asked them to spare the life of Mumia Abu Jamal. What a cunt!

by The Insider Wed Sep 03, 2003 17:59

Not opposed to his actions on Paul Hill. Just feel he should be consistent. No death penalty, full stop!

by Sean Keegan. Wed Sep 03, 2003 21:27

Well, at least prankster is consistent. He/she is consistently pro-death.
(Also pro-foul mouth, it seems !)

by Seáinín Wed Sep 03, 2003 21:38

between iraq and abortion. Silly emotional kneejerk response.

Abortion is killing, whether we like it or not. Due to a intervention of a "doctor" a human being's existence is wiped out. All of the cells of my body have been replaced in the last 10 years, yet I am the same "being", just as I was when I consisted of ony 4 cells. Any attempt to wriggle out of this argument is pure sophistry.

The word "abortion" is a euphemism for killing for convenience.

by . Thu Sep 04, 2003 10:38

Euphamism or not, its an awful pity your mother didn't give it some thought.

by .. Thu Sep 04, 2003 11:24

the hugely sophisticated arguements on both sides into a short statement. "This is what i believe, I am always right, therefore abortion is murder, end of debate"
Seanin is a good candidate for a dogmatic dictatorship should we ever need one in this country

by The Insider Thu Sep 04, 2003 18:53

How can you equate a bundle of cells with no consciousness, no organs, no awareness and no nervous system whatsoever with a fully grown human being.

by fuinseog Fri Sep 05, 2003 00:31

Are we not all made of cells?

Obviously only a fully grown human being is the same as a fully grown human being. Why do you think that that means that those who are not fully grown have no or lesser rights?

Do you distinguish between the rights of infants and the rights of the fully grown?

"no consciousness, no organs, no awareness and no nervous system" Which of the above is your criterion for having rights?

by the elephant (never forgets) Fri Sep 05, 2003 00:40

Watch out for our friend Ivana. No scruples. Remember when she had to resign from TCD SU because she was caught breaking her democratic mandate in a USI vote? If it hadn't been for the fact that 12 Trinity delegates were mandated to vote for a radical candidate who only got 11 votes she'd have got away with it.

Now the liberal establishment have put her on a "Democracy Commission"!!! D4 is an irony-free zone.

No surprise then that she's still using abortion to climb the greasy pole.

by Har Doyle Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:54

What a laugh--Cherish, an organization founded to cherish people who need help, and now they're backing killings.

by The Insider Sat Sep 06, 2003 19:14

""no consciousness, no organs, no awareness and no nervous system"

- you'd need all of them I'd say to be considered a fully fledged human being. A fertilised egg has none, therefore it's "life" is not equitable with a womans.

It's proto-human life, not a human being. The same way a marked out plot for a house on a site does not equate to a house.

by fuinseog Sat Sep 06, 2003 20:25

Careful with the metaphors. “fully fledged” means a bird has grown all its feathers – effectively that it can fly and look after itself. We are certainly not fully fledged human beings until we can to some degree look after ourselves That takes a number of years.


Organs:
At 2 weeks the embryo has her first brain cells
At 3 weeks her heart (one chamber so far) is beating.
At 4 weeks things have really started to move. Internal organs are growing. The tongue, esophagus and stomach are well developed, as are the kidneys. The embryo's liver, gall bladder, and pancreas have been developing for several days. Lungs begin to develop. His or her thyroid and other glands are forming. The embryo's face and sensory organs are forming. He or she has eyes, including a retina that already has color, as well as ears, a nose, and mouth. Reproductive organs are beginning to form.
At 8 weeks the unborn baby is now called a 'foetus', because he or she has finished with the process of organogenesis (the creation of new organs). Foetus means "young one" in Latin.
At 19 weeks, babies have been born and survived.

Nervous system:
At 2 weeks the embryo has her first brain cells
At 40 days, about five days after he or she turned 5 weeks old, the embryo's brain waves can be detected by an electroencephalogram
At 6 weeks there is the possibility of recording electrical activity from the nervous system already so highly organized that it can subserve purposeful and even co-ordinated movements.
At 8 weeks the foetus's genital area is sensitive to touch
At 9 weeks he or she is moving almost constantly, and can step, kick, somersault, stretch, and move his or her arms.
At 14 weeks it can be scientifically demonstrated that the fetus hears and reacts to sound. Foetuses display individual personality. When a needle for amniocentesis (a method of prenatal testing for genetic anomalies) is introduced into the uterus, the fetus will react. Different fetuses react differently to this experience. Some kick or punch at the needle, some grab it, some shy away

Consciousness and awareness are more vague concepts. (Presumably you don’t mean consciousness as opposed to sleep or coma.) By some understandings, new-born infants lack consciousness in the sense of self-awareness. Do they not have a right to life? But foetuses are conscious or aware in that they feel from 8 weeks. Is this the point you mean?

by daddy to be Sat Sep 06, 2003 22:55

misses the point. A newborn baby's right to life is no longer in potential direct conflict with the mother's.

The position most pro-choice people take is that on balance a foetus' right to life is curtailed by the mothers rights. As you have demonstrated, where you draw the line is very difficult. So it should be up to the mother to take that decision. No one else.

by fuinseog Sun Sep 07, 2003 00:53

And I'm a bit confused by what you have written: " A newborn baby's right to life is no longer in potential direct conflict with the mother's."

Are you only looking for abortion where the child's right to life is in conflict with her mother's right to life? If so you have no argument and you don't need to change the law.

"The position most pro-choice people take is that on balance a foetus' right to life is curtailed by the mothers rights."
Which rights? The mother's right to life, agreed. Which other rights?

With respect think a lot of people are repeating half-considered cliche arguments. (Aside from the personal attacks; I'm sure I'll get one of them soon, telling me I should have been aborted or suchlike).

It is essential to get to grips with the physical/scientific reality of what abortion is.

by The Insider Sun Sep 07, 2003 13:25

"But foetuses are conscious or aware in that they feel from 8 weeks. Is this the point you mean?"

- I take it that you've no problem in abortions before eight weeks then.

The part about organs developing misses the point. To use the analogy of a house, a house starts "developing" as soon as the chalk dust is thrown down on the ground to mark out the foundations, yet in no sense is it at that point a house. Nor is it a house when the foundations are poured, or when the first few blocks are laid.

Neither is an embryo a person when the organs start developing.

by The Insider Sun Sep 07, 2003 13:29

That our guardians of the unborn (Seanin and Sean Keegan) display a nasty streak of Xenophobia and racism on the "Nazi Posters" thread?

Guess the rights of the born aren't important to them!

by fuinseog Sun Sep 07, 2003 14:02

After I said the attack would get personal, I now find you are making suggestions that I'm some sort of fascist by association! For the record I am opposed to all immigration controls. We live on one planet and we are all, (i.e. not just the rich which is the current situation) entitled to move around it.

Why can't you stick to the point and answer the reasonable / rational questions I'm asking as to what you meant when you said "no consciousness, no organs, no awareness and no nervous system", and let us know when you understand these conditions to be met.

by The Insider Sun Sep 07, 2003 14:30

"I now find you are making suggestions that I'm some sort of fascist by association!"

- relax, I named the two people I had trouble with. I don't think all pro-lifers are fascists.

Anyhow, I honestly don't know when a fetus becomes a human being - I don't think there's a monent in the process where it happens to become a human being all of a sudden. But I can recognise a human being at one end (i.e. birth) and not a human at another. So the dividing line - if there is one - is somewhere in between.

To use my favourite house analogy again - when you're building a house, there's no exact point when what you're building becomes a house, no one brick that when it's laid makes what you're building into a fully fledged dwelling. At one end we have a chalk outlike for the foundations, at the other a house. Somewhere in between is where the construction becomes a house, but there's no exact moment. Likewise with a fetus, there's no one point when it becomes a human being.

So we err on the side of caution, and we set a time limit that we can say at this point the fetus is not a human being. I'd say there's a point when we can recognise that the organs and so fourth are pretty much developed, so work back from that. Where exactly, I don't know, i guess that's for science to help us.

by Ali la Pointe - daddy to be Sun Sep 07, 2003 16:59

Fuinseog. Now we're getting to the crux of the argument.
If I may paraphrase what you said, you asked what rights of the mothers, over and above her right to life, could be weighed-up against a foetus' right to life.

Basically I think that a woman's right to have a certain quality of life, that is, her right to live free from poverty, to be in control of her career, to live free from an oppressive or binding relationship to an abusive partner, parent(s) or institution, or her right to wait until she can bring into the world a child which she is able to care for and support, can (and this is where she alone can decide) mitigate against the right to life of a foetus.
These are nebulous categories of rights, I agree, but the central issue here is womens autonomy - that is the right to freedom of a fully fledged human being - and it should therefore be up to her to decide (and its probably the most diffuicult decision of her life) how to balance her rights against those of the foetus that is depending on her body for its life.
To legislate otherwise doesn't stop women from having abortions (viz. Irish figures over the last 10 years, compared to denmarks, cited above). It does, however set us on the track to having the state (like the church before it) framing the fundamental role of women in terms of being baby producers, irrespective of their will. The effect is to hold women back in traditional roles by legally binding them to their reproductive systems.
If we want fewer abortions (and I would count all pro-choice and anti-abortion people alike here) then surely we should be striving to create a society where the conditions which give rise to the need to have abortions do not arise. To cite the Denmark example again, if we had better and free creche facilities, healthcare, sex education, free and readily available contraception, we would have fewer abortions. I would also wager that if there was less stigma on "welfare mothers", a sea change in male attitudes towards women and in male attitudes towards thmselves as nurturers, if the church just shrivelled up etc. We would have fewer crisis pregnancies and a greater proportion of wanted babies in the world. I don't see how criminalising women who have abortions would help in this.

by fuinseog Sun Sep 07, 2003 20:31

“Basically I think that a woman's right to have a certain quality of life, that is, her right to live free from poverty, to be in control of her career, to live free from an oppressive or binding relationship to an abusive partner, parent(s) or institution, or her right to wait until she can bring into the world a child which she is able to care for and support, can (and this is where she alone can decide) mitigate against the right to life of a foetus.”

These are all external social conditions which won’t be removed or changed by an abortion. It seems to me that the victimisation is being passed on to a person less powerful.

These arguments play into the hands of the pro-abortion right (and they are pro-abortion, not "pro-choice"). The historical roots of the movement to legalise abortion are in eugenics, racism and classism, not in feminism. Instead of addressing injustice, they prefer to remove the problem. See the link.

Even disregarding that, I cannot see that my right to a decent peaceful life is greater than someone else’s right to life.

The reasons you have mentioned aren’t the only reasons some women have abortions. They can be forced into it by an abusive partner, parent(s) or institution, or they can abort their child because she is female or disabled.

“It does, however set us on the track to having the state (like the church before it) framing the fundamental role of women in terms of being baby producers, irrespective of their will. The effect is to hold women back in traditional roles by legally binding them to their reproductive systems.”

The fact that women, not men, have babies is a biological reality. It wasn’t invented by patriarchy. The varieties of feminism which claim women are identical to men are not only in denial of reality, they are diminishing of women’s identity. Women aren’t “legally bound to their reproductive systems”, their reproductive systems are physically part of them. The possession of a female reproductive system does not bind women to “traditional roles”, patriarchy does.

“We would have fewer crisis pregnancies and a greater proportion of wanted babies in the world.”

There aren’t unwanted babies in Ireland; far more people are looking to adopt than there are babies. As far as I know that’s probably the case for the planet as a whole.

http://no-violence.net/

by crabadán linbh Sun Sep 07, 2003 23:31

Alright, let me get this straight:
You say that it's OK to kill a human being for something he/she never did BUT you guys wage whole hog picketing war against animal testing and fur farms. Have you all LOST YOUR MINDS? We're HUMANS and should be listening to our INSTINCTS to SAVE OUR RACE, not furry little calves or cute little bunnies and then in the same breath afterwards check into an abortion clinic because we were too lazy to buy a condom or better yet THINK that we might possibly be CREATING A HUMAN LIFE as we're getting off in the back of a car after clubbing.
PS-the rate of those tear jerking cases where girls get pregnant after being raped is so insignificant that it really can't be the foundation for an amendment.

by Ali la Pointe - daddy to be Mon Sep 08, 2003 00:06

Comrade Fuinseog.
OK point by point as you make them.

"These are all external social conditions which won’t be removed or changed by an abortion. It seems to me that the victimisation is being passed on to a person less powerful."

- Well, yes and no. They are indeed external conditions and we agree that it would be better if they were removed, thus removing the need for abortion. The fact is that crisis pregnancies that bind women into situations like these occurr in the reality in which we now live. Giving the woman the choice about whether she wants to carry on with the pregnancy or not gives her adegree of liberty. It is not about passing the victimisation to a person less powerful because it is not a person. It is a foetus which doesn't (and never has and never will) enjoy the same rights as an autonomous human being.

"...These arguments play into the hands of the pro-abortion right (and they are pro-abortion, not "pro-choice"). The historical roots of the movement to legalise abortion are in eugenics, racism and classism, not in feminism. Instead of addressing injustice, they prefer to remove the problem...."

- I support a woman's right to chose what to do with her body if she's pregnant. That means being an advocate of adequate abortion facilities, yes. And then being able to give women the opportunity to make an informed choice. The pro-choice lobby is usually found on the left and among feminists, usually. In calling pro-choice people right-wing and anti feminist and in linking abortion to Eugenics (abortion has existed for millenia and it has always been primarily linked to women's health, that eugenics claim is just crap) you're playing with words here and engaging in revisionism. Linking it to racism is equally disengenuous. I can see the horrific scenario where black women, for example, are forced to have abortions by racist states. But black women have also been forced to have sterilisations by those same states, but we're not against sterilisation if a person choses it are we? This is a devietion in the argument anyway. It would be easy for me to start down the road of calling all anti-abortionists mysoginist right-wing christian fanatics. But let's stick to the substantive argument about rights shall we?

"...Even disregarding that, I cannot see that my right to a decent peaceful life is greater than someone else’s right to life..."

It is if you believe, as I do, what is concerned is not "someone else" but a foetus with rights that are much more limited than its mother's. But I'm not the only one to believe this. How many funerals have you been to for miscarriages?

"The reasons you have mentioned aren’t the only reasons some women have abortions. They can be forced into it by an abusive partner, parent(s) or institution, or they can abort their child because she is female or disabled."

Well then I would be against it if it wasn't her choice. It would be horrific. If it were aborted because of its gender or ability, it would happen in those situations where otherwise a child that was brought to term would be left to die, as happens in parts of Asia. In the case of a foetus that is likely to develop into a child with disability (eg such as predicted by amniocentesis) then the woman's freedom to chose a quality of life applies. I know pro-choice people who have gone through with their pregnancies and had their child, knowing it would be disabled, because they felt confident they could cope. On the other hand there are many cases where the woman just couldn't. This is not a Eugenics argument about "weeding out bad genes", it is about giving a woman the choice about whether she is able to cope with the child.

"The fact that women, not men, have babies is a biological reality. It wasn’t invented by patriarchy. The varieties of feminism which claim women are identical to men are not only in denial of reality, they are diminishing of women’s identity. Women aren’t “legally bound to their reproductive systems”, their reproductive systems are physically part of them. The possession of a female reproductive system does not bind women to “traditional roles”, patriarchy does"

No. Leaving aside the spurious claim that there exists a variety of feminism that wants to make women identical to men (!), the point I made is that in an age when we are able to rise above and take control over our reproductive roles, thanks to technology, the Binding of women to their reoproductive role by laws that make it illegal for them to have control over their bodies is precisely an example of the patriarchy you speak of binding women to their traditional roles!

"There aren’t unwanted babies in Ireland; far more people are looking to adopt than there are babies. As far as I know that’s probably the case for the planet as a whole"

Well,unfortunately, there are plenty of unwanted babies throughout the world (viz the trade in 3d world babies for westerners, the millions of children who die each year, the children abused by parents who can't cope. And tens of thousands of Irish women are going to England for abortions (testimony to the number of crisis pregnancies, which you could put much higher) when they could be having them earlier and more safely here if only we weren't so hypocritical about it. Why are we forcing these women abroad and criminalising them for making adifficult choice that is first and foremost about them?

by Meat eaters for choice Mon Sep 08, 2003 00:22

The human race is in no danger. Furry cute things shouldn't die or suffer unnecessarily. Neither should foetuses. But we make choices that mean killing them all the time, let's just but a sensible framework on those choices. Your sympathy for rape victims or teenage girls with crisis pregnancies is breathtaking. Nice to see you being so concerned with the welfare of the human race.

by crabadán linbh Mon Sep 08, 2003 01:36

Well let's see....my biological mother was 15 as she got pregnant - would be dumb for me to support abortions now wouldn't it?
Like I said, very few rapes end in pregnancy!
Ever read Brave New World? That's where all this equal rights liberalism is leading to.

by amadán linbh - meat eaters for choice Mon Sep 08, 2003 01:59

"Well let's see....my biological mother was 15 as she got pregnant - would be dumb for me to support abortions now wouldn't it?"
I am glad for you your biological mother didn't have an abortion. For that matter it was lucky for you she didn't miscarry, use contraception, conceive at another point in her life ... is this really an argument against abortion?

"Like I said, very few rapes end in pregnancy!"
So that's ok then, force those victims that do get pregnant to go through with the pregnancy against their will.

"Ever read Brave New World? That's where all this equal rights liberalism is leading to."

Say what?

by crabadán linbh Mon Sep 08, 2003 04:13

So, because some marginal group of people are victims, we all have to pay for everyone who doesn't feel like having a baby(the majority of abortions)?
Also, being a rape victim is stress enough for a woman, think of the added trauma of an abortion, and people who have worked in social service will back me on this one that no woman EVER forgets that she aborted, even if she has 15 kids afterwards or beforehand, so she may as well carry full term and give the kid a flippin' chance. My word, it's only 9 months of her life, and if she gives it up for adoption, that won't force her into poverty or ruin her life forever. Anything else is playing God.

by fuinseog Mon Sep 08, 2003 11:52

"In the eyes of the law... the slave is not a person." (Virginia Supreme Court decision, 1858)

"An Indian is not a person within the meaning of the Constitution." (George Canfield, Am. Law Rev., 1881)

"The statutory word 'person' did not in these circumstances include women." (British voting rights case, 1909)

"Unpersons who had never existed." (Designation for people purged by the Soviet government)

"The Reichsgericht itself refused to recognize Jews... as 'persons' in the legal sense." (1936 German Supreme Court decision)

"The word 'person,' as used in the 14th Amendment, does not include the unborn." (U.S. Supreme Court decision, 1973)

related link: http://www.geocities.com/livefreecritique/semanoppress.html


How is it that the same women who speak endlessly about how women around the world are valued less than men are shocked to find out that in places like India, out of 8,000 fetuses aborted, 7,999 were female? (2) Why are they surprised to find out that in countries like China, where there is a one-child policy, baby girls are often drowned so that a couple can try for a boy? There is no doubt that circumstances that make a woman even consider having an abortion are traumatic, to say the least. But allowing a man to enter her body and destroy her child is about as effective a solution to her problems as it is when blacks retaliate against racism by burning down their own neighborhoods.

What, then, is the solution? I believe that it begins the moment one stops imitating the "enemy." African-Americans have been oppressed for centuries. It wasn't until the '60's that they really began to make progress. Why? Black pride.

When James Brown started singing, "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud"; when a black man named Muhammad Ali said, "I'm the greatest"; when Jesse Jackson chanted, "I am somebody"; when we grew our Afros and wore ethnic clothing - that's when we began to grow as a people.

I believe that the same could be said for women. As Daphne de Jong stated in "Legal Abortion Exploits Women," "The womb is not the be-all and end-all of women's existence. But it is the physical center of her sexual identity, which is an important aspect of her self-image and personality. To reject its function, or to regard it as a handicap, a danger or a nuisance, is to reject a vital part of her own personhood. Every woman need not be a mother, but unless every woman can identify with the potential motherhood of all women, no equality is possible. American Negroes gained nothing by straightening their kinky hair and aping the white middle class. Equality began to become a reality only when they insisted on acceptance of their different qualities - 'Black is Beautiful.'" (3)

http://www.feministsforlife.org/taf/1994/winter/imitatenemy.htm

by Elizabeth Mon Sep 08, 2003 12:15

Thanks for taking the time and energy to argue with the YD types on this newswire - The way they disrupted the Alliance for Choice press conference was a disgrace. We need to deal with reality in Ireland for a change and stop exporting our dirty work to England.

by Ali la Pointe Mon Sep 08, 2003 13:09

...with decontextualised quotes.

Foetuses are not people and I am not a nazi for saying so. If you thought people were foetuses you would be campaigning first of all for full funeral ceremonies and graves for every miscarriage. Thousands of people would be in mourning every year. And there are many more spontaneous abortions than induced ones.

I could twist a few decontextuelised quotes around to compare anti-abortionists to Pol Pot, but it takes us off the substantive argument.

Your bit about "ethnic" (yuck what terminology) clothes I don't get... I suppose wearing Benneton is part of black liberation too?

"As Daphne de Jong stated in "Legal Abortion Exploits Women,""

As Citizen Duquesne says "Keep your hands off my body, keep your coffee cup off my desk, keep your dog out of my yard, and keep your face out of my bedroom window."

or whetever other random person you want me to quote at you

by Ali la Pointe Mon Sep 08, 2003 15:36 ali_la_pointe at allmail dot net

Thanks. If they're doing that it's because they're fighting a rearguard battle. the contradictions of our present situation are glaring. We just need to keep pushing it forward at this point. Irish women are in a much stronger, more confident position now than they have ever been, as a society we are also more able to look issues squarely in the face, we're dealing with the abusers in the catholic church and we're relegating clerics to their rightful place. While some of these SPUC/LIFe/YD types foray into pseudoliberalism and feign a feminist perspective, it is just sophistry. When the facade crumbles you can see that they hate progressive ideas, especially womens lib. The mysoginist overtones of some of the pro-life contributions above pay testimony to that.

Well done on your meeting. Keep it up. Let's have more like it. It's all moving forward.

A

by fuinseog Tue Sep 09, 2003 01:18

The reason for the quotes about personality is that you seem to think you can declare an unborn child is not a person and the argument ends there.

It is not at all self-evident that personhood starts at birth, as you seem to think (although you have not been clear). And it is an established pattern to deny that those one oppresses are people.

As for miscarriages etc. I certainly know the sorrow friends of mine have had on losing their babies and some have had prayer services. Anyway your argument is like saying "if animals had rights people wouldn't eat them" - it misses the point.

The other paragraphs were another long quote from the referenced site; my apologies if that was not clear. I was very struck by the way you referred to "binding women to their reproductive systems". (Imagine talking about binding black people to their skin colour or gay/lesbian people to their sexual orientation.)

I think the points made in the extract are very interesting. It has to do with understanding the way patriarchy's oppression is internalised. Post-colonial theory and queer theory understandings of internalised oppression are parallel. I quoted because I couldn't put it as well myself. We could probably do with some women's pride.

by fuinseog Tue Sep 09, 2003 01:49

Elizabeth:
" We need to deal with reality in Ireland for a change and stop exporting our dirty work to England."

I couldn't agree more and I'm glad to see you describe abortion in this manner.

Ali:
"While some of these SPUC/LIFe/YD types foray into pseudoliberalism and feign a feminist perspective, it is just sophistry. When the facade crumbles you can see that they hate progressive ideas, especially womens lib."

Oh this must be me. My cunning has been exposed. Damn it my sophistry just isn't good enough. I was pretending to be a radical and you think I'm a liberal! Must get to work on the facade, the plaster is getting loose. My tactic of opressing people by talking politely about liberation will have to be updated.

Now that you have seen through me I may as well come clean. What's happening is the bishops have set up special training courses where cryptofascists like me learn liberal jargon. That's not all! We often pretend to be protestants, Jews, homosexuals, vegans, even women, yes even women who have had abortions. There is even an anti-abortion woman out there pretending to be Roe from Roe v. Wade.

We are then sent out to cause confusion and dissent in the ranks of the righteous by pretending that we believe abortion is wrong just like the death penalty, war or racism. Whatever happens we have to cover up the fact that we really don't care about life, war, death penalty etc. But now you've shown such insight that you can see through us down the fiber-optic cables, we may as well go home and fantasise about patriarchal theocracy from our armchairs.

by Ali la Pointe - proud dad to be Tue Sep 09, 2003 02:57

I want to carry on this discussion. But will be away from the computer for about a week.

I just didn't want you to think I had thrown the towel in.
I'll leave you with this:
You're right, it does centre on when you think life begins. It's a grey area. Who can say with any certainty?
In the absence of certainty, why not give the woman the right to make that assessment?

by fuinseog Tue Sep 09, 2003 19:24

Very gracious of you.

The item is about to fall off the newswire anyway so it may be time to end the thread.

My last comment in response to yours.
Even if you decide that the question of where life begins is up to the mother to decide (and I don't think it is), you still have to identify a point where it is no longer up to her to decide, i.e. a point where society says the child definitely has a right to life. Some might say birth is that point. But children are capable of independent life for quite a while before natural birth (19 weeks gestation is I think the earliest so far). (By independent I mean physically independent; of course human beings aren't capable of effective independence for at least another 7-10 years, and in fact as social animals we are in reality permanently interdependent.) This thing about interdependence is the other thing I would go on about if I had a chance - ecological thinking and so on and the problems with our over-emphasis on personal autonomy.

(Further challenges to 'pro-choice' reasoning may arise from the fact that within the lifetimes of many people reading this it will be probably technically possible to maintain an embryo/foetus outside the womb from conception.)

Enjoy your break from the computer.