Repeal the 8th

A foetus is part of the mother's body until it can exist independently. Theres so many scenarios where women should have a choice - mental or physical health of the mother, rape or incest, very young girls. Are people who wish women to be denied abortion prepared to foot the bill for caring for such mothers and children for many years to come? Are they campaigning for the lives of children around the world already born whose lives are threatened by war or poverty? If not, they are hardly pro-life.

Alas, some women of older generations did not accept unwanted pregnancies and the solution for them was back street abortion. My grandmother’s sister for example, whose health was ruined due to such a procedure.
Allow the women who chose to have abortions to be safe. We can’t speculate on the reasons why unless we have personal knowledge of these reasons.

Paddyann, no one has said anyone has a right to have a child. I gave birth to two babies who died immediately after birth. They were so beautiful and perfectly formed . I had one baby born five weeks early, beautiful and perfectly formed. Thank God she lived.

If woman should accept being unable to have a baby like older generations did, then should women accept unwanted pregnancies as older generations did ?

Exactly gmelon

so why should women who are pregnant be baby making fatcories for women who cant have them? I'm a woman who had several miscarriages and lost babies...BABIES who were fully formed and well over 24 weeks and I wouldn't expect ANY woman to carry a baby to full term and hand it over to me ..that is plainly rediculous.
The issue is women who believe that having a baby is a RIGHT when it is in fact a privilege and not all can have them..maybe they should accept that ,like older generations did

The whole abortion act/law needs tightening up.
Yes make it legal in Ireland.
Then make it far more serious an undertaking.

I have known many women who have had abortions, and none of them used abortion as a method of contraception or took the decision without a great deal of soul searching. It's a traumatic experience but for many desperate women better than the alternative. We can't judge what others do unless we have walked in their shoes as they say!

I think we have to remember that every time a woman gives birth she puts her own life at risk. We nearly lost one of our daughters during childbirth, a healthy strong young woman, a perfectly healthy pregnancy, but if it hadn't been for an emergency operation by a consultant she would have died.

Every time you try and force woman to continue with an unwanted pregnancy you are asking her to risk her own life.

A woman should not have to be put in that position because someone else might want the baby.

As the mother of someone who had 14 failed IVF attempts over a twenty year period, one was paid for by the NHS. Who tried to adopt a baby but the adoption agencies only had older children in care .

And the aunt of someone who fosters children in long term care and has had serious damage done to his house, starting fire, smashing windows, not because the children were naughty but damaged ,and he still continues to foster them, he and his wife having being blessed with four healthy daughters, i assure you adopting a baby is almost impossible. Why do so many travel to other countries to adopt. Not all couples are able to have their own babies today, I have sat in many IVF clinics with women who have had failed IVF

It is an awfully complex decision to have an abortion, and the major of us here have never had to make that decision. A member of my family did, not a single mother by the way, it took days of soul searching. It is not just taking a tablet several hours apart, in front of a nurse. It is coming home and sitting on the toilet for hours, in pain with feelings of guilt juxtaposed with relief.

Please have some compassion for these young women, accidents do happen even whilst taking contraception.

A decision to terminate your unborn child's life is not undertaken lightly or easily.

REPEAL THE 8TH

But with more and more improvements in fertility treatments, and in some cases it is provided for on the NHS, lots of people are able to have their own babies these days, rather than adopt. Even in same sex relationships, with surrogacy and sperm donors, couples are able to have their own biological children these days. There are already lots of babies bought up in the care system, it's not as simple as just getting them adopted.

Annie if you think an unborn child should be protected then you would also be prepared to prevent pregnant women from doing anything which could endanger the foetus's life, such as smoking, drugs (legal as well as illegal) drinking or taking part in dangerous activity?

Babies paddyann, babies

then why are there so many in care annie .Bringing more into the world to see them suffer in care is a disgusting idea.My aunts were brought up in childrens homes when their mother died ,my father sent to live with a neighbour at 12 ....anyone who sees the effects of this for the rest of their lives wouldn't say put a feotus first .The life thats here takes precedence

There are so many women longing to adopt a baby paddyann

We shouldn’t protect a child until it can breath on it’s own?

Or we should say we should remain silent if a mother hurts her child after the child is born?

Either way lives will be destroyed, so like niggly I think it is a conundrum

I don't believe I have a right to police anyone else's body, be she pregnant or not, Nigglie. It's not for me to say that another woman must carry a pregnancy to term, it's a decision for her own conscience, not yours or mine.

that depends whether you believe life starts at conception or birth.MOST abortions are carried out before viability so incompatible with life.As others have pointed out late abortions are ONLY carried out in extreme circumstances .they are not an everyday occurence nor are they used to "get rid" of unwanted children.
I always ask folk who say they are anti abortion if they would be prepared to take on the children themselves IF the mother was forced to carry full term.I think you all know the answer.They want to control the mother but without the responsibility of what happens afterwards to the child .That is not acceptable .

Sorry, Botox!

But it's not just policing your own body like deciding on a hair colour, or a body tuck, bit of botex, or something like that, you're actually policing two bodies which is why it's such a conundrum.

I hope the Eighth is repealed today. I don't believe anyone should have the right to police anyone else's body. It's not a decision for anyone else to take.

Perhaps consider how far this has gone in some other countries where abortion is highly restricted. inews.co.uk/opinion/women-sent-prison-miscarriage-stillbirth/

That absolutely sums it up up annie. Complicated issue indeed.

It a complicated issue, a woman’s right v a right to life.

On the point of late abortions, I think it's important to consider that only 0.1% of abortions take place in the UK past 24 weeks. This isn't done out of choice by the mother, but has to be have medical reasons. I also think it's important to consider that most of the women are single parents, many won't feel they have another choice. What alternatives will some have? To raise a child they can't afford? And what if she is already has children to raise and is struggling to afford them? To raise a child without the fathers involvement? To give the child up? That would potentially be adding another 100,000+ children per year to an already far too stretched social services.

Of the women I know who have terminated a pregnancy, it has not been an easy choice, and for many they have not wanted the abortion. I suppose the easy solution is that people don't have sex unless willing to procreate, but that is never going to happen is it. And then there are the women who get pregnant even using contraception. It's a really complicated issue. But ultimately I think it has to be the woman's choice. The 'right' of an unborn human should not take precedent over a living human.

WTF ?