The Hit List 2016

bmacca interesting idea and it reminded me of one Germaine Greer once had, only she advocated that all men should be given a vasectomy after donating sperm to a sperm bank. All pregnancies would then be planned pregnancies. Solving a lot of problems in one go!
So true Eleothan and I think some of that comes from the idea that suffering is your own fault and God's punishment for your wrongdoing or even your parent's wrongdoing.

So you believe anniebach that a woman should be forced to continue with a pregnancy which she feels ill-equipped to deal with - whether it be mentally, physically, financially or emotionally, or a comination of all those things?

Some of the very people who are so concerned about the unborn child nevertheless are quite happy to support policies which perpetuate and increase poverty and distress to parents and their children. Their response to families in need is often of the "Well, you shouldn't have had a child you can't afford" variety.

Playing God is a term well used for years and when it is used about doctors it is used with much sympathy

Thanks, annie. Doctors are human and when they make difficult decisions they are making human decisions. They aren't 'playing' at being anything, just being human beings who have to sometimes make very difficult decisions. I don't think the phrase "playing god" is a useful one, ever.

Bags, I was referring to Sodapops concerns over prem babies when I spoke of decisions doctors have to make.

I thought this raised an interesting perspective on unwanted pregnancy/abortion - Gabrielle Blair, a Mormon and mother-of-six, began her series of tweets by claiming that men have “zero interest in stopping abortion” and are almost entirely responsible for accidental pregnancies.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/unwanted-pregnancy-men-abortion-mormon-gabrielle-blair-contraception-twitter-a8541071.html

Spot on, bridgeit and sodapop. There are no absolutes of right or wrong even when it comes to the sacredness or otherwise of human life. I'm not sure I think anything is sacred. Life, the universe, everything, just is.

I don't think deciding one couldn't cope with a severely disabled child (and then adult) is "playing god". It's just being human and realistic.

Of course they weren't Annie but then has anyone the right to condemn a woman to carry a child she feels she cannot cope with? Abortions have always been part of life. At least. now they can be conducted quickly and safely.

It’s certainly a high number Annie and quite shocking really.
Given that it’s never been so easy to have ready access to contraception!

How many abortions could have been avoided we will never know Smileless, but all 185,821 in 2015 were certaintly not caused by rape, serious health problems for the baby and mothers lives at risk.

I agree sodapop that "Just because we can doesn't mean we should" but IMO the survival of premature babies isn't the same as aborting a viable foetus.

There are of course justifiable reasons but a Cleft Palate as mentioned byAnnie can be surgically treated and how many abortions are because of unwanted pregnancies that occur as a result of a consented sexual relationship where no contraception was used?

It’s a such difficult personal emotive subject, I think there are too many variables situations to say one is categorically either for or against .

Sodapop, what a choice for doctors, close to,playing God isn’t ?

I can see a time when any less than perfect child will not be allowed to survive. Leaving aside the cleft palate issue I do think consideration should be given to the parents of children born with disabilities. Not everyone can cope with this physically or emotionally then what happens to the child.
Very premature babies are surviving now with the aid of medical science but often they have major problems requiring life long care. Just because we can doesn't mean we should.

I know someone who did that Baggs and she found she certaintly wasn’t the first. Surely aborting one for this reason cannot be justified .

Where are you getting that information from, annie?

Iam, babies are being aborted because of a Cleft Palate , this surely is just a desire to have a perfect baby

I have a couple of friends who are opposed to abortion on any grounds because of their Catholic faith. None of us would make any attempt to influence the other. I support abortion on the current legal basis. That would include allegations of rape if the mother's mental health is likely to significantly suffer if the pregnancy goes ahead.

Baggs, it's my understanding that very few abortions occur after 20 weeks and those that do, are primarily because the child has such severe health problems it is expected the child will die before, during or soon after delivery. For that reason it seems unlikely to me there will be changes in the law about the timescales for termination.

My reading of the information on possible misuse of gender tests, suggests it usually occurs only in cultures that place a higher value on boys than girl children who may use the blood test that can identify gender, early in pregnancy, so that early abortion can be used if the child is female. So far as I can see, these procedures are only carried out by a small number of private doctors or clinics. It certainly wouldn't be acceptable in mainstream NHS.

There is no denying it is now abortion on demand and I am against this . I didn’t know until this morning a woman can have a blood test which gives the sex of the child. This is available on the NHS but the sex of the baby is not disclosed, for about £200 this test can be carried out privately and the sex of the baby disclosed,

There is an increase in the abortion rate, in 2015, 185,82 qqabortions in England and Wales. Using ‘the woman was raped’ is so wrong to fight the right for abortion on demand

Baggs I don't object to people having other views about abortion, providing they are prepared not to try and influence a woman's decision with disturbing information. I do think it is interesting when people reveal the views they share about things with people they say they admire.

I think the important thing on this issue is to accept that people have different views. It doens't bother me in the slightest that JRM, for example, is totally against abortion in all circumstances. His holding that view is not going to change the law.

The fact that babies are sometimes now 'viable' outside the womb earlier than at 24 weeks might though.

I think it was wrong that Savita Halappanaver was allowed to die when an abortion would have saved her life. I also think that discussing throwing facts at people all the time doesn't help change their minds or convince them that they are wrong when the issue is so bound up with emotions and what to some people are sacred beliefs.

I'm not sure what does. I used to be totally against abortion. Perhaps the one or two Catholic nuns at my school who thought abortion should be allowable after rape, because the horror of rape to them was far worse than the early ending of a forced pregnancy. My wonder at the time was about their willingness to talk about it. At any rate, I changed my mind so now my view is that although a woman's life does not 'trump' a baby's, the fact that she has memories, feelings, life complications already to live with and deal with does, on occasion, mean that what I will call her "life hold" is greater than a not fully formed baby's, in my view.

Well if it is life lemon hundreds of thousands of lives end every day when women have miscarriages. They are personal tragedies for each woman but potential babies who didn't make it, just as an aborted foetus is.

It was your phrase trisher.....although you didn’t seem to consider it as life.

No! Were we really?