Should the law on abortion be changed?

I believe it is absolutely a woman's right to choose. Childbirth is a horrendous enough process and no woman should be forced to go through that pain and degradation. Do you want to go back to the bad old days of illegal abortions?

I would make it an in/out pay at the door service like having a tooth out.

Hetty please refer to the link I posted at 12.15 and consider what constitutes ‘severe foetal abnormality’. What you have stated is completely incorrect.

It's just using children with disabilities in an unpleasant way I am afraid. I have known families who have had to make that decision, it really is not about perfection.

In Northern Ireland the law changed in 2019 allowing abortion in certain circumstances. This drama over 2 episodes tells the story of the people behind the controversial change in the law
I found it compelling.

Three Families, Series 1: Episode 1:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000w0sl/three-families-series-1-episode-1

I believe in a woman's right to choose. It is very problematic when the baby is near to term, as the current case has shown, but I'm not sure that viability is a good way to judge when to set maximum dates. As medicine improves, younger and younger foetuses might be viable, until the right to decide is removed altogether.

It is the thought of having to make decisions such as this one that makes me pleased I am a nobody who doesn't have a say .

Hetty58

What I find totally unacceptable is:

'if the baby has a disability, including Down's syndrome, cleft lip and club foot, abortion is legal right up to birth'

So, for the viable, but unborn, being less than 'perfect' can be a death sentence.

Where is your evidence for that statement?

What I find totally unacceptable is:

'if the baby has a disability, including Down's syndrome, cleft lip and club foot, abortion is legal right up to birth'

So, for the viable, but unborn, being less than 'perfect' can be a death sentence.

maddyone, I'm sorry but I don't think I've been rude in any of my posts. The point I'm trying to make is that if a woman can make it to full term without knowing she's pregnant, then it's also obvious that a woman may not know she's pregnant until after the legal limit for an abortion. And no form of contraception is 100% effective, not even the morning after pill. But as this thread is proving only too well, people have very strong views on abortion. I'm just saying that while I may not agree with late abortions, I would never judge another woman for having one. Her body, her decision.

Blondiescot
I’ve already said, but you chose to rudely say I didn’t understand, but I assure you I understand only too well, that if a woman doesn’t know she is pregnant, and of course it happens, the baby will be born, usually at term, and it will be alive, not dead. Then the decision of what to do will be made, but I know the vast majority of such women, keep their babies and regard them as a blessing. Even the ones born to very young women, girls really, are then normally supported by their parents. If the woman truly does not want to keep her baby, adoption would be the best solution.

Then again, there’s always the morning after pill. If a person has sex, she knows there’s a possibility of pregnancy, so she should try to ensure she doesn’t become pregnant.

Blondiescot I don’t have any feelings at all about the behaviour of strangers but we live in a society with laws and regulations. We can choose which laws to keep and which to ignore and we should know what the possible consequences are. If we are then found guilty and given a jail term it’s not up to strangers to get emotionally involved in a case which doesn’t have a personal impact - or does it?

margauxbordeaux

I believe that it is a woman´s choice.

NOT the government.

Then the woman should make her choice a long time before 32-34 weeks.
We cannot have viable babies murdered because the woman ‘chooses’ it. And I’m sorry, but my baby girl was born at 34 weeks, it’s simply not acceptable in a civilised society.
24 weeks is the legal limit, unless either mother or baby are too sick to continue the pregnancy. There’s plenty of time to decide on the need for a social abortion.

Curtaintwitcher

This woman was given the pills without having a face to face consultation. This procedure obviously has to change. Her baby was born dead, but if it had been born alive, would she have killed it? It was 'viable', which means it had a good chance of surviving.
No, 16 weeks should be the absolute maximum. A mother feels the baby moving before then...she knows she has a living human inside her.

So how do you explain those situations where a women doesn't even know she's pregnant until she actually goes into labour? It does happen - ask any midwife. I don't necessarily understand it myself, but I know for a fact that it happens - there was a woman in the next room to me on the labour ward when I had my daughter who hadn't a clue she was pregnant until her waters broke.

Germanshepherdsmum

A woman would rather kill a viable baby than have it adopted Blondiescot? And you think that’s acceptable?

I didn't say I found it acceptable, GSM - I don't, as it happens, I still stand by the fact that it's her choice at the end of the day. My feelings shouldn't have any bearing on what another woman decides to do.

I think those of us who have been pregnant know when we first felt our babies move.

Curtaintwitcher No, 16 weeks should be the absolute maximum. A mother feels the baby moving before then...she knows she has a living human inside her.

From the NHS website : When you'll feel your baby move. You should start to feel your baby move between around 16 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. If this is your first baby, you might not feel movements until after 20 weeks. If you have not felt your baby move by 24 weeks.

That’s the route to socially accepted child destruction.

I believe that it is a woman´s choice.

NOT the government.

This woman was given the pills without having a face to face consultation. This procedure obviously has to change. Her baby was born dead, but if it had been born alive, would she have killed it? It was 'viable', which means it had a good chance of surviving.
No, 16 weeks should be the absolute maximum. A mother feels the baby moving before then...she knows she has a living human inside her.

A woman would rather kill a viable baby than have it adopted Blondiescot? And you think that’s acceptable?

maddyone

Blondiescot
This woman did know she was pregnant, which is a pity, because had she gone to term without knowing, she would have given birth to her baby girl and it’s most likely that the baby girl would now be alive instead of dead!

Missing my point entirely...

Blondiescot
This woman did know she was pregnant, which is a pity, because had she gone to term without knowing, she would have given birth to her baby girl and it’s most likely that the baby girl would now be alive instead of dead!

Germanshepherdsmum

In your hypothetical case Blondiescot, the woman will have to give birth whether the baby is dead (because she has qualified for a legal abortion or has taken matters into her own hands) or alive. If alive it has the chance of being adopted by someone who wants it. Either way she has to go through the process of labour, the baby doesn’t magically disappear.

As I said in an earlier response, GSM, I totally realise that, but there can be any number of reasons why a woman might not want to have a child adopted. None of us knows what goes through someone else's head in such a situation. And I don't think any of us have the right to make those decisions on behalf of another woman.
And maddyone, there are frequent cases of women giving birth who didn't even know they were pregnant until they went into labour!

The law should not be changed in my opinion. Twenty four weeks is late enough for anyone. Some babies are aborted later for purely medical reasons and that is allowable in law and perfectly understandable. I’ve changed my position since first learning about this selfish woman’s decision. At first I thought that she shouldn’t have been given a custodial sentence but having considered it, I now agree it was appropriate. However horrible the circumstances of a child’s conception (rape for example) twenty four weeks is long enough to decide that an abortion is the best solution. In fact, the morning after pill is now available, something I would have thought any woman who was raped, or had unprotected sex without really thinking about it (getting carried away when drunk for example) would avail herself of, by getting herself to a clinic, GP, chemist or wherever appropriate in order to make sure that she didn’t become pregnant . Failing that, there’s plenty of time to procure an abortion in the next twenty four weeks. Depression is absolutely not an excuse.

I'm honestly not sure about the dates, but I do think that later abortions to happen in cases such as Blondiescot describes should be allowed.
What concerns me immediately is that finding the two doctors and possibly getting social work or psych evaluations will take far longer than necessary. Also we need to make sure that vulnerable women can go without harassment to clinics and there are now enough clinics. The current minister for women Maria Caulfield voted against protecting clinics (buffer zones) and given free rein limit abortions further.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/maria-caulfield-abortion-ministerial-responsibility-b2217790.html

In your hypothetical case Blondiescot, the woman will have to give birth whether the baby is dead (because she has qualified for a legal abortion or has taken matters into her own hands) or alive. If alive it has the chance of being adopted by someone who wants it. Either way she has to go through the process of labour, the baby doesn’t magically disappear.