O/T - Abortion

An extremely sensitive issue and I'm not sure we can deal with it adequately here.
I would like to say though, that there are many secular and non-religious people against it for various reasons and it should be discussed with that in mind.
To reduce it to a battle between modern enlightenment and religious conservatism is simplistic and false.

 

It's a big step for NI in that it is a big step towards pro-choice. Beyond that there will be people who disagree for religious and moral reasons. Modern thinking has become arrogant in that it assumes that it is always right, it quickly dismisses any traditional or religious thought.

 

The number of girls having multiple abortions is disgusting especially when they're using the procedure as a form of contraception.

[h=1]figures show girls use 'traumatic' procedure as a form of contraception[/h]

• Pro-life campaigners claim they are being 'let down in an appalling way'

By JENNY HOPE
PUBLISHED: 08:45, 25 May 2012 | UPDATED: 01:08, 26 May 2012

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Repeat procedures: Lucy Lannelly was just 12 when she had her first abortion and then further ones at 13, 15, and 16





Thousands of teenagers are having repeat abortions, with some undergoing at least eight terminations.
Latest figures suggest many girls are using the procedure as a form of contraception, with pro-life campaigners claiming they are being ‘let down in an appalling way’.
For one in seven teenagers who had an abortion in 2010, it was not their first.
Out of 38,269 teenagers having terminations in England and Wales, 5,300 had already had at least one, say NHS figures released under the Freedom of Information Act. Three had their eighth abortion, while another two had their seventh.
Four teenagers had a termination for the sixth time, 14 had their fifth, 57 had a termination for the fourth time and 485 went through the procedure for a third time.
Rebecca Mallinson of the Pro Life Alliance said: ‘There is something seriously wrong with a country where teenagers are having even one abortion, let alone repeat abortions to this extent.
‘We are failing these young people in an appalling way, and storing up serious sexual health problems for the future, whether the direct issue of sexually transmitted diseases, [or] the effects that multiple abortions can have on fertility.
‘As to the psychological impact for these extremely vulnerable teenagers, one can only hope they find proper counselling and help as soon as possible.’
The Health Service is spending around £1million a week providing repeat abortions, with each procedure costing up to £1,000, according to data released earlier this month.


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That is true Saint but in my experience the discussion between pro life & pro choice in secular society allows for logical debate about foetal development, education to prevent the need in the first place, contraception. etc. The religious "moral" arguments rule much of this debate out.

Take Nobles list of reasons that declares a bad justification for abortion. I happen to agree with many of them but proposals & schemes put forward by sexual health clinics such as the one opening here can prevent many of the pregnancies in the first place & yet religions campaign & use their power & money to thwart sex education, contraception etc just as much as abortion. Look at the stance of the RC in Africa over contraception, sub Saharan Africa is being decimated by AIDS and only now have they loosened their stance but by doing so raises the question; is a baby conceived & born HIV positive not as much a part of Gods plan as a healthy child? And that's without even discussing the quality of the "life" millions of African children have the right to up until they die of starvation.

There is no logical or sensitive debate. With the rnuts. God planned that life to be, so it is sacrosanct. Ironically when the religious pro lifers get cancer they don't refuse treatment on the grounds that the cancer must also be gods plan...

Up until recently my home town had a GP who in her spare time was high up in one of the religious pro-lifers groups. She refused to prescribe the pill to women as a contraceptive. Now this woman is paid by us the tax payer but is enforcing her religious views on her patients & arguably (apparently not according to the local health authority however) breaking her hypocratic oath. Childbirth may well be natural but it is also a potentially life threatening event for a woman; even in our society.

So I'm all for debate with those secular anti abortion individuals because you will find common ground on how to prevent the situation in the first place & in my experience they also accept that while against it, the choice is at the end if the day the woman's. the secular debate tends to revolve around state funding for the procedures but at the end of the day as bitter as the debate would be, polls suggest a referendum on the subject would come out in favour of the pro choice so state sponsored abortion with its current limits is an exercise in the democratic will of the people. Where I would suggest the funding is withdrawn is if & when a woman has multiple abortions as a "contraceptive" rather than use preventative measures. I don't want to pay for someone else's wilful laziness.

the rnuts leave no room for discussion but isn't it ironic that they are all led by Men? I also find it amusing that the same people have no hesitation on sending the same kids they "saved" off to die in wars 18 years later. Apparently life isn't sacred AFTER birth.

Take the control of a woman's body out of the woman's hands & you control the woman. There is no coincidence that the largest steps forward in women's equality came when woman were able to take control of their own bodies.

 

OK, I'm going to nail my colours to the mast by saying that I consider myself to be a Christian. My faith is built not upon the dogma of denominational organisations but my understanding of a direct relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is a faith because it goes beyond the ability of man to analyse it in scientific terms. I am therefore a little upset by some of the above comments that appear to seek to tar all Christians with the same brush as the extremists or to condemn all Christians as dangerous delusionists. You may not believe and that is your choice but you do not have the right to demean those that do.

Of course I have an understanding of the particular situation in Northern Ireland - you can't be Scouse and not have more understanding then the vast majority of English people (whichever side of the divide you come from). I would argue that the problems in NI are far more complex than religious differences though these are used as a convenient identifier. But back to the problem under discussion.

Yes I do believe that all life is God given. But God works through the human condition which is a very flawed state. Therefore there is no religious or human doctrine (the law) which can determine a single rule that can be satisfactorily applied in all situations. Hence we have to fumble around with compromises and indicators. As a man I cannot dictate to a woman what she should or should not do with her body. I believe that as a society we have the responsibility to help her make her decision with with love and understanding, provide hich standrds of care should she chose termination and counselling services afterwards as termination does not come without cost.

 

So then you can prove that you are right?

 

falling back upon tradition, superstition or imaginary friends

 

Apologies Dave if I sounded like I was tarnishing all people of faith. When I talk of "Rnuts" I'm referring to those extremists in the same way that if I was referring to an "animal rights nut"
It would be the ones that think blowing up a person is acceptable. They're not nuts just because they like cats.

While I don't have any specific faith myself, I've always had an open mind regarding the possibilities of the existence of "something more" beyond our comprehension & I appreciate & respect those that do; in fact I envy that certainty but like in all areas of life; absolute certainty can breed arrogance. I've always found it difficult to reconcile what I believe can only be a very deeply personal relationship with ones deity & the monster institutions that have risen from that very individual beginning.

So I stand by my comments regarding various religious "institutions" or groups in that they are largely run by men & worse by men who are not satisfied with holding their own opinion or relationship with God but insist everyone must share it in exactly their way too. They use the word of god and people's respect/fear of it as a tool to obtain and maintain power.

Now you as a man of faith (you say christian which is a rather wide net that unfortunately is a title claimed by these extremists too) can rightly argue that these people are twisting or distorting your faiths teachings. I would agree as almost all the religions of the world preach tolerance and compassion & yet time & again these men appear to become the leaders of these institutions and issue dictats referencing their faiths texts but its sounds very little like the text I have read. And I believe that people of faith have suffered & died unnecessarily as a result many of them children who's hard fought "right to live" turned out to be 1-5 years of the agony of starvation.

NI like all places dominated by institutional religion is about men vying for power. When religion didn't suit they used nationalism (the small n ideology not the political group; unionism is nationalism too)

And I most definitely stand by my comments regarding institutional religion and women. I firmly believe that the anti abortion stance held by the institutions is about control of women by men & the "sanctity" of life is an excuse. Apparently God gave Free Will to men but many of the religious leaders don't believe he meant to give Free Will to women also. Religions despite the fact they are shared by women are not lead by women. The fact that women participate in the abuse of other women in a very vulnerable state on the say so of men(the leaders) that appear to hold all women in contempt I find very depressing.

A woman of faith will not have an abortion no matter the circumstances because she holds that deep personal faith. If she had lived in China 15-20 years ago I'd have defended her right to keep the child & condemned the state for taking her choice away from her (if it was her 2nd child) it's the same argument.

As I said regarding the OP this is not just an abortion clinic it's a sexual health clinic and the majority of the work they will do is to try and prevent it getting to the debate point. But the same people in NI at least that will be standing outside with placards won't tolerate ANY discussion regarding sex outside of marriage. They have taken doctrine to a ludicrous level & so deserve the title religious nut.

 

I'm not against religious people, per se. I just don't like religions. People can have beliefs but I believe they should be personal, and not forced on anyone. I'm sure there are moderate religious types out there that agree with me on many things. I'm also sure that many 'religious' people would support important things like birth control, sex education and sexual health clinics. Unfortunately, these moderate or liberal religious people are usually the least vocal. This is the reason why debates like this unerring end in a religious debate between extremes of opinion.

 

You missed out grooming young girls for sex in West Yorkshire.

 

Don't start me off...............Rihanna, Beyonce, Will.I.Am, Adrian Chiles, current England football captain...............the list is fu.king endless.

 

Kind of proved my point there, not all traditional or religious thinking is wrong and a lot of it has value and like you say, has stood for a long time. I'm agnostic so don't follow any religion and I would say I'm quite modern in my thinking, I have to sometimes stop and consider the other side of the argument.

 

Frank.
I'm not arguing with anything you've said, I was merely pointing out that it's a complicated moral question that cannot be distilled down to war between modern liberal enlightenment and religious intransigence.
My ex-wife has worked in the health service for decades and found there were many non-religious people (mostly women, btw) involved in abortion clinics who were shocked by what they saw.
The disproportionate amount of political and social power wielded by the church in Ireland brings it into direct conflict with many who want to move the country forwards, but the abortion debate is not served by simplifying it in that way.
The polarization of the argument, i.e: rape on the one hand and abortion as contraception on the other, isn't helpful either in my view.
As with most things, the vast majority of cases are somewhere in the middle and need to addressed individually.
So, whilst I welcome a clinic in NI that treats these cases sympathetically, an abortion-on-demand facility would be a different matter.
As I said before, I'm not sure we can do justice to a such a complex debate on here.

 

frank,

There's no need to apologise. I describe myself as a Christian and acknowledge that such a description comes with a lot of baggage. For me denominational churches are merely social organisations. They have the same strengths and weaknesses as any other organisation. I think the confusion lies where Christians believe in the Church of God (ie the accumulation of believers) which is totally different from those who conform merely to the membership of a denomination. I can't describe it more succinctly as we would then go into a lengthy theological diatribe.

To illustrate the difference in another way. I am a socialist but I am neither a Militant member or a New Labour advocate.

I welcome any organisation that seeks to help the human condition. If we can help to reduce the need for abortion via education and intervention then well and good. However, should abortion be the 'solution' then we must do all in our power to ensure that it is conducted in the best interest of the woman herself.

 

Well, it's a very sensitive issue, as it transcends people's personal opinions on abortion and focuses on a much larger ethical, moral and religious debate.

As far as I'm concerned, life begins in a human when there is evidence of brain activity; at 40 days, or 6 weeks after conception. That is plenty of time for someone to know whether or not they plan on keeping the baby, and as soon as a period is missed the alarm bells should be going off, so "not knowing you're pregnant," isn't a brilliant excuse. Therefore the limit should be strictly set at 6 weeks, anything after that and you're actually depriving someone of life.

Many people ask what the meaning of life is, but quite simply, we are on this earth to procreate and keep the human race going. That is the animalistic basics of our existence, and so to deny that is deny our very reason for being alive.

I do believe the abortion clinics need to be much more selective in determining who they will perform an abortion for, when some girls eventually find out that they can't use these clinics as contraception then they will be much more careful. There is a backlash with every side of the argument though, if we stopped abortions then there would be a sure rise in teenage pregnancies, homemade abortions, unemployment due to maternal responsibility, people collecting the dole and job seeker's allowance. You could argue that the reason we have an economic problem now is because there is a certain class of person that has too many kids and doesn't work to support them, hence setting a precedence that is adhered to by their offspring.

However, I think every case should be viewed on it's merits. Whilst a woman in her 20s might have an abortion to prolong her career, can anyone tell her that she has to cut short her own dreams in order to fulfill her responsibility as a woman? At the same time, she does have a responsibility to a society that she has chosen to include herself in.

 

I think you're probably right

 

I think the core issue is this

- you might not like abortion; hell, I'm pro-choice and I'm not sure I'd like to know someone getting one
- some women might make a choice to take advantage of the system and have multiple abortions
- you might not like that
- regardless, it's not your choice, and you have absolutely no right to tell her that she's wrong.

 

In a nutshell.

 

Sorry, mate. Disagree.
It's much more complex than that.

 

I deliberately didn't mention those particular scenarios in anything I said, because I personally think it's obvious that they should be given the right to abortion, up until the 24th week.