Who cares about abortion?

Cogito Ergosum

Parliament has voted, again. Yet nobody believes that arguments will cease.

The abortion issue is about more than abortion: how does the majority persuade a stubborn minority to accept the situation?

and I'll go to bed at noon

This is really poisonous stuff. People who believe abortion should be legally available do not think abortions are "good". I challenge anyone to find a quote from any pro-choice advocate of any significance to back that slander up.

The core of the pro-choice case is that abortions happen anyway, regardless of their legal status, and always have: the choice is between the procedures being carried out under medical supervision in sterile conditions, or some backroom butcher. I can understand disputing that point of view, but this crossed the line. Shame on you.

and I'll go to bed at noon

Also: late-term abortions are incredibly rare, and nearly always performed as the only way of saving the mother's life. Pure propaganda.

At least this should satisfy those of you who think the Spectator is too mushy and progressive.

Richard Marriott

I think there is an unarguable case to limit elective abortion to 18 weeks. How anybody could argue otherwise is completely beyond me.

Naturally, there would have to be safeguards to allow later abortion where there are compelling medical reasons, but other than that - 18 weeks should be it!

David Ossitt

I am the father of three; two girls and a boy, our middle child was born at one week under seven months, she weighed exactly three pounds.

I have very strong feelings on abortion, I categorically defend the right of women to abort an unwanted child, however that right in my opinion should be earned; by the woman making a swift decision.

We, in all of the three pregnancies that my wife had, knew she was pregnant very early on, we knew for certain by four to five weeks; this is why I am firmly of the opinion that the timescale should be halved, from 24 weeks to 12 weeks.

daniel maris

Richard Marriott,

Yes, I think that is sensible. Plus, let's get rid of the hypocrisy and admit that prior to 18 weeks it is simply a matter of the woman's convenience, and junk all the nonsense about it being a medical decision.

Edward Sutherland

All credit to the Spectator for highlighting this issue. Too many people just want to forget about it- after all wasn't it sorted out years ago by those nice liberals David Steel and Roy Jenkins?

Dan Grover

I struggle to care a great deal about this issue; Not due to any ambivalence towards infanticide that I may or may not have (note: I am not ambivalent towards infanticide) but rather because I think it's largely an unanswerable moral quandry for me. Where does life start and where does it end? I might sound like I'm being trite, but every time a baby is conceived, the other 10m sperm, that had the potential for life, fell by the wayside. One didn't. That one sperm needs access to an egg. It also requires an environment in which it can grow and be nurtured into a small human. At what point along that series of necessary events for human life to develop, is it OK to manually intervene to halt its progress? And to what extent is our whole interpretation of the idea of 'death' inspired by our knowledge of what is lost when it is snuffed out - knowledge totally absent in a pre-born baby. Then again, this line of argument extends all the way up to about 4 year olds.

Thus my initial statement.

Jez

People on the whole would these days feel uncomfortable sparking up in a public building- when 10 years ago they would have laughed in your face if anyone suggested this was an unsociable practice for non smokers in the vicinity to endure their second hand smoke (i am indifferent regards smoking in public btw).

People adjusted- their were winners (health) and losers (pub trade etc)

Abortion as a 'quick fix' for many is a 'culture thing'.

If you were to sit down with a perfectly healthy person that is having a baby/pregnant (out of wed-lock that was an accident for instance), offered them attractive incentives or adoption to childless couples then there could be those that would turn their back on terminating their pregnancy.

Peter From Maidstone

Agree entirely with Jez. This is a culture issue, and it is a life is cheap issue. It can be changed. There were a tiny percentage of illegal abortions compared to the 200,000 a year which now take place. It is not a matter of making abortion safe for those women who would have had abortions, it is about making abortion normal. Many women have had multiple abortions even though the process of contraception is not rocket science.

Baron

abortions are but a corollary of our liberalising sex, having convinced the great unwashed that sex is just sex, nothing more than an act of bonking to satisfy one’s lust for the other, however short lasting, a feat of instant gratification of a powerful yet controllable desire, a jab to get abit of a high, why should it be shocking to see abortions reaching for the skies, the ranting about a week here or there will solve nothing.

the thing is procreation is what’s keeping us going as a species, we mess with it through abortions, drugs and stuff at our perils, nature in its wisdom will solve it in the end, worry not.

Edward McLaughlin

and i'll go to bed at noon

"The core of the pro-choice case is that abortions happen anyway, regardless of their legal status, and always have: the choice is between the procedures being carried out under medical supervision in sterile conditions, or some backroom butcher."

On this basis then, rape and murder, which 'happen anyway' would just need to be tidied up a bit - performed in sterile conditions to be made palatable?

Some argument, that.

bojimbo

So , when a woman is raped ................ ?

MaxSceptic

Elective abortion is no-one's business except that of the woman involved.

In order to set the cat among the pigeons, I do, however, believe that abortion and sterilisation (for males and females) should be encouraged and offered gratis to chronic welfare recipients. Perhaps, even a condition of benefits to some.

Officialview

" you’ve got to agree that somewhere along the slippery ascent from that little Alka-Seltzer of pluripotent cells to the birth of an actual baby..."

You've got to agree that somewhere along the slippery ascent from banning abortion to banning contraception....

Benvenuto, il Papa !

andrew

Abortion is a terrible thing. It has far reaching consequences on a surprising number of people not just the baby and the mother. But yes, it is a ghastly necessity but to draw the line.

I think implantation is the critical moment because before that time the collection of cells that may become a person has no chance of independent life.

However laudable a 28 day limit would be it is probably impractical in todays world where there is still guilt and shame attached to unwanted pregnancy. 12 weeks seems workable but it still means a viable person is being killed.

David Ossitt is right speed is the key, and we should try to make it as speedy as possible.

strapworld

bojimbo comes up with the usual shrill, wimins rights, call. You can almost picture the whistle in the mouth!

Like most people I support the womans right to have an abortion BUT I also agree with those that suggest the time limit be reduced. I agree with David Ossitt. Twelve weeks should be the maximum.

The cowardice of Cameron showed both in his treatment of Ms Dorries and his inability to even vote!

I applaud all those MP's from all sides that supported the ammendment last evening. It was lost but the majority opinion in this country was not listened to.

Derek

Dan Grover came close to raising a point which I sense may be the next major theme of rent-a-mob: the right of the sperm to find an egg.

Yow Min Lye

Forget drive-by shootings, drug abuse or other ghetto hazards, abortion is by far the biggest killer of African-Americans.

daniel maris

Dan Grover,

On the issue of infanticide, it's interesting to note that we do have special legislation in respect of the homicide of infants. The legislation was brought in, in the 1920s I believe, because there was unease about women (many with post natal depression) being accused of murder, and facing the death penalty when they killed their infants. The law provided for lesser penalties.

So even after birth, society does make some distinctions in terms of the value of human life.

Chris

I was actually finding this an interesting post until I read:

"They’ll go to the wall to save a chicken-killing fox from hounds, but sod the babies."

You just called them babies and completely begged the question.

Why is it that so often the 'pro-life' supporters just can't help inserting their own opinions as if they're fact?

Ruby Duck

PfM : "it is a life is cheap issue"

That would be innocent life. The guilty are worth so much more ...

TomTom

So the NHS spends £60 million on private-sector abortionists but almost completely outsources Dentistry and Opticians from the NHS. IVF is rationed by postcode, but abortions seemingly not.

Abort 200,000 annually and import 250,000 annually from outside the EU to re-populate the country.

Fascinating strategy, does it have any logic ?

Peter From Maidstone

I don't support a woman's right to have an abortion because it involves several other people.

But in the real and present world any reduction in the time limit is better than nothing. What is required is re-education and the renewal of our national culture based on Christian values of respect for life - both respect for our own lives and respect for that of others.

BrianSJ

Elective killing is no-one's business except that of the killer involved.
Really?

Holdsworth

Great credit to Mary Wakefield and the Spectator for raising this challenging issue. Somehow abortion has become acceptable, with the mainstream consensus being that it is always 'a woman's right to choose'. But can this really be right, especially in the later stages?

I warn you that I am going to be graphic here. But proper understanding and decision-making requires facts.

Abortion is about destroying very young babies with chemicals, blades, scissors and suction machines. It is appalling. Those who want to be fully informed should be apprised of the details: how developed the babies are, the high likelihood of pain during this violence, and so on.

Mostly abortion is not about the mother's health (I'm speaking as a doctor); it has become a form of contraception in the majority of cases. In fact a recently published systematic review in the British Journal of Psychiatry stated that abortion is actually harmful to the mother's mental health: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21881096

The debate needs to be opened up again.

This issue is fundamentally about separating sex from reproduction and downgrading the value and seriousness of sex. Since the 60s certain sections of society have very successfully sold the lie that individuals can have sex with lots of partners without the possibility of pregnancy. But failures of contraception are common - certainly above 1% as a conservative estimate - and thus the consequence of the dangerous idea that sex can be casual (ie. outwith loving, stable relationships open to children) is huge numbers of unintended pregnancies, and mass carnage of our young.

Sex within longstanding relationships open to having children is safe. Sex outwith this context has a lot of potentially negative consequences. Just putting a condom on - the panacea advocated by many agencies - doesn't change this essential truth.

Olaf

A quick Google brings up the information that the earliest surviving baby was born at 21 week and 6 days gestation. I think the fact that some babies survive (few thought it may be) below the current termination limit means that 24 weeks is too late for an elective abortion.

18 weeks is a tricky one. At the moment 18 weeks is when women are tested for some major congenital defects including Downs Syndrome.
These tests can't be carried out earlier right now. So if lowering the limit to 18 weeks do you allow a women with a foetus which has been tested positive for a congenital abnormality to have an elective abortion after 18 weeks?

I'm not arguing against 18 weeks necessarily just pointing out one issues to complicate things. Neither do I have an answer which I would be comfortable with.

The only idea I can sensibly come up with is that the abortion limit should automatically move back with the date of the earliest healthy surviving baby. If you can be born at 21 weeks, survive and grow into a healthy child then I do not think it can argued that a 21 week old foetus is not yet human.

LibertarianLou

The premature baby aspect to this is actually interesting. The argument seems to be that terminating a life before it can survive independently of the mother is morally ok. What happen if technology develops so that younger and younger foetuses CAN survive independently of their mother?

Anyway the whole thing is rather subjective and ultimately I don't think the state should be legislating when life does or doesn't begin. It should be decided by doctors and the medical profession. But if medical science gets to the point where babies can survive at, say, 20 weeks (no idea if this is possible or feasible), then perhaps we will all have to rethink.

Well done to the Spectator for having a proper discussion about it anyway.

LibertarianLou

"There were a tiny percentage of illegal abortions compared to the 200,000 a year which now take place."

Not indifferent to this argument but how many unwanted, abandoned babies were there before abortion was legal? How many CHILDREN who had already been born starved or died because they were just dumped somewhere by a mother who could not/would not care for them, and there was no-one who would?

Sir Everard Digby

Difficult to reconcile this;taking any life is morally wrong,yet in the UK capital punishment is not legal but abortion is within certain limits?

Society must have a view on the basic moral position and surely both the above positions should not co-exist? That they do, indicates some degree of moral ambivelence which simply exacerbates the debate on abortion.

Perhaps society should answer the basic question first -is it morally right to take life? If it is,apply the moral standard consistently.

Magnolia

I read Mary's article and the bit that upset me the most was the late abortion for club foot.
Are we so callous as a society that we will kill a big foetus for club foot?
We have all seen how active our limbless soldiers and Oscar Pistorius are with modern day false limbs. The technology will only get better in this field.
Years ago I did a stint in a false limb unit.
A slim older man came in and looked quite at home. He then proceeded to walk normally acros the room and I wondered why he was there. Then he took his trousers off. He had a mid thigh amputation and a false leg with a jointed knee. The reason why he was so able was because he had lost his limb as a young man during the second world war. Young minds and bodies are very adaptive.
I was recently greeted at a NT property by a young women with one hand missing and there were no issues at all. I have also been served on the food checkouts in M&S by a man with only one arm. In both cases I admired their bottle and the service was excellent.
If we kill because of imperfections on the scans then we will also kill so much more.
There is no scan which can tell us about personality or intelligence level within the normal range.

General Zod

I was brought up Catholic and taught to oppose abortion in all circumstances, but I had a good education, learned to think for myself and came to the view that early abortions on an elective basis are, while regrettable, something that women should be free to choose to undertake. Like David Ossitt though, I would limit elective abortion to 12 weeks. There is no sufficient excuse, short of a medical emergency for performing an abortion later than this. That it is legal to perform an abortion after the point at which a live birth is viable is unacceptable to me.

Peter From Maidstone

LibertarianLou, what you are saying is that if a child has a difficult upbringing then it is better that it had been killed. This argument can be extended in any direction. It can include old people. disabled people, stupid people, unemployed people and lib dems.

The greatest humans have often been those who have overcome adversity. Indeed our humanity is formed by experiencing and overcoming difficulties.

There were certainly not, to answer your specific point, 200,000 absolutely unwanted children born each year before abortion was made legal. There were certainly, as there are now, pregnancies which were inconvenient. But inconvenience (which is the greatest cause of abortion in the UK) is not a reason for taking someone's life.

A proposition that there were 200,000 absolutely unwanted and unloved children born each year would produce 4 million unwanted children every 20 years. I don't believe that it is likely statistic, and in any case is irrelevant to the question of whether an unborn child should lose its life or not.

My own family have fostered children for 50 years dealing with many parents, some did not want their children, many more had difficulties caring for their children, and there were always a great many unsatisfied potential adoptive parents who wanted to care for these children.

Will a child be loved and nurtured is not a measure of whether a person should have life or not. It is not for one person to make that judgement on behalf of another, especially when the decision is based on convenience. I have teenage daughters, they have friends, I know that the main decision for abortion in this age group is convenience.

Olaf

someone did mention it but I think the alternative of having the child and putting it up for adoption could be promoted more. As a happily adopted individual I doubt I would be born in with current social attitudes or I would have been born unwanted to an unwilling mother. the promotion of adoption rather than the current attitude of keeping a baby with the birth mother, however unsuitable is going to be a more sensible and dare I say moral alternative.

I'm ignoring the obvious white elephant which is that prevention of pregnancy in the first place makes everything easier.

LibertarianLou

Peter from Maidstone

I wasn't saying that, as I wasn't saying anything, I was asking a question ;-)

IF an unborn child does constitute a life then I agree your logic is correct. IF life does not actually begin at conception then it does not.

It is your opinion, not the opinion of medical science or any objective official consensus, that life begins at conception.

Therefore what we are talking about is people doing something that you personally believe constitutes a murder, not an actual murder.

I happen to personally feel that life does begin at conception and agree that an abortion is a termination of a life. I recognise though that this is my personal opinion, and others have a different ones, which they are entitled to. Therefore I can decide not to have an abortion myself. But I can't expect others to agree with me about where life begins - until, of course, medical science says so.

I think the best thing to do is for the scientific and medical community's support to be gained. If they simply cannot demonstrate that life really does undisputably begin at conception, however, it remains a matter of personal morality and opinion.

david smart

Baron is right,the Abortion debate is a nonsense, the pro abortion industry has won through many years of the acceptance by society that the normalisation of abortion for non medical reasons has become the main reason.In our convenience is all society this is just another adjunct to the Tesco-isation of consumerism,abortion,including the morning after pill,is just another convenience shopping stop.Have sex on Tuesday night without protection "just cos I was drunk",get the pill on Wednesday morning, sorted!.
Until we find a way to treat sex as a gift to enhance our lives with the provision that we act responsibly,rather than a recreation without consequencies we'll end up with many more than just hundreds of thousands but eventually millions a year.

LibertarianLou

David Smart

Why would you have sex because you want to get drunk? And why a Tuesday, of all nights?

Do you actually know any women who've had abortions as you seem to be imagining a bit of a caricature rather than a real woman here. All sorts of different women have abortions - married mothers, sometimes, for instance.

Magnolia

I think we have abortion on demand because it suits The Treasury.
The disabled can be very expensive for the state and no one will know this better than our Prime Minister.
If we didn't have abortion, would all the unwanted babies really be adopted or would couples rather devote their efforts and money into trying for a baby of their own via IVF and if there were heaving childrens homes then wouldn't that be a burden on the state as well?
If women had more babies than just the planned ones then they would be poorer (less lovely VAT for The Treasury from all that discretionary rubbish) and less able to work (less income tax) due to more unaffordable child care and heavier domestic time commitments.
The state wants it's citizens to have freely enjoyable sex and to not have to suffer the consequences because it's in it's best financial interests....or is it?
Abortion is just another way of raising taxes.

Pete Wass

The great con is that pro-abortionists label themselves, and are allowed to get away with labelling themselves, "pro-choice".

The woman exercises her right to choice when she engages in intercourse. Pregnancy is not a choice, but a consequence of choice. The tragedy is that so many are willing to allow the termination on demand (and let's not pretend that it is not on demand) of a life to allow the woman to avoid the consequence of her choice.

LibertarianLou

Pete Wass

Have you ever had an abortion? Of course it's not on demand. You need the consent of two different doctors.

Pro-choice means the right to choose whether to continue with a pregnancy. That it should be legal and safely done. Sorry but that's what it means, whether you decide to believe it means something else or not.

You can indeed be pro-choice but believe abortion isn't something you'd ever do yourself.

It's all about respecting that fact that it is possible to have a different moral view and on balance come to a different moral conclusion than you do yourself without being a corrupt "pro-abortionist" or something.

LibertarianLou

Just to clarify women should only ever have sex if they want that man's child?

I think that's pretty ridiculous to be honest.

MaxSceptic

Notable that most commentators here are both male and opponents of abortion.

Until men are able to fall pregnant and give birth - with all that it entails - I would leave the decisions on this subject to the people truly affected by it: women.

Yow Min Lye

LibertarianLou - on the basis of your argument that abandoned children might have been better off being aborted the the world would have been robbed of the superlative talents of Charlie Chaplin, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Norman Wisdom.

David Lindsay

Nadine Dorries, defender of council housing from David Cameron, although quite wrong to blame the Coalition's anti-conservative policies on the Lib Dems as if Cameron and most of the rest of her Commons co-partisans were not of exactly the same views?

Or Marie Stopes, author of extravagant, versified love letters to Hitler? Marie Stopes, who disowned her own son because he married a woman who wore glasses. Marie Stopes, who campaigned for the compulsory sterilisation of "the C3 population", of "half-castes" and of "revolutionaries", among numerous others. Marie Stopes, who opened dozens of clinics in working class areas to reduce the number of "undesirables" by persuasion if force were politically impossible.

Yet those clinics now retain the right to "counsel" women considering the abortions that they have a gigantic financial interest in ensuring go ahead. They still carry the name of Marie Stopes. Our televisions now carry their adverts. Our 50p stamps have recently carried her image. And we all carry the shame.

The sole right to counsel in relation to abortion remains reserved to the commercial providers of abortion. A Conservative MP demands that places of worship which refuse to host same-sex "weddings" lose their right to conduct weddings at all. And there turns out to be hardly any of the legally required Christian collective worship in state schools that Margaret Thatcher tried to abolish until an all-party alliance in the House of Lords managed to beat her. Look out for her desired transformation of Sunday and Christmas Day into ordinary shopping days on which the lower orders can therefore be required to work. How the years are rolling back. Ed Miliband, over to you.

dorothy wilson

LibertarianLou: Perhaps. But if they have sex with someone whose child they do not want they should be responsible enough to use contraception.

Pot Head

Abortion makes no difference to the number of children born in Britain.

Edward McLaughlin

MaxSceptic

Firstly, you are mistaken in thinking that you know what sex any of the people here may be. They call themselves what they want.

Beyond that, you are wrong to assert that abortion is a matter which only affects women - it has affected the whole nation in that we have been robbed of massive sectors of the last few generations.

We famously bemoan the fact that we are 'an ageing population', but what did we expect when the average age is skewed by the practice of snuffing-out millions of what would have become young people?

We repeatedly and increasingly, give voice to the realisation that our country is being inhabited by foreigners. If we had allowed our own young people to live and to flourish, then there would not have been such an opening for the foreigners to fill (because basically any economy has to find new hands, feet and mouths from somewhere and, as we chose to slice and sluice ours into a nice shiny bucket, what else is there to be done about the shortage?)

You can recommend what you like and I will continue to defend the rights of those who are affected by it through no fault of their own: our yet to be born children.

Cameron Riddle

Edward McLaughlin

'and i'll go to bed at noon

"The core of the pro-choice case is that abortions happen anyway, regardless of their legal status, and always have: the choice is between the procedures being carried out under medical supervision in sterile conditions, or some backroom butcher."

On this basis then, rape and murder, which 'happen anyway' would just need to be tidied up a bit - performed in sterile conditions to be made palatable?

Some argument, that.'

Rubbish. The argument is perfectly sound and the comparison you make absurd. No sane person should argue that abortion should not be basically legal. At least then it is safe and less likely to cause greater harm. The same cannot be said of rape and murder.

Cameron Riddle

"I don't support a woman's right to have an abortion because it involves several other people."

The one most affected, depending on the stage of the pregnancy, is her. The fact that it may (I say 'may' quite deliberately)
'involve' other people is of limited significance.

"But in the real and present world any reduction in the time limit is better than nothing. What is required is re-education and the renewal of our national culture based on Christian values of respect for life - both respect for our own lives and respect for that of others."

"Christian values of respect for life - both respect for our own lives and respect for that of others."?!

When did these exist?

Max

Christopher and Peter Hitchens may disagree on many arguments, but basically they are on the same side when it comes to abortion. They are both pro-life.

' that creature inside the womb is not "human life", I hear often. But if it is not human life, then what else is it? ' said Christopher.