An Emotive subject but what do you think?

[fallen-archie]

I refer to todays ruling in the High court which said that the Abortion Laws in the Northern Ireland was in breach of human rights. To the fury of pro life groups, Marie Stopes and the Catholic Church who will now challenge the ruling.

I find it sad that this subject is kicked around like a football (It's the same in parts of the US) If your Daughter were raped or subject to the abuse of an incestuous relative, or the foetus was not viable Surely it is humane and reasonable for the victim to have the right to choose termination. It is important for a compassionate society to protect abuse of the unborn but really should not common sense prevail?

[cee-dee]

Quite right. Also, if the expected child is going to be unwanted by one or other of it's parents, which is worse, abortion or getting the baby knocked about or even murdered?

[evoman3957]

Beats me why so many religious types get so het up about it, when GOD doesn't give a toss either way..........he'd let them all be born and starve to death............Yeh Yeh Yeh and can hear all the pathetic religious excuses already.

[upthecreekyetagain]

I have mixed feelings on the subject - if it is simply an unwanted pregnancy then I see nothing wrong with a woman deciding to have an abortion.

Where I do have a problem is if an abortion is carried out as a matter of selection, aborting a male foetus because the parents want a girl or vice versa or carrying out an abortion because the child may be disabled.

I'm not sure of the logic behind this other than the the thought that ending an otherwise wanted pregnancy because a child may be born disabled or of the 'wrong' sex somehow devalues those that are born with a disability or a particular gender.

[al**bear]

The anti-abortion lobby in Northern Ireland believe they are above the law, they are very radical and the PSNI allow them to flout Court orders, that are meant to keep them away from being right outside the doors and hassling People trying to go in.

I can see trouble ahead

But this ruling may make the PSNI take real action

Hope so

[al**bear]

Fallen Archie

Why would Marie Stopes International want to appeal ?

They won the case

[soppysofty]

If I murder a baby that is one day old then I am vilified and sent to prison for a long time and quite rightly so.

If I murder the same baby 2 days earlier that is OK?

The main reason IMHO that society is going to hell in a bucket is our total lack of respect for human life.

In the womb is where it all starts.

Just think, if your parents had decided that you where going to be a 'nuisance' as a baby then it is a strong possibility that you would not be reading this now.

Either life is sacred and we do all that is within our power to preserve it and give it value or life sucks and who cares.

You cannot have it both ways.

[margaret*e]

I don't think abortion on demand is right, but in some of the circumstances mentioned in the op I agree with it.

Not if a baby is a nuisance, but what if your parent was the father of the baby, with all the risks that entails.

[soppysofty]

I sincerely hope that my parents had something to do with me arriving in this world!

[margaret*e]

Me too, but that isn't what I said.

[tommy.irene]

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@evoman3957 wrote:

Beats me why so many religious types get so het up about it, when GOD doesn't give a toss either way..........he'd let them all be born and starve to death............Yeh Yeh Yeh and can hear all the pathetic religious excuses already.

---

We are talking about Ireland here..Its full of religious types on both sides ... If you have sex take a pill to stop having children.. I got the nick years ago..Am fireing blanks now..

[evoman3957]

People have become so good at making decisions about other people lives and postulating about what they should or shouldn't do, when it might benefit them greatly to take a look at their own lives and improve on their own less than perfect existences and family hang ups. Until you truly can put yourself in others shoes, you'll never really understand the deep problems a particular scenario might cause for them directly and their extended families. Maybe I've just been through life, having to deal with people who have got serious hang ups, for one reason or another; hang ups that have prevented them ever finding true happiness & peace of mind, hang ups that in a lot of cases were no fault of their own. To grow up as a happy, functioning, Human Being, when you have to say that your Grandfather is also your Father; or that you don't know your Father, because your mother was raped, is going to prove a serious drawback to you ever finding happiness or functioning properly. Children who are the product of Paedophile relationships, or incestuous relationships, or sex slave relationships, are very unlikely to go through life; without wishing they'd never been born at some stage. On a wider stage, all the Girls kidnapped for breeding purposes; by Boco Haram, or IS ,are going to be producing Babies that are either earmarked to be trained as the next generation of terrorists; or just unwanted offspring, in countries where breeding and survival rates are abysmal. So before everybody postulates about their perceived moral beliefs, it might be worth remembering that everything breeds.......Pigs, Dogs, Chimps, Birds, Fish, etc. etc. the difference is Human Beings are supposed to be able to THINK & REASON about what they are doing and rectify their mistakes ( if possible ).

Above, I haven't even covered those cases where serious medical conditions, or health risks are involved..........so that needs to be added to the thought and reasoning process.

[jd.linklater]

I don't agree with selective abortion in general eg if a foetus is shown to be not the sex you wanted, that is totally unacceptable in my view.

But I agree wholeheartedly with Archie's original post. Any girl/woman who has been raped or been the victim of incest and become pregnant as a result should not be compelled to bring such a child to term. The same should apply to any woman who has received a scan result showing without doubt that the child will be deformed or have long term health problems.

[soppysofty]

As of today one in 4 people born will contract cancer.

Should we terminate one in four pregnancies to be on the safe side?

Life is a Divine Gift, not a Divine Right.  We do not have the authority, knowledge or power to decide who lives and who dies.

Nor do we have the Divine Right to decide when and how any person should die.

Life is God's gift and, as such, is His to give or take.

We have spent the last 35 years messing with God and, God being the gentleman He is, has left us to it.

Why can't we learn from our mistakes and admit that God was right all along?

[jd.linklater]

While I respect your beliefs, as a non-Christian I cannot agree with them. To you life is a divine gift, to me every life form on the planet is a collection of animated atoms and nothing more. None of us arrived where we are today through divine intervention, we are all built from materials that have been around since before the earth was formed and when we reach the end of what we refer to as life, we will once more become at one with the earth from which we came. And so the cycle continues. 

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

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@soppysofty wrote:

As of today one in 4 people born will contract cancer.

Should we terminate one in four pregnancies to be on the safe side?

Life is a Divine Gift, not a Divine Right.  We do not have the authority, knowledge or power to decide who lives and who dies.

Nor do we have the Divine Right to decide when and how any person should die.

Life is God's gift and, as such, is His to give or take.

We have spent the last 35 years messing with God and, God being the gentleman He is, has left us to it.

Why can't we learn from our mistakes and admit that God was right all along?

---

But, really, we should not have any medical care then, should we?  That is messing with God too, surely?  You can't have it both ways.  No contraception, no terminations ... but no life-saving interventions either.  

[cee-dee]

[upthecreekyetagain]

---

@soppysofty wrote:

If I murder a baby that is one day old then I am vilified and sent to prison for a long time and quite rightly so.

If I murder the same baby 2 days earlier that is OK?

The main reason IMHO that society is going to hell in a bucket is our total lack of respect for human life.

In the womb is where it all starts.

Just think, if your parents had decided that you where going to be a 'nuisance' as a baby then it is a strong possibility that you would not be reading this now.

Either life is sacred and we do all that is within our power to preserve it and give it value or life sucks and who cares.

You cannot have it both ways.

---

"If I murder a baby that is one day old then I am vilified and sent to prison for a long time and quite rightly so"

An interesting point and as an atheist a more difficult 'question' than for someone who believes in a God.  If you believe in God then the sanctity of human life is a given but as an atheist when does 'life' really become something 'sacred'?

Few, if any of us, can remember anything that we experienced at an early age so let me put forward the argument that termination, murder, (call it what you will), of a child at a very early age is not as big a 'crime' as it would be if the individual had reached the age of self awareness and reasoning.  Is such an end to life any worse than if that life had never started?

In real terms I know that when I die that's it - it ends.  It's that awareness of death that actually makes living worthwhile and is what has sown the birth of religion.  Life would have little purpose other than self gratification if we were not aware that we would die.  A foetus in the womb and a babe in arms do not have that awareness and whilst possibly distressing for those involved their death is very little different than if it had never started.

Of course all that totally ignores the effect such deaths and abortions have on society as a whole.  It is because we are aware of the potential for meaningful life that 'society' has moral objections.  My objections to selective abortions, (wrong gender, disablity etc.), is based on the damage and the possible threat they pose to society as a whole and individuals in that society - where an abortion is carried out because the woman didn't want to get pregnant and doesn't want to carry it to full term poses no threat to society and is purely the mother's choice - little different than if contraception had been used.

[Anonymous]

My reply isn't specifically only for you Creeky, so that you know.

So here is my story and it might show another side of the coin for some.

My daughter became pregnant. It wasn't planned. She was in a relationship, but not a good one. She still lived at home. My daughter didn't want an abortion. She absolutely loves babies and children. Kids love her, she is like a magnet for them. Always has been. She always said that she wanted 4 to 6 kids.

The only reason she would ever have an abortion is if her baby would be disabled. She always said so.

Ok that was her choice, so no matter how bad the relationship she was in she was going to have the baby and they would just have to live with us. So her decision had a knock on effect on the whole family. But we respected her wishes even though I had my reservations about the wisdom of it all. We were going to support her.

Nine months later she had her baby girl. We were all happy with the new arrival. 17 days later it was discovered the baby was born with half a heart and needed immediate surgery. A couple of months later another small one. At 8 months she needed a big complicated operation. It should have gone ok, but a mistake of the surgeon put her on life support and she died at 10 months old after 2 months in intensive care.

This heart defect should have been noticed at the 8 week scan and the later scan. They didn't pick it up. This should not have happened. It took away the choice my daughter would have had to abort a baby who had little chance of survival in the long run.

The pain it caused my daughter to have her baby and see it die I can't even start to describe. In a couple of months it will be 3 years ago. My daughter will have to live with this the rest of her life.

An abortion would have saved her from this terrible trauma.

If people think it is a good idea to bring a disabled child into the world might want to think hard of all the implications for the parents and the child itself. My daughter's little girl would have been in and out of hospital all her life for as long as she might have lived. The sword of Democles would be hanging over our heads ever day, not knowing how long she would be with us. Every day could be her last.

If you chose that situation it's up to the individual, but I do believe we need to have the choice.

[cee-dee]

I support your stance 100%.