the case of savita- i am a bit confused

[MrMan]

I think that if we are to allow women choose on whether to abort or not, it should be about giving the right to choose, and not because women already go to the UK, or to avoid illegal/dodgy abortions taking place. We shouldn't just fall into line with our neighbours just because we fear that we look backward or hypocritical, we should do it if the public democratically want it.
Calling Ireland hypocritical for 'exporting our problem' is nonsense, because every country decides its own laws.

 

[Bronte]

Calling Ireland hypocritical for 'exporting our problem' is nonsense, because every country decides its own laws.

I'm going to take issue with this MrMan. Ireland does not allow abortion in rape, incest, where a mother's health is in danger or where there are fatal foetal defects. So what is it these women have to do? What do you think these women should do?

What do you think GP's, obstetricians and gynaecologists tell women who are in those situations above to do? Do you think they give them the phone number of a clinic in the UK, and if they do, is that not us being hypocritical.


You realise that there is in Liverpool a room for husband and wife that accepts Irish women, and is known as the Irish suite and that in that hospital they carry out abortions only with the medical records from Ireland. Those abortions are not about abortion as a personal lifestyle choice.

What is hypocritical is that we do in fact export our problem. Do you not think circa five thousand women going to the UK (and elsewhere) is exporting the problem?

If we followed through on basicaly zero abortion we should legislate that no women who is pregnant should have the right to travel to the UK for an abortion, then we could return to women literally trying to self-abort (knitting needles), back street abortions, killing babies after birth and burying them secretly. As we no longer have the Magdalene (for the poor women) and the other birthing centres (for the middles classes), if we didn't have the UK release valve we would be going back to Joanne Hayes and Anne Lovett. Is that what the anti-abortions anytime people want?

Don't you think that we should allow women to choose, to trust that women are in the main life givers, that women mostly want babies, that they love to bring up children, that they hate abortion, that most of us, if not all of us wish that there was no such thing as abortion, that they wish that they too didn't have to choose, that it isn't fair that a women actually is the one who has to choose, but that we should trust them to choose the right option. Are women not to be trusted to do the best thing, for themselves, their baby, their family, their body.

 

[truthseeker]

I think that if we are to allow women choose on whether to abort or not, it should be about giving the right to choose, and not because women already go to the UK, or to avoid illegal/dodgy abortions taking place. We shouldn't just fall into line with our neighbours just because we fear that we look backward or hypocritical, we should do it if the public democratically want it.
Calling Ireland hypocritical for 'exporting our problem' is nonsense, because every country decides its own laws.

I cant agree with this MrMan. The only reason we dont have women dying through back street abortions, knitting needles etc... is because the problem is exported.

Abortions happen whether or not they are illegal. So why try to impose someone elses morality on those who choose to have them? Why not make it safe.

A pro life stance in a country where abortion is illegal and has no options like going to the UK results in more women dying from massive infection, botched back street abortions, etc... It actually causes more death, because now you have the death of the aborted foetus plus in many cases the death of the woman. It is, a true pro death stance.

The doc on Primetime the night before last said that he has outlined risk in many cases to women and in some cases, because maybe they have been trying to get pregnant for years, they are willing to take a risk. But in other cases maybe they have children at home depending on them, and they are not willing to take a risk with their health - so those women go to the UK
and then come back and continue under his treatment.

It is happening. It happens every day. The numbers are probably under reported as some women use the UK addresses of friends but there are approximately 5000 women a year who use the UK for abortion.

If those women didnt have the UK would you be happy to accept 5000 women in enforced pregnancies resulting in god knows how many suicides, botched abortions, infections, deaths, depressions etc...

 

[DB74]

A pro life stance in a country where abortion is illegal and has no options like going to the UK results in more women dying from massive infection, botched back street abortions, etc... It actually causes more death, because now you have the death of the aborted foetus plus in many cases the death of the woman. It is, a true pro death stance.

How many women in Ireland have died from these things? Given the uproar and media coverage over the last 2 weeks over just one case, I would suggest very very few. I presume you have a link to back it up. Otherwise it's just scaremongering

 

[DrMoriarty]

How many (more) would you like to die?

 

[DB74]

I don't think anybody should die. I am fully in favour of abortion in certain circumstances. But lets not pretend that there are hundreds of Irish women dying every year because of lack of availability of abortion in this country.

Great flippant comment though.

 

[DB74]

There was a case during the week where a woman committed suicide ultimately because she was depressed that her unborn child was the wrong gender.

Is this acceptable grounds for an abortion?

 

[DrMoriarty]

Why ask, when you can clearly read minds?

Incidentally, nobody pretended that hundreds of women are dying every year because they're refused abortions. I can't see what you find flippant in my question, but I'm not going to argue any further with a mindset that holds a clump of foetal cells to be sacrosanct (from conception) but implies that there's an "acceptable level" of women dying from illegal abortions.

The actual mortality figures could probably never be reliably established in Ireland, even retrospectively, no more than the true figures for suicide (sorry, "death by misadventure" — this is a Catholic country...).

I'm out of this discussion.

 

[DB74]

In fairness you were "out of it" already

 

[truthseeker]

How many women in Ireland have died from these things? Given the uproar and media coverage over the last 2 weeks over just one case, I would suggest very very few. I presume you have a link to back it up. Otherwise it's just scaremongering

If you reread my post I said that in the case of abortion being illegal AND no other options available like going to the UK. We have the option of the UK so luckily, we dont have dying women.

Go to RTE player and watch Tuesday nights PrimeTime, the retired UK obstetrician who they interviewed said that when he was a young man it was common to see cases of women dying from infections due to criminal or home abortions, but since abortion was legalised in the UK in 1967 it was practically unheard of for a woman to die in that way.

Here is a link, women die every day due to unsafe abortions - the only reason you hear nothing about it is because we export our problem.

 

[truthseeker]

There was a case during the week where a woman committed suicide ultimately because she was depressed that her unborn child was the wrong gender.

Is this acceptable grounds for an abortion?

Maybe for her it was.

 

[orka]

How many women in Ireland have died from these things? Given the uproar and media coverage over the last 2 weeks over just one case, I would suggest very very few. I presume you have a link to back it up. Otherwise it's just scaremongering

DB74 you asked this question in response to this quote from truthseeker:

A pro life stance in a country where abortion is illegal and has no options like going to the UK results in more women dying from massive infection, botched back street abortions, etc... It actually causes more death, because now you have the death of the aborted foetus plus in many cases the death of the woman. It is, a true pro death stance.

You seem to have ignored/not read/not understood what truthseeker was saying "a country where abortion is illegal and has no options like going to the the UK". Your question relates to Ireland which does have options like going to the UK so of course there are few/no examples of women dying 'from these things'. If Ireland could somehow prevent its pregnant women travelling for abortions then there would be many examples of failed back street abortions.

There was another example of our shameful treatment of women needing abortions in the Irish Times today - the state paid damages to a woman who subsequently died of cancer in November 2011. She became pregnant while receiving cancer treatment but was denied an abortion by her hospital's ethics committee because her life was not immediately at risk. By the time she eventually travelled to the UK for the abortion, she was so ill she had to be helped onto the plane. [broken link removed]

 

[Bronte]

There was a case during the week where a woman committed suicide ultimately because she was depressed that her unborn child was the wrong gender.

Is this acceptable grounds for an abortion?

What do you think DB74?

You don't have to answer that. I certainly have no answer. For her the answer was to end 3 lives including her own.

 

[Bronte]

In fairness you were "out of it" already

I actually don't get this comment, could someone explain it to me.

 

[Bronte]

What is an 'ad hoc' ethics committee. I am aware that previously hospitals had ethics committees to decide on whether one could or could not be sterilised etc. But 'ad hoc' what in this context does it mean. Who serves on these committees, who decides to sit on them.

And how can you sit on such a committee and judge a woman, and curtail her choices. Do all Irish hospitals have such committees to decide on abortions?

 

[DB74]

If you reread my post I said that in the case of abortion being illegal AND no other options available like going to the UK. We have the option of the UK so luckily, we dont have dying women.

My apologies. I misread your original post.

 

[DrMoriarty]

What is an 'ad hoc' ethics committee. I am aware that previously hospitals had ethics committees to decide on whether one could or could not be sterilised etc. But 'ad hoc' what in this context does it mean?

Ad hoc means impromptu, improvised for a specific purpose, case, or situation at hand (and no other).

"Making it up as we go along" might be another way of putting it.

 

[Betsy Og]

Maybe for her it was.

In all fairness do you not think treating her depression would have been a better option? Would her husband not be entitled to some say regarding his 2 unborn children?

I dont think suicide was an inevitable outcome by any means (which is why I'd be iffy about suicide as grounds for abortion).

 

[truthseeker]

In all fairness do you not think treating her depression would have been a better option? Would her husband not be entitled to some say regarding his 2 unborn children?

I dont think suicide was an inevitable outcome by any means (which is why I'd be iffy about suicide as grounds for abortion).

Yeah, agree with you.

It was a completely ridiculous example tbh.

 

[Betsy Og]

Abortions happen whether or not they are illegal. So why try to impose someone elses morality on those who choose to have them?

Because it is legitimate for a country to have some moral code. I'm all for freedom of expression and what have you, but the outcome here is ending the life of an unborn child - there should be a fairly compelling reason before you allow this to happen.

For example, prostitution is not to many people's taste (nor mine I swiftly add) or is immoral by many people standards, but I'd legalise it as that might eradicate the criminal element, trafficking etc. That is because allowing it to happen, while unsavory, does not involve anyone getting hurt (assuming all are willing participants etc etc etc & I'm aware Rhuhama are against legalisation .... but you get the point). Whereas with abortion somebody always dies.

On the quote above, sure we could legalise murder, after all it happens whether its illegal or not, it might make it safer if the gunman didnt have to speed off breaking all sort of traffic laws and endangering those he didnt intend to kill.......