Jesus, are we going to see another call to return to feudalism from the Tories soon or what? What advice are ministers expecting them to contribute other than “women shouldn’t have abortions” and “don’t have sex till you’re married”?

From that “more at The Guardian”.

“The forum consists of representatives of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV; the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; the Association of Directors of Public Health; the British HIV Association; the Terrence Higgins Trust; Brook; the Family Planning Association; the Sex Education Forum and National Children’s Bureau; Marie Stopes International; and Life.”

Given that you couldn’t put a fag paper between the views of Brook, FPA, Marie Stopes and the BPAS, looks like a widening of the views being considered rather than anything else.

And why shouldn’t those who oppose abortion have their views considered?

Tim W @ 2

And why shouldn’t those who oppose abortion have their views considered?

Mainly because this group are nothing more than a Right Wing pressure group who, like so many RW pressure Groups, are not interested on reality, but they preach what they would like reality to be.

All the other groups you mention are forced to confronts what is actually going on in the World, whereas these clowns are more interested in shrill moralising. Now there is nothing wrong in shrill moralising, if that is your bag, but it cannot be considered part of a health debate nor can any RW moralisers possibly have anything to contribute to a science or medical discussion.

I have absolutely no objection to Tory morons sitting in conference rooms and churches discussing how wonderful it would be if everyone lived the way they would like them to live, but for fucks sake, keep them away from normal people.

And Jim, you clearly have a well balance, non-prejudiced view on such groups.

Very much in agreement with Tim Worsall, and I actually can’t quite understand what the fuss it about. Why should there be those who have different views from the mainstream represented on advisory bodies?

Even if they are what you assert they are Jim, they are one of many bodies on the board, and if they are only spouting prejudice, then they won’t get very far.

On the other hand, if they are a sound, well balanced group making legitimate objections to the prevailing liberal consensus regarding abortion, then maybe this is a good thing.

Cylux, it couldn’t be further from feudalism, and such an attitude towards those who happen to hold views that aren’t ultra modern (and by implication, liberal and relativist morally) is why you are the non-RW version of what Jim accuses this anti-abortion group of being. Based entirely on prejudice and nothing more.

@1, @4,

You’ve got to be yanking my chain here!

There’s a world of difference between organisations that base their viewpoint on the idea that in this modern world we should use all means at our disposal to protect the physical and mental well-being of women, and those which base their viewpoint on a translation of a translation of a copy of a book that was supposedly authored by the adherents of a man who claimed to be descended from a magical Sky-father!

“There’s a world of difference between organisations that base their viewpoint on the idea that in this modern world we should use all means at our disposal to protect the physical and mental well-being of women,”

And let me correct that for you:

“There’s a world of difference between organisations that base their viewpoint on the idea that in this modern world we should use all means at our disposal to protect the physical and mental well-being of the unborn,”

This view should at least be discussed, no? Have a seat at the table?

@6 Given that to protect the ‘unborn’ you have to take away a woman’s right to self determination, no it shouldn’t have a seat at the table. Plus it’s a farcical proposition anyway, say they get abortion criminalised, what punishments do you think will be sufficient for women who get illegal abortions?

No Tim, democracy is only for those people with whom we agree. Anyone who disagrees with us is wrong by definition and therefore does not merit a seat at the table.

@7

There’s some wiggle-room when it comes to late-term there, I’ll grant you that much. But that’s not what these people are putting forward – they’re putting forward the “Life begins at conception” argument, which implies that the group of cells that constitute a first- or early second-trimester foetus is somehow a conscious living being.

Which is patently rubbish.

Note that Dorries and Field are putting together a similar wheeze to emphasise abstinence education at the expense of sensible contraceptive precautions – you only have to look at how well that worked in the US (Hint : it didn’t) to see that they don’t give a stuff about the well-being of people. They just want to project their rigid morality on everybody else. Surely as a libertarian such ideas are anathema to you, Tim?

Sorry, should be @6 – this keeps happening…

@8 Well given that in a democracy those that get the least votes don’t generally get to the table I’m not sure what your point is.
In the name of democracy and representing all viewpoints should Mr Cameron appoint BNP members to a board discussing enthnic minorities?

Coming soon: Westboro Baptist Church to advise on equal opps of homosexuals. Hey, it’s just another voice at the table!

@ 11 Cylux

“In the name of democracy and representing all viewpoints should Mr Cameron appoint BNP members to a board discussing enthnic minorities?”

If the board is large enough. Realisitically a panel probably wouldn’t have enough members to justify appointing a BNP representative, but I gather that pro-life views are more common than BNP membership.

Between “everyone who disagrees with me is stupid” and “people who disagree with me should be ignored by government”, you’re showing an incredibly closed-minded attitude recently. I don’t know why you take part in debates when you obviously regard discussion of an issue as a bad thing.

@ 8 ukliberty

“No Tim, democracy is only for those people with whom we agree.”

That’s pretty much the attitude I’m picking up here, yeah. The name of this site seems somewhat inaccurate at times.

Cylux,

@8 Well given that in a democracy those that get the least votes don’t generally get to the table I’m not sure what your point is.

Oh, I didn’t realise seat allocation here was based on the prevalence of each view…

In the name of democracy and representing all viewpoints should Mr Cameron appoint BNP members to a board discussing enthnic minorities?

Yes.

We don’t have to do what they say.

”And why shouldn’t those who oppose abortion have their views considered?”

Because they want to deny choice , and their aim is the abolition of all abortion rights. It is ideological rather than advisory.

Strange isn’t it Tory right wingers, which this is to appease, hate cyclists, pedestrians ( both of which have a significant child casualty rate), hate development aid ( which saves child lives) but suddenly love the foetus.

In fact many of the anti abortion lobby are creationists within the Tory party and deny the scientific arguments in favour of abortion

“Strange isn’t it Tory right wingers, which this is to appease, hate cyclists, pedestrians ( both of which have a significant child casualty rate),”

Err, if pedestrians and cyclists have a significant child casualty rate, aren’t we right to hate them for their child casualty rate?

@18 But not say the motorists running them over?

@ 16 Peter Lee

“Because they want to deny choice , and their aim is the abolition of all abortion rights. It is ideological rather than advisory.”

The other side could just as easily say that you want to deny life and that your viewpoint is thus ideological. And frankly, demanding that those you disagree with be silenced is VERY ideological, and rather unpleasently so.

@19 Denying life? Could only be a valid point if pro-choicers were of the position that women should abort every pregnancy. I’ve yet to encounter anyone that deranged however. Well I have, just not with that particular viewpoint.

@19

No-one’s saying that they should be silenced, they’re simply saying that to place them on this board legitimises them to the same extent as the healthcare groups that made it up in the past. This is not a group with healthcare as it’s primary aim, it is a group that seeks to base healthcare decisions and sex education on religious dogma (and, I suspect, on their own inherent self-righteousness) and should be considered as such.

As for considering a multicellular symbiote as an “unborn child” – which these people do – one also has to consider the fact that even into the third trimester the symbiote cannot survive without it’s host, and even without intervention can and does frequently die before it reaches viability. The whole concept is ludicrous unless you’re surreptitiously arguing that such events are “God’s will”.

It would make a great deal more practical sense IMO to invite advice on sexual health and STDs from the English Collective of Prostitutes:
http://www.islington.gov.uk/directories/page.aspx?dir=LTCS&dir_name=LTCS&docid=0901336c805a4fa4

@ 20 Cylux

“Denying life? Could only be a valid point if pro-choicers were of the position that women should abort every pregnancy”

In that case, claiming that lifers want to deny choice is only a valid point if they want to deny every choice, such as “shall I have a pizza or salad this evening?”

@ 21 bluepillnation

“No-one’s saying that they should be silenced, they’re simply saying that to place them on this board legitimises them to the same extent as the healthcare groups that made it up in the past. This is not a group with healthcare as it’s primary aim, it is a group that seeks to base healthcare decisions and sex education on religious dogma (and, I suspect, on their own inherent self-righteousness) and should be considered as such.”

That’s reasonable. So the question becomes: what is the purpose of this board, and what role is Life expected to take? If it’s a purely scientific panel, then perhaps their appointment is inappropriate. If it seeks to decide policy with regard to the opinions of the electorate, then it seems sensible to reflect all sides. Having a pro-choice and pro-life faction present might make it easier to find compromises between them, for example.

“As for considering a multicellular symbiote as an “unborn child” – which these people do – one also has to consider the fact that even into the third trimester the symbiote cannot survive without it’s host, and even without intervention can and does frequently die before it reaches viability. ”

Meh, a baby will die if left alone. It’s unborn… whether or not you want to call it a “child” is pretty much semantic. In any case, the fact that you have a beef with pro-lifers is not an argument for keeping them off the panel.

The government’s “Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters” was comprised of “members with a range of views, including scientists associated with anti-nuclear groups, the nuclear industry and the NRPB” and the intention of achieving a consensus. Bizarrely (ISTM, anyway) one member was a musician – no science qualifications whatsoever, IIRC. Despite this, the Committee managed to put together a report and the musician and his ally, a “scientist associated with anti-nuclear groups”, were given room to put their views.

And the sky did not fall in.

@25 I’d be far more interested in what effect the end report had on the usage of internal emitters than on the sky quite frankly.

I have to agree with Tim here.

Just because I find their reviews repulsive doesn’t mean that their view shouldn’t at least be represented along with those of a pro-abortion rights persuasion.

Of course, that’s the key difference between Labour and liberals – we actually always believe in democracy and free speech, even for those we disagree with.

@27

If there was an advisory commitee set up to discuss equal opps for Jewish people would you allow a Holocaust denier on the panel? Or as I mentioned above would you allow the Westboro Baptist Church to advise on homosexual equal opps?

These “Life” people aren’t friendly advise-givers, they are anti-women, anti-choice fundamentalists. There’s a reason they haven’t been asked for their opinion previously.

“If there was an advisory commitee set up to discuss equal opps for Jewish people would you allow a Holocaust denier on the panel? Or as I mentioned above would you allow the Westboro Baptist Church to advise on homosexual equal opps?”

Quite probably not. But if I were setting up a committee to ponder on the protection of the rights of women to self-determination as against the protections of the rights of the unborn not to be aborted, I think I would include at least one person or group who was vocal about those latter rights.

They might not win, might not even influence anything, but it would be a more balanced discussion than having BPAS, just yet another enthusiastic abortionist, there, wouldn’t it?

George -

“Of course, that’s the key difference between Labour and liberals – we actually always believe in democracy and free speech, even for those we disagree with.”

That’s a bit of a cheap shot. There are liberals in the Labour Party, just as there are social democrats in the Liberal Democrat Party. (OK, there may be times when such people are hard to spot…)

In any case, I think the question here is more nuanced than you acknowledge. Liberals believe (don’t they?) that people have certain rights that no-one is entitled to take away from them. It doesn’t matter if 15%, or 30%, or 60% of people want abortion or homosexuality banned, or slavery or the death penalty re-introduced: their views still don’t count for anything, because they don’t have any collective right to restrict certain basic rights of individuals. (True ‘democracy’ is not simply the ‘tyranny of the majority’ (or influential minorities.)

On that basis, there is a case – whether compelling or not, I don’t know – for saying that while pro-lifers, pro-slavery campaigners etc have a right to express their views, it’s pointless to involve them in any kind of democratic process because their proposals are simply ‘off the table’ to begin with.

@30

I’m referring to small-l liberals, not big-L Liberals. Overall I find that Labour, as in the organisation that was recently in government for 13 years, tends only to believe in democracy and free speech as matters of principle when it comes to people who agree with them. Of course there are liberals in Labour and there are illiberals in the Lib Dems – my point was that the organisation which this website and most of the “left” are affiliated with is guilty of illiberalism on this particular issue.

As for homosexual rights, there’s a world of difference between fundamental human rights, and the issue of the abortion limit. Whilst I tend to be on the pro choice side of the debate myself, there’s still a clear and ongoing debate on this issue with valid arguments on both sides. For example, we all agree that killing a baby is wrong. We also all probably agree that killing a child in the womb, a week before it was due to be born is wrong. So the question is one of where to draw the line – and there’s no point in having a debate if only one side is allowed to be heard.

With human rights, however, for example with homosexuals, it’s perfectly obvious that people shouldn’t be penalised for being born a certain way. That’s why any liberal, such as myself, is fully supportive of equal rights. However, I also support the right of people to protest against equal rights, as long as that protest is peaceful and doesn’t involve hate speech.

And that’s my point right there. Small-l liberalism is the belief in the right of people to disagree with your most cherished values and the acknowledgement that, in areas of public debate, they too have a right to be heard. Sadly, this entire comment thread shows that too many on the “left” fail to grasp that particular fundamental human right at all.

“On that basis, there is a case – whether compelling or not, I don’t know – for saying that while pro-lifers, pro-slavery campaigners etc have a right to express their views, it’s pointless to involve them in any kind of democratic process because their proposals are simply ‘off the table’ to begin with.”

If we’d already made the decision that abortion was to be entirely unregulated, then that might be the case. But it isn’t. It’s highly regulated. Not after 24 weeks in utero, unless serious damage to either mother or child.

So what is actually being discussed is what should be the regulations: not whether there should be any regulations at all. And when discussing the regulations, fair enough to include those who think they should be tighter rather than looser, no?

Rather think everyone is missing the point here.

There is no need whatever for a forum comprising publicly funded members of medical quangos and fake charities to advise government on this issue.

Sexual health, including the decision whether or not to have an abortion, is the responsibility of each individual and government should have no role in dictating or trying to influence those decisions.

@ 30:

“Liberals believe (don’t they?) that people have certain rights that no-one is entitled to take away from them. It doesn’t matter if 15%, or 30%, or 60% of people want abortion or homosexuality banned, or slavery or the death penalty re-introduced: their views still don’t count for anything, because they don’t have any collective right to restrict certain basic rights of individuals.”

A few questions here:

1.) Who is to decide what is and isn’t a certain right which nobody’s allowed to take away from you? Why should abortion be in that category?

2.) What happens if different fundamental rights clash? In this case, of course, the rights in question would be those of a woman to have an abortion versus those of the child not to be aborted. Why should the woman’s rights take precedence over the child’s? Or, if you want to argue that the unborn child isn’t yet a proper person and so shouldn’t have any rights, why should we agree with you, and not those people who argue that life begins sometime before birth?

Just another example of how the tories have not changed one jot. Once a tory always a brownshirt.

Why do people still cling to this claptrap that Cameron is a different type of tory.? He is not. He is the UK’s GW Bush.

@31

“For example, we all agree that killing a baby is wrong. We also all probably agree that killing a child in the womb, a week before it was due to be born is wrong. So the question is one of where to draw the line – and there’s no point in having a debate if only one side is allowed to be heard.”

Which is all well & reasonable, but the nutters the government has invited on board disagree with abortion in any circumstance and think that life/existence/humanity begins from the moment of conception. To use their logic a woman taking the morning after pill is as much a “murderer” as someone aborting your hypothetical 35 week-old foetus. Which is insane.

“And why shouldn’t those who oppose abortion have their views considered?”

As usual Tim making the case for religious right wing nuts. They do have their views considered, that does not mean you invite them into govt to help make law.

“On the other hand, if they are a sound, well balanced group making legitimate objections” The idiocy of the right wing troll in all its glory.

Our rather stupid Lie Dem “I have to agree with Tim here.” Good Gawd, no wonder your party has made such a fucking mess of everything. You have no idea about politics do you. You are as dumb as your leader Clegg.

You never appease brownshirts. Ever. Why are the liberals in Govt with anti woman fascists George?

@34 I’ll answer your second question with a question: If a pregnant woman who doesn’t want the child, causes herself to miscarry, or performs a dangerous home-abortion on herself, what would you have done about it?

The problem with forming the uterus police is that if a women really doesn’t want to go through pregnancy, you are going to have to get far more illiberal than not inviting a group to a government advisory board to do something to stop her.

Plus, could we not perhaps give women the credit of making rational and moral decisions? It is their body and life the decision will affect so I’m sure they’re the experts on their current situations. I’m under the impression that when a women elects for an abortion that she’s put far more thought into it than anyone conjuring up “what if a women decides at 8 months” scenarios has.

Just remember folks these pro life liars don’t give a shit for the foetus once it comes out of the womb. In the US in the deep south infant mortality rates are some of the highest in the western world. So much for their pro life bullshit.

These people hate woman and hate woman having control over their sexuality..

@ 36:

“Which is all well & reasonable, but the nutters the government has invited on board disagree with abortion in any circumstance and think that life/existence/humanity begins from the moment of conception. To use their logic a woman taking the morning after pill is as much a “murderer” as someone aborting your hypothetical 35 week-old foetus. Which is insane.”

That may well be the case, but you haven’t given anybody any reason to agree with you.

@ 38:

“Plus, could we not perhaps give women the credit of making rational and moral decisions? It is their body and life”

That’s just the point at issue, though: is it just the woman’s body and life, or does the foetus have a life (and therefore rights) of its own? Using the “It’s the woman’s body and life” argument is too circular to convince somebody who doesn’t already agree with you.

George -

“With human rights, however, for example with homosexuals, it’s perfectly obvious that people shouldn’t be penalised for being born a certain way.”

Perfectly obvious to *you* (and me, and liberals in general). But there are plenty of people who don’t think that’s obvious at all, and indeed who think it’s perfectly obvious that homosexuality is some sort of ‘unnatural’ aberration and that homosexual relationships should not be regarded as in any way ‘equal’ to heterosexual relationships.

And OK, those people should be allowed to express their views. But we wouldn’t invite them to sit round the table at the sexual health forum, presenting junk evidence for the success of programs designed to ‘cure’ gay people, lobbying for the age of consent to be raised for homosexuals, etc. We’d want to seek advice from organisations with a serious, informed contribution to make, not organisations whose ‘arguments’ and ‘evidence’ were a fig leaf for illiberal, fundamentalist religious views.

And of course, these are the very same people who think zygotes/embryos/foetuses have souls and that abortion therefore amounts to murder in all circumstances. So while I am (genuinely) sympathetic to the view that there should be dissenting voices at the table, I would be far more comfortable if those voices belonged to people who fitted their views to the facts – on foetal ability to feel pain, say, or the psychological effects on women of having an abortion without proper counselling – and were there to make an informed contribution in good faith. (As opposed to people with a faith-based motivation to distort the facts to fit their views.)

XXX -

“1.) Who is to decide what is and isn’t a certain right which nobody’s allowed to take away from you?”

The UN and the European Court of Human Rights are two obvious examples.

“Why should abortion be in that category?”

Ask them!

“2.) What happens if different fundamental rights clash? In this case, of course, the rights in question would be those of a woman to have an abortion versus those of the child not to be aborted. Why should the woman’s rights take precedence over the child’s? Or, if you want to argue that the unborn child isn’t yet a proper person and so shouldn’t have any rights, why should we agree with you, and not those people who argue that life begins sometime before birth?”

Ask them again!

Sorry to dodge the questions, but I don’t think this is about whether or not I can personally convince you (or anyone) that foetuses are not ‘persons’ (or whatever). The point is: we tend to accept that this sort of thorny question about what rights people have and what should happen when they conflict are best settled by secular bodies, drawing on a range of informed views, and not by public vote or councils of bishops.

@ 36 M S. Pill

” To use their logic a woman taking the morning after pill is as much a “murderer” as someone aborting your hypothetical 35 week-old foetus. Which is insane.”

Out of interest, where would you draw the line? Because “murder” is an on/off state, so it has to be somewhere.

Cards up front: I’m a fence-sitter on the abortion issue, but count myself as pro-choice in that I wouldn’t outlaw abortion on demand if I was crowned Emperor of the World tomorrow (and we all hope I will be, obviously).

@ 41 G.O.

“And OK, those people should be allowed to express their views. But we wouldn’t invite them to sit round the table at the sexual health forum, presenting junk evidence for the success of programs designed to ‘cure’ gay people, lobbying for the age of consent to be raised for homosexuals”

Well, you’d think an informed panel could sniff out junk evidence easily enough. And I think raising the age of consent – even if it’s for homosexuals only – is a valid position that ought to be heard if enough people support it. I also think it makes the person raising that view a homophobic dick, but that’s not the point.

@40 Yes, and once you’ve enshrined the foetus’ right to life above a woman’s right to personal liberty, what do you do when a woman then violates that right by having an illegal abortion? What then?

@42 CG

“Out of interest, where would you draw the line? Because “murder” is an on/off state, so it has to be somewhere.”

I used the word “murder” with hesitation & in quotes because it is the language that the anti-choice brigade use. Personally I wouldn’t use such loaded language and I am in favour 100% of a woman being able to terminate her pregnancy at any time with the caveat that I know that’s an unpopular position to take & to be honest I think we have it about right in this country to cater for the widest spectrum of viewpoints. I don’t think this fundamentalist group called “LIFE” cater for anyone but the looniest of fringes (much as if my view was represented on the advisery committee I’d expect there to be a lot of flak from the other side).

@ 45

Caveat noted, but does “and I am in favour 100% of a woman being able to terminate her pregnancy at any time” mean you’d draw the line, legally speaking, at viability or at birth?

The reason I ask is that this issue does require a line to be drawn somewhere, and I have to admit that conception seems the most reasonable one to me (higher than that and it’s arbitrary, lower and you end up putting people in jail for failure to copulate). As such, I agree with XXXX insofar as I see the abortion issue as a clash of two currently irreconcilable rights, which means that while I’m also happy with the system as it is, I have to recognise the validity of the argument that life should be protected from conception.

@ 41:

“The UN and the European Court of Human Rights are two obvious examples.”

If that’s the case, then wouldn’t it follow that, if those organisations change their mind at a later date, then something can go from being a human right to not a human right? In which case, it isn’t a fundamental right which nobody can remove, since the UN and ECHR can remove it.

@46

Personally, I’d draw the line at birth…

*waits for torrents of abuse*

…for the simple reason that barely anyone gets an abortion at the upper limit now, and women who do, overwhelmingly do so for very good reasons.

Viability (I assume you mean when the foetus can survive on its “own”) is different IMO because medical advances are such that babies can survive at 20 weeks etc (which was the main thrust of Dorries’ argument in favour of lowering the limit).

My entire view though is bound up in the fact that it is and should always be 100% the woman’s right to do choose – whether that means terminating the pregnancy at some stage or having the baby, that choice should IMO always be supported. I think/hope that with the decline of supersticious thinking (christianity and islam being the main problems here) people will think more rationally about abortion rather than thinking that a few cells dividing the minute after conception means a human being with all the concurrent rights has been created.

46
To some extent you are talking semantics, calling abortion ‘murder’ would mean that every soldier who killed their foe in battle was committting murder.
Abortion is a moral minefield, but adding emotive language to it is unhelpful, that belongs to the right-wing religious groups such as ‘The Life Organization’.

Mr S Pill @ 28

These “Life” people aren’t friendly advise-givers, they are anti-women, anti-choice fundamentalists.

Not sure you’re right there.

Given that they operate shelters for pregnant teens flleeing domestic violence and a hospice…. and appear to have a lot of women in senior positions…… and their advice centres are “non-directive”…. maybe you are being a bit harsh?

@50

And how do you think they see these pregnant teens fleeing domestic abuse if the teen in question wishes to have an abortion?

@Mr S Pill

“Personally, I’d draw the line at birth…

*waits for torrents of abuse*

…for the simple reason that barely anyone gets an abortion at the upper limit now, and women who do, overwhelmingly do so for very good reasons.”

Well, you do get people who decide they don’t want their child at birth and kill it. They’re rare, but they exist, and what usually happens is a dead baby is found behind a dumpster somewhere.

Now, we currently treat that as murder – and I’m working on the assumption that you do too – albeit a form of murder that makes me feel almost as bad for the killer as the victim. If you state that human rights start at birth, then you’re saying terminating the child was (legally) a-ok before the birth, but a serious crime (with mitigating circumstances) afterwards.

That’s understandable as far as the mother’s side goes: while the baby’s inside her, it’s using her body and she has the right to choose what happens. But what does that mean as far as the humanity of the child goes? Straight from zero to everything in an instant? They’d have counted as a person with rights had they been born premature?

All this is by way of saying that there are two lifeforms concerned here, and their respective rights don’t really map onto one another very well. You certainly don’t have to be religious to feel that way – self being a case in point.

RE what FlowerPower and Pill are arguing about: what’s the actual lowdown on Life? It would help to know whether we’re talking about a reasonable pro-life group or a bunch of manipulative nutters.

@ 48:

So, presumably, you don’t consider a foetus to be a person, then. If you don’t mind my asking (solely because I think it might be easier to have a discussion), what exactly is it that you think means we shouldn’t see a foetus as a person?

“So, presumably, you don’t consider a foetus to be a person,”

Oh please get real. These people think a bunch of cells in a dish are worth more than a woman.

@ 55:

“Oh please get real. These people think a bunch of cells in a dish are worth more than a woman.”

I’m not sure where you got that idea from, especially the choice is very rarely between having an abortion and letting the woman die.

I will tell you where I got it from. I have met these morons in the US.

And they funding the anti abortion movement all round the world. They will not rest until they have ended abortion, and then they can move on the ending contraceptives.

They hate woman having power over their bodies, and they hate woman having sex outside of marriage. They are bat shit insane, and should not be pandered too.

@Sally

“You never appease brownshirts. Ever. Why are the liberals in Govt with anti woman fascists George?”

Well, let’s let slide your idea that everyone who isn’t a paid up member of Labour, or the TUSC or similar organisations, is a Nazi stormtrooper.

To answer your question, I could reply, why did you support a government that introduced the closest thing to a fascist regime this country has ever seen?

However, that would be trollish and on your level.

So instead let me point out a few facts: Both the Minister for Women and Equality and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equality are in fact women. They are, respectively, a conservative and a Lib dem. The latter is Lyne Featherstone who has already pushed for gay couples to have the same rights to have access to religious ceremonies and who is currently working on introducing complete equal marriage rights. She also introduced a move that will allow positive discrimination which is primarily aimed at addressing female under-representation in the workforce. It will also mean that a manager will be able lawfully to hire a black man over a white man, a homosexual man over a heterosexual man, if they have the same skill set.

Now, forgive me if I’m wrong, but that hardly sounds like “anti-woman” fascism to me.

I await your deafening silence in replace of a reply with bated breath.

@58

why did you support a government that introduced the closest thing to a fascist regime this country has ever seen?

What? Oliver Cromwell’s government?

@59

I’d say that the Protectorate was more a theocracy than fascist, however, I note your point. A better turn of phrase would have been: “closest thing to a fascist regime this country has seen in modern history”.

“A better turn of phrase would have been: “closest thing to a fascist regime this country has seen in modern history”.

A combination of Oliver Cromwell and the Duke of Wellington seems to stymied the prospects for political careers of successful military men in Britain – unlike France (De Gaulle) and the US (Eisenhower).

17. Tim Worstall
“Strange isn’t it Tory right wingers, which this is to appease, hate cyclists, pedestrians ( both of which have a significant child casualty rate),”

Err, if pedestrians and cyclists have a significant child casualty rate, aren’t we right to hate them for their child casualty rate?

I think you got the wrong end of the stick mate

@54”So, presumably, you don’t consider a foetus to be a person, then. If you don’t mind my asking (solely because I think it might be easier to have a discussion), what exactly is it that you think means we shouldn’t see a foetus as a person?”

Biology is pretty clear about when life starts, that is when it can sustain itself out of the womb. Early pregnancies are clearly not life , further the vast majority of abortions are early with late ones only being for medical emergencies.

Further in the animal kingdom, and remember we are animals, most have a method of controlling fertility. Birds, rabbits, lions etc all do so. Why should we no do so with it being a women’s right to choose.

@ 63:

“Biology is pretty clear about when life starts, that is when it can sustain itself out of the womb.”

So it’s the inability to survive independently, then? In which case, would you consider, say, a man in a coma who has to be hooked up to a life-support machine 24/7 to be alive?

“Further in the animal kingdom, and remember we are animals, most have a method of controlling fertility. Birds, rabbits, lions etc all do so.”

Most animals are only fertile for certain times of the year; I’m not sure that really counts as a “method for controlling fertility”.

(Also, humans have methods for controlling fertility without having to resort to abortions. Abstinence and contraception being the two biggies.)

“Why should we no do so with it being a women’s right to choose.”

As I said above, that’s the point which people disagree about. Using it as part of your argument is therefore begging the question to some degree.

@64

No, I said life starts that’s the bit bit you didn’t read. That is not the same as a man in a coma.

In terms of not bonking the sex drive is clearly primeval and as such does not really correspond with abstinence. Further in the Southern US where that was tried the teen preg rate has soared.

Birds control fertility with death in the nest, rabbits re-absorb, we are simply using technology , something humans have done for some time.

@64

So it’s the inability to survive independently, then? In which case, would you consider, say, a man in a coma who has to be hooked up to a life-support machine 24/7 to be alive?

That’s not actually far from one of the pro-abortion scenario-arguments.

There’s a world famous musician with a devoted following of millions who falls deathly ill into a coma. One morning after this news you awake to find yourself now connected to this musician through various invasive medical means and surrounded by a small clique of the musician’s family, managers and doctors. They tell you that in order to save his life they needed a long transfusion process, lasting about 8-9 months or so, with a suitable donor, and you were the only donor they could find in time. Once this process is complete they’ll need a constant supply of blood from you once a month for about 18 years or so to ensure the disease doesn’t return. If you extricate yourself from him before the process is complete, he will die. There’s also no guarantee that there won’t be complications along the way and he dies anyway, though the doctors present assure you that those chances are minor.

They’ve created a little harness for you to wear to allow you to carry him about, burden that he is, as you go about your life, the transfusion process is also likely to cause various hormonal and chemical shifts in your own body which will be very uncomfortable.
This has all been set up of course, against your own will, while you slept. They admit to having drugged you and beg you not to free yourself and condemn him to death.

What would you do in that situation?

@66

You’re missing the point. The definition of the beginning of life when it comes to foetuses and embryos is not clear cut. There is both moral and scientific debate over the issue.

Whilst I disagree with the idea that a person comes into being from the moment of conception, there is long standing debate over the exact time period at which a foetus becomes a person with the right not to be murdered (for example, someone who killed an eight months pregnant woman would be tried for two murders, not just the one). As such the abortion debate cannot be a purely scientific one, it has moral aspects as well.

So your blanket assertion that those who oppose abortion on moral grounds have no right to be heard is just as ignorant, arrogant, bigoted and prejudiced as those who once ensured that all forms of abortion, regardless of circumstance, were illegal.

This is not a clear cut debate and one of the biggest elements poisoning the debate is the refusal of people like you to even consider that the other side might have some points as well.

Let me tell you something, I am a deist. As such I don’t believe in an afterlife. When you die, you die. This makes life, in my view, even more precious. As such it’s obviously a matter of moral dilemma for me as to where the line is drawn in abortion limits. Certainly a woman has the right to decide what happens to her own body, but so too does an unborn child have a right to exist. How you define a child is the question here. And, in an area where science can only shed so much light, the moral dimension cannot be swept under the rug.

I suggest you try opening your eyes and giving some hard thought to the matter from a neutral viewpoint. That’s what I’ve been doing throughout this comment thread. I certainly didn’t have much of a fixed opinion at the start.

In any event, I should point out that this is the presence of one charity (and yes, it is a real charity) on an advisory committee along with several pro-choice organisations. This is hardly the same thing as the Pope directing government policy. So I do wish that people on this comment thread would stop over-hyping the issue and get some perspective.

61. Bob B – “A combination of Oliver Cromwell and the Duke of Wellington seems to stymied the prospects for political careers of successful military men in Britain – unlike France (De Gaulle) and the US (Eisenhower).”

Macmillan? Enoch Powell? But saved them for unsuccessful ones – like Churchill?

Well its all sexcremante to me. I think woman should be applauded every time they have an abortion. They should be giving medals for doing there bit at fighting over population. Effing Christians, shame no one conceded aborting them when they where a faeces I mean a foetus.

I love Tories, do everything to protect the unborn kid, then once they are born, well your on you own now, go forth into the sink estates and spread your seed. I am sure one of the reasons the Tory Party does this is to give those Daily Mail readers something to winge about, it keeps them happy, in a sense, in a way.

Also is Frank Field in the Tory Party yet? If not, then why is he still in Labour, why doesn’t he just become a Tory. That man is confused.

XXX:

“If that’s the case, then wouldn’t it follow that, if those organisations change their mind at a later date, then something can go from being a human right to not a human right? In which case, it isn’t a fundamental right which nobody can remove, since the UN and ECHR can remove it.”

*sigh*

Say you have one group of people arguing that everyone has a right to own slaves, and another group of people arguing that everyone has a right to certain basic freedoms not consistent with being enslaved. Organisations like the UN and the EHCR get to settle the question. By doing so they can create (or remove) certain *legal* rights. But they can’t create (or remove) fundamental, natural human rights. They can *decide* which such rights exist, but can’t *decree* them into or out if existence.

Compare: the Royal Society and similar organisations get to settle the question of what killed the dinosaurs. But If they change their mind at a later date, nothing changes from having killed the dinosaurs to not having killed the dinosaurs. There is a fact of the matter that no-one can change.

@ 65:

“No, I said life starts that’s the bit bit you didn’t read. That is not the same as a man in a coma.”

If life starts when somebody can live independently, why doesn’t it finish when they can’t?

(Also, would you consider a premature baby on a life-support machine to be alive or not?)

“In terms of not bonking the sex drive is clearly primeval and as such does not really correspond with abstinence.”

It’s nevertheless a way of regulating fertility. The most effective way, in fact, since if you don’t have sex, you can’t get pregnant.

“Further in the Southern US where that was tried the teen preg rate has soared.”

That’s usually because they were taught nothing but abstinence, so those who do have sex are more likely to get pregnant. If they actually did stop having sex, then the pregnancy rate would fall.

“Birds control fertility with death in the nest, rabbits re-absorb, we are simply using technology , something humans have done for some time.”

Animals do lots of things which would be frowned on if humans did it: cannibalism, eating partners after mating, leaving sick members of their pack to die. “Some animals do it” is not a good argument.

@ 66:

“What would you do in that situation?”

I’d keep the fellow alive, personally. Although the analogy isn’t perfect, not least because that whole drugging you and setting the contraption up while you sleep is more like a date-rape scenario than a normal pregnancy.

@ 70:

“Organisations like the UN and the EHCR get to settle the question. By doing so they can create (or remove) certain *legal* rights. But they can’t create (or remove) fundamental, natural human rights. They can *decide* which such rights exist, but can’t *decree* them into or out if existence.”

They can decide that these rights don’t exist, which in practice amounts to much the same thing.

“Compare: the Royal Society and similar organisations get to settle the question of what killed the dinosaurs.”

The Royal Society doesn’t “get to settle” any questions. They can examine the evidence before them and say “We think that this is the most likely cause”, but that’s not quite the same thing.

@72 Excellent! Now, in regards to the wider abortion-rights debate – do you see what you just did there?

IMO this isn’t about abortion, it’s a sexual health and HIV advisory body. BPAS have been provided sexual health advise for years, Life haven’t.

And Life are part of the Sex and Relationships Council, so they have the opportunity to put their views across there.

XXX:

“They can decide that these rights don’t exist, which in practice amounts to much the same thing.”

Sure – if you’re a slave and the law says you have no rights, then “in practice” you have no rights. But in principle, you *do* have rights. I think that is rather important. Indeed, I thought you were asking questions about what rights women and foetuses have *in principle*? If you were only interested in what rights they have *in practice”, you’d just look it up.

And to state the obvious: what we ought to be doing is deciding what rights people have in principle, and then trying to ensure that they have them in practice. So again: it matters what rights people have in principle.

“The Royal Society doesn’t “get to settle” any questions. They can examine the evidence before them and say “We think that this is the most likely cause”, but that’s not quite the same thing.”

Right you are. That is basically the point I’ve been making about the sense in which the ECHR gets to ‘settle’ questions about rights. Just as the Royal Society gets to decide what killed the dinosaurs for practical purposes (e.g. deciding what to print in textbooks), so the ECHR gets to decide what rights people have for practical purposes. Either one of them could be wrong. Nothing they say changes the facts about what rights people actually have, or about what actually killed the dinosaurs.

Probably not strictly OT, but why do many of the pro-lifers seem to believe that aborting cells is totally wrong and sinful but sending thousands of people to their deaths is OK in war. Maybe they think that god is on their side.

Chaise guevara @ 53

Don’t seem too nutty or sinister to me:

http://www.lifecharity.org.uk/our-organisation

77 – for the same reason that most pro-choice people think that killing babies is fine, but killing murderers is wrong.

Because you’re applying grossly distorted simplifications to complicated moral choices.

@52

“Well, you do get people who decide they don’t want their child at birth and kill it. They’re rare, but they exist, and what usually happens is a dead baby is found behind a dumpster somewhere.

Now, we currently treat that as murder – and I’m working on the assumption that you do too – albeit a form of murder that makes me feel almost as bad for the killer as the victim. If you state that human rights start at birth, then you’re saying terminating the child was (legally) a-ok before the birth, but a serious crime (with mitigating circumstances) afterwards.”

Pretty much, yes. In tandem, I think there would be far fewer cases as described in your first paragraph if all limits to abortion were removed. Again, my starting point is what is right for the woman concerned – just to turn the tables, I’d assume you’d see killing a baby that had been born premature at 6 months (can happen) as wrong but you say the abortion limit is about right which can involve terminating a foetus at the same ago – the difference is the same as in your scenario, insofar as a foetus exists within the mother and a baby can potentially be cared for outside.

@54

To answer your question: I see foetuses as potential human beings. As I’ve mentioned my view is not a popular one, but I see life/existence/humanity beginning after the baby has left the womb & not before.

**
As a complete sidenote to this debate, I’d also like to see adoption services improved in this country.

I believe that babies are brought to women by the magic stoat. I demand to be included, If Tim Worstall is right, then I have as much right to be as a gynacologist.

I believe that babies are brought to women by the magic stoat. I demand to be included, If Tim Worstall is right, then I have as much right to be as a gynacologist.

Erm, I think you might need to be representative of a larger group, and bizarely there is no large group (even children) that believe that.

Of course it would be a good way of making Life look reasonable and mainstream…

My point is, why does an irrational belief become something that should be taken seriously because it is shared by many irrational people? Why is my stoat-based idiocy unworthy, when the Jesus loves a petri dish of cells nonsense is treated with reverence?

Not entirely sure that Life are that well supported in the UK anyway. They just have support in all the right places at the moment.

“Why is my stoat-based idiocy unworthy, when the Jesus loves a petri dish of cells nonsense is treated with reverence?”

Two reasons.

1) A lot of people in this country share the reverence for the dish of cells. It isn’t just Christians (of whom there are still millions left of course) who reject to a greater or lesser extent abortion. Orthodox Judaism, most varieties of Islam for example.

2) It isn’t necessary to be religious in the slightest to be against unrestricted abortion. It’s entirely possible to be atheist (me) and still argue that we have here is not an obvious set of rights that “win”, but a clash of rights that has no easy solution. Those as yet unborn do have rights, just as those who are carrying them in their womb have rights. And where rights clash (to life, to managing their own fertility) there is always difficulty.

Does the fetus’ right to life trump the right to life of the mother? No, not even the Catholic Church preaches that. Medical treatment that will save the life of the mother but might/will kill the fetus is just fine, even for the Pope.

Does the right to life of an 8 month fetus overcome the mother’s desire to not give birth to a club footed child? Yes, I think it does actually.

Other people will draw the line in different places…..I agree, for someone non-religious I’m surprisingly fundamentalist on this one point.

But just about everyone is drawing that line somewhere. Might be conception, viability, birth, viability but only if it’s not disabled (roughly the current UK legal position) and so on, but just about everyone other than Peter Singer (who argues that infanticide is allowable, as are all abortions) is arguing over where the line is, not whether there should be a line.

The anti abortion movement in the US has slowly ,over the years, brought in with the help of their fundie politicians more, and more obstacles to abortion. Numerous counselling sessions, watching films of the foetus in the womb, and so on. And in some cases relying on the terrorist wing of the Republican party to just go and shoot doctors who carry out abortions. As a result even though abortion is still legal, it has to all intents been made impossible for most in some states.

If you ever wanted an example of the complete contempt these people have for woman it is the notion that they must seek counselling to try to change their minds. These people believe that a woman does not know her own mind. How anti woman is that? Funny thing is that these people never seem to keen to pay taxes to support all these new unwanted children, and as always these issues are not a problem for the Rich. Just as in the 40’s and 50s if you had the money a nice flight down to South America when an abortion could be carried out in secret.

Rumour has it that GW Bush got his girlfriend pregnant when he was in his early 20’s and a flight down South was carried out for an abortion.

@84

Singer’s position is slightly more nuanced than you imply: http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html

(Although I disagree w/him, it’s better to quote directly IMO)

Tim “It is arguing over where the line is, not whether there should be a line.”

Sorry but that is not the argument. You may think it. and the right to life people may like you too think it. But really it is not about life or the foetus at all. It is about woman, and making sure they have no rights over their bodies and their sexuality. For some reason, and you can go back to the snake in the garden of Eden if you want to. Sexually active woman drive some men bat shit insane, They are terrified of them. They see them as a threat to men’s power, and must be kept in their place.

For these people woman having sex is icky, and they must be punished for their sluttish behaviour. Pregnancy is the punishment for such behaviour, and all that, that entails. The plight of the foetus ,once it comes out of the womb, is of no interest to these morons. They sure as hell don’t want to pay any money to keeping the sprog alive. That is not their problem, it is the hardship for the mother to deal with. It is her punishment from God for being a slut.

This is what they believe and must be fought all the way..

Not all Christians are anti abortion. Yes, it’s a conflict of rights, but Life are “no non medically essential abortions” not, “yes but under certain circumstances.” I am not aware of any of the bodies that are currently consulted being pro infanicide. As you say, it’s a spectrum. Isn’t the point that “no and under no circumstances” is a such an extreme stance that it is up there with the stoats?

@ 87 Sally

Way to redefine the issue so it excludes one side of the argument.

If the mother’s rights were the only thing in the equation, of COURSE abortion would be ok. You’d be able to find someone somewhere who disagreed, but we certainly wouldn’t be debating the issue here.

Of course, that’s not the case: many people perceive the z/e/f as having rights too. You can’t just make that vanish by going “la la la you hate women and sex la la la”. As Tim says above, it’s principally about boundaries. I think it’s impossible to resolve the issue without harming somebody’s rights.

I very much agree with George W Potter – I see late abortion as something which might reasonably be discussed and reflected on – quite different (in my opinion) from homosexuality. I don’t think there is a crude correlation between being pro-life and anti-women either. (I am more pro-choice myself though.)

TW and CG win the argument outright, IMO. Thank you to you both.

Life is not my favourite organisation; but I can see where they are coming from, and I can respect their views. However, they will be hugely out-numbered on this committee; but their presence will ensure that:

1. on the ‘limit issues’, the anti-abortion lobby will at least have a say (as all minorities should in a liberal representative democracy, like the UK)

2. the anti-abortion lobby, by being accepted into the political process, is less likely to resort to terrorism (cf the USA?)

That idiot Marcuse (cf. ‘One-Dimensonial Man’) might – meaninglessly and paradoxically – regard this as ‘repressive tolerance’; but such tolerance is the basis of a functioning liberal democracy.

So let the great conversation and debate begin…and let the people decide more by referenda…

@91

“2. the anti-abortion lobby, by being accepted into the political process, is less likely to resort to terrorism (cf the USA?)”

This is the one good argument that I have so far seen. Hmm.

@92 Except that to claim that the anti-abortion lobby isn’t accepted into the USA political process, is to state a great big honking lie.
It currently cannot get abortion banned in all instances thanks to the supreme court’s ruling, but to say that the particularly mental followers of the anti-abortion lobby who do go on to blow up clinics and kill doctors, are doing so because they’re ideas are not being discussed in political circles is frankly risible.

I’m very good at using the wrong there/their/they’re it seems :/

Tim @ 84

You seem to rather miss the point, again. Whether or not people believe in Christianity or even are simply anti abortion on moral grounds is completely irrelevant. If you and people like you want to start a moralising panel on abortion then you are at liberty to do so, but please do not hijact a medical panel and turn it into a moral debating panel.

The God squad and moralisers can play no part in discussion or forum that is supposed to be medical (and science) in nature because they are simply not qualified to do so. This panel is supposed to be concerned about ‘sexual health’. Under no circumstances could either ‘Life’ or the ‘The silver Ring thing’ be objectively described as ‘health groups’.

I have no objection either groups existing, but let us not fall into the trap of confusing having a ‘moral’ position on any given subject as the intellectual equivalent as having a scientific position on the same subject.

I have no objection to a moral discussion on abortion and sexual abstinence, but a medical advisory group is not the appropriate forum for such a debate. Surely you can at least accept that? There are, of course, medical aspects to both and it goes without saying there is medical evidence of the health (physical and mental) benefits of sexual abstinence in young women, but surely that is case to be made from a purely medical viewpoint? Why do we need shrill moralisers to stand up for anything when we are talking about medicine?

This is what I object to here. I am all for having moral discussions wherever these people want to, but we simply cannot allow these people to pollute scientific (in this case medical science) debates with Political Correctness.

Let us be under no illusion, what we are talking about is the usual objection by the Tories of a science debate talking place without being beamed through the Right Wing prism, which is as good a definition of Political Correctness as I have heard.

Well said, Jim.

@ 95 Jim

“I have no objection to a moral discussion on abortion and sexual abstinence, but a medical advisory group is not the appropriate forum for such a debate”

Given that sexual activity and abortion are both medical issues, and given that the government is making national policy on these issues, I think we do need to have a moral debate. Unless you want morality to be considered irrelevant to policy, and I don’t (if you do, what do you base policy on in the first place)?

For example, you can make abortion available to all, but people who feel it is morally wrong probably won’t go for it. And if that’s all of your policy – because you’re not interested in listening to pro-lifers – you’ve failed your responsibility to those people by creating a policy that needlessly excludes them.

@ 95 again

…Let me make the clarification that if you wanted, say, an expert panel to convene on abortion best-practice, you wouldn’t want a non-expert pro-lifer present – but then you wouldn’t want a non-expect pro-choicer, either. You’d want abortion doctors.

It’s precisely because this relates to government policy that it makes sense to include both sides of the moral debate.

Paul @ 91

However, they will be hugely out-numbered on this committee; but their presence will ensure that:

The reason they will be hugely outnumbered on this committee is because, this committee is SUPPOSED to be a medical committee to advise the Government of the day on aspects of sexual health.

Why is that people like cannot get this? This is a MEDICAL panel, not a MORAL panel. If you people want a moral panel then go and start one, but please, go away and have your moral debate with like-minded people, but what the fuck are ‘Life’ and the ‘single ring people’ doing on a medical panel?

Try and grasp this simple concept, this is supposed to be a medical advisory group, not a debate on whether or not abortion is a moral event or not. It is not the Government’s job to ‘have’ a moral standpoint on individual choices. Once someone decides to have an abortion it is up the Government to ensure that such abortions are done as cleanly, safely and as humanely as possible.

By all means give the woman the relevant information she requires, but it MUST be the individual’s choice as whether or not to proceed.

For example, you can make abortion available to all, but people who feel it is morally wrong probably won’t go for it. And if that’s all of your policy – because you’re not interested in listening to pro-lifers – you’ve failed your responsibility to those people by creating a policy that needlessly excludes them.

Actually it doesn’t exclude them at all, they are quite free to not have abortions themselves under any circumstances.

Chaise @ 97

But the moral debate is for those who wish to talk about the moral debate and the scientific/medical debate is for those who want (or need) to examine the medical implications of such activity.

Let me draw you analogy. Let us suppose we decided that we wanted to invade Iran for example. We could first of all have a debate on whether or it was a good idea or not and we could have a tactical debate on how to prosecute such a war, either in parallel or at another time (before or after), but we would recognise that it is not the same debate.

I mean, sure you could ask ‘Respect’, ‘Stop the War’ et al whether or not bombing Tehran is a good idea, but surely even the most fuckwitted person would expect them not to have anything of value to add as to whether an airborne assault is preferable to an amphibious landing? No one is likely to ask George Galloway where the best place to land paratroopers or how to get tanks into theatre? No, we would expect the army, navy and air force to work out the details, wouldn’t we? Who would suggest that we were stifling debate by asking only the armed forces to draw up tactics?

@101

Indeed. Or we could invite UKuncut to contribute to a government forum on tax avoidence…

Chaise @ 97

because you’re not interested in listening to pro-lifers – you’ve failed your responsibility to those people by creating a policy that needlessly excludes them.

Eh? I am not sure what you are trying to say here? How are they being excluded from a policy? If they have objections to abortions then let them spit it out! But once we allow such a policy then why ae we interested in their views? They are ‘agianst abortion’ therefore they have nothing of value to the medical side of the debate, simply because they are biased against abortions. A bit like asking CND to comment on how many missiles we need to defend against a Russian attack, then isn’t it? How can they have an objective strategic view, given they reject the need to have the things in the first place.

“Whether or not people believe in Christianity or even are simply anti abortion on moral grounds is completely irrelevant. If you and people like you want to start a moralising panel on abortion then you are at liberty to do so, but please do not hijact a medical panel and turn it into a moral debating panel.

The God squad and moralisers can play no part in discussion or forum that is supposed to be medical (and science) in nature because they are simply not qualified to do so.”

No. Because the only interesting, important, part of the debate over abortion is “Who? When? Why?”

The “how” is well known. Vacuum out the baby/fetus/gob of meiotic cells/nothing to worry about here or later in the term, kill it then take it out piece by piece. Having cut it up.

And yes, there is a nurse detailed to make sure that out comes the regular complement of hands, fingers, feet and toes. Just to make sure that they “got it all”, you know?

Or, of course, the ever popular induce birth and let it die over there, to the side.

And yes, I’m using objectionable language to describe how it’s done. Because that just isn’t the important part of the discussion. *Why*, when and to whom, under what restrictions, is the important part.

“Let me draw you analogy. Let us suppose we decided that we wanted to invade Iran for example. We could first of all have a debate on whether or it was a good idea or not and we could have a tactical debate on how to prosecute such a war, either in parallel or at another time (before or after), but we would recognise that it is not the same debate.

I mean, sure you could ask ‘Respect’, ‘Stop the War’ et al whether or not bombing Tehran is a good idea, but surely even the most fuckwitted person would expect them not to have anything of value to add as to whether an airborne assault is preferable to an amphibious landing? No one is likely to ask George Galloway where the best place to land paratroopers or how to get tanks into theatre? No, we would expect the army, navy and air force to work out the details, wouldn’t we? Who would suggest that we were stifling debate by asking only the armed forces to draw up tactics?”

Quite, the important question is whether, not how.

I love the way the tories want so called balance on the panel.. How about the balance of the bill The Education secretary introduced into the commons on sex education? All, I repeat ALL the advisors on sex education are faith based, and support abstinence education, or are anti abortion.

Always beware brown shirts demanding balance.

The only morals that should count are the morals of the women carrying the foetus. She should have full autonomy over her uterus. To argue otherwise is to say she is not an independent person but an entity that can have your moral objection to her behaviour imposed upon her. As long as the foetus is a part of the woman’s body her rights should trump any other consideration. At the time the foetus is no longer part of her body the state confers rights on the child and the woman is no longer the only person with rights. No matter how much the anti-choice brigade try to frame things as a moral debate this is only a smokescreen for them to impose their intolerance and control on others. So-called morals which have a religious foundation are particularly objectionable and should play no part in public policy.

Fascinating how Tim, our free market individual fundamentalist , starts to baulk at the idea of freedom for woman to control their own bodies.

But not unusual. Why do you think I call libertarians fake? They are all fake.

@ 106:

“As long as the foetus is a part of the woman’s body”

As I’ve said multiple times on this thread, that’s precisely the point under discussion. Simply asserting “It’s here body, therefore she should choose” isn’t going to convince anybody who doesn’t already agree with you.

“No matter how much the anti-choice brigade try to frame things as a moral debate this is only a smokescreen for them to impose their intolerance and control on others.”

I don’t think we’ll be able to have a proper discussion until you stop lying about your opponents’ motivations. This sort of comment is about as helpful as an environmentalist going around saying “Yes, I know that car-drivers say they just want to get from A to B quickly, but they’re *really* trying to destroy the environment.” It doesn’t engage with the points at issue, alienates those whom you should be trying to convince, and frankly makes you look like a bit of a pillock.

“The only morals that should count ”

“Should”, eh? But that’s a moral judgement in itself.

Let’s just change your words a little.

“The only morals that should count are the morals of the man beating the Jew. He should have full autonomy over the interloper”.

Or

“The only morals that should count are the morals of the peasant disposessing the Kulak. He should have full autonomy over the oppressor”.

Generally speaking we tend to argue that it’s the “should” that we should discuss first really.

108. XXX

@ 106:

” As I’ve said multiple times on this thread, that’s precisely the point under discussion. Simply asserting “It’s here body, therefore she should choose” isn’t going to convince anybody who doesn’t already agree with you. ”

Convincing you should play no part in anything. We start from the fundamental principle that it has absolutely nothing to do with you what other people choose to do with their bodies. You have to convince others that it is your uterus too.

” I don’t think we’ll be able to have a proper discussion until you stop lying about your opponents’ motivations. This sort of comment is about as helpful as an environmentalist going around saying “Yes, I know that car-drivers say they just want to get from A to B quickly, but they’re *really* trying to destroy the environment.” It doesn’t engage with the points at issue, alienates those whom you should be trying to convince, and frankly makes you look like a bit of a pillock. ”

Let’s see. Tolerance = leaving people in control over their own bodies. Intolerance= you trying to control a uterus that does not belong to you. Therefore, morals objections manifest themselves in a desire to control others.

@ 109. Tim Worstall

Should is not a moral judgement in this context, Tim. It is the fundamental natural state of affairs that people had autonomy over their bodies before the rise of religion and the nation state. It is you who is arguing for the unnatural imposition of man made rules to be applied to a woman’s uterus.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to have a proper discussion until you stop lying about your opponents’ motivations.”

Fucking hilarious! There is nothing right wing fundies do better than projection. It is your side of the argument that is lying about it’s aims bucko.

How many more times?…. you people don’t give a shit about the foetus as soon as it pops out of the womb. This is not about the foetus, it is about the woman.

111 Richard W

Well said. Although freedom of the woman to control her own body is lost on the likes of Timmy.

@ 110:

“We start from the fundamental principle that it has absolutely nothing to do with you what other people choose to do with their bodies.”

Right. But we *also* start from the principle that you shouldn’t harm other people. The issue in question is not whether woman should be able to do what they like with their bodies, but whether or not the foetus is, in fact, another person. If it isn’t, and it’s just a part of the woman’s body, then of course she should be able to do what she likes with it; if it is, then she shouldn’t.

@ 112:

“How many more times?…. you people don’t give a shit about the foetus as soon as it pops out of the womb.”

I think I know what I do and don’t care about without you having to tell me, thankyou very much.

Tim W @ 104

No. Because the only interesting, important, part of the debate over abortion is “Who? When? Why?

Tim, that is NOT the remit of the advisory panel. The remit of the panel is ‘sexual health’. the Who? When? and Why? may or may not be interesting, but you should invoke your own panel and have the shrill ‘moral majority’ debate to the cows come home if you want, don’t hijack a medical forum.

Tim, I will ask you again.

Why should ‘Life’ or any anti abortion pressure group or any pressure group for that matter be invited to sit on any medical forum?

Surely the place for a moral debate is on a ‘morals & ethics’ panel?

@ 116:

“Tim, that is NOT the remit of the advisory panel. The remit of the panel is ‘sexual health’.”

If this includes abortions — as it seems to — then “Who should be able to have an abortion, and under what circumstances?” seems a reasonable question for it to consider.

XXX @ 108

As I’ve said multiple times on this thread, that’s precisely the point under discussion.

And everytime you have said it, you have been wrong.

The point under discussion is precisely nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not women have the right to abortion. The point under discussion is why a pressure group with absolutely no medical expertise has been invited onto a medical panel, whose remit is ‘sexual health’.

The best ‘reason’ I can think of is because the anti science Tories are attempting to shape a medical debate around their own backward political ideology.

I would appeal to everyone, no matter your political ideology and even your views on abortion, please do not let the vermin turn science in all its forms into the political football that it has become in America. Please, this great Country practically invented ‘the scientific age’, from Newton onwards to Darwin and beyond to Hawkins we have made countless scientific discoveries and have shaped the planet’s scientific road map. To drag us back to a period of superstition would be unforgivable.

XXX @ 117

If this includes abortions — as it seems to — then “Who should be able to have an abortion, and under what circumstances?” seems a reasonable question for it to consider.

No, that is for Parliment to decide. This is supposed to be an advisory panel on sexual health.

@ 118:

“The point under discussion is why a pressure group with absolutely no medical expertise has been invited onto a medical panel, whose remit is ‘sexual health’.”

As Tim pointed out above, the procedures for carrying out abortion don’t need much discussion. In fact, if the panel is going to discuss abortion, about the only thing it could talk about would be who should be allowed and abortion and when, in which case it is important to have opinions from across the spectrum.

Of course, if you have proof that the panel isn’t discussing this, and they only plan to talk about how abortions should be provided, I’ll happily change my mind.

XXX @ 114

“Right. But we *also* start from the principle that you shouldn’t harm other people. The issue in question is not whether woman should be able to do what they like with their bodies, but whether or not the foetus is, in fact, another person. If it isn’t, and it’s just a part of the woman’s body, then of course she should be able to do what she likes with it; if it is, then she shouldn’t.
”

Yes, but what is that to do with you? If that women whose body the foetus in thinks it is simply an appendage of her body, what difference does it make to you?
Or anyone else, for that matter?

“No, that is for Parliment to decide. This is supposed to be an advisory panel”

An advisory panel which can give advice to Parliament on that question, or to the government on how existing laws should be implemented.

@ 121:

“Yes, but what is that to do with you? If that women whose body the foetus in thinks it is simply an appendage of her body, what difference does it make to you?
Or anyone else, for that matter?”

If a concentration camp guard (ZOMG Godwin!!!) decides that a Jewish prisoner isn’t a person, what difference does it make to you?

@123 Is this Jewish prisoner living inside the camp guard and using the guard for sustenance?

XXX @ 120

As Tim pointed out above, the procedures for carrying out abortion don’t need much discussion. In fact, if the panel is going to discuss abortion, about the only thing …

Yeah, and it only took you this long to get to the nub of the question. The real reason the Tory vermin have shoehorned these religious nutters onto this panel is a crude attempt to push abortion onto the political agenda, via a veneer of medical respectability.

Not only that, but you can be fucking sure that once the screamers get onto this panel, abortion will be virtually the only thing this panel will be discussing, interspersed with ‘sodomy’, ‘fornicators’, ‘single mothers’ and child benefits.

Bet your last fiver that they will be advocating that single mother’s benefits be cut on the flimsiest of medical pretexts.

That is the whole plan in a nutshell. The politisation of every aspect of social policy, just like the religious Right have done and without so much as a whimper from the rest of us.

And people wonder why I fucking despise the Tories?

XXX 123

If a concentration camp guard (ZOMG Godwin!!!) decides that a Jewish prisoner isn’t a person, what difference does it make to you?

OFFS, get a life man! No-one is talking about a real, walking talking, breathing human being. Christ, you know when a screamer has lost the debate?

And in other news from Italy …….

These are people the tories think we need to listen to on morality…..

“The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests.

Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested last Friday, May 13, on pedophilia and drug charges. Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. “I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues,” he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse.”

Just to repeat “”I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues,”

No wonder they want to save the foetus

Ultimately, abortions don’t stop because the law says so, instead desperate women go to the back-street butcher and risk their health and life because they are precluded from having relatively safe medical interventions. Promoting health is giving a woman a safe environment to do what she will probably do anyway, not subjecting her to some group moralizing from a particular belief/faith that isn’t necessarily shared by the pregnant woman.

@ 121:

“Yes, but what is that to do with you? If that women whose body the foetus in thinks it is simply an appendage of her body, what difference does it make to you?
Or anyone else, for that matter?”

If one thinks that the foetus is indeed a baby, then aborting it is morally equivalent to murder. I hope you’re not suggesting that someone should see all this murder (as they see it) and not do anything to stop it because it doesn’t affect them personally. Presumably you think we shouldn’t give to charities which operate in different countries, because we won’t benefit personally from their work?

@ 125:

“The real reason”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

“the Tory vermin have shoehorned these religious nutters”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

“That is the whole plan in a nutshell.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

@ 127:

A single Catholic priest =/= the Catholic Church =/= Life. Nor does the Catholic Church =/= the pro-life lobby. Nor, for that matter, does the priest’s paedophilia invalidate anything he or anyone else might have to say on abortion.

@ 128:

“Ultimately, abortions don’t stop because the law says so, instead desperate women go to the back-street butcher and risk their health and life because they are precluded from having relatively safe medical interventions.”

They won’t stop completely, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be significantly reduced. Otherwise you might as well say that we shouldn’t bother having any laws at all; after all, people are still going to commit crimes, right?

“not subjecting her to some group moralizing from a particular belief/faith that isn’t necessarily shared by the pregnant woman.”

An argument which could be applied to any law.

According to this news report, the serial problems of the Church of Rome have been expertly assessed:

Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”, according to the Holy See’s chief exorcist.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican’s chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as “cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7056689.ece

@XXX

What gives you the right to say what a woman should and shouldn’t do with her uterus? The onus, I’m afraid, is on you to answer that question. Not the other way round, except in topsy-turvy right-wing world.

XXX @ 129

But who the fuck gave you the moral compass to decide for the rest of us what does and what does not constitute life? What difference to you does any of this make? If you hate abortion then fine, don’t do it.

You want to talk about straw men? Then fine, no-one is talking about jews in Belsen or prison guards human beings in poor Countries etc, that is pish and you know it. The fact that this the ‘best’ you have says it all.

You people have lost all the arguments, but you STILL after all these years have failed to put this back onto the agenda and STILL failed, so now you are attempting to shoehorn nutters onto otherwise legitimate panels because you cannot win.

They won’t stop completely, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be significantly reduced.

Ever thought about this pragmatically? Given that abortions are going to happen, surely it be better that it took place in an humane way? If you really gave a shit about the unborn child dying you would be more concerned that it be done in a regulated, safe humane manner, but no. It is not about humanity at all, it is about power.

Even better. If you were even slightly concerned about the welfare of the baby, then I bet you would be concerned about welfare reforms that would end up making parents worse off. But most of the anti abortionists never are.

What about people who demand that single mothers be denied housing? How many babies will die on that? What about people who want child benefit paid for the first two children only? How many deaths, or a limit on how much benefit a family receives? Dead babies again. In fact what about the American drones killing unborn babies in the Middle East?

Lets face, you have called on this before, once a child is out of the womb your average Tory wishes the poor mite dead anyway.

Last question: The home office is about to deport a disabled child to her death. See thread. Are you on our side or the King Herod side?

@XXX

@ 66:

“What would you do in that situation?”

I’d keep the fellow alive, personally.

And then I asked the question:
Excellent! Now, in regards to the wider abortion-rights debate – do you see what you just did there?

I’ll tell you what you did there. You made a choice. You, chose what to do with your own body, and decided upon the fate of fully grown man, a definite indisputable human being, not a foetus or blastocyst, no equivocating involved. You chose to in essence carry the pregnancy to term, and in those nine months you could have, at any time, freed yourself and killed another man.
You didn’t choose that, but you also didn’t dispute that the choice was yours to make. You made your decision probably without even thinking that perhaps you shouldn’t actually be allowed to make such a choice, that deciding on your own bodily autonomy when an actual human life will suffer the consequences of your decision shouldn’t really be in your own hands. That the life of another human being, when it is relying on your body to live, should not be subject to your whims. You made the choice, beneficial to the Musician’s survival, but would you have preferred my poor analogy had you strapped to the bed you awake in where you would be told by your captors that for nine months you will be joined to the Musician, and no you don’t get a say in the matter?

Many women when faced with an unexpected pregnancy will, essentially, make the same decision as you, others will decide otherwise. But why should they be denied that choice, when it didn’t even occur to you that you yourself should be denied that choice?

132
Yes it could apply to any law, however, we know the consequences of back-street abortions and the risks, but it did not stop desperate women. Pro-life is based on a faith/moral view, if a pregnant woman shares that faith/morality she will not have an abortion. The only possible reason why such a group would want to become involved with an agency giving medical advice on, amongst other things, abortion, is to attempt to persuade/recruit people into that faith/morality, and that’s not what the NHS is for.
There is no denying that ethical considerations have to be made with regard to many interventions/procedures but most of those decisions are not made on the basis of a religious dogma.

@135

Even better. If you were even slightly concerned about the welfare of the baby, then I bet you would be concerned about welfare reforms that would end up making parents worse off. But most of the anti abortionists never are.

What about people who demand that single mothers be denied housing? How many babies will die on that? What about people who want child benefit paid for the first two children only? How many deaths, or a limit on how much benefit a family receives? Dead babies again. In fact what about the American drones killing unborn babies in the Middle East?

The reply I always give to anti-abortionists is “so surely you will be happy to personally pay for the children which you demanded be born, and if not, wtf right do you think you have to demand that women must have them” It often shuts them up.

It also seems rather strange that so called “pro-lifers”, especially the American ones are frequently in favour of the death penalty.

On the wider point. I think the last year has revealed just how reactionary and retrograde the Tories still are, their true colours have been revealed in all their nasty reactionary glory. They appear to be on a mission to take Britain back to the Victorian age.

71. XXX

”It’s nevertheless a way of regulating fertility. The most effective way, in fact, since if you don’t have sex, you can’t get pregnant.”

complete fantasy.

The ancient Egyptians had abortions, the Irish flood over to the UK to get abortions and in the ridiculous Phillipines women constantly die from back street abortions.,
People won’t stop bonking becasue anyone says so, its too primeval an urge. As is clear from human history women use it as a fertility regulator, even if illegal. Its a human adaptation to their environment.

How would you stop people having sex, moral indoctrination from a small age. A theocracy like the taliban. It is for that reason that the creationist anit abortion wing of the Tory party is known as the Tory Taliban.

132. XXX

”They won’t stop completely, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be significantly reduced”

Like in the Phillipines where women die because abortions are banned. You appear set to turn the UK into a theocratic state where women die because of religious objections. You could stone women who have abortions couldn’t you, if they don’t die in the gutter.

What a load of nonsense

”if a pregnant woman shares that faith/morality she will not have an abortion.”

Ah but they do in the developing world. So desperate are they that even devout Catholics and Muslims do , dying in the back streets for religious ideology.

That is why this group should not be allowed on any advisory panel

141
Good point, but I was referring to women in the UK who don’t need to go to back-street abortionist (yet). My real point was that religious views do not play a part in clinical decisions/procedures within the NHS and nor should they. The morality begins and stops with the individual, who may determine their own actions on the basis of it (not necessarily abortion) the NHS is there to provide clear and objectiver information on any intervention and that it is carried-out to a high clinical standard. Sexual education (all education) should also be objective and as value-free as is possible, Bearing this in mind, why would a pro-life group want to be involved in an area, where it is known that the people accessing services, are likely to be involved in behaviour which is against their own moral viewpoint?

Good grief, this thread is enough to turn someone pro-life. Cylux is about the only person on here who has actually responded to XXX’s points with arguments rather than just stating and restating their position.

I may disagree with XXX, but I don’t think he’s a ‘screamer’. I may be suspicious that anti-abortionists’ arguments have been cobbled to together in the service of religious beliefs rather than having been arrived at through a non-dogmatic consideration of the issues, but that doesn’t mean those arguments can just be batted aside.

Like it or not, the arguments against abortion (the foetus is a person, one person doesn’t have the right to kill another person etc.) still resonate with a lot of people, and the arguments *for* abortion – like Judith Jarvis Thomson’s ‘violinist’ argument, which Cylux borrowed – are not very well known (because we tend to fall back on slogans about ‘choice’ instead). There is still a need for us to make a case for the ‘woman’s body, woman’s choice’ position – either by arguing that the foetus is not a person with rights, or by arguing that even if it *is* a person with rights the woman’s right to choose comes first anyway (because nobody is morally obliged to give up control of their body in order to preserve another person’s life).

@ 100 Cylux

“Actually it doesn’t exclude them at all, they are quite free to not have abortions themselves under any circumstances.”

Are you here to talk or to deliberately misinterpret people in the cause of making smarmy remarks?

@ 103 Jim

“Eh? I am not sure what you are trying to say here? How are they being excluded from a policy? If they have objections to abortions then let them spit it out! But once we allow such a policy then why ae we interested in their views?”

Because there are plenty of people in the country who would’t have an abortion even if the pregnancy was unwanted. Therefore abortion can’t be the whole solution to the national sexual health problem of “how shall we create policy to help people who get pregnant by mistake”. So a disbelief in abortion does not automatically make you incapable of making a relevant contribution, even if changing abortion law is not on the table.

@ 101 Jim

“Let me draw you analogy. Let us suppose we decided that we wanted to invade Iran for example. We could first of all have a debate on whether or it was a good idea or not and we could have a tactical debate on how to prosecute such a war, either in parallel or at another time (before or after), but we would recognise that it is not the same debate. ”

As I’ve already made clear, I wouldn’t say we should ask Life about their opinions on how to best conduct an abortion.

I agree with G.O. The stong pro-choicers on here mainly seem to be misrepresenting comments, making wild accusations, or insisting on acting as if everyone else accepts their assumptions (e.g. that old “it’s her body” argument, which ignores the fact that pro-lifers believe there’s more than one body involved). It’s rare that I get into a discussion on abortion and end up arguing with the choicers for the whole damn thread.

@143 Ah it was ‘violinist’ argument, that’d be why I couldn’t find it with google.
And then butchered it horribly trying to recall it from memory.

Oh and as for this refrain of ‘it’s a medical panel, not a moral one’ – ever heard of medical ethics?

(…not that I think LIFE are necessarily the best people to give advice on medical ethics. But the idea that there’s no place for ethical discussions on a medical panel is plain wrong. You wouldn’t convene a medical panel on the treatment of dementia sufferers, say, without expecting to have some sort of conversation about the ethics of sedating or restraining people, giving treatment to people who aren’t able to consent, balancing the wishes/interests of the patient now vs. the wishes they expressed in a living will made at an earlier time, etc. etc.)

Chaise @ 145

Because there are plenty of people in the country who would’t have an abortion

Then, fine, don’t have an abortion. There should be advice for people who do not wish to have abortions. We can still give them advice from a number of groups. However, ‘Life’ is not one of those groups because they are not a medical, family planing or health agency and have no expertise on this issue. They are anti abortionists, nothing more, nothing less. They do not advise young people on anything simply because they are not interested in anything other than the complete ban on legal abortions.

@ Jim

“Then, fine, don’t have an abortion. There should be advice for people who do not wish to have abortions. We can still give them advice from a number of groups. However, ‘Life’ is not one of those groups because they are not a medical, family planing or health agency and have no expertise on this issue. They are anti abortionists, nothing more, nothing less. They do not advise young people on anything simply because they are not interested in anything other than the complete ban on legal abortions.”

Um….

http://www.lifecharity.org.uk/our-organisation

Why would you make all those statements about an organisation when you haven’t even looked it up? This is what I’m talking about: a number of the strongly pro-choice people on this thread are more interested in outraged ranting than mature debate: in your case, you’re either deliberately making things up, or assuming that Life must be what you want it to be.

G.O. @ 143

Like it or not, the arguments against abortion (the foetus is a person, one person doesn’t have the right to kill another person etc.) still resonate with a lot of people,

You don’t seem to be getting any of this, are you? This advisory panel is not supposed to be arguing for and against abortion. This panel is supposed to advise Government on matter of sexual health, not the public on whether or not abortion is a good or a bad thing. If the anti abortionists want a panel to advise the public on whether or not abortion is a good thing, then by all means set one up, but try and get this fact into your head.

IT IS NOT THE JOB OF THE GOVERNMENT TO ADVISE PEOPLE ON THE MORALITY OF ABORTIONS. NOR IS IT THE JOB OF THIS PANEL TO ADVISE GOVERNMENT OF THE MORALITY OF ABORTION, EITHER.

Even i it were, it would be the job of this panel to provide impartial, detailed facts regarding abortion.

‘Life’ can do none of that because it starts of with the premise that abortion is wrong, it cannot be considered impartial, given that its remit is to stop abortion.

Chaise @ 150

in your case, you’re either deliberately making things up, or assuming that Life must be what you want it to be.

You are still missing the point, though. If the ‘Life’ people wish to offer support to women in terms of housing or childcare etc, that is fine in my book. I will least accept that they are willing to stand by their beliefs and put money where their mouths are. However, giving a woman (or young girl) a roof over their head and baby clothes is outwith the scope of medicine and miles outwith the remit of this panel they have been shoehorned into.

As I have said before, if we want forum to debate the pros and cons of abortion then by all means, let us have one. Let us invite everyone onto the panel and have a ding dong battle.

That is not the point of this panel. This panel is not supposed to be about the rights and wrongs of abortion or anything else, but about advising Government of matters concerned with sexual health.

Whatever this group do, they are not experts in sexual health. They bring NOTHING to the table to enhance the debate or the medical evidence, because they don’t have any, they are a campaign group and they can even be described as a welfare charity. That is fine, and dandy, but they can bring nothing to the debate on sexual health, because they are empty chairs.

From your own link:

Many people don’t understand, or have never heard, the reasons for which pro-lifers oppose abortion, embryo research and the legalisation of assisted suicide. One of the most important aspects of LIFE Education’s work is to explain these reasons, to demonstrate that one can be a pro-lifer and also be reasonable, well-informed and interested in what others have to say.

In other words they want to push their own views forward. Nothing wrong with that, but that is not the purpose of this advisory group, is it?

These people have NOT been invited onto this panel to enhance the science or medical research, nor are they their o but forward their expertise on the subject. Not even on natural fertiliity or anythingelse for that mater.

They are on this medical panel for teir political stance in order to appease the anti abortionist in te Tory Party.

@ 151:

“Even i it were, it would be the job of this panel to provide impartial, detailed facts regarding abortion.”

Actually, no, its job is to provide advice on sexual health, a somewhat broader topic. Judging by Chaise’s link, Life is already involved in helping women with advice on sexual health, so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to give it a position on the panel (where, let it be pointed out, it will be outnumbered by pro-choice groups, meaning that any impact it will be able to have on the panel’s output re: abortion will be minimal).

As for the rest of your post, see GO’s comment on medical ethics.

@ 152:

“one of the most important aspects of LIFE Education’s work”

Life Education isn’t the same as Life as a whole. Also, not that it says *one* of the aspects, not the whole purpose. So to imply that they only want to convert people into pro-lifers is disingenuous, to say the least.

“That is not the point of this panel.”

Actually, reading through the article, the “point” of the panel seems rather uncertain. It doesn’t really say what the organisation’s remit will be with enough exactness for us to judge on whether Life’s purpose really does make any input it can give irrelevant. Judging by the fact that the government saw fit to invite them, it would seem more likely that they do have something to add.

XXX @ 153

(where, let it be pointed out, it will be outnumbered by pro-choice groups, meaning that any impact it will be able to have on the panel’s output re: abortion will be minimal).

Its impact should be non-existent, because they already go into the debate as anti abortionists, that is clearly not an impartial position to take.

Look, I do not have a problem with what they are doing on the ground. I have no problem offering advice and practical help for potential mothers. I do not begrudge them the ability to talk to pregnant women who want advise regarding the cons regarding abortion. I do not, for one moment wish to see them disbanded as a charity. I would urge everyone who is anti abortion and pro chiocers alike to donate to them. If, what they say is true, then I think they do a great job.

However, none of that work justifies them being on a panel which is supposed to be about advising government on sexual health. I think it is wrong for government to impose these people onto a panel that is supposed to be based on expertise, not political patronage.

@ 156:

“Its impact should be non-existent, because they already go into the debate as anti abortionists, that is clearly not an impartial position to take.”

I should be surprised if any group on the panel doesn’t have a position on abortion, even if it’s only implicit. Providing abortions, or helping women to have abortions, only makes sense if you take the view that abortion is OK, which is no less partial than the view that abortion is wrong. If you want to avoid having any partial groups discussing abortion on the panel, you’d have to avoid discussing abortion altogether.

XXX @ 157

No one is suggesting that abortion be made compulsory, which would be the flip side of ‘no abortion should occur under any circumstance’. I have never met anyone who was ‘pro abortion’ in that sense. What people like ‘brook advisory’ et al do is to offer advice on aspects of abortion regarding the pros vs Cons to women. That advice must be impartial and factual. Surely we should expect such advice groups to give out the information regarding the various options open to women. I cannot imagine a group who said ‘all unplanned pregnancies must be aborted, in every circumstance’. That would be wrong in my book. I would expect that every woman would be offered advice on every option open to her, including adoption. Although if a woman chose abortion after all that, I would respect that choice.

What people like ‘life’ want is to deny that woman either the advice or that choice. That simply cannot be right to impose your morals onto a vulnerable individual and therefore deny that women the knowledge to make an informed choice. Given that they start of with the belief that abortion is morally wrong, I cannot see how they can offer anything in the way of medical advice to anyone, far less government.

A group which is opposed to abortion in all circumstances and favours an abstinence-based approach to sex education

If these crackpots had any understanding of science or evidence based policy then they would know that there is not a shred of evidence that “abstinence-based sex education” is even remotely effective. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6927733.stm

Which does rather raise questions as to the value of any “advice” they give to anyone, especially on a medical advisory group, which one would expect would take actual evidence into consideration.

That said. I doubt they will really have much influence This is clearly a sop to the anti-abortion “traditionalists” in the Tory party.

But it is sad that retrograde Victorian “morality” is still alive and with us in the 21st century. At least in some sections of the Tory party.

P.S. has anyone else noticed the limited number of woman participating in this debate (assuming that some aren’t hiding their gender under psuednums)

Jim

“You don’t seem to be getting any of this, are you?… try and get this fact into your head. ”

Argue with me by all means, but there’s no need to be rude. And please don’t talk to me as if I’m a bit ‘slow’.

You’re quoting a point I made in response to other people’s comments. That doesn’t seem an unreasonable thing to do in a comments thread, even if issues to do with the morality of abortion are tangential to the issue raised in the original post.

Don’t forget that I am on your side in this debate. (See my comment @ 41, for instance.) I am just trying to get past the slogans (‘woman’s body, woman’s choice’; ‘medical panel, not moral panel’; ‘alternative views should be represented’), take on board what other people are saying, and give some thoughtful responses.

Rather than just, y’know, talking to people like they’re idiots.

@ 158:

I said that the groups were partial, not that they were the polar opposite of Life. That they aren’t talking of making abortions compulsory is irrelevant.

“Surely we should expect such advice groups to give out the information regarding the various options open to women.”

We should expect them to give advice on carrying out courses of actions which we think are OK. If they were giving young mothers advice on infanticide, we’d all be horrified, because we all think infanticide is wrong. To say that they should be allowed to give advice on abortion is to implicitly claim that abortion’s OK under certain circumstances, which is no more impartial than to claim that it isn’t ever OK.

“What people like ‘life’ want is to deny that woman either the advice or that choice.”

Life don’t “want” to deny women the choice; that’s just a side-effect of (as they see it) saving babies. That statement is akin to me saying “What people like Jim want is to kill foetuses,” and every bit as unhelpful.

“Given that they start of with the belief that abortion is morally wrong, I cannot see how they can offer anything in the way of medical advice to anyone,”

I don’t see how thinking that abortion is wrong disqualifies them from contributing to the panel, unless the panel’s sole remit is to give advice on how abortion should be provided.

XXX:

“I don’t see how thinking that abortion is wrong disqualifies them from contributing to the panel, unless the panel’s sole remit is to give advice on how abortion should be provided.”

You might want to read the post at Left Foot Forward by Jennie Bristow of the BPAS. I’m thinking of this point in particular:

“This is not, however, a body designed for the purpose of debate about contentious ethical issues: it is designed to advise on the implementation of government policy, which is – as enshrined in the law – to provide women with access to abortion and contraceptive services when they need them.”

The full post is here:

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/05/how-can-anti-abortion-group-life-advise-the-government/

XXX @ 161

To say that they should be allowed to give advice on abortion is to implicitly claim that abortion’s OK under certain circumstances

Abortion IS legal in this Country and it IS an option that people use in these circumstances. You and ‘life’ may not like it, but there it is. Giving people advice in those conditions is hardly controversial is it? If someone says ‘I don’t want an abortion and a councillor tells them it is your only option, and then perhaps you have a point, but really? Are you saying that abortion is some kind of secret operation?

Life don’t “want” to deny women the choice; that’s just a side-effect of (as they see it) saving babies

A side effect? You are having a laugh, aren’t you? If they want to ban abortion then campaign for it, shoehorning a pressure group onto a medical board is not the way to do it.

unless the panel’s sole remit is to give advice on how abortion should be provided.

Not the sole remit, but it is part of the remit. These people have nothing of value to contribute to a medical forum because it is not within the remit of the advisory group to rule on whether or not abortion is or is not legal.

G.O. @ 160

I am genuinely sorry if you think I came on a bit strong, but I get the distinct feeling that some people here are missing the point about the purpose of this advisory panel. It appears that some people appear to think this panel is a talking shop for everyone to air their views on controversial medical procedures before we decide which ones to sanction.

Unfortunately, it is not. Despite many posts to the contrary, this panel’s job is to advice the government on how to delivery policy, specifically how to promote sexual health. Part of the scope of policy is to ensure women have access to abortion.

Now, it may be true that some people dislike abortion or abortion is killing babies or even that abortion is a legitimate topic for debate, but that is not what this panel designed to address. So, why do people think that having a charity that’s main goal is to oppose abortion should be on a panel whose remit includes proposing methods to deliver abortions?

I have to admit that I am baffled as to why people would see it entirely appropriate to take a panel that is designed to perform task ‘A’, reconfigure it and expect it to perform task ‘B’? Given the we need task ‘A’ done, but would also like task ‘B’ looked at, would it not make sense to let panel ‘A’ get on with the job and set up panel ‘B’ to look at task ‘B’? Why is that so difficult, I don’t mean to be rude, but seriously, doesn’t that make sense?

I mean, take football. I enjoy football, but I can understand that we do not have Alan Green from Six Oh Six on ‘Gardner’s Question Time’. Alan Green knows football, but that does not mean he should be given an automatic right to talk football on a gardening programme, does it?

Without being rude, can you explain why people want to ignore the remit for this panel, rather than form another panel to look at the rights or wrongs of abortion?

Jim

Apology accepted!

I think you’re asking the wrong person. I haven’t suggested at any point that LIFE should be on this panel, or that the panel’s remit does or should include debating the fundamental ethics of abortion. I just suggested that it was a bit simplistic to say there’s no place for moral debates on a medical panel (because in fact such panels discuss medical ethics all the time.)

@ 163:

“Abortion IS legal in this Country and it IS an option that people use in these circumstances. You and ‘life’ may not like it, but there it is.”

The point isn’t that abortion is legal, but that to claim that all groups other than Life are impartial is wrong. Their opinions may be reflected in law, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t opinions.

“Not the sole remit, but it is part of the remit.”

Part of the remit, yes; I don’t see, though, why they shouldn’t offer their opinions on subjects other than abortion.

”What a load of nonsense”

I believe this intelligent reply was from xxx.

Its a load of nonsense is it. Well in the Phillipines divorce is banned and contraception illegal in many case. Abortion is illegal.

Want a shock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_Philippines

This idiotic catholic state doesn’t stone women to death for adultery they don’t have to ,

over 10% of maternal deaths are from back street abortions. Now tell me again is it nonsense , I think not.

Exactl what is the difference between dying in a gutter froma botched abortion and being stoned to death, they are both done for a religious ideology

”My real point was that religious views do not play a part in clinical decisions/procedures within the NHS and nor should they. The morality begins and stops with the individual,”

Ah but that is what LIFE want steveb, that is whatr they want and that is why they should be allowed on the panel.