Proposed abortion Referendum

TheBigShort said:
'she is only a child herself',

'her life is ruined now',

'what was she thinking?',

'napppies and bottles instead of discos and nights out',

'she is tied down now',

'on welfare now, a burden to the State'
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I am not sure these old harpies still exist, but if they do nobody except yourself pays any attention to them. Its not the 1980s anymore.
 
cremeegg said:
I am not sure these old harpies still exist, but if they do nobody except yourself pays any attention to them. Its not the 1980s anymore.
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I beg to differ. We are a long way from mum & dad erupting in joyous approval on hearing the news that their teenage daughter is pregnant.
Whether I, or you, pay attention to such attitudes is nearly irrelevant. Its what young women who are pregnant think that matters. And I would consider that teenage pregnancy, or the prospect of being a single mother before having a chance to develop a career is still very much dissuaded by society.
These are factors in persuading women to travel to have an abortion.
It seems all unborn life is cherished by some. But once born, you live off the unintended consequences of the choices you made.
 
TheBigShort said:
I beg to differ. We are a long way from mum & dad erupting in joyous approval on hearing the news that their teenage daughter is pregnant.
Whether I, or you, pay attention to such attitudes is nearly irrelevant. Its what young women who are pregnant think that matters. And I would consider that teenage pregnancy, or the prospect of being a single mother before having a chance to develop a career is still very much dissuaded by society.
These are factors in persuading women to travel to have an abortion.
It seems all unborn life is cherished by some. But once born, you live off the unintended consequences of the choices you made.
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I don't think many people will disagree with the general gist of that. The question for the pro-lifers is does what you have outlined justify the taking of a human life.

All the social arguments in the world can be made but the bottom line is whether the baby/fetus/etc inside a pregnant woman is a person and if so does it have the right to life.

Most people accept that at some stage before birth is it, otherwise why not make it legal to kill a child after it is born if you decide you don't want it, so the question is when does it become wrong to terminate/kill/abort it.
 
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Thankfully, our teen pregnancy rate has decreased dramatically and continues to drop [broken link removed]

I have no doubt though that the sort of attitudes towards teenage mothers referred to above still exist.

On the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide being next on the agenda, I see that as scare-mongering. There has not been any widespread call for their introduction, even following the very tragic case of Marie Fleming. The UK, a country which has been referred to many times on this thread in respect of its supposedly high rates of abortion, has not introduced euthanasia or assisted suicide. Only 3 EU member states have (Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg as far as I know).
 
Andarma said:
On the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide being next on the agenda, I see that as scare-mongering. There has not been any widespread call for their introduction, even following the very tragic case of Marie Fleming. The UK, a country which has been referred to many times on this thread in respect of its supposedly high rates of abortion, has not introduced euthanasia or assisted suicide. Only 3 EU member states have (Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg as far as I know).
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To me it seems like a red herring also. I am anti-abortion but I am not "pro-life" in that I have no moral objection to the death penalty or euthanasia. I do have 'process' concerns on those issues e.g. miscarriages of justice, and how to ensure euthanasia is 100% voluntary.
 
Purple said:
I don't think many people will disagree with the general gist of that. The question for the pro-lifers is does what you have outlined justify the taking of a human life. All the social arguments in the world can be made but the bottom line is whether the baby/fetus/etc inside a pregnant woman is a person and if so does it have the right to life. Most people accept that at some stage before birth is it, otherwise why not make it legal to kill a child after it is born if you decide you don't want it, so the question is when does it become wrong to terminate/kill/abort it.
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I think it has a right to life and it has rights. For practical reasons, I think we must assign more weight to the rights of the mother where abortion is a medical necessity. Abortion on demand up to 12 weeks seems to assign zero rights to the unborn and I disagree with that.
 
No one can tell the future, but my own view is that if abortion is introduced, it will increase the number of abortions on Irish women by around 10,000 per year. ** Calculation below

Ultimately people have to weigh up what value they put on an unborn baby. Then what value on an extra 10,000 unborn babies in any single year. That’s a question someone can only answer for themselves.
Then weigh that up versus the negative impact of the 8th – of which there are many.

Ultimately it’s how people weigh those against each other is how people will / should vote. (Although I do feel some people wrongly mainly focus on the downside of the 8th as there is a human aspect to it whereby humans are telling their story. Its not as easy to emotionally relate to an unborn baby)


** It’s not unreasonable to assume we will follow in the footsteps of the UK where it is 1 in 5. (Its actually 1 in 4 globally – but the uk are nearest to us for comparison purposes in terms of culture, economy etc.)
I’m not saying it will happen overnight – or within a couple of years. But give it 10,15,20 years. Eventually we will get there. At least that’s the most likely outcome in my view.

  • Currently over 70,000 pregnancies a year in Ireland.
  • 20% abortion rate means nearly 15,000.
  • Currently 5,000 occur for Irish women.
  • That’s an extra 10,000.
 
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odyssey06 said:
To me it seems like a red herring also.
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Granted it is an aside but part of a creeping culture of death.

Anyone would have sympathy for those in difficult circumstances and the various edge cases but, in this regard, repeal is overkill as the proposal is to legalise wholesale abortion.
 
Purple said:
All the social arguments in the world can be made but the bottom line is whether the baby/fetus/etc inside a pregnant woman is a person and if so does it have the right to life.

Most people accept that at some stage before birth is it, otherwise why not make it legal to kill a child after it is born if you decide you don't want it, so the question is when does it become wrong to terminate/kill/abort it.
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Im not disagreeing with that, merely pointing out that the societal attitude to teenage pregnancy, or being a single mother is of disuasion at best, as the following comment attests to;

Andarma said:
Thankfully, our teen pregnancy rate has decreased dramatically and continues to drop
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Clearly teenage pregnancy is unwanted. But on the other hand to be cherished?
So a teenager, or young woman who becomes pregnant - who may not be in a stable settled relationship, who may not have finished her education or developed her career, what are they to think?
Are they to think that society at large does not want her pregnancy? That societal attitudes are to label her pregnancy as a 'crisis pregnancy'?
 
We have all been through the same developmental stages as outlined by Sagan. He suggests - offers for consideration - that the criterion for the cut-off for access to abortion should be the earliest onset of human thinking; he puts this at the 30th week (well into the 7th month). One hopes Carl appreciated that he got to marvel at the universe because his mother didn't choose to snuff out his existence before he exhibited large-scale linking up of neurons.
 
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odyssey06 said:
Simon Harris is some precious snowflake isn't he... he hasn't even got the nerve to face up to what he is proposing.
http://www.thejournal.ie/bray-abortion-photo-3999405-May2018/

Your performance as Minister for Health is upsetting and distressing too you know.
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The posters are illegal. That's the main issue here.

I agree with him that "They really are horrific images to put on posters. Really unethical, its wrong and illegal, as these should never have been erected.”

His right-on narrative that this is a black and white issue does bug me though.
 
Abortion is horrific, a lot of people who are moved by sympathy for women in difficult situations, or who just don't believe any woman should have to have a child if she does not want to, ignore this simple fact.
 
cremeegg said:
Abortion is horrific, a lot of people who are moved by sympathy for women in difficult situations, or who just don't believe any woman should have to have a child if she does not want to, ignore this simple fact.
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Most people realise that abortion is horrific but, having weighed that against the needs and wants of the pregnant woman, still come down on the repeal side.
 
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