You mean you would rather pick holes in other peoples replies than put your own.

Am I surprised?

I was "not picking holes", I was adding information that not everyone might be aware of.

//@12:46, but the death of a foetus capable of living a full life is ok if it saves a few from your rather bizzare defence of it.

There is no need to go this far to stop the one in a million chance you describe. //

It is not one in a million, google it - many women have been prosecuted for late abortion when it was actually a miscarriage. And the horrendous way they are treated when it happens due to attitudes like yours. 

And barry - yes 24 weeks is ample time in normal circumstances - not if the woman is not aware of the pregnancy, is terrified, is still with her abuser, or many other reasons. 

I'm sure you will judge that too but until you are in such a situation you can't even imagine.

Chelle, I can well imagine. 

A 15-year-old girl who was arrested in 2021 following a miscarriage, having previously looked at abortion information online, was among those investigated in the past ten years. The stress of the police investigation led to her self-harming, and the case against her was eventually dropped after a coroner concluded natural causes ended the pregnancy.

Another teenager, Bethany Cox, was interviewed by police while still in the “throes of grief”. It would take three years before she was found not guilty of abortion offences at the age of 22.

Two high-profile cases from the past three years have involved the use of abortion pills.

Nicola Packer took abortion pills prescribed to her by a registered provider during the November 2020 Covid lockdown, as she believed she was still in the early stages of pregnancy. She was cleared of any wrongdoing earlier this year.

Carla Foster, a mother of three children, was sentenced to 28 months in prison in 2023 after taking pills outside the 24-week limit. She was released on appeal the following month.

They fall silent when asked if a domestic abuse victim who is coerced by their abuser into taking pills and later arrested for an “illegal abortion” – as was the case for Laura* – should go to prison, and when asked whether they believe prison is appropriate for a mentally distressed woman with pre-natal depression who takes abortion pills in desperation.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/mps-vote-decriminalise-abortion-important-increasing-prosecutions-global-backlash-us/

"She would be charged with murder if she suffocated the baby immediately after birth."

Quite so, barry. I'm unsure of the law surrounding this but as far as I know, immediately before, she couldn't (or if she could, that is bad law). Hence my cut-off.

The alternative is to devise some other cut-off. So what should it be? Immediately following conception? Ten weeks? Thirty weeks?

I don't know the answer to that and nor does anybody else. So birth is the best cutoff. I gives a woman absolute control over something she should be absolutely in control of. Nobody should take that control away from her.

"In short, on this I strongly disagree with you."

Perfecty fine, youngmaf.

That's what debate often leads to !!!

Thankfully we can disagree and still be on good terms.

> I don't know the answer to that and nor does anybody else. So birth is the best cutoff.

Logic error!

The cutoff used to be conception (i.e. no lawful abortion).  It is currently "viability" (i.e. no lawful abortion after 24 weeks when a baby could possibly live outside the woman's body).  After the vote yesterday goes through the Commons and the Lords, the new cutoff will be birth.  Perhaps the next time it will be up to the first birthday, if the mother decided it wasn't working out for some reason ... as many of the reasons why abortions are justified can also apply to living babies.

"Logic error!"

Not at all.

My argument is that birth should be the cutoff. That's my answer.

There seems to be no settled concensus on an alterntive and I don't know the answer to which of the range of alternatives that might be suggested because I believe they are all equally unsuitable.

"...as many of the reasons why abortions are justified can also apply to living babies."

And to many adults as well.  🤣

The weakness in that argument, however, stems from the fact that a foetus is not considered a "legal person" until it is born, separated from its mother and lives. Accordingly it does not have the protections that a legal person does. It cannot be murdered; it cannot be assaulted.

There is an offence of "child destruction" which applies to the wilful destrucion of a foetus that would be deemed able to live a separate life (which is usually accepted to be at 28 weeks and beyond). Legal abortion is exempt from that legislation. But it is rarely charged and even more rarely results in a conviction. Prosecutors usually find it easier to secure a conviction for assault against the mother.

As it stands at present, any woman who ends her own pregnancy is breaking the law and faces up to life imprisonment. This essentially provides a sort of "protection by proxy" for foetuses which is not generally available if the pregnancy comes to end by other external means.

I believe this is an abominable state of affairs. Far from having a legal identity, the foetus is an intrinsic part of her body and remains so until birth. It thus criminalises women for treating their bodies (of which the foetus is part) as they think fit. 

Self-harm is not an offence. The law definitely needs changing.

> > I don't know the answer to that and nor does anybody else. So birth is the best cutoff.

It's a logic error because the second sentence contradicts the first.

There are logical and emotional arguments for all four of the options I offered: conception, viability, birth or later. It's an ethical and moral dilemma, there are no right answers that everyone can agree on.

The 1967 act was considered at great length and has lasted nearly 60 years. This new act took two hours of debate, in an opportune time with a huge Labour majority. The idea that a viable baby can be alive or dead based on the mother's choice (e.g. Caesarean versus abortion), with no legal comebacks, will be a big societal change.

So some on here think it's ok for a woman to use abortion rather than contraception just cos  it's her body...why not just stop a minute and think about the baby.

Absolutely no one has said that at all.

NJ@19:55 Wed   //As it stands at present, any woman who ends her own pregnancy is breaking the law and faces up to life imprisonment. This essentially provides a sort of "protection by proxy" for foetuses which is not generally available if the pregnancy comes to end by other external means.//

Where does that leave women who are fitted with a coil? The coil, unlike other methods, does not prevent conception, it prevents the fertilised egg from attaching itself to the uterus wall.

Would have thought that was ok since it's cells with the potential of becoming a human being at that point, unlike when sufficient has formed that it's recognisable as an unfinish human being.

I am extremely unhappy about this vote.  Having carried babies to term - they are acting separately to your body. Once viable there should not be an option to kill them (just face it that is what is proposed).