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My abortion talk with the kids

Good on ya, @Admiral Beez ...that's some solid parenting.

You guys are kinda making me feel bad for being party to a rather frivolous abortion once upon a time, but hey, it was early days and it was half demon so.....

I went with her to the pre-screening and for the procedure the day after at Mt Sinai Hospital. Let me tell you something......it's a depressing place to go. I was also the only partner there...all the other girls were there with a parent or alone....which is also depressing.

PS: What's with New Zealand and South Australia?
Also, wtf is up with the UK? I didn't know that was the status of the procedure there. Learn something new every day. Also, lol @ Poland......come on, Lech, get over it.
And Malta....man, is that even legal within the EU?
 
BurlOak said:
It's Aland Islands.
(I looked it up - they are not in UEFA, so I had no clue :) ).
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No, they're not in UEFA because they're just a province or county or whatever they're considered/called in Sweden. Interesting that they have their own abortion regulations different from the rest of Sweden. I wonder why that is. Anyone?

Edit: Never mind....Aland Islands are actually a Swedish island province of Finland which explains the same green that Finland has. Ok, mystery solved....I knew it was a Swedish name, didn't think it was Finnish territory.....I'm fairly certain there is an Aland province in Sweden as well.
 
Admiral Beez said:
My teenage daughter and I were driving home today and listening to Trump at the abortion rally in Washington today. My daughter asked me if I was pro life or pro choice. I had to say I was both, but the latter trumps (no pun intended) the former. I told her that I can’t accept that a baby not yet born isn’t a person, and mentioned that I remember seeing her on the ultrasound when she was perhaps two or three months along, seeing her little heartbeat, toes, growing features, etc, and I said never before she was born did her mother and I not consider her our baby, a person. But, I then said if her mother had decided to abort her, that would have been, and must be her right regardless of my or anyone’s preferences, it‘s every woman’s right to decide over her body. My daughter then said, she can support abortion for teens or rape, incest, etc, to which I replied we must not try to decide what reasons for abortion are acceptable, since this means we have to equally decide what reasons are unacceptable. This cannot be, as the reason for abortion is none of our business, except for informational purposes for improving public policy. I said this last part is where prolife people need to focus, that if you want to reduce abortions you need to find out why the mother wants one and then try to fill the need. For example in the US, with only six weeks maturnity leave, massive healthcare costs, etc. plus the US and Canadian massive cost of raising a child and the destruction it can have on a young woman’s educational and career prospects. Also there’s the lack of sex education, access to birth control and girls‘ self esteem and desperation issues that lead to pregnancies. My daughter then asked me why the prolife people in the US don’t push for social programs and societal change to persuade women to keep their babies. I told her a story I’d read, where a social conservative said if they saw a woman about to toss a baby off a bridge, and stopped her, the social conservative person wouldn't then be expected to raise that baby. That, I explained is why I think US conservatives are prolife but not necessarily pro baby, or pro people. I concluded the chat by saying again that I’m pro life, and that while I think it’s a baby being aborted, but that aborting that baby is entirely the woman’s choice, it’s her body, and none of my or anyone’s business. So, that’s my dad moment of the week...
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I think your talk with your doctor was a good one, and I'm not trying to criticize that at all. But I do think you are actually pro-choice. Yes, you are somewhat uncomfortable with the procedure, but recognize the women's right to choose. I think many pro-choice people are in an identical position. Sheer got criticized for something similar during the campaign as he said he's "personally pro-life," but then also vowed "not to reopen the debate," which suggests he's actually begrudgingly pro-choice, but just avoids that nomenclature for politics. I say just own it basically as you don't have to worry about appeasing fundamentalists.
 
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JasonParis said:
Yes, you are somewhat uncomfortable with the procedure, but recognize the women's right to choose.
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I don't even think the people performing the procedure are comfortable with it. It sucks. All of it. The girls/ladies come out of there barely able to walk, looking like they got hit by a bus. It's depressing. In fact, I can't decide if they look more distressed going in or coming out. It's a damn weird room they're all brought into as well. It wasn't my favourite day ever, and I wasn't even the one having to go through with the damn thing. All I had to do was deliver the victim and pick her up again after waiting in a drab waiting room with my imagination on overdrive, wishing there was somewhere in the hospital to get a Negroni.

It really is a grimy business and I don't wish it on any ladies.
 
I’m fully pro-choice and have two daughters of my own; however, the process of creating a life is really messy (no sex jokes please ;) ). It might be easy for some but for many others including my partner and I who struggled with infertility it is full of heartbreaking loss. Those stories don’t make it into the mainstream because it’s too depressing. Truth is most life dies on the launching pad. For every human in this world there are countless proto-life forms that never made it. While I’m not religious having children made me much more empathetic conceptually to some of the pro-life desires to bring meaning to this cruel natural process versus my previous hardline “they’re religious nuts” opinion. Of course as a non-religious person I still don’t get the whole need to control other people’s decisions and lives thing.
 
In the pro-choice, pro-life debate I imagine most people are in the middle, however it's a difficult discussion and it''s much easier as a politician to do nothing, and it's much easier for the public to just latch hold of some buzz words instead of thinking about it.
There is no doubt that life begins at conception - which forms the basis for the pro-life opinion. They argue everything must be done to protect and nurture that life. In the extreme, the babies/fetus life is more important than the mother, since they are more vulnerable.
The other end of the spectrum is the No-life movement. This says that the fetus is not a life until born. No matter what anyone says, it''s just a tumor in the mothers stomach until the day of birth. Essentially, this is the "Stork" view of life - the life only begins when the stork delivers the baby. This is where Canada is, likely because legally it was clean and easiest to define (or because they were afraid of debating it and it just ended up here).

A variant on the first one is that life can be terminated in some cases - where the mothers health is at risk, or possibly if the baby/fetus health is at risk.
A variant of the second one would be if the mother could declare their baby/fetus as a life (maybe this should be the default), and anyone, such as angry boyfriend or drunk driver, who causes injury or death of it would be subject to similar laws as taking any life.

The truth is that it's a life, so the law should be written that way. Pretty well every advanced country in the world, except Canada, sees it this way. The law is able to draw the line between free speech and incitement to violence, between murder, manslaughter, and accidental death. So do it here too, but where to draw the line. Is it when the fetus takes the human form, or when the fetus can feel pain, or when it''s a viable life that could live outside the womb. Most countries have set this bar at 12 to 24 weeks. Of course since the science is never settled, these times would be fluid as advancements in knowledge occur - and courts and lawmakers would re-visit the times.
What to do beyond the above timeframe, if needed, - well that would taking the life of someone involuntarily. The equivalent would be a caregiver euthanasia to a senior who is not of sound mind - but we trust that the caregiver has the best of intentions. Likely some type of case-by-case legal intervention would be needed before this would be allowed. This is not how we currently structured the laws for the elderly, so for consistency, it would have to change.
 
^ A reasoned analysis, although it is clear on which side you stand. A law that provides some clarity surrounding acceptable time parameters for an abortion, but not including justification, might be acceptable to the 'pro-choice' side of the debate, but I am under no illusion that it will satisfy the 'pro-life' side. That side of the debate will never accept any time parameters.
 
The only problem w/ @BurlOak 's analysis, is that it fails to illucidate whether there's any problem in need of fixing.

I'm unaware of any evidence of a material number of abortions in Canada beyond week 24. This is already covered by medical practice guidelines, and the willingness of doctors to perform procedures.

Those few abortions occurring beyond 24 weeks in Canada are almost entirely health/life of the mother, or addressing a miscarriage/stillborn infant.

The obsession with criminalizing doctors and/or mothers disturbs me; and misrepresents what's actually happening.
 
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One issue I can see is that this issue is actually not resolved because technology will change it’s nature.

Fertility technologies will start pushing the boundaries. At this time it is becoming easier and easier to assist infertile people to conceive. Technology is also rolling back the point at which a “premature” baby can be extracted safely from the mother during pregnancy. It might even eventually be possible to incubate a human from conception to “full-term” outside a woman’s body.
 
lenaitch said:
^ A reasoned analysis, although it is clear on which side you stand.
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I believe I stand with the majority - in the middle. Maybe when you were a child you could see things as black and white, and declare yourself "pro-choice" or "anti-abortion, but once you have a little education, you realize these are foolish extremes. There are some radicals who will oppose any law that treats a fetus as a life in any way. There are likely more who view it as a life no matter what. But the bulk of the people realize that the truth is in the middle. And most of those are afraid to open the door to change, because the first group would cry "my body my choice", and the second group would cry murder, (almost) no matter what the new law would say. The middle group, through apathy, just turns the other way and allows injustice to occur to a relatively small number of people, rather than tackle the hard questions.

Northern Light said:
The only problem w/ @BurlOak 's analysis, is that it fails to illucidate whether there's any problem in need of fixing.
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Laws are written for the rare cases, not the common one. I am not planning on murdering anyone, but am glad people before me thought ahead and put in a law about it.
TrickyRicky said:
One issue I can see is that this issue is actually not resolved because technology will change it’s nature.

Fertility technologies will start pushing the boundaries. At this time it is becoming easier and easier to assist infertile people to conceive. Technology is also rolling back the point at which a “premature” baby can be extracted safely from the mother during pregnancy. It might even eventually be possible to incubate a human from conception to “full-term” outside a woman’s body.
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We are already here. How many fetuses are aborted purely because they are female? Is it 100's, 1000's - I don't think it's talked about.

Your second point is interesting. "It might even eventually be possible to incubate a human from conception to “full-term” outside a woman’s body."
Now, the mother has full control over the fetus, even though its half the responsibility of the father. In the above scenario, would that still be the case if the mother is not carrying. Would the rights for the fetus bend back the other way and give the father full responsibility in determining if the fetus would be incubated to birth?
I suspect these won't get answered in Canada, and we will just blinding go along with the path of least resistance - which is do nothing.
 
BurlOak said:
I believe I stand with the majority - in the middle. Maybe when you were a child you could see things as black and white, and declare yourself "pro-choice" or "anti-abortion, but once you have a little education, you realize these are foolish extremes. There are some radicals who will oppose any law that treats a fetus as a life in any way. There are likely more who view it as a life no matter what. But the bulk of the people realize that the truth is in the middle. And most of those are afraid to open the door to change, because the first group would cry "my body my choice", and the second group would cry murder, (almost) no matter what the new law would say. The middle group, through apathy, just turns the other way and allows injustice to occur to a relatively small number of people, rather than tackle the hard questions.


Laws are written for the rare cases, not the common one. I am not planning on murdering anyone, but am glad people before me thought ahead and put in a law about it.

We are already here. How many fetuses are aborted purely because they are female? Is it 100's, 1000's - I don't think it's talked about.

Your second point is interesting. "It might even eventually be possible to incubate a human from conception to “full-term” outside a woman’s body."
Now, the mother has full control over the fetus, even though its half the responsibility of the father. In the above scenario, would that still be the case if the mother is not carrying. Would the rights for the fetus bend back the other way and give the father full responsibility in determining if the fetus would be incubated to birth?
I suspect these won't get answered in Canada, and we will just blinding go along with the path of least resistance - which is do nothing.
Click to expand...

You claim a middle ground, but your words seem to betray that. As @Northern Light correctly states, to codify abortion into criminal law seems to be an effort to find a solution looking for a solvable problem. I would argue the middle ground is quite fine with the way things are; the extremities are not. If a criminal law was passed that dealt solely with time parameters, it would simply mirror approved medical practice and seem to serve little purpose . If it delved into justification; i.e. the reason for an abortion, then it is down the unsolvable rabbit hole.
If you unfailingly believe life begins at conception, then no law other than absolute prohibition is acceptable. If you believe in unfettered choice, then you are in the hands of medical ethics, which is what we have now.
Another angle is current criminal law does not define 'life', it defines 'human being'.
 
lenaitch said:
If you unfailingly believe life begins at conception, then no law other than absolute prohibition is acceptable.
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You confuse your opinions for facts, unless you only speak for yourself on what is acceptable.

I believe human life begins at conception and I support a women’s absolute, unconditional access to abortion. No I don’t like that abortion is terminating human life, but I don’t see any other option. Do we coerce women to carry to term? How to force this?

Best way to avoid abortion? Easy and free access to contraception, sex education, childcare and other state supports.
 
Admiral Beez said:
You confuse your opinions for facts, unless you only speak for yourself on what is acceptable.

I believe human life begins at conception and I support a women’s absolute, unconditional access to abortion. No I don’t like that abortion is terminating human life, but I don’t see any other option. Do we coerce women to carry to term? How to force this?

Best way to avoid abortion? Easy and free access to contraception, sex education, childcare and other state supports.
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I really want to 'like' this post, as you've been thoughtful and agreeable in most of what you've had to say throughout this thread, and this post in no exception.

Except, what @lenaitch is pointing out is that @BurlOak has a fetish for criminalizing at least some abortions, and for micro-managing a woman's right to choose.

He can't reasonably say he favours choice and then also argue that the criminal law should penalize a woman or doctor performing such a procedure by mutual agreement.

You can't 1/2 abort. Either you believe in a woman's right to choose or you don't.

You clearly do; @BurlOak not so much.
 
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