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Miss D (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter nlgbbbblth
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nofunchee
Well-Known Member
jane
Well-Known Member
Socmot, I make the mistake of arguing with Janer, but it is a lost cause.
Also, hi! It's nice to see you here.
Also, hi! It's nice to see you here.
I would tend to agree on both points. The law on the issue does seem to be terribly messy.
Do you think if the foetus had been viable that it should have had legal representation?
jane
Well-Known Member
This doesn't really answer your question, but in this case, if the foetus had been viable, she was planning to have the baby. The point here was that she wanted to have an abortion because it would not survive outside the womb. As minka pointed out, HAS NO HEAD.
My answer is, I don't know. But it's clear we all agree that it's a big stonking mess.
that doesn't seem to impede the careers of several people i work with.
Yeah I know, which is probably the saddest thing about the whole case. But my question was more about if it's crazy for an unviable baby to be granted council then would it be appropriate for a viable one? It strikes me that if you're coming at the issue from a pro-choice perspective the answer would be no because of the "woman's body, woman's choice" point of view.
This whole affair was ridiculous, it shouldn't have even got to the courts and as I said earlier in the thread I didn't even view it as a pro-life/pro-choice issue because of baby's condition because it was so blindingly obvious that she should have been allowed to travel but I did find the legal wrangling kind of fascinating.
the decision to appoint counsel for the foetus was probably to limit the scope of any appeal, or to set a more watertight precedent for whatever decision the court reached.
There was a call today in the news to have abortion made legal in Ireland for cases such as this. They want to define the small number of situations /conditions that the baby cannot live outside the womb and allow the option of abortion to be made available if a woman chooses.
This will show how Ireland at present really feels I think. The past few years have changed citizens views about alot of things. I wonder if the opinion poll is different to when the last referendum was on regarding abortion
This will show how Ireland at present really feels I think. The past few years have changed citizens views about alot of things. I wonder if the opinion poll is different to when the last referendum was on regarding abortion
nofunchee
Well-Known Member
personally no. but it would have made slightly more sense in the context of current irish constitutional law. mind you, if the judge had taken the same route in his consideration (focusing on the right to travel, rather than the right to life of the unborn) then it wouldn't have mattered.
which throws up the interesting notion of whether or not the fact that the foetus was unviable effected how the high court judge considered the case. ie - would the judge have excersised his personal opinions on abortion (whatever they are) had the foetus been healthy?
i find this interesting because the legal system is supposed to be this monolith of objective truth where judges merely apply the law to cases according to written law, precedent, and legal procedures. personally i think that's a load of bollocks and is pretty obvious when you read judgements how judges' personal views effect how the case is heard and considered.
- Thread starter
- #111
nlgbbbblth
Well-Known Member
That's a good one alright although it's been used since the days of SPUC vs Youth Defence.
jane
Well-Known Member
Yeah, and even if the people in the legal system were able to be objective (as in, if it were humanly possible), the law and the constitution are still pretty heavily weighted against anyone seeking to not be pregnant anymore. So even with objectivity, you're still going to be objective about a law that doesn't exactly have equality at its core. I mean, if it's "Equal regard for the life of the mother", then how come it's always weighted in favour of the foetus?
Mental stuff altogether. I also believe the Irish Times letters were unhelpful. But maybe the editorial staff actually wanted to highlight the ridiculousness? I dunno. They got one epic letter from a priest who worked in a care home, who told this story about a hydrocephalus baby (he didn't say if he lived, but I think hydrocephalus babies usually do live) and blah blah blah, as if it was the same thing, saying "He brought so much joy into our lives". Well, that's just great, Father, but this baby has no head and probably will be still born. You get joy out of that? But I have seen some non-nutjob anti-choice arguments. They're still kinda scary (possibly scarier) but at least they are not raving lunatics.
I will never, ever forget my first run-in with pro-life protesters. I was about maybe 12 or so, and my parents took us to an Easter vigil mass at a church we'd never been to before. The priest there was providing accommodation and support for teenage girls, mainly from difficult backgrounds, who'd had abortions but were afraid to go home. He wasn't helping them get abortions (Planned Parenthood was a couple of blocks away anyway), just making sure they were safe afterward. They had nowhere to go. But these fucking insane prolifers took up camp outside the church, freaking out on everyone and, not surprisingly (since that kind of behaviour is hardly Christian) bursting in and disturbing services. So my folks wanted to go and show their support for the dude, so off we went. As we were going into the church, this fucking nutjob woman grabbed me and started screaming in my face, I think initially thinking I was one of the teen girls staying there, and then my parents tried to get her off me, screaming in my face some more, "I HOPE YOU NEVER MURDER YOUR BABY!" Freaked me the fuck out. The other thing was that, you know, no offence to her, but she only had one eye, the other socket just a blobby scar, which was, let's just say, impactful. Nightmares. For YEARS.
reminds me of mc dev:
"cead mile failte, bitch
a woman's place is on her knees
before bishops, judges and TDs"
Well the law does provide for abortions in cases when the mother's life is at risk so you could say that in the cases where it's the mother's life verses the foetus' life then the law is weighted in favour of the mother because then it's their call. In cases where there are no potential health risks to the mother or that they're a suicide risk than that particular phrase is obviously favouring the foetus becasue then only one "life" is at stake.
It took me years to figure out what my stance on abortion was as the woman who gave birth to me was an single, barely 17 year old, girl in a country which prohibits abortion and I always wondered if I'd be around if she had had the option available to her.
jane
Well-Known Member
That's an interesting point. When we talk about abortion and everything, we should consider that there are people listening to the arguments who would not be on this earth otherwise. Not that it's justification to ban abortion, just that it should be recognised that not everyone was born because two married adults wanted a child and had it at the exact time it was hoped for.
As for the suicide risk, are there really any abortions that are carried out because of a risk of suicide? I know that legally, they can do it, but I don't know how often they actually do. I know someone who was in a really deep suicidal depression, then she got pregnant, and she was going to keep it, but she learned that the foetus wasn't viable, and she was able to have a termination in Ireland, probably because of her history of depression. It really did devastate her because she was so looking forward to being a mammy (it wasn't planned, but she was in her late 20s and in a stable relationship). I don't know how common it is, but then, suicidal depression is generally not something that ends up as casual conversation...
Anyway, I see your point about the legal thing, I was just kind of being cheeky.
No certainly not, and thoughout all my years of fence sitting I don't think I ever fell into the pro-choice camp but I only figured out how I felt about it a few years back when I got involved with a much older woman and she told me that she had had 2 abortions and when faced with the reality of that as opposed to the wanky abstract thinking about it that I'd been doing I found myself not having a problem with her.
Had my "mother" kept me I don't think it would have been such an issue for me but the fact that I was put up for adoption gave me loads of "what-if's"
jane
Well-Known Member
Oh, I'm not saying you were suggesting it could be an argument for banning, just recognising your experience. It's important to acknowledge the whole range of experiences of being a parent as well as being a child (or, uh, former child). We all run around as teenagers going, "I wish I'd never been born!" but for most of us, there was never a question surrounding whether our birth parents woudl keep us, and it's easy to forget that that's not always the case. Because I'm not sure that I do this myself, and what you said made me think and stuff.
One of the things that was really obvious in the run up to the last referendum was that in the letters pages of the IRish Times, the pro-choice stories were always, "HEre's a personal story and my journey to/of being pro-choice, not pro abortion, just acknowledging that reproductive issues are too complex to be covered by a blanket law" and they were very engaging and useful and meaningful, and no two were the same. The pro-life letters were almost all extremely general, full of rhetoric about sin and murder, with few references beyond the hypothetical. It was interesting to see the pattern, that people who acknowledge reality tended to be pro-choice, and that pro-life seemed to go hand-in-hand with a bunch of empty statements that made no reference to real-life situations.
The best letter of all of them was from an Irish woman who had gotten pregnant by accident while living in the UK. She went to a clinic and had a consultation, then, if you are local, they send you home and let you think it over for a couple of days. She actually ended up having the child in the end, and never regretted it. She pointed out that because if you travel from Ireland, it's all done quite quickly, and you have to be so concerned about how much time you have, it gives you less time to really think about it. She said that the only reason she had the child was because she had the breathing room to think and really make her own choice, and didn't have to quickly book a ferry ticket and make up a lie about a weekend away.
I can see it, too. I don't really know because I can only surmise, but I think the lack of reproductive choice in this country creates an anxiety in me (especially having grown up where it was legal and accessible) that might affect my decision if I were to make it. There's also the fact that I'm not entitled to anything and would be thrown out of the country if I got knocked up and didn't have an abortion, but the government doesn't care about that shit. They only care about the unborn, not about what happens to the mother and child after birth.
Do the counciling services here not do a similar thing in terms of sending people home to havea think about it bevfore they travelled? I thought they would have.
- Thread starter
- #119
nlgbbbblth
Well-Known Member
I have a pro-choice stance but as you know, same birth circumstances for me too, my birth mother was 17 too.
I often wonder what could have happened.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a common thing for adoptees here to dwell on.
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