BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 07:45 PM

No, don't clarify. Too many people feel entitled to have opinions about the lives of women in general and/or specific women in their frame of reference, when in fact it is the women alone, or the women in conjunction with their partners, who have a say in having a child or terminating a pregnancy. EVEN parents of minors. If those minors want to have a legal and safe abortion, in some states in particular they are put through excruciating steps to get permission -steps that are often simply a delaying tactic to push them into a time frame when the abortion is no longer legal or the fetus is viable. If parents and children have a good relationship the courts aren't involved, but when the courts are involved, the results serve more as a way to punish young women than allow them autonomy over their own lives and futures.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 07:43 PM

How cruel and unkind we can be to each other !

You bet, Hi- and the best example of this is others trying to control what women can do in what is an entirely personal decision for them.

So butt out.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 07:35 PM

No, I am not saying that at all. all I was hoping to convey is that for some people this is not a moral or religious issue, but an emotional one. perhaps we should be less crude in our responses without compromising our belief in woman's right to choose. I do not believe that women make this choice lightly and often they involve family members who often don,t agree with them.That can cause great grief to all concerned and I think it might be little kinder to try to see that than just being a smart arse about it.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 07:17 PM

Er, HiLo, I'm not quite clear about this. Are you saying that a potential grandad should actually have a say in whether his daughter or daughter-in-law should have an abortion? Clarify, please, preferably without the emotional tugging.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 07:11 PM

Misguided, pete. We do have the resources to stamp out back-street butchers (actually, those "butchers" are often the desperate women themselves). Those resources are good education for sex and relationships, freely-available contraception and contraceptive advice and an end to moralising by people of religion and of the extreme right. Whether you regard unborn babies of any age as human life is a matter for your emotions, but you may rest assured that you'll get nowhere by trying to impose your personal definition on anyone else. The answer to this is to get abortion numbers down. Monbiot demonstrates beyond doubt that the approach you prefer not only does not work but actually makes things worse. The immorality in all this lies squarely with people like you. You want bans, you want restrictions and you want every possible obstacle placed in the way of pregnant women. But you don't want the appropriate sex education and education for relationships, you don't agree with free contraception for all and easily-available advice, and you would stigmatise women who have abortions. By any definition, you people are fairly and squarely to blame for the fact that we can't get abortion rates down. To be honest, pete, I'm a thousand times more anti-abortion than you are, because I actually want to do something about it, whereas you appear to need the abortion figures to beat women over the head.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 07:00 PM

How cruel and unkind we can be to each other ! guesf and Greg have   Responded to this person SVied in a callous way that speaks volumes about them and makes a shameful disgrace of themselves. I am very much pro abortion but We must show at least a bit of compassion for others. No, they were not his/ her children, but I understand the sentiment . For anyone who has ever suffered the loss of a child it is heart wrenching. and please don,t me the usual lecture about a foetus not being a child.... I do know that. Please let us disagree, just this once, with a little less rancour.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 06:41 PM

Go 'way, Pete. If you wish to embrace fundagelical nonsense, that's your "right" - as long as you don't attempt to inflict it on sentient beings.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 06:36 PM

Sorry Pete... but there in reasonable & honest disagreement over what defines "human life". (and there will be "back street butchers " as long as no legal answers are available. Desperate women will often solve it themselves)
Controlling reproduction is a serious and universal problem, and with safe & legal ways now understood, it should remain a decision for the individual(s) directly concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 06:04 PM

So, because we have not the will or the conviction , or lack , maybe the resources to stamp out back street butchers , makes it moral to provide legal destruction of human life ?!

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 05:03 PM

I don't want to sound harsh, but those grandchildren were not your children, and your daughter, or daughter-in-law, had every right to decide what to do. You are far too removed from her situation to have the right to make a moral judgement. I hope your bitterness does not show to her.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 03:31 PM

Personally, have lost two Grandchildren to this barbaric procedure

Perhaps you meant to say you have "lost" two zygotes? Even though they weren't "yours" to lose?

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 03:02 PM

You probably lose millions of grandchildren every time your teenage son wanks into a sock.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: GUEST,SVIED
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 02:09 PM

Personally, have lost two Grandchildren to this barbaric procedure

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 12:44 PM

Thanks, Les, and good post, er, Mr Sole.

I think that one of the most sterile and pointless arguments on the internet is the one about when the embryo/foetus becomes human, etc. We'll never get agreement on that in a month of Sundays and it generally turns into an emotional mush. Also, I absolutely hate anyone who wants to restrict or ban abortions calling themselves pro-life. To me, getting abortion numbers down to an absolute minimum is a practical issue rather than a moral one, and I heartily agree with George Monbiot. There is a moral issue, but it involves the mistreatment of women, and that's what has to be put right. The moralising, the restrictions, the obstacles put in women's way, the stigmatising of women by the likes of...(I won't mention her name but she's about to be sainted by dint of two fake miracles) - none of it has worked, all of it worse than useless. Every sane person on this planet wants to live in a world in which abortion is rare. So let's find the way to achieve it. As Monbiot asserts, it involves doing just about the opposite of what so many countries do now.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 10:34 AM

Well said Steve.

Les, a bloke

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: GUEST,R Sole
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 10:32 AM

In areas of regressive medieval practice such as, and it pains me as a UK citizen to say this, Northern Ireland, restricting access does not lead to fewer abortions, just more unsafe ones.

There is a lot of hypocrisy in such debates. I can see the moral argument for deciding when a biological growth becomes a baby, and agree it isn't the moment of birth. But there are many good reasons to abort and it isn't wrong to be pro the life of the potential mother.

Superstition, especially the organised variety would have you carry and raise a child after rape.

There is no massive answer, but The Abortion Act 1968 is still relevant to this day, and I cannot think of a clinical piece of legislation that has stood the test of time like it.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 10:13 AM

Well, Thomson, you can take it from me that this man is one hundred percent behind women having the unfettered right to full control over their own bodies, for freely-available abortion, contraception and contraceptive advice, and for religion-free, moralising-free education for sex and relationships. My reasoning is that I'm far more anti-abortion than any pro-lifer I've ever met, and certainly a damn sight more than the Pope. All they've done is prove that bans, restrictions, stigmatising and obstacles not only don't work but actually make things worse. Time to try something a bit different and a bit more enlightened. And let's certainly not accept strictures of any kind from celibate men in frocks or mad nuns, dead or alive.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 09:23 AM

Taking the right to safe and affordable abortion has been a fundamentalist goal for many years, but the moment that poor woman delivers that child, they have more in store for her: accuse her of having that child to collect benefits and make those difficult to obtain. They want to be sure tax dollars aren't supporting an entire poor family, so make sure the father stays out of the house and out of the picture.

If she tries to go back to school in order to get a job to support her family, you might make some programs available to her, but no way are you going to make it possible for her to actually take those classes by providing safe and affordable child care while she's in school.

And any time she has a small windfall or a gift of a little extra cash, be sure to penalize her by docking that amount from her next welfare check. Keep her under your thumb, powerless to get out of the situation in which she finds herself. And by all means call her a whore for getting pregnant in the first place - she has free will right? She should have known better.

It is a very old story. One (as guest pointed out) that men tell themselves, in some form, to justify continued punishment of women who are in their child bearing years.

This is the version of the story that happens in the US, one of the few nations remaining where there is no paid family leave after the birth or adoption of a new child.

Subject: RE: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Thompson
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 08:38 AM

In all abortion debates I've ever seen, 99% of the debating was being done by men.

Subject: BS: George Monbiot on abortion rates
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 07:02 AM

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/13/whos-driving-high-abortion-rates-religious-right

You don't drive abortion rates down by banning or restricting abortion. You just make abortion unsafe. There is some very uncomfortable reading here for anti-abortionists (never pro-lifers in my book). Uncomfortable reading for all of us, actually.

Like them, I see human life as precious. Like them, I want to see a reduction in abortions. So I urge states to do the opposite of what they prescribe. If you want fewer abortions, support education that encourages children to talk about sex without embarrassment or secrecy, contraception that's freely available, and an end to stigma surrounding sex and birth before marriage.

The religious conservatives who oppose these measures have blood on their hands. They are responsible for high abortion rates; they are responsible for the injury and death of women. And they have the flaming cheek to talk about the sanctity of life.