Pro-Choice protest postponed

by T-1000 Wed Mar 05, 2003 12:37

... but isn't "Terminator" a rather unfortunate name for someone posting about a pro-choice demo?

by Terminator II Wed Mar 05, 2003 13:59

No to slaughter in Iraq and NO to slaughter in Ireland

by Anonymous Wed Mar 05, 2003 14:02

My exact thought as well when I read that posting!

by Terminator Wed Mar 05, 2003 14:11

Sure, you lot think a fetus is mor important than a woman.

by ^^^ Wed Mar 05, 2003 15:41

Ever hear of the pill.Lot handier.

by the prgmatist Wed Mar 05, 2003 17:18

Why do people want to legalise abortion on demand?
Only 8% of women are raped, 4% suffer contraceptive failure and 88% of abortions are caused by non use of contraception whatsoever.

There are only 7000 women with unwanted pregnancies every year. If we legalised abortion here on demand each termination would cost at least 10, 000 Euro.

Of course then the tax payer would have to fork out for it. In other words people who use contraception would be taxed to pay for abortions of those who didn't.

Surely we should concentrate more on prevention rather than cure?

Is it any wonder the left hasn't got huge votes with the alleged 'pro-choice' rhetoric around.

by Aileen Wed Mar 05, 2003 17:24

We envisage an anarchist society as a society where people are free to make choices about their own lives. We picture a society where decisions are made at the lowest effective level. For women, this includes the decision whether or not to become pregnant, whether or not to remain pregnant, whether or not to have children.

It is possible to be an anarchist and to have a moral objection to abortion. It is not possible to be an anarchist and not support the right to choose. For if the right to choose does not rest solely with pregnant women, where would it lie; with the state, with lawyers and the courts, with police?

The logic of the anti-choice position is that women would be coerced into continuing with unwanted pregnancies. To anarchists this would be unacceptable. Women consider many different issues when they make the decision to have an abortion. They consider the views of their partner, parents and of the society they live in. They consider the effect it will have on their career or studies. They think about whether they are ready for motherhood. They look at the relationship they are in. They examine their financial and economic situation.

The decision is complex and not an easy one. For anarchists, the best person, indeed the only person, with the right to make that decision, is the woman who is going to have to live with its consequences. So for us, the right to abortion is a basic human right.

For many women abortion isn't a choice rather it is the only option in their circumstances. The right to choose should also include the right to choose to become a mother. While we fight for abortion rights on one hand, we fight for the removal of barriers and stigma, which prevent some women from carrying through a pregnancy, which they would like to continue with.

Our fight for abortion rights therefore is also part of a wider struggle to re-define what sort of lives women are able to lead. It is also part of a struggle for a society that supports parents in their decision to have children. In defending and defining the right to choose in the broadest way possible, we are defending the right to make choices about how to live our lives. In doing this we are setting the agenda for a future society.

by Terminator Wed Mar 05, 2003 17:24

Nothing to do with rape. Its a womans right to choose. Your figure of €10,000 is ridiclious, €400 is more likely.

by Anonymous Wed Mar 05, 2003 20:17

And what about the child within the womb's right to choose?

If a woman's right to choose is taken away from her at least she will not be killed (if her life is treatened that is a different matter), where as if the child within the womb's rights are not protected then he or she will be killed.

How would you feel if you had been killed before you ever even saw the light of day?

I know its a hugely contentious issue, that's just my point of view.

by Phuq Hedd Wed Mar 05, 2003 21:53

QUOTE:
How would you feel if you had been killed before you ever even saw the light of day?

ANSWER:
You wouldn't feel anything. You'd be dead.

Like you say, it's a hugely contentious issue. The point is that no-one on either side can offer a clear-cut and completely logically compelling case as to whether an individual should make the choice to have an abortion or not.

What is clear-cut, as a result of that uncertainty, is that the choice has to be left up to that individual.

Anti-abortion activists should spend their time working to fix those aspects of our society that make the choice to have an abortion more attractive than the choice to continue a pregnancy.

That would probably do a lot more to reduce (in their rhetoric) "the holocaust of innocents".

by ipsiphi Wed Mar 05, 2003 21:58

Ensoulment and the Aquinine debate is something else. No Anarchist thinker has ever attempted to formulate ensoulment debate and I doubt any should. Control of one´s body though is an autonomy issue.
Access to information is a libertarian issue.

All else is on the spiritual ethical level of non materialistic thinking.

by Cornelius Thu Mar 06, 2003 16:24

I'm all for choice and I think there is enough already.

Condoms,pill,coil,snip etc.

Not enough there? Well try these then.
Have the kid,put the kid up for adoption,go to England for a termination.

If thats not choice I don't know what is.

by Terminator Thu Mar 06, 2003 16:43

Abortion would be a sacrament in the Irish Catholic Church

by Anonymous Fri Mar 07, 2003 15:10

"You wouldn't feel anything. You'd be dead."

I think that is a slightly simplistic answer.

The question I'm asking is, do you think it is right to deny a child within the womb the "right" to life outside the womb?

Imagine if you had never been given that chance. Imagine if the sum total of your life experience was a few months within a womb.

I can totally understand the urge to give a woman free rights over her own body. The problem is, is that she carries a totally different body within her body, a totally different and new life.
I do not believe she should have total autonomy and dictatorship as to what should happen to that life within her body.

Though I say its a contentious issue, I believe abortion, amounts to the biggest murder of human life ever. It out scales any other comparison of murder in human history.

WWII for example was about 45million lives. Abortion has taken the life of countless BILLIONS of lives.

I am just thankful I was given the right to life.

But I do appreciate that anyone who comits abortion or all those who support this right to do so, do not think that they are commiting murder.

I just think it is one of "life's" great tragedies, arguably the greatest, that people cannot see, that taking a life, albeit within a womb, is anything less.

by the Pragmatist Sat Mar 08, 2003 18:56

I think Aileens comments on anarchism and the right to choose are well thought out but i dont think we can ignore the facts here.

We have a huge culture of sexual irresponsability in Ireland, mostly as men refuse to wear condoms. We need a national contraception campaign targeted at young people and sex ed in schools. We also need to find out why are only 10% of rapes reported to the gardai? Because the gardai treat the victim as if she brought it on herself.

Bottom line we need huge cultural changes, but they are possible.

Unfortunatley it is the nature of human beings that women can only carry children. We cannot change this although if men could carry children the issue would almost be solved we must admitt.

Due to the scewed up health system in this country an abortion would cost thousands. It already costs 1,500 sterling in England and that's subsidised by the government with a market of 22,000 abortions each year (7000 of them Irish). Think about how much money and resources would have to be allowcated to providing that service to just 7000 women in Ireland?

Just because the child gros in the womans body does not mean that she should be able to make decisions for the child (unless she is raped).
For now the state, elected by and owned by the people must choose. It would be tax payers money paying for the service.

by Phuq Hedd Sat Mar 08, 2003 21:11

QUOTE:
Just because the child gros in the womans body does not mean that she should be able to make decisions for the child

ANSWER:
Eh, yes, that's exactly what it means. It's woman's body. The "child" happens to be in it. It is uncertain as to what the "right" thing to do is, so the only moral choice is to leave that decision up to the woman.

It doesn't matter what you personally would do, or what I personally would do. It is our individual choice and it is hard to tell what either of us would do in a situation where we were pregnant.

Again, if anti-abortion activists want to be effective in preventing termination of pregnancies they should be working damn hard to create an economic and social climate in which it is easier to be a mother.

Attempting to control women's bodies and force them to carry to term is both doomed to failure and immoral.