Talk Elections

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

Yes of course I'd vote for repeal.  Stop the needless deaths of pregnant women.

No obviously.


Strange. I thought something died during the procedure...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-20321741

I don’t like abortion, and I can understand why someone would want to outlaw it.  Pro-life views are respectable if driven by the right reasons—concern for the unborn, rather than desire to control women.

I used to be pro-life, in favor of outlawing abortion in most cases.  Now I understand the dangers that abortion restrictions create for mothers.  There was that case in Ireland.

Then there are countries like El Salvador that imprison women for miscarriages.  There is something going on down there that goes beyond compassion for the unborn.  El Salvador is clearly misogynist.  Now I am not calling all pro-lifers misogynist, so settle down if you think I am.  Even most pro-lifers—I would think—would oppose El Salvador’s draconian policies toward women.

I use to be radically pro-choice but now I understand why people are not comfortable with abortion. I'm probably somewhere between pro-choice and pro-life (which means given that I'm a Dem, I guess I'm pro-life but if I was a GOPer I'd definitely be considered pro-choice). Regardless, I'd vote for a repeal. I favor a ban at viability (so basically 22 weeks), however.

Ireland has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world.  They might need some tweaks to the law for additional protections for women's health for rare cases, but to write out all protection of the unborn from the Constitution and open the way for killing them would be a grave injustice.

Obviously yes. Call me radical, but I believe in science and know that embryos aren't human beings ::) This is honestly one of the least pleasant issues to debate, it's basically pushing against a stubborn wall of people who religiously believe that embryos are humans that can be murdered are refuse to let go. But the problem with religiously believing in something here, is that you want to translate your beliefs into theocratic laws. On economic issues, for example, debating and respecting each other's views is crucial because there's just no definitive proof that onw side is right, but when people want to oass theocratic laws because of unscientific beliefs, I can't and won't "respect" that, sorry.

Clear unambiguous no.

I find it interesting that you bluster about science and religion without actually showing how science proves that an embryo isn't human.

Now I'm just a dumb fundamentalist but it seems obvious that an embryo is genetically speaking:

a) human
b) not it's mother

For all your talk about science it's rather difficult to get around these facts. Me thinks the pro choice emperor has no clothes.

Yes. I'm not really comfortable with abortion but I don't believe an embryo truly is a human being and I think it definitely should be allowed if the mother's life is at risk. It's just cruel to force someone to go through with something potentially life-threatening against her will (though I guess opposing it makes sense if you believe an embryo is a human being).

If we're talking about Ireland's current referendum I'd also vote yes, but a lot less enthusiastically.

An embryo is just an early stage of development into humanity, like a fertilized egg. 90% of abortions occure in the 1st trimester, when it's not even close to viable outside of the womb, it doesn't even feel pain, it's not a person. Yes, for the other 10% there are some moral issues (though mostly for the increasingly tiny percentages at the farther side of the spectrum), but the fact is that, whatever the case, embryos and fetuses are less human than the woman who carries them. I oppose later term abortions, but even then, when a woman was raped, she can't be forced to carry that potential life, and when it risks her own life, an already viable and existant life, she always should win. Your side, mostly consisting of the Christian Right, wants to ban access to abortion because of beliefs mostly stemming from religion, ignoring the statistics of all the women who die because they can't have a legal, safe abortion. I cannot respect that, just like I cannot respect most of the other homophobic\mysogenic views of the Christian Right.

Another post of yours that I agree with almost word for word (and probably better written than whatever similar statement I would have made), except that this time, as to rape, it seems to me reasonable that the mother abort the fetus early on, so there is no good reason to accommodate a late term abortion. I also oppose late term abortions if there is not a material physical health risk to the mother. Claiming depression or something more intangible, just won't cut it with me.

I also think under current SCOTUS law, restricting late term abortions as described would be upheld under the O'Connor undue burden to the mother standard.

Thanks :) You're probably right, and I do think that, logically, most women who were raped would've aborted their fetuses very early. However, there are some fringe cases when pregnancies are discovered late, or maybe the woman couldn't have an abortion early, or couldn't speak out about the attack she went throguh and so on. So I think that late-term abortions should be mostly prohibited, but generally judged on a case-by-case basis.

This is what I'm talking about:

You talk about science, but when pressed, fall back on an ethical/philosophical question. Science and ethics are two different things. An embryo is unable to feel pain. We agree on that. I merely posit that that fact (or a creature's development or lack thereof) is insufficient to declare someone a non-person.

Your logic around late term rape cases is also suspect. You talk about an early term baby being "undeveloped" but then call a late term baby, whose preemie counterparts are living outside the womb "a potential life". How did you support that logical pretzel?

Then you cap your post off with a silly ad hominem. Again, it seems that a movement that ostensibly supports science and logic is quite willing to ignore them when it doesn't suit them.

Proud No vote. I stand with the unborn, not with the abortion industry!

"I merely posit that that fact (or a creature's development or lack thereof) is insufficient to declare someone a non-person."

DC, your point of view is Manichean. You are either a person or not, with no shades of grey. Parrot and I view it more as a continuum, and never the twain shall meet as to our respective points of view. It is not as if one of us is right and the other wrong. In my view, the matter is mostly subjective, after we agree on the basis underlying facts about the stages of fetal development. So I don't really see how further parry and thrusts on this move the ball much, unless there are new facts to adduce.

Does that make any sense to you?

The curious thing about how science relates to abortion is that the advancement of advanced medicl techniques and modern embryology theory really allows the pro-life movement to exist as it does today. The ancients and the  scholars of the Renaissance largely believed life egan with the quickening: the first movement of the foetus, which represented the soul entering the child. It was the development of ultrasound that really allowed the previous black box of the womb to be opened up, to reveal the "baby" within, that gave abortion an emotional weight which it lacked before.

The big problem biologically is that although we can identify various biological markers - conception, implantation, segmentation, heart beat, lower brain function, higher brain function, viability etc. - at the end of the day the concept of "personhood" is an abstraction that can have various definitions.

Yes to the repeal. It's curious how my views on abortion, and others social issues, changed in the last decade. In the 2007 Portuguese Abortion referendum, i was a strong NO supporter but, now, my position has changed 180 degrees. The more older i get, the more liberal, on social issues, i'm becoming.

Amen brother!

I'd vote yes on the repeal, even though abortion is not an issue that concerns me a lot (except late-term abortion, which is controversial).

I used to shift around quite a bit over the years on this topic, but I generally support abortion rights until the 10th week or so, where it's just a clump of cells with the brain not developed at all.

But women definitely need to have the right to choose what's best for them and their bodies and their future.

First of all, those two conditions alone don't work. A tumor satisfies both.


And even if you disregard the scientific definition of life and decide that an embryo is a human life, it's also

c) stealing the mother's resources without consent.

As a Republican, I'm assuming you oppose forcing taxpayers to give their hard-earned money as welfare to people who haven't done anything for it. Why, then, should mothers be forced to give not only their hard earned food but also their continuing labor (the embryo relies on the mother's heart, lungs, and various other organs to survive) as welfare to embryos and fetuses?

Torie, I don't think you quite understand why I'm annoyed. Parrotguy wrote a post (which you applauded) stating that my position on an ethical position was unscientific (despite the facts not being in question) and therefore unworthy of debate. This post also contained a logical contradiction ((calling a late term fetus a potential life) and derogatory remarks about my religion. Again, you praised this post.

Falling back on "our points of view are incompatible" doesn't address the problem here.


::)

I'm a Red Tory you ignoramus.

^Sigging when I get the chance.

Fair enough DC. Science cannot resolve the differences in what policy one prefers given the facts. I don't consider your position unscientific, rather it is your choice of categorization as compared to another.

I'd vote to repeal it. I don't think the government has the right to ban abortion, it's up to society to ostracize and outcast the immoral, weak, irresponsible people who support abortion.

65.2% Yes in this poll so far.  Close to, but slightly under, the actual results in Ireland.  Is this forum no more pro-choice than Ireland?  LOL

Ireland’s not a particularly socially conservative country these days (although it could be argued perhaps that this is skewed by Dublin), as these results (and the results of the Same Sex Marriage Referendum in 2014) go to show, so I wouldn’t be surprised.

As to the question , obvious no.

undecided, but ultimately id go with yes. this banned the posibility. rape and incest are crucial exceptions imo, even as a pro lifer.

It's an American forum. Most Americans don't realize just how non-mainstream pro-life views in Western Europe are.

Ireland used to be a great country - too bad all the good Irish emigrated.

Tá!!!

no

The art of medicine exists to treat and cure diseases and to promote good health. Pregnancy is not a disease.

A mole is also not a disease, and yet many choose to remove it for various reasons (like health, cosmetics etc). It's still a medical procedure that should obviously be kept legal.


Fully agreed. It might sound better and more "nice :) :) :)" to say that you don't like abortion, but this is correct.

I'm a straight Dem voter, of Irish heritage, and a passionate voter, but to be honest, in this contest, I wouldn't have voted at all. My values instilled by my relatives would've said NO but my worldview says YES. I would have abstained altogether.

What do you mean by worldview as opposed to your instilled values?  You mean like a general philosophy or something more specific?

Abstain.

YES to repeal the 8th.

Well, I would argue that surgical abortions - like any surgical procedure - has its own risks, and it does present a physical and mental toll on women (as does pregnancy, for that matter). That's why it's important to promote birth control and pill-induced earlier abortions over surgical ones, which in a well functioning medical system will become the exception, by and large.

(Due to a quirk of Soviet history, Russia has an extremely high surgical abortion rate which in many cases is used instead of birth control.i don't think this is particularly healthy.)

It is such that the Soviet Union had more abortions than births. The irony of Soviet liberation of women was that they were then able to work jobs that afforded such a low quality of life, but at the same time could use abortions to continue working those terrible jobs. In the early days after the revolution, gender equality had women working many of the same—strenuous—jobs as men, resulting in work-induced non-pregnancies if you will.

Haha. Thank you.

Since no one apparently knows my own views--they seem to assume I'm libertarian half the time--it seemed an appropriate way to imply my affiliation.

Big victory for Ireland.

Very glad I will never have to vote on this again.