h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here is another one:

http://www.korrnet.org/choicetn/LateTermSmith3.html

(I'm still looking . . .)


az

Oh, look what I've found - The Global Gag Rule??? First I've heard of this.

http://www.wcla.org/articles/gaggingstill.html

"Unable to ignore Nepal's dangerously high maternal mortality rate--one caused largely by unsafe abortions--the Nepal Ministry of Health recently joined forces with a slew of nongovernmental organizations to put an end to the country's restrictive abortion law. Enter: George W. Bush toting the global gag rule, named for a clause that prohibits US-funded NGOs from lobbying their governments to legalize abortion. Exit: all NGOs involved in a decriminalization movement that depends on US funds for survival."



az

That would indicate that reducing the window for elective abortions to 20 weeks would hardly affect anyone.

I've seen stats which show that 88% of elective abortions are carried out within 12 weeks.

With regard to giving women sufficient time to find out they're pregnant, how much does a pregnancy testing kit cost these days?

Well, not being a woman yourself Mycroft, I'll just tell you that it is not unheard of to miss one or two periods without being pregnant. Two missed periods - eight weeks. Providing one's periods are regular, which many are not.

In fact pregnancy testing kits are quite expensive, I think. Here they are about 20 euros, maybe? (will have to check this out). So unless you have reason to expect you are pregnant it isn't something you would do willy-nilly as it isn't really all that inexpensive.

The stats I've been finding today keep saying that late-term terminations are about 1% of the total number of elective terminations. And that the majority of them are related to serious health risks.

I agree that reducing the time factor to 20 weeks sounds quite reasonable. Reducing it to 12 weeks does not. Which was what was suggested in the Guardian article I'd posted earlier.

az

Re: the 8 weeks thing. God I dunno. But I'll tell you this--if the medical community figures out how to incubate babies at that point, aint gonna be no more rich women with stretch marks . Wait....

It really is too tricky ethically for me. Basically, you have between the fetus and the world a woman who holds all the power. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that. The phrase, 'freedom of choice,' seems sometimes to be the ultimate end, rather than achieving a balance between freedom and obligation. I worry, because if things are difficult now, can you imagine the ethical dilemmas of 50 years from now. Wouldn't it be nice if we could come to some consensus, god any consensus, as a culture that would provide some grounding? I guess I imagine that's what these years are--humans becoming accustomed to having a good measure of control over nature and deciding how we're going to behave in our new and quickly-evolving societies. Maybe in 50 years we'll be quite centered and wonder why we had such trouble. Or maybe I'm on a sleep-dep high and am unnaturally optimistic. Fner. What was my point...oh yes. I don't envy policy makers.

<>

Yeah well, did you check out the link about the Gag Rule?

Nyss, nothing about elective terminations is 'comfortable'. All the women I know who have had elective terminations have suffered, as I have, over the loss of their child. For those that haven't, who could see it clearly in their minds as removing a 'still non-human' element from their bodies, then I give them credit for that. That they didn't have to suffer. Because truly - who the f**k knows when a foetus becomes more than a 'potential human'? I don't and you don't either, though we may have our own personal feelings about this.

Everybody here already knows my own very personal opinion. That from conception it is a life. And that ending that life is killing. That is my personal opinion. But there is no-way-no-day I would *ever* place my personal opinion above a woman's choice to decide for herself what is best for her. Because I have no right to do this. And neither does anyone else.

And this goes for medical opinions as well. They can move around the 'probable feasability' possibility of when a foetus can survive outside the womb. So what?

As kea pointed out, if medical science gets so clever that it can keep 8-week-old foetuses alive then what? What will then happen to a woman's choice to decide?

Quite frankly there are plenty of already alive babies and children in the world who need looking after and whose needs are not being met. To make such an issue of the 'unborn' and this recent attempt to give them 'human rights status' even when they are still a few cells grouping together inside a womb seems to me totally absurd.

Sorry for my angry tone, but this really does piss me off.

az

I never said that missed periods were a good indicator of pregnancy. If I thought that, I wouldn't have asked about pregnancy tests.

In the meantime I've asked my girlfriend how much she sells them for, and she told me they start at around 2 euros each, and googling shows you can pick them up for around 50 cents. These don't strike me as being exorbitant sums to hand over, say, once a month.

Whatever the case, I think the topic is likely to disappear off the radar in a few years, or at least be radically changed: if a perfect contraceptive were available, how much would that change your views?

<>

Who decides the obligation? The people who, in general, want anti-abortion laws enacted are generally the last people who I would give control over my body to. Ultimately this question (when does a foetus have a right to life/is alive) has no answer, so each person must make their own decision. I think in this case the best possible thing to have is power devolved to the individual.
Keep the politicians away.

I'll have to ask at the farmacia downstairs, Mycroft. The last time I asked about pregnancy test kits they cost way more than a couple of euros.

Most medical contraceptives are still ones that women have to take and possibly put themselves at risk health-wise. Yeah okay, there are condoms and caps and gels, but who really uses them *all* the time? And they are not 100% effective birth control anyhow. Though of course they help with things like AIDS and STD's.

<>

My views about what?

az

ps

Mycroft, I'm not being silly, I meant about 'exactly' what?

az

Cheapest pregnancy testing kits I've seen round here (Germany) were around 9 euros (in the DM drugstore if anyone is looking for one) which is an improvement on the DM 30 or so that I was paying while trying to get pregnant (and then only from a chemist)

Az made a most excellent point mentioning the children who are already outside the womb and not having their right to life defended as much.

Abortion is a tricky issue, but the right to a clean and relatively safe termination was (and still is) hard won, and we shouldn't underestimate the misery that a lack of this would cause.

I'm glad I have already made my decisions - it's really something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

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That is such a major point, Sho. It *was* so f**king hard won.

I am so appalled at all these recent government 'turn-arounds' regarding this. I honestly don't understand it.

az

>>Mycroft, I'm not being silly, I meant about 'exactly' what?<<

A woman's right to choose. As things stand there exists a time-limited right to choose, a pro-life element of which is broadly accepted (i.e. virtually no-one says that a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy at 8 months), although where that point arrives is self-evidently a topic of controversy. If, however, as seems probable, a utopian contraceptive is made available at some point in the not too distant future, wouldn't that change the parameters of the discussion? In such a situation, elective abortion could be illegal but a woman's right to choose would still be maintained.

What if there was a utopian contraceptive?

What if there were a utopian society?

What if nothing bad ever happened anywhere?

Quite frankly, the parameters of the discussion belong in *this* world. Here and now. It's the only one we are living in, as far as I know - or am I wrong?

I don't mind getting all philosophical about some issues, but this one is just too real for this sort of game, imho.


az

presumably in this utopian society there wouldn't be birth defects which show up only in late pregnancy etc etc

And (as a woman) it often seems that these laws are passed by men. Well, guys, there is one surefire way to cut down on the number of unwanted pregnancies: keep it in your trousers!

Which, unhelpfully, oversimplifies matters horribly.

<>

Well, mostly because, as I'm sure you know Sho, women *do* often want sex as much as men do. Trouble is they also have to take the brunt of the responsibility for contraception. Which is *not* fair.

Anyhow, we are very far from any sort of utopian anything. Especially when it comes to women's rights to choose - just look at how they are trying to chisel this down now.


az

which is why people like us have to keep harping on about it.

Nah, not harping.

Thinking, talking, discussing, arguing, fighting, debating, understanding . . .


az

>>Quite frankly, the parameters of the discussion belong in *this* world. Here and now. It's the only one we are living in, as far as I know - or am I wrong?<<

I would say so. History is overburdened with terrible outcomes precisely because people only considered the here and now.

All I'm trying to do is establish what the boundary conditions for the principle are: are you really saying that a woman's right to have an elective abortion should be absolute, regardless of gnostic or technological developments?

The underlying absolute principle of the pro-life camp is that all people have a right to life, which is generally considered a universal principle, but pro-lifers add the rider that they consider foetuses people too. If you think they're wrong, that's fine with me, but surely the only basis on which it would make sense to oppose their position is on gnostic and technological grounds, rather than miscasting it as an attempt to subjugate women or saying, regardless of whether or not a foetus constitutes a person, its mother is inherently and irrevocably of greater value.

Yes, but does that right to life include a life where the quality is arguably less than that of the cabbage, whilst at the same time condemning the mother to the same or worse? Not to mention any other children she may have to care for in the meantime?

I can't imagine a woman in the world who would want to go through an unnecessary abortion. I have a lot less sympathy for those using it as overdue contraception, but for others (I'm one of those who wouldn't consider it for myself, but won't restrict someone else's right to choose) there is a massive grey area.