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

<<- if people are going to accuse someone of having an abortion as being a murderer that is not a light assertion. Do you want the law changed? If so, what would the penalities be for a woman who had an abortion. And the person that did the abortion?


What I want to know is where people who are anti-abortion stand on this, what they want to see the law changed to.


Or are you saying that abortion is manslaughter?>>

Saying abortion is murder is not quite the same thing as wanting the law changed. In my view, it should be tightened up, to make a threat to the woman's life or health, mean just that - a genuine threat to physical health. (Psychological health grounds have led to the de facto on demand situation we have.)
In most circumstances, inb effect, abortion is manslaughter. As I understand the difference, it's one of intent. Few (perhaps no) women who have abortions have any intention to deliberately kill a person they see as a living person. Therefore, they can't be guilty of murder. That's why I tend to feel pity, and reserve my anger, hatred even, for those who profit from abortion. (Either in monetary terms, or in terms of having power over people).

My loathing extends to those who force the weak to undergo abortion. On a thread on another board, a discussion took place between those who wanted a 13 year old incest victim to undergo an abortion, and a woman made the very good point that abortion would be mainly in the interests of the abuser - enabling him to cover up what he was doing to the child, and keep right on doing it to her! Here's what the woman (kellet) said:

"If the young woman is an incest victim, easy access to abortion might keep the perpetrator undiscovered, as he could force her to get one to protect himself - if she was obviously pregnant, people would start asking questions of a 13 year old, and the offender would possibly be caught. So abortion can hurt her more than it helps. Even in a stranger-rape situation, a pregnant girl in a state with no parental notification laws could just go to the clinic, and never tell anyone. If she was pregnant, someone would demand an explanation and hopefully she would report the rape."

Letting or forcing a 13 year old to go through the psychological trauma and the physical danger of a pregnacny on the off-chance that whoever raped her would be caught isn't a very good reason to ban abortions, IMO

A 13 year old rape victim is what's called one of the 'hard cases', uncharted, and there's a saying that hard cases make bad law. Kellet's point was, that the child could be forced into an abortion she didn't want or need, to keep the rapist safe from any questions he didn't want asking.

When I was pregnant at 18, in 1972, I knew a heap of 13 and 14 year olds who had babies. It wasn't ideal, obviously, but from what I learned of these girls, giving birth was no more nor less traumatic than an abortion would have been! With one exception, these were girls pregnant to boys who were no more than two years older than them. Abortion on demand wasn't legal then (and in theory, isn't now, though in effect it is). It would never have occurred to most of them to have an abortion anyway, though I am reasonably certain that had it been available their parents and boyfriends (in most cases) would have been much more willing for them to have abortions than the girls themselves.

Abstinence would have been infinitely better than abortion or adoption, for them and for me, and wise girls did practice abstinence. (I quote that from a book a cynical 30 year old wrote about her similar experience at the same time and place as ours.)

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Who in their right mind would force a child to have an abortion if she didn't want or need it?

But if abortion was banned, then the vast majority of pregnant teenagers who didn't want to go through with the pregnancy would be *forced* to have a baby they don't want, or be forced to go to illegal and unsafe means to do it themselves.

If 13 and 14 year olds, in the 70s, decided to have babies, well, so what? If they wanted the babies no one would force them to have the abortions, and it would not matter to them if abortion was legal or not.

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I agree, but do the 'unwise' deserve to have to have to have a baby they don't want? That's starting to get towards tig's territory.

<> (Della)

How is it possible to learn this from a group of 13-14 (heaps of them, even) who had never had abortions? How would they have been able to compare the experiences if they hadn't had both? How can you?


az

Is it really good that 13 or 14 years are becoming mothers anyway? Or you actually old enough to take care of someone else when you are at such a difficult stage in your life yourself?

As for this poor victim of incest - was she forced to have an abortion? because I find it to get my head around when she'd want to bear a child that she didn't want to conceive in the first place and as I've stated before any child born of incest runs high risks of being deformed in some way. Banning abortion will not stop abusers from getting away with it if you don't believe watch the first few minutes or read the first few pages of "The Colour Purple" in which a woman has a baby fathered by father taken off her and given to someone else.

Yes people are bullied into having abortions but if abortion didn't exist the same people would be bullied into giving up their baby for adoption with equally traumatic results for them.

"A 13 year old rape victim is what's called one of the 'hard cases', uncharted, and there's a saying that hard cases make bad law. Kellet's point was, that the child could be forced into an abortion she didn't want or need, to keep the rapist safe from any questions he didn't want asking.

Erm no, Della.

Whether that woman/girl chooses to report to the police or have a termination as with anything else regarding herself, (save for certain notifiable diseases) should remain her own business.

In a an ideal world she would feel safe and secure in doing what she liked not deniyed the chance to act on her own wishes which is what you are suggesting.

Already denyed the right to her own sexual freedom what you suggest would strip away any remaining vestige of privacy. Yes it would be in the rapists favour bad as that is it dos not justify heaping more indignities against her will on the VICTIM.

PS I thought you had unsubbed from this convo so incase you missed can you answer the questions from this post.

"As far back as I can remember, I have always been against war, abortion, and capital punishment. To me, it's a matter of consistency, and of justice. Back in the 1970s, I was in a group in NZ called 'Feminists for Life' and thanks to a friend, I joined the English group of the same name. Mostly, it seemed to me that abortion is almost never necessary,



I agree with most of that its just the word necessary. I mean in some late term terminations it is necessary to do so when the ongoing pregnancy will almost certainly harm or even kill the mother. Id say that it makes some cause for keeping terminations avalable wouldnt you?<

"some of them seemed to use abortion as a sort of after-the-fact contraception. This was an injustice to the child. As my mother had her last child (my second brother) at 43, which was very rare at the time (1961) and she had some problems which she was ready to ignore for the sake of having a child (she had health problems which at one time meant she had to have radiotherapy) I didn't then amd never have, looked kidnly on people having abortions for lesser reasons.

Once again I agree there are people getting terminations for what you and I might find trivial reasons, thing is we CANT see into peoples heads so we CANT see what the person is REALLY going through. Even if some people fess up to using termination as late in the day contraception should we be closing that option down to people who REALLY do feel that termination is the only option for them?


"I had a child at 18 and (not willingly) gave him up for adoption. I was lucky to find him when he was 14, a year or so before the law was changed to allow such meetings - facilitate them, even. I have not suffered one tenth as much as the women who have had abortions they regretted, and given that I am not an unloving person, I don't think I am unusual in that.

My mum had me when she was 16 and I was adopted by my grandparents so I feel a lot of empathy with your situation. My mum and I saw a lot of each other and I know how much it meant to her, as I grew up. So I can understand your need to break the law and potentially criminalise yourself over your son.

Cant you see how other people who's feelings are *different* to yours would be sufficiently moved to break the rules and seek illegal, unsafe, unregulated terminations if the laws were changed?


"Her baby's father had been deported as an overstayer. Her son (the one she nearly aborted) had been diagnosed with intellectual handicaps.

A tough spot for anyone but some people cant face their situations, reducing their options is not a good thing to do. This woman changed her mind so that in my book is fine. Its good that ALL of her family got something positive out of her sons short life. However there are thousands of children who are born who wouldnt because contraceptionis unavailable or fails...thousands of children who are orphaned beacuse their one remaing parent dies during childbirth. For these children the consequnce of there being no acess to free, safe and leagal terminations are overwhelmingly negative. Things are much different for the majority of people in the world who happen not to live in wealthy developed nations like mine and yours Della. This woman may have thought she got less support from the state than she was entitled to, in some places there is no help *at all*.

I wish it were different but that is the way the world is. It is not just made up of the women you knmow who live in the country you come from.

one love

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The man who molested her, was kellet's point.

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My point was, that until Erich Geiringer and his pro-abortion group started up, in the late '70s (kea will know who he was) 13 and 14 year olds weren't out trying to practice 'illegal and unsafe means'... Sadly, the 13 and 14 year olds I knew *did* want these babies! Because they 'loved' the teenage father, or because they felt unloved by their families, and wanted someone who would love them unconditionally, or because they mixed babies and dolls up, or any of these reasons, I can't be sure. Some of them kept the babies and took them home for their mothers to raise, some of them went to live with the teenage father and his family, some of them had them adopted. It was very different back then, from now. This is a society where adults crow about the pleasure of recreational sex. Back then (not all that long ago when you think about it) the only practitioners of sex as exercise that I knew, were mad members of a cult based on the leader's idea of ancient Etruscan beliefs in Christchurch! However, there is demand now for abortion that just didn't exist until Geiringer and his like started yelling for the legalisation of abortion. kea and Blathers had a lot to say about SPUC, but from what I remember, SPUC were reactive, not pro-active..



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I agree, but do the 'unwise' deserve to have to have to have a baby they don't want? That's starting to get towards tig's territory.

tig is no good at expressing himself, but guess what? As far as I can understand what he's saying - he's not wholly wrong, despite the screams of 'troll' whenever he dares show his face.

>>However, there is demand now for abortion that just didn't exist until Geiringer and his like started yelling for the legalisation of abortion.<<

Really Della A little tiny part of you doesn't think it might be because women had to go secretly for backstreet abortions putting their lives at risk?


Bring back the old days when everyone was so moral, well behaved and Christian. Sex just wasn't as pleasurable for previous generations was it? In fact I'm not sure anyone had sex then!

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Yeah, right. You got stats to back that up, or is this just your impression of what went on at that time?

Was that deliberately funny, Della? Or is just the way you tell 'em?

kea: PAC - Political Action Committee. Those lobbyist scum what buy and sell legislators.

<< Really Della A little tiny part of you doesn't think it might be because women had to go secretly for backstreet abortions putting their lives at risk?>>

I was specifically referring not to everyone in the Western world, but the 13-14 year olds I knew at the time (being 17-18 at the time myself.) But you probably knew that. I didn't know *any* teenage girls who found themselves pregnant and wanted to abort - not one, and as I came from what's described now as the 'lower 3 SES', I knew a lot of pregnant teens... In fact, as I previously said, the sad thing is that those 13-14 year olds wanted those babies, and had in some cases, for the reasons I mentioned, intentionally got pregnant. (It was a good way back then, to achieve independence of ones parents.)


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Not as funny as you intend, Redpeck. Childish, in fact. My Mum was pregnant with me when she married. As for your little snipe about 'Christian', I wasn't, my Mum wasn't..
What I said, and what I meant was, that *now* the pleasures of purely recreational sex are all over the media, from billboards to film, to TV... Hence the automatic assumption that unmarried pregnancy = demand for abortion. After all, if sex is just for the getting of one's rocks off, that's not exactly compatible with founding any sort of family, is it?

People have sex not to perform the function of reproduction, but because it is the most intense fun two humans can have together. And there's nothing wrong with that.

"Recreational sex" makes it sound a bit too much like a hobby, whereas it really just is a fact of life.

Ste

All these arguments about teenagers bearing children and being less traumatized than they would have been if they'd had abortions is taking a lot of liberties and grossly ignoring a lot of realities. For example: http://www.teenpregnancy.org/whycare/sowhat.asp

Sex a hobby? I like that Ste! Maybe Della thinks it's like train spotting!

maybe it is for some people. I tend to agree with you though that it's bloody marvellous - it's a wonder we don't do it more. Maybe it has something to do with the 'Christian' culture we live in that loads all that guilt onto it!

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Granted. But surely it's much more fun in a relationship, than just as a woman said in the kind of (fictional, i.e. drama) TV prog I was referring to "Copping off"?

<<"Recreational sex" makes it sound a bit too much like a hobby, whereas it really just is a fact of life.>>

It was the aforementioned 'Copping off' I was referring to, and not committed relationships. It's the former that I find loathsome... and that I believe a lot of the demand for the csual kind of abortions come from. (Obviously *not all of the demand for abortions* is of this casual kind!)

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Saying abortion is murder is not quite the same thing as wanting the law changed. In my view, it should be tightened up, to make a threat to the woman's life or health, mean just that - a genuine threat to physical health. (Psychological health grounds have led to the de facto on demand situation we have.)
In most circumstances, inb effect, abortion is manslaughter. As I understand the difference, it's one of intent. Few (perhaps no) women who have abortions have any intention to deliberately kill a person they see as a living person. Therefore, they can't be guilty of murder. That's why I tend to feel pity, and reserve my anger, hatred even, for those who profit from abortion. (Either in monetary terms, or in terms of having power over people).
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That helps me understand your position better. The problem is you can't restrict access to abortion without legislation. And if you are going to make most psychological reasons illegal again you need the way to back that up (i.e. law). Women will not give up that right easily.


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My point was, that until Erich Geiringer and his pro-abortion group started up, in the late '70s (kea will know who he was) 13 and 14 year olds weren't out trying to practice 'illegal and unsafe means'...
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Don't really know who he is. However my understanding is that the changes to abortion access came from broader social change including access to the Pill from the 60s, and the introduction of the DPB (solo parent state benefit) both of which gave women new freedoms and enabled them to think about their fertility in vastly different ways than previously. And obviously the femininst movement in the 70s had a huge amount to do with it. The older feminists I got to know in the 80s had spent the 70s helping women get to Australia for abortions, and lobbying to get reproductive freedom.

In terms of the numbers of women wanting abortions or using backstreet abortion in the 70s:

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In January 1972 ALRANZ [Abortion Law Reform Association NZ] commissioned a major survey from the National Research Bureau, a reputable marketing and social research firm that used a sample selected by random probability from throughout New Zealand, in proportion to the distribution of the population. 1,200 women over 15 years of age were asked if they had attempted an illegal abortion. From this sample the NRB estimated that there were about 11,000 attempts each year, with 6,500 successes.

A variety of methods were being used in private hospitals, some of them out-dated and dangerous. Hysterotomies - the surgical removal of the foetus through an incision in the uterus - were being routinely performed for pregnancies as early as six weeks. Other women were booked in ostensibly for a dilation and curette operation, creating an atmosphere of secrecy and guilt.

The number of therapeutic abortions being performed in public hospitals increased exponentially between 1950 and the mid-1970s. From 1950 to 1957, the official number remained constant at under 100 a year but had increased to 212 in 1969 and doubled again to 470 in 1971. In 1973, 988 abortions were performed in public hospitals, and the numbers remained at about this level for the next two years, when the Auckland Medical Aid Centre began operating.

Doctors who were making crucial abortion decisions did not always have a sound understanding of the law in the first place. Clearly the law was being interpreted liberally in some parts of the country while an abortion was all but impossible to obtain in others. The outcome of any request in a public hospital depended on where a woman lived and who happened to hear her case. Women also flew out of the country to Australian states where abortions were more readily available. The exact numbers who did so in the early 1970s are at best only estimates. The most accurate survey at this time was carried out by Jacqueline Steincamp who contacted all Australian clinics, hospitals and doctors to whom New Zealand women were known to have been referred. She found a total of around 900 women in twelve months had obtained a termination in this way. New Zealand women comprised 10 per cent of the total patients seen in a Melbourne clinic over two years in the early 1970s.
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http://www.amac.org.nz/AMAC_history.htm



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Sadly, the 13 and 14 year olds I knew *did* want these babies!
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Sure. But the solution for them isn't to restrict abortion access, it's to provide adequate social and financial support so that pregnant teens can have an actual choice. I think that most teens having 'unwanted' abortions do so because there are no other real options for them. And of course I think for alo of women/girls it's never as clear cut as wanting to keep or not.

Della are you suggesting that women didn't have casual sex until the 70s?

Did you see my earlier post about the abortion rate in the 20s and 30s? It was higher then than it is now. I seriously doubt that that was predominantly from married women (although I am sure that there were many married women also, mainly those with lots of kids already).


There is this huge misconception (sorry for the pun) that women making choices about their fertility is a modern (post 60s) thing. Women in all cultures have *always made choices about when to have children, and that includes having abortions when necessary. Obviously there are major differences in the choices to day than in the past, but the reality is that women will always make such choices unless they are restricted from doing so.

And I think that Western women have gone though several times of sexual repression (Victorian England, post WW2) in the context of a general Christian society condemnation of abortion. But that didn't stop them from having sex, nor many of them from having or attempting abortions.

To be honest if Della really thinks that I'm astounded. My grandparents got married because of the conception of my mother before getting married, and made her life a misery and each others because of it.

Quite a miracle eh Della two young people having sex, getting carried away and not using precautions well before the advent of the 'permissive society'

And quite how does she expect accurate statistics to be available for all the illegal back street abortions?