Abortion - how is it handled in your country

[BabaRa]

The issue of abortion has been fought, re-fought, and re-re-fought in this country for at least 40 years, tying up our courts and becoming a highly charged issue between those for and against.

I'm curious how you deal with this sensitive subject in other countries - and is it even an issue?

[modwiz]

This is all about women and their right to sovereignty on this issue. Men's opinions can be heard but, women do all the heavy lifting. Women are risking their lives with every childbirth. This is one reason hospitals now "own" the birthing process.

Our culture needs wise women.

[Eelco]

Its not an issue over here, we have abortion clinics. We used to have the occasional protest against them but I can't remember when I last heard of one.
Used to pass such a clinic daily on my way to work for about 10 years . never saw people picketing or whatever.

Birthing is not "owned" by the hospitals either.
We have a rather well filled pool of midwives in holland that follow and assist in childbirths.
5 out of our 6 peeps are born at home. In the comfprt af a huge bathtub..

With Love
Eelco

[Eelco]

Our culture needs wise women.

May I go as far as saying that governments should be replaced by counsils of wise woman?

With Love
Eelco

[Seikou-Kishi]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJzgSDOJAfA


Seriously though, it's not so big a deal. Not compared with how it seems to be in the US. It seems like there presidential candidates are often scared to mention it, and with those who do it seems like there's always a large swathe of people, on either side, ready to condemn them to Hell for it. The closest to US Republicans would probably be the Conservative party in the UK, but there's not a single MP from that party who wants to restrict access to abortions or contraception the way there seems to be in the more fundamentalist nooks of the Republican party. There are some MPs who want the abortion window narrowing on account of the survivability of babies outside the womb rising due to advances in health technology, but even there it doesn't stir up much of a fuss.

I saw recently about a congressional committee on abortion that didn't even have a single female member. One really couldn't make it up. Currently, in the UK, abortions are legal up to the twenty fourth week. They're legal too in such cases as pregnancy or labour pose a greater risk to the physical or mental health of the mother than the termination would. In practice, abortions are pretty much open to any woman who wants one and has not passed her twenty fourth week. Medical professionals who preach their own beliefs about abortion rather than acting purely in a professional capacity put their medical licence at risk.

Only 3% of people in the UK think abortion should be illegal. The conditions given above actually only apply in the "law areas" of England and Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland operates its own laws in regard to abortion.

[Seikou-Kishi]

May I go as far as saying that governments should be replaced by counsils of wise woman?

With Love
Eelco

If they are wise, their gender doesn't matter. If they are not wise, their gender doesn't matter :-)

A council of the wise, neither wise men nor wise women but simply the wise, would be all we would need. Bring back the witenaʒemot

[Eelco]

True, but after years of patriarchy we could do with some counterbalance.

When looking up witenagamot just now the first page of results all talk about a council of noble men..
I take it you mean a counsil that has gender neutralbility in mind?

I think a few decades of wise woman council will do more for equality and balance quicker than to start with equal genders numbers after all these years of male dominance..

With Love
Eelco

[Spiral]

When we say that abortion is merely a matter of womens health are we not washing our hands of murder ? (Yes I know there are real cases of health being threatened but that is by far the normal reason for abortion)

For obvious reasons I can't post videos, but there are discarded babies thrown in dumpsters behind coffee shops from abortion "clinics" and documented cases of live babies being thrown in the garbage following abortions, is this a good thing ?

In the UK abortion is largely a means of birth control for the feckless, and in the US abortion clinics are clustered in non white neighbourhoods, what does that say for the human race ?

Why is the legal cut off point for abortion after the point where a baby can survive outside the womb ?

Is this cold hearted approach to children part of the indoctrination into the monstrous corporatised world we live in ? In the UK the Royal society for the protection of animals came into existence a long time before the National society for the protection of children !

[Spiral]

True, but after years of patriarchy we could do with some counterbalance.

When looking up witenagamot just now the first page of results all talk about a council of noble men..
I take it you mean a counsil that has gender neutralbility in mind?

I think a few decades of wise woman council will do more for equality and balance quicker than to start with equal genders numbers after all these years of male dominance..

With Love
Eelco

Maybe if you had grown up under Margaret Thatcher you would think somewhat differently ?

Women in power are often far worse in all the areas that people deem "paternal" than men, look at Hilary Clinton for example, she is a murderer, terrorist, drug runner & cash launderer, and by all accounts likes female sex slaves.

She may become POTUS, then we we all get to bask in her radiance.

[Eelco]

the word that matter most is wise.
a characteristic i wouldn't bestow on thatcher or clinton.

as for the cut off point for babies. no one said abortion clinics were examples of humanity. And the way some physisians treat a foetus is appaling. There are milder and more respectfull ways to treat a foetus.

With love
Eelco

[Spiral]

the word that matter most is wise.
a characteristic i wouldn't bestow on thatcher or clinton.

Thats because no one gets anywhere near power who isn't a psychopath, irrespective of gender, and thats the real problem, & whilst we are going hors piste can anyone tell me the name of a man, any man, more powerful than this woman ?

[BabaRa]

For me, it's a complicated issue here in the States. While I'm against killing, here's the situation.

A good percentage of the babies that would have been aborted and aren't - are crack babies.

They come into this world already addicted, to a mother who is addicted, (and usually has other children who aren't being cared for properly). These crack babies often have many, mental, physical and emotion problems due to the lack of care in embryo state - and eventually become wards of the state. But not until they've had several years of abuse either physically, emotionally or sexually or all 3 (usually by boyfriends of the addicted mother).

My son works in this industry. I can't begin to tell you the sad stories he tells me, it breaks his heart daily. Just recently a 7 yr old came into his group home. He was already an alcoholic (presumably because that's all there was available to ingest). His mother had left him in a crack house for over a week, because she couldn't remember where she had left him (so one can imagine what he witnessed and experienced there). Sadly, not an unusual case. The statistics are: 90% of these kids, when released from State facilities at 18, end up in Jail of or the streets selling sex. What kind of life is that?

Drugs, lack of affordable contraceptives definitely are a big factor in this problem.

But I still don't know WHY it's such a big issue here and not in other Western Countries. You seem to have the same kind of leaders that we do. Is it our strong Puritan background?

[Eelco]

I think that (looking in from the outside) the idea of god is more prevalant in the states, especially the leaders.
Without saying you believe in the good lord and show some signs of sincerity you will not be elected wheter democrat or republican yes?

So who would dare take on the religous groups and allow abortions? It'l cost you your support.
not just from the religious folk, but also from the ones that don't believe but do... sort of.

Could be very wrong about that though.
With Love
Eelco

[Spiral]

I think that (looking in from the outside) the idea of god is more prevalant in the states, especially the leaders.
Without saying you believe in the good lord and show some signs of sincerity you will not be elected wheter democrat or republican yes?

So who would dare take on the religous groups and allow abortions? It'l cost you your support.
not just from the religious folk, but also from the ones that don't believe but do... sort of.

Could be very wrong about that though.
With Love
Eelco

I was just about to post the same points

Christianity is politically & culturally irrelevant now in northern Europe, and in England they have "the church of england" who will go with just about anything anybody says or comes up with, most of them don't even believe in God anyway (the clerics in the C of E).

If a high ranking politician made a big deal of being Christian they would lose votes, not gain them this side of the pond.