Difficult one for me
The focus on this story is about abortion. Most of the facts point to it really being about a medical error. The Irish law is all about preserving life, mums as well as unborn babys. Abortion is a very emotive issue. I really, really think abortions should be rare things. There are over 200,000 in the U.K. annually. If 1 life lost in Ireland is newsworthy, what does it say about a balanced concern for loss of life.
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MaxineBasset Betty Basset Bombs are Better, Fri 16 Nov 2012, 9:54,
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What medical error?
She needed and requested an abortion and they refused on religious grounds. Fuck all to do with medicine. All to do with living in the dark ages. The Dr's responsible should be charged with murder as they surely knew the potential consequence of not giving her the abortion. If they didn't realise the potential consequence they shouldn't be practising medicine.
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slartifartfast When all around are losing their heads, duck., Fri 16 Nov 2012, 10:00,
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Which begs the question: At what point, for you, does a collection of cells become "life"?
"Most of the facts point to it really being about a medical error"? I've read a lot about this case (though not on pro-life,fundamental-christian websites) and have yet to see that theory.
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Fri 16 Nov 2012, 10:05,
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You almost sound sympathetic to the barbaric religious anti-abortion laws in Ireland
I hope that is a comedy account
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Jahled Three shades of black, Fri 16 Nov 2012, 10:16,
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My understanding of the case is that it was not a medical error in any way.
It seems to have been the deliberate withholding of life-saving medical care in order to comply with the law. A law that the Irish Supreme Court has already ruled should be rewritten. A law that the European Court of Human Rights has demanded should be rewritten.
I don't argue that the UK has the right position here - far from it if your numbers are correct and relevant (i.e. not medically necessary). But to blanket ban a life-saving procedure under the flag of saving life is morally indefensible.
[edit] Let's do some number-crunching...
The Guardian has handily collected the data for abortions in England and Wales and Scotland (reported separately). Interestingly there were 4,149 abortions carried out on people travelling from Ireland in 2011. So not only does banning it in Ireland effectively export the problem, it actually inflates the figures that you're using to argue against it.
The 2011 census in Ireland showed a population of 4,588,252 (from here). If we assume that the population is split roughly 50/50 male/female (we can get an accurate number but I'm approximating for ease) and roughly two thirds of the females are of child-bearing age (see above), then we arrive at a figure of approx 1.5 million total females.
Combining this we find that in 2011 alone, roughly three out of every thousand Irish women of childbearing age were forced to travel to another country in order to get their pregnancy aborted.
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wheresthefish Partly filled with wrong, Fri 16 Nov 2012, 10:23,
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