wade

Article here.


Discussion (30)¬

  1. Joe Fogey says:

    Quite right, Author. Keep it legal, keep it safe.

  2. MarkyWarky says:

    Sanctity of bullshit more like.

  3. Welshman says:

    Those statistics are horrendous, the El Salvador one in particular. And the foetus dies anyway, what’s the point?

  4. 1happyheathen says:

    facts mean nothing to those that want to push their religion on the rest of us… they feel that they are “called by god” to do so and no amount of reason, logic or facts will change their minds.
    in fact many who oppose a women’s choice are the very same ones who exercised this choice before they took up telling others how to live.

  5. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    1hh, are you sure about that last sentence? That’s tantamount to accusing them of hypocrisy, and they can’t be both hypocrites and religious, can they? You’ll be telling us next that they support the death penalty and the proposed healthdon’tcare bill (another death penalty in all but name, but who cares? It’ll mostly be killing the poor!) from the despicable Trump’s parody of government, too.

  6. Someone says:

    The mindset of anti-abortionists are firmly against the mother’s health because in their view, her body is a sacred vessel (among other things) and therefore it is her duty to ensure another life – another soul – is brought into God’s kingdom.
    After the child is born, it can go fuck itself.

    That is to say, societal and political norms automatically apply, and it’s the same story of the self-centered and elite staring down their noses as the rest of the populace gradually falls into disarray. What was once a soul deserving of life as it grew in the mother’s womb is just another mouth to feed; a statistical parasite that should be ignored unless it’s “one of us” or some such special case.

  7. Anonymous says:

    Those counts think The Handmaid’s Tale is a vision of Utopia. 20 years ago we could have laughed at them in Europe – it was only a fear in the US and a reality in muslim countries. Now, thanks to immigration, our cowtowing to Saudia Arabia, and politicians’ venality it is a real concern for Europe. But then, of course, I’m just a nasty racist.

  8. HelenaHandbasket says:

    Its all about protecting ickle lickle babbies…until it isn’t. And it often isn’t. For example, in Ireland, we had Magdalen laundries where young women who had had babies out of wedlock were imprisoned. What happened to the dear ickle wickle babies? Why…a cute lickle mass grave of course…
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/mass-grave-of-babies-and-children-found-at-tuam-orphanage-in-ireland

  9. Anonymous says:

    Abortions are somewhat of an issue
    In dealing with unwanted tissue
    some that after they mature
    Post birth abortion is the cure
    Progressives, please form a cue.

  10. Some Dude says:

    What’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’? Can anybody explain it to me?

  11. cjsm says:

    @Some Dude – The Handmaid’s Tale is a particularly depressing account of life from the viewpoint of a young woman after the right wing christian wingnuts take over the US government. Being a not so young woman when I read it, I still had nightmares over the book. Just thinking about the book gives me the willies.

  12. DocAtheist says:

    This one is worthy of a T-shirt, to be worn everywhere, especially around “abortion” clinics, i.e. Planned Parenthood, a women’s healthcare clinic which happens to provide abortion services among other things.

  13. Grumpy says:

    Another belter Author and very on topic given that the UK government has just announced that abortion services are to be made freely available on the mainland to women that reside in Northern Island. About bloody time too.

  14. Son of Glenner says:

    Grumpy: Shouldn’t that be “Northern Ireland”? New Zealand has its own arrangements.

    Ah, Spellcheck, eh?

  15. Grumpy says:

    Son of Glenner: Argh ! well spotted and I have to hang my head in shame as I am sadly a bit anal when it comes to spelling mistakes / incorrect words.

  16. Someone says:

    Regarding The Handmaid’s Tale, I read somewhere that watching the latest TV adaptation is like watching Jaws on a very small boat in the middle of the ocean.
    That inspired me to look up the story. How very true.

  17. Ms pink squirrel says:

    Xian ‘sanctity of life’ yeh right rofl

    gotta be ‘Trumpnews’

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

  18. hotrats says:

    The UK Government’s decision to fund abortion exports from NI on the mainland, via the National Health Service, is a long-overdue signal to the Unionists, that real Union means sharing current social values, not attempting to drag them back to the 1950s.

  19. Some Dude says:

    @cjsm: Thanks 🙂

  20. Anonymous says:

    hotrats

    I think it had a lot to do with the ‘dinosaurs’ of the DUP that the govt needs to form a coalition

    This issue would have split the parties, so it cowardly gave in rather than have the vote

  21. Deimos says:

    This is one where I’m conflicted.
    But this the joy of living in a democracy (the UK), politicians make laws, we vote for them. The law says yes in England Scotland and Wales, in NI it says no. The humans in NI vote for this party (if they are of a certain religion) and specifically reject parties who would change the law.
    The same is apparently happening in the USA, where many states are making abortion impossible without actually making it illegal.
    Should we attempt to impose laws on people who have specifically rejected them in a free democratic vote ? Hence I’m conflicted.
    PS please don’t call the DUP dinosaurs they don’t believe in them.

  22. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Deimos, did the Northern Irish people vote for anti-abortion candidates because they (the electorate) were against abortion themselves, or were their choices limited by there being no specifically pro-choice candidates to vote for?

    I’m of the opinion that a government’s laws should apply everywhere that it governs, and that NI should have been made to provide the same NHS healthcare services as the rest of the UK rather than pandering to the Catholic Church for so long.

  23. DC Toronto says:

    Demios – would you draw a line where even a democratically elected government has overstepped it’s authority regarding basic human rights? Abortion might be an example where a person has the right to decide how they deal with their own body. Capital punishment might be another example as well as examples of in some countries of womens rights and equality. Does it matter that they were democratically elected if they cross a line of what should be basic human rights?

  24. Son of Glenner says:

    AoS: I think the DUP would take great offence at being accused of pandering to the Roman Catholic Church!

    NI is split between “Catholics” and “Protestants”, with great animosity between them. The Protestants or “Ulster Scots” are the descendants of the “Plantation Scots” imposed on Northern Ireland by King James the Sixth of Scotland and First of UK. The Catholics are descended from indigenous Irish people.

    Historically, it’s the Protestants that were effectively in control, through parties like the DUP, and gerrymandering (a NI invention!) of constituency boundaries.

    In recent years, NI has had a devolved administration (like Scotland & Wales), so can make their own decisions on abortion and other matters. At present, devolution is effectively suspended, due to (surprise, surprise!) the Catholics and Protestants being unable to agree on forming a Government.

  25. Paddy says:

    What’s really sad is that abortion is preventable, to a degree… by contraception. Countries with good access to contraception have significantly lower abortion rates than countries without. But try telling that to the likes of Mike Pence, or, indeed, the Catholic church.

  26. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    SoG, you’re right, of course, I commented in a hurry; a case of ‘post in haste, kick oneself at leisure’. It is indeed religious bigotry in general rather than any specific denomination that has held N.I. back, although it has long been dressed up as nationalists versus loyalists – a fore-shadowing of the current reluctance to call Islamic extremism for what it is. Well, can’t give religion credit for all of the divisive shit, can we?
    I’m not a fan of devolution, too much like kids who claim they’re independant adults but are still living at home with their parents ‘cos the benefits are better.

  27. dr John de Wipper says:

    Perhaps a good poster text:

    Anti-abortion = Pro-women-killing.

  28. smartalek says:

    ” At present, devolution is effectively suspended, due to (surprise, surprise!) the Catholics and Protestants being unable to agree on forming a Government.”

    Couldn’t be.
    We are constantly assured — by people who profess to profound and detailed knowledge of the subject — that only Islam is still so irrational in its sectarian intransigence.
    Only Muslims — not having the advantage of our Reformation, Counter-reformation, and Enlightenment (because the Qur’an and its profoundly un-western commingling of religious and worldly authority precludes any such possibility for the poor, benighted practitioners) — would have such problems.
    Surely, the cause lies elsewhere!

    Yes.
    It is, in fact, sarcasm.

  29. HelenaHandbasket says:

    smartalek. I don’t know of anywhere in the world where Christians are slaughtering each other in the name of religion in quite the same numbers as with quite the same fervor as Muslims are doing around the world. The christians mostly got it out of their system in the 17th century. It may come back, who knows, but at the moment we have the Muslim equivalent of the European wars of religion being fought on the borders of Europe (with consequent overspill of refugees). I doubt that anyone is arguing that Christianity is intrisically better than Islam. To be honest, most of us atheists would like all of the Abrahamic religions to work out which of their imaginary friends has the biggest dick, in some peacful way that leaves the rest of us out of it.
    But that is not likely to happen anytime soon.

  30. Keith says:

    One to get Catholics jumping through (il)logical hoops:

    So condoms are wrong because they prevent the creation of God’s children. But a married Catholic woman, who could otherwise give birth to many more of God’s children, is going to die unless an abortion of the male foetus (therefore not a vessel of God’s children itself) inside her is carried out. Had she been able to use condoms with her husband, death could have been avoided. This situation occurs thousands of times every year. Which tenet of your religion do you drop first – anti-condoms or anti-abortion?

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