I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

epolitix

With a few, mostly national security related exceptions (and the odd bit of quasi-judicial work) all formal proceedings in Parliament are conducted in public.

A list of witnesses will, therefore, be available from the point at which formal notice of business is posted, and oral testimony is transcribed and posted to the Parliament website on the same basis that the proceedings of the House are reported by Hansard.

On the point about ‘advisory bodies’ to the committee, I’m afraid that Nadine is grossly misrepresenting the committee process and procedure, Matt.

How these committee’s actually work is that once it has been decided to scrutinise a particular question/issue, an open brief is prepared and published, which explains what the committee is seeking to review and what kind of evidence it would like.

After that, anyone with an interest (and hopefully the relevant expertise) is entitled to make a written submission to the committee putting forward their views, evidence, etc.

From there, the committee does have some latitude in terms of the witnesses they call, because time is limited, but such decisions should be made based on the submissions and not on political and ideological considerations taking into account expertise, relevance to the question at hand and any duplication/repetition. If they get 10 submissions all making identical points, then take one as being representative of what particular view, etc.

There are no standing ‘advisory bodies’ only witnesses.

As for the ‘abortion industry’ claim, the BPAS are primarily an abortion provider and hardly representative of either the full range of opinion or of all ‘pro-choice’ groups. Marie Stopes also provide abortion clinics, but also a comprehensive range of related services including contraception, cervical screening and screening for STDs.

I agree that you cannot ultimately separate the ethical from the medical, but that’s not necessarily a weakness in this case. The committee’s brief is to review the scientific evidence as an aide to further debate in parliament, not to make a definitive decision on the merits of the current limits.

The reality is, Matt, that:

a) the current medical evidence really doesn’t support, on its own, a reduction in the current upper time limit – and the medical arguments (as Ive explained at length over at MoT) are problematic anyway, and

b) majority public support for legal abortion is solid at around 65-70% and has been for years.

The ‘pro-life’ lobby know this, which is why they’re resorting to smears, misrepresentation and attempts to discredit the committee and pro-choice organisations in lieu of actually debating the issues.

Of course. But that doesn’t make the women any less stupid and impulsive, does it?

“You’re calling the fact that I don’t try and tell women what they can do with their own bodies “cowardly”? Ye gods, woman, you’re utterly twisted.”

No it would be stupid to tell a woman what to do with her body. However we are talking about a woman who is pregnant with another body. I’m suspicious as to why some men constantly encourage women to have abortions, if they want to, because after all it is her body and her decision. Their just trying to use womens empowerment to abdicate their responsibility of raising the child they so carelessly created.

Are the men who rely on women to take responsibility for their (the men’s) choices stupid and impulsive?

Surely his Committee is capable of evaluating “scientific” evidence on its merits, no matter who it comes from? if “religion” (or for that matter “secularism”) has infiltrated the evidence, then I expect a committee of Parliamentarians to be capable of detecting that fact.

Leaving that aside, the attempt in the Terms of Reference to separate medicine from ethics is risible.

I’m also not sure what the protocol is where the names of witnesses can be published before the report comes out (can you help here, Unity?).

On the “abortion industry” point and the advisory bodies to the committee – I smell something fishy, and I think that Nadine Dorries has a very strong case

For e.g., one of the advisers – the British Pregnancy Advisory Service people (who’s keywords on every page of their website I saw are: “Abortion, Abortion Help, abortion advice, Abortion clinic, Abortion care, Abortion choice, Abortion hotline” ROFL reports the following income figures for 2005-6:

Revenue from services (i.e., abortions and other birth control services): 21.17 million
Revenue from donations: 1,000 ukp.

Quite how they can be an objective adviser leaves me baffled.

Compare it – for example – with the furore from Greenpeace and co if a scientist did one project funded by an industry body 5 years ago.

Something rotten in the state of this enquiry.

a) The point is that people’s religious views should be relevant to their testimony. So if Harries actually thought this was an issue he should have tried to establish the religious view of every testifier. His failure to do so speaks volumes.

b) In terms of organisations- why not then ask everyone what organisations they belong to that take a stance on the abortion law? Note the CMF doesn’t even require its members to be anti-abortion so it’s not like its equivalent to abortion position. Again Harries did not do so – II)) I suspect because it would show most of the witnesses belong to pro abortion organisations and) because it would show the witnesses his prejudice against actually probably belong to pro abortion organisations (egg the BMA).

c) In any case what matters surely is people actual views the Labour party has being pro-choice in their constriction yet Jim Dobbin would not be biased in favour of abortion linearization! , the Catholic Church is anti-abortion yet many Catholic mps would not be biased against it (e.g. Sien Fein ones).

d) So what harries should be doing is writing to every witness to find out their view on abortion- he hasn’t done so -obvio07s because he fears.

e) So given his inconstancy he is either engaging in smears and/or is reflex his vie that Christians should be persecuted and treated second class ( the fact this is not the case in every way at the moment in the UK does not mean that is not Harries views)

f) As for “abortion industry” well lots of people work in organisation based around an industrial process of abortion? Why’s it wrong to call it an abortion industry? Is the arms industry a biased term? The steel industry?

g) And do you really think that conflict of interest does not exist? So if people from arms companies or huntsmen’s unions testified on the science of their subject they would not just do so impartially (which they might do so) but one could not even take any notice of their conflict of industry

h) Lots of people today make a living in the UK by carrying out abortions or supplement their earnings by doing so. To point out this is no more unreasonable than pointing out that arms manifestos or hospital builders. Gain or lose by changes in certain laws and expenditures.

d) As for unity’s post I’ll just say this – if human intellect is what gives people personhood then what about small babies who are definitely dumber than say a dog? What bout a person in a temporary coma or asleep? And given the difference in intellect between say Gordon Brown/ David Camouern/ Watson/ Steven Pinker/Rowan Williams/ Richard Dawkins and people of very low IQ does that imply that the latter should subsidise the former since the former are more persons?

As far as ‘rights’ are concerned, any pregnancy creates a situation in which two fundamental rights, those of the foetuses notion right to life and the mother’s right to sovereignty over their own body are conjoined and inseparable until the conclusion of the pregnancy.

In the case of a woman seeking an abortion those rights become incommensurable such that all that one can do is seek to balance those rights in a manner that one considers leads to the least harm.

In terms of rights theory that position is derived from the works of Isaiah Berlin and JS Mill and for anyone who considers themselves a liberal, there is your philosophical starting point.

Medical science and scientific evidence can, at best, inform the debate and assist in arriving at a view of where the ‘least harm’ may lie. So far as such evidence is concerned, that I find most compelling is the clear evidence that the basic capacity for consciousness, sentience and self-awareness does not begin to function at even a rudimentary level until 26-28 weeks gestation.

My view of what I value as most human is bound up in the capacity for consciousness and sentience. Cogito Ergo Sum. And as such when it comes to minimising harm in a situation where some degree of harm is necessary then if one is to terminate the development of a foetus then at least do so before the capacity for conscious thought and sentience begins to develop.

I am, therefore, comfortable with the current 24 week upper limit, but for preference wish to see access to abortion before that point expedited – if a woman is to have an abortion, make it as early as possible, where the procedure itself is at its simplest, safest and least physically traumatic.

And, of course, we should be doing everything possible to prevent unwanted pregnancies via health/social education and access to contraception. The one period in which the number of abortions actually fell, markedly was during the early 1990s where, for 4-5 years the number of abortions ran at around 20,000 a year less than the prevailing trend before and after this period. This was the period immediately following the massive government funded information campaign around HIV/AIDS which extensively promoted ’safe sex’ and the use of condoms and clearly validates, for me, the importance of education and easy access to contraception.

This requires a lot of work, but free NHS condoms in all pharmacies would be a quick and useful starting point, and we can take the rest from there.

The viability argument is unsatisfactory and unilluminating. Sorry but I don’t, and won’t define my notions of humanity and the value of human life by reference to medical technology and clinical intervention.

And as for the foetal pain argument, that again offers no insight into the concept of humanity, it is, at best, an argument for the use of anaesthesia in later second trimester abortions in the interests of making the procedure as humane as possible, both for the foetus and for the mother in terms of the reassurance that may offer that the foetus did not experience pain during the procedure – even though the notion of of pain at this stage is confined to purely physiological reactions. Foetuses do not ‘feel’ pain in any conscious sense before (again) the third trimester because the brain and nervous system are insufficiently developed and connect to induce such ‘feelings’ at a conscious level. In that sense, the use of anaesthesia on the foetus is more a placebo for the mother than anything else.

‘Moral’ arguments, especially those derived from religious belief, carry very limited weight with me.

As an atheist, arguments derived from the alleged opinions of a god I don’t consider to exist are hardly going to be compelling and, frankly, if someone has a moral or ethical objection to abortion then that objection can happily be satisfied and put into practice by the simple expedient of them not having an abortion.

We should, in the wider socio-political debate, take such views into account but then need to put into their proper context, as philosophical arguments and abstractions, and be weighted accordingly.

Abortion has personal, social, cultural political and economic costs and consequences and these need to be weighed and evaluated. However, alternatives like adoption and, of course, the continuation of a pregnancy to term, have their costs and consequences also, and one cannot debate this issue properly without consideration of all these factors.

What concerns me most about the current debate is that the single most important ‘voice’ in this, that of women who have faced the difficult and painful choice of whether to have an abortion is too seldom heard and given far too little regard and consideration.

This is, at least in part, because the law as it stands classifies ’social’ abortions under a quasi-clinical category of giving rise to risk of physical or mental harm to the mother.

This actively discourages substantive social research in the UK into the reasons why women elect to have abortions and the factors that influence their decisions, not to mention the difficulties they face in making such decisions, information that is critical to our understanding and proper consideration of the issues raised by abortion and denies women a necessary and important voice in the overall debate.

As a liberalising measure, I fully support the withdrawal of this category and the legal recognition of ’social’ abortion as a legitimate and non-clinical ground on which abortions can be carried out. This should be backed up with government funding for substantive and detailed research in this field to inform future reviews/debates around abortion.

If we do not understand why women have abortions, how they arrive at such decisions, what factors most influence the decision making process and how this may affect them psychologically, etc. then we cannot have the full and informed debate that is necessary if we are to arrive at a humane and rational legal framework for abortion.

That said, one aspect of the current debate that I do dislike – actually despise is a better word – is the view that is being advanced that ‘feckless’ women are using abortion as a stop-gap form of contraception.

There may be some specific instances in which there is a slim element of truth to such an assertion, but in the vast majority of cases the circumstances in which the woman falls pregnant have little of no bearing on the difficulty or complexity of the decision they face and have to make.

We should also not be swayed in our judgement on the question of establishing a just and humane framework for legal abortion by crude and judgemental arguments as to the moral character of women to who do elect to have an abortion and should certainly never use this as a basis for limiting access to abortion for individual women.

In legal terms, such references have the same basic character as the practice of using information about a woman’s sexual history to call into question her moral character in the context of a rape trial and as a basis for a clinical decision it is akin to suggesting that a doctor should have the right to carry out a sterilisation on a woman, without her consent, because she continues to get pregnant and have children while living on welfare benefits.

The correct legal basis for ’social’ abortions is that of informed consent and the only sound and justifiable basis for overriding the decision to have an abortion made on such a basis is where there is a legitimate question of legal competence, in which case the matter should be remitted immediately to a court of law and a decision rendered as quickly as possible. but under the presumption that the woman in competent unless proven otherwise.

My personal view on the current debate is, therefore, that:

a) There is no substantive case for a reduction in the current upper time limit for legal abortion.

b) There is a case for some liberalising measures that expedite abortions, ensuring that as many as possible as conducted inside 12-13 week gestation, and for the legal recognition of ’social’ abortions without reference to the current quasi-clinical method of classification.

There is, therefore, a case for such measures to be debated in Parliament and for modest amendments to the current law.

These should be followed by:

a) a government funded social research programme into abortion, one that endeavours to understand why women have abortions, what factors most influence their decisions and what the various social, etc. costs and consequences of abortion (and alternatives) are, and

b) a clear moratorium on further attempts to legislate in the area of abortion until this research programme has been completed, at which point a comprehensive review of abortion and abortion law should be carried out by means of a Royal Commission which will take evidence and consider the full range of evidence and opinion – scientific, philosophical, moral/ethical and social/psychological.

The recommendations of this Royal Commission would then inform Parliament as to whether any further legislative changes might be necessary or advisable to ensure that the UK’s abortion laws are kept up to date and are fit for purpose.

That’s my position, and while its not a perfect solution by any means – such a solution is not, in my estimation, possible – it is one I consider to be rational, balanced, human and humane and to provide the best possible (for me) accommodation of the many complex and contending interests surrounding this issues.

You’re calling the fact that I don’t try and tell women what they can do with their own bodies “cowardly”? Ye gods, woman, you’re utterly twisted.

In any case, #40 and #41 are two of the best posts on this thread.