Thursday, February 16, 2006
Home Abortions
This sounds like a step forward to me - news of a successful pilot scheme that may result in women less than 9 weeks pregnant being able to have a chemically-induced abortion at home, rather than have to be admitted to hospital for the treatment.
The bit that concerns me is this: "it is also likely to provoke controversy from anti-abortion
campaigners who will claim that home abortions would make the procedure easier and therefore lead to more women having terminations"
I realise that this is journalistic speculation ("likely to provoke", "will claim" etc.) about something that hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't stop me having my twopennyworth...
Surely the point about how "easy" the procedure is can be kept separate from the pro-life / pro-choice debate.
I'd be amazed if consideration of the venue entered into such a life-changing choice. Imagine it:
"Well I'd really like to abort this foetus, but I can't be arsed to go into hospital for the procedure, so I think I'll commit to the full pregnancy, the labour, the birth, and eighteen years of child-rearing instead. That'll be the easy way out..."
The outcry from the anti-abortionists, if it ever comes, would therefore have nothing to do with influencing the pregnant woman's choice, and thereby "protecting the unborn child". It would simply be about making it more difficult for her - in other words, punishing her for making the choice they didn't want her to make.
posted by Plig |
14:51 |
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Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell
I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi
Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson
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