“Miss M” – not “Miss D”
We visited this case a few days ago. Nice to see the Irish courts functioning a wee bit faster than our lot.
An Irish teenager has won a High Court battle in Dublin to be allowed to visit Britain for an abortion.
The 17-year old was told by doctors her four-month foetus would not live more than a few days beyond its birth.
She is in the care of the Irish Republic’s health service, which had issued an order stopping her from going to Britain.
Thousands of Irish women get around the ban by privately travelling to Britain, where abortion was legalised in 1967, to undergo terminations.
The High Court has now ruled there were no statutory or constitutional grounds for preventing the teenager, known only as Miss D in court, from travelling to Britain for the operation.
Pleasing to see a ruling come down on the side of this young lass.
Logic and reason have prevailed.
Now, let’s import some of that over here.
Good for her. I wish her the best.
Considering that the child will be born with a terrible birth defect (basically, brain outside the skull) and won’t even live past a few minutes past birth, this was a reasonable and humane thing to do for the girl.
Thank goodness the court was able to look past dogma and see the human being who would needlessly suffer.
And Ireland takes another giant step into the 20th Century… :/
Along the way, even the HSE changed their tune – no small thing.
The Court said that of the two Constitutional rights at issue, the fetus’ right to life and the girl’s right to travel freely, her right trumps those of her fetus. Hopefully this will make for useful precedent.
But don’t imagine the Church has thrown in the towel yet…
She still has to travel to Britain for an abortion. The next big step would be for her to be allowed to have an abortion in Ireland.
The next big step for this kid would be to keep her knickers pulled up and finish her education. I don’t think there was ever much danger in her not getting the procedure done, (“her legal guardians at the Health Service Executive (HSE) – the republic’s national health service, which opposed the abortion at first but has since altered its position…”).
I think this was the right decision in this case, but let’s face it; most abortions are not done for this reason, are they? Let’s hope Ireland and the Church continue to battle the culture of death.
“Let’s hope Ireland and the Church continue to battle the culture of death.”
Yes, let’s indeed hope that incontestibly correct superstitious beliefs and infallible government continue to deprive autonomous human beings of ownership of their own bodies.
God knows, it’s worked wonderfully all these centuries.
tkane,
Do you support sex education including contraception?
So hands up those who believe an unborn child is NOT a human being.
Have you ever seen a baby born at, say, 28 1/2 weeks?
So they’re human if they’re outside the mother, but if the exact same baby remained inside until the due date- “it” is not. Is that how it goes?
How convenient.
RBG
Thought I’d say hello.
PS: I support the teen.
Good for her.
I do not believe in abortion for the wrong reasons, but there are several reasons that should make it easier on women.
A friend of mine lived in the US when they found out that her baby would have the same problem as the one mentioned here. At the time she was pregnant her first son was 8…and they expected her to go through the whole pregnancy knowing her child would die???? How cruel can you be? The doctors in the US told her it is against the law to have an abortion, she would have to deliver and then bury it…she came to Germany and the doctors here did it without hesitation…
In Germany it is legal, but we have to get a counseling before it is legal. Which is ok. But also do we have sex-ed starting in elementary school and we learn how NOT to get pregnant, but accidents happen. And it should be THE WOMAN’s decision then.
How can some man sitting somewhere in a court know what she will be going through. He doesn’t have to carry that child for 9 month, doesn’t have to worry about the future. He just says he doesn’t like it?
And the church….they should keep out of this to begin with. Just thinking of all those baby bodies that they disposed of, because the monks and priests hump around with nuns or their maids like crazy….sorry, but this makes me angry. If I need help with my child that I had because I couldn’t have an abortion there’s no way that the church will take care of us… (not that I have a child) So why do they have a say so?
Just my 5 cents
you can’t get an abortion at 28 weeks, so what the hell are you bringing that inflamatory statement into the discussion for. it’s dishonest, it’s not an argument, it’s not relevant, it’s designed to incite; it must be religion.
So, if you could, sounds like you’d be pretty outraged about the whole thing. Right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Canada
“Abortion in Canada is not limited by law. While some non-legal obstacles exist, Canada is one of only a few nations with no legal restrictions on abortion, and access there is still among the most liberal in the world.”
RBG
#9, RBG
So they’re human if they’re outside the mother, but if the exact same baby remained inside until the due date- “it” is not. Is that how it goes?
Yup. That’s how it goes.
Essentially, it the baby is breathing outside the womb, then we use the term “baby”. When the fetus is still dependent on the mother for oxygen and nourishment through an umbilical cord then the term “fetus” applies. If the child takes a breath outside the womb then it is a “baby” and a person. If the child fails to take a breath outside the womb then the fetus is considered “stillborn” and not a person.
Quite often at 28 weeks a fetus may survive outside the womb, but usually with poor prospects and many health issues. While each baby is different, most need the extra time to allow the lungs to finish developing.
Well thanks for that little bit of sophistry, Mr. Fusion. It makes it so much easier to terminate a life when you can come up with some kind of bureaucratic rule that fits in well with one’s politics.
But you might need an asterisk or two on your rule for those people on a heart/lung machine and taking intravenous nourishment. I happen to call those people “flipworts.” Which makes it so much easier for termination purposes when they become inconvenient.
I guess it also works that if you don’t like the realities of science and nature – just make up a rule that brushes it aside. You can call them what you like if it makes you feel better but, definitions aside, there’s not a whole lot of difference between a viable human inside the womb, or one outside needing support.
I got to see this first hand when my child was born unexpectedly at 28 1/2 weeks. Maybe I was one of the lucky ones in that she continues to score 98 percentile on intelligence tests. Prematurity can double an already low learning disability rate. And there remains tragic cases to be sure. But I can tell you that 28 1/2 weeks hardly breaks a sweat with the nurses any more – especially for girls. That’s reserved for 24 weeks. And medical science will only improve this scenario.
Historically, societies have attempted to define which people can and can not be called a human being – neatly brushing aside reality. This is no different.
RBG
#14 Your child was 7 months along. That is not the same thing as a 4 month old fetus that has irreversible brain damage. If you’re not comfortable with the “breathing on your own” determination, then how about this: Brain waves vs. no brain waves. How do we determine when a person is no longer alive? No brain waves. Brain waves with regular patterns typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the 30th week of pregnancy–near the beginning of the third trimester. That would be about two weeks after your baby was born. Roe v. Wade was and continues to be a prudent decision worthy of respect.
It’s too bad they don’t have it in Ireland—and that only women who have the money to travel to England can have control of their own wombs.
The key is not time, nor an unprovable – and therefore irrelevant to secular law – “soul”, nor how many cells the fetus is composed of, or what it resembles. It’s about one thing, which is the bright line determining the point at which the mother no longer has absolute dominion over the fate of the fetus.
It’s viability.
Until the fetus is viable – up to the time when it can leave the womb and survive as an independent, autonomous entity – it exists entirely within the mother’s body and must remain there, and therefore is, as far as any other person or group of persons is concerned, no more than a part of the mother’s body, over which her ownership, dominion and control are absolute inalienable, inviolable human rights.
Prohibiting the abortion of a nonviable fetus is an unacceptable and intolerable abridgement of a woman’s fundamental right of absolute ownership of her body, which includes the right to determine the disposition of that body and any part of it.
On the other side of that bright line, from the instant in time that the fetus is capable of surviving outside the womb, it is an autonomous human being itself, and has essentially the same right to continue to live as any other person – but with necessary limitations. I don’t believe I have met an abortion-rights supporter who would not accept that as the moment when the State can take a (limited) interest.
The extent of those limitations are far from clear, and there is much room for debate. But an adult generally has significantly greater rights than a not-yet-adult, and a person has greater rights than something that may – or may not – become a person.
But that’s not the issue; it’s that some insist on claiming – on the basis of
superstitiousreligious belief, no less – that the State has the right to assert control over the fate of a citizen’s body parts, since that’s what a pre-viable fetus is, no matter what sentimental value you attach to it.And the rational among us who insist that the individual’s ownership of their life and their body is the foundation of a just society will not accept being forced to live by someone else’s irrational beliefs.
Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.
Agreed on the first part.
Not sure what you’re getting at on the second. I don’t think you mean to say a baby born at 28 weeks and looking at her mother shouldn’t be given the usual protections because it may not have these “adult” brain waves.
I wouldn’t want to be your conjoined twin. You might off me while I slept claiming it’s your body.
RBG
17 meant for 15.
RBG
16. You just made most of that up. If you do a DNA test, you will find, without any doubt whatsoever, that you are talking about two different individuals. One could easily be toxic to the other under such occasions as a transplant or blood transfusion. What do you know, just as if it were a different person.
To say otherwise is to simply make up your own rules of biology – or worse – artificially trump them with ideology. You want superstition?: There’s no connection between believing an unborn baby IS the mother; and this being the actual situation.
Even after leaving the womb, a baby can’t survive as an independent, autonomous entity. What are you talking about?
You’d pull the plug on a premature child connected to tubes feeding her with sugar, fat and proteins, 02 – all the nutrients needed from a mother; etc?
RBG