That was some speech in Texas the other day that lasted 11 hours ! Her speech on the floor was to do with a woman's right to choose and she made it through to the end without a vote being taken regarding cutting abortion down to 20 weeks. It shows that there are still decent US senators out there defending women from Republicans who want to control what a woman does with her body. Sadly the bill could be reintroduced by the vile Sen. Rick Parry.

11 hours isn't long by American standards. There are some legendary filibusters - especially to thwart racial reforms during the 40s and 50s.

Republicans who filibuster = bad

Democrats who do it = good

Seems to be the way it gets covered in the liberal media and vice versa in the right wing media.

Either way, it's denying democratic process whether you agree with the reasons behind it or not.

It was an extraordinary effort to prevent a bunch of reactionary forces exerting control over women's bodies.

It's more than a tad ironic that some of those who scream the loudest about the small state want to control a woman's body – and, indeed, how consenting adults have sex and with whom.

Since when has a foetus been a "woman's body"?
Is it a "woman's body" right up to birth? No, of course it isn't, otherwise we'd allow abortion right up to 39.9 weeks.
So, since when has a woman had the moral right to end a life just because the child is inside her body?

Firstly, let me say that I do support abortion but not "late" abortion.
My problem is that I don't know at what point an abortion becomes late, i.e. the cut-off point between amorphous jelly and feasible human.
Abortion before that cut-off point is termination ... after it, it is killing a human who hasn't been born yet and IMO it is no longer the woman's prerogative to decide.

Also, before we get hysterical about this, let's remember that what was being "debated" was a reduction of the age at which a foetus could be legally terminated ... i.e. 20 weeks instead of 22.

20 weeks ... that's halfway to birth.
Is that really such a crazy limit?

It depends entirely on the circumstances, I'd say. A victim of ritual abuse by a male relative who doesn't know she's pregnant until 21 weeks might think differently. Or a woman with medical complications who might be at risk of dying during childbirth. I haven't read up much on it recently, but I think the last time I did, the medical consensus was that the current limit was correct and the only reason there was talk of changing it was for religious/ideological reasons.

UK doctors say 24. How about trusting the professionals?

What was being 'debated' would have meant the closure of large numbers of facilities offering services to women. And would have been in the context of continuing attacks on [iRoe v Wade[/i by reactionary social conservatives/religious fundamentalists. That 20 weeks isn't their intended end game. It's just the start. Exactly as it is here.

And I wasn't being "hysterical" – although your response pretty much edges in that direction, with some language that is not that far removed from the anti-abortion fundamentalists.

Spot on.

Setting religious beliefs aside because they never contribute sensibly to such a debate, a good starting point as to whether the "being" is a "feasible human being" or stiil a "foetus" would be to ask the question "If we removed this entity from its mothers womb would it survive on its own with no medical intervention ?"

For the sorts of time spans that they are debating the answer would almost always be "no" and the vital part of the equation is the foetus' lungs - a friend of a friend has two teenage healthy children now who were born very early (from memory around 28 weeks when that was the absolute limit for forced delivery) because it was known that she could not carry beyond that time, they both need very intensive care for months afterwards, beyond what their normal expected pregnancy length would have been and its fair, if a little cruel, to say that without that intensive care they would not have survived more than a few hours - fantastic medical achievements but for the sake of the debate then I believe that is where the line should be drawn when considering abortion - which isn't to say that early deliveries should not be given the care they need - its a complicated subject and you can probably foresee instances where one baby may be being born and rushed to intensive care while another just a few days earlier in its timespan may be terminated.

One is inclined to respect medical opinion.
But, as advances have been made in looking after premature babies, we must remember that the limit has been brought down from 28 to 24 weeks


Didn't say you were ... I said "before we get hysterical"


Give over, an anti-abortion fundamentalist would never say anything like "Firstly, let me say that I do support abortion but not "late" abortion"

There was more too it than that. Don't forget healthcare in the US is private and so various clinics can and do offer abortions. A big part of the bill was to restrict the places that could perform them to surgical centres, effectively closing most of the state's abortion clinics.

Now this wasn't a laudable attempt to stop back street abortionists from practising a grubby trade but a deliberate attempt to restrict access to abortions to reduce the number.

That would probably lead to illegal and dangerous abortions being done by back street abortionists especially for those woman who can't afford to go out of state for one (assuming that is a legal thing to do over there anyway).

Far better to agree a cut off based on medical evidence and stick too it. This wasn't that but a religious inspired move on the road to getting rid of abortions completely.

In my time I have travelled around USA extensively and its a great place but it really does my head in they have these Christian Fundamentalists who are as Bat Sh !t loony as the fundamentalists in other religions.

isnt the obvious argument if you don't know the answer, and I don't know the answer, and it is an ethical rather than medical question(which is why 39.9weeks wouldn't be an option, the fetus is a viable human outside of the mother) so the doctors can't know the answer, can't it only be the woman's right to decide?

And this has to be seen in a wider context of ongoing efforts to cut abortion further and further. IIRC, there are only very few late-term abortions now anyway – and for 100% medical reasons. Using the late-term issue is a spurious, but highly emotive and sensational one by the anti brigade (and for clarity, I am not meaning you here).



Ah, but [ibefore [/ithat "firstly", you had already asked: "So, since when has a woman had the moral right to end a life just because the child is inside her body?" which, I suggest, uses precisely the sort of emotive language of the anti-abortionists.

We're seeing the same attempts to attack abortion, using very similar tactics in the UK – from the likes of fundamentalist hysteric Nadine Dorries (who also wants abstinence education for girls – but not for boys – because that's worked so well in the past too) to the dear Jeremy Hunt, who has stated that he thinks a 12-week limit would be just about right ([url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/26/jeremy-hunts-attitude-abortion-bma_n_3504736.htmlwhich the BMA has absolutely slated[/url). Of course, this is the same minister for health who 'thinks' that homeopathy works too.

So Hunt, for instance, would have backed the Irish hospital that refused an abortion to Savita Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant at the time when she started, fatally it turned out, to miscarry. Indeed, a woman can miscarry at any time during pregnancy (again, see the US fundamentalists who are now prosecuting women who have miscarried if they think she has been negligent).

But the overarching point is that the reality is that lowering the time limit a couple of weeks would actually affect very few women – but that's not the point of this tactic: it's part of a much larger attack.

Top post.

To me, there are stages in the development of the foetus.
Unfortunately, the one word "abortion" covers all stages of termination, regardless of the differing considerations, so I shall use different words (and as un-emotive as I can ) to differentiate between terminations at different stages.
The first one is the early stage when it is no more than a collection of cells and, at this stage, I don't have any any ethical issues about termination during that stage, and decisions at this stage must usually finally rest with the woman.
Subsequent to that, the foetus has developed into an immature human and termination in that stage is tantamount to ( or even is ) euthanasia (for which there could could still be valid reasons but give rise to other ethical considerations).
The issue I have is in the apparent grey area between those stages, it's not just a simple cut-off ( tbf, no-one in the thread has suggested otherwise).
The ethics of termination in that grey area must take into account medical opinion about viability but, as I don't yet see unanimous agreement about a clear cut-off point, the woman would (imo) have a difficult decision to make.
Somewhere, close to 24 weeks, whilst thinking we are terminating a collection of cells, we could be euthanasing a perfectly viable baby ... so, we could move the limit to, say, 22 weeks to clear up that margin of error.
I am not saying we should, just that we could.
I don't know whether that puts me in agreement with you or not.

Calling it a "woman's right to choose what she does with her body", as some do, is simplistic and unhelpful, the point is really about the stage at which society judges (via ethical consideration) that the decision is no longer hers.
If society decides that it is, say, 18 weeks (a deliberate exaggeration on my part to illustrate the point) then, providing that due ethical consideration has been taken, society is not overriding some sort of innate right of womankind.

A point was raised earlier about the situation when a woman has been sexually abused and doesn't realise she's pregnant until after the "grey area" ... in that case we are into a euthanasia discussion.

Finally, regarding the debate in the US, when does one person's conscience trump democracy?
Never an easy one, that.

There is a clear line of logic that does explain why it is a woman right to decide what she does with her body. Whilst the fetus cannot survive (or is unlikely to survive) outside the womans body, it isn’t an immature human, it is a part of the womans body. The same as my arm cannot survive without my circulatory system, by bodies infection and disease fighting mechanisms, my bodies ability to break down nutrients etc etc, it is my body. The same applies for a fetus. There is a point at which that changes, where the baby is able to survive outside the mothers body (or is likely to) it has made that transition from a part of the woman’s body to an independent form of life. Now I don’t know exactly at what point that change is complete, nor I guess do you, nor do the medical professionals have a clear consensus. So we work on the basis of what we know for sure, and when we fall in to the grey areas then whose opinion on it should carry the most weight? Mine? Yours? The Governments? Some reactionary or religious organisation? Or the person who has this thing growing inside them?

As for the question of democracy, I struggle to see democracy in the majority having a legal power of the individuals body.

I don't disagree with that.
What I disagree with is the phrase about a woman's right to choose being rolled out as though she is the sole arbiter.
Society, via democracy and considered ethics, can and must place the limits on where her choices are allowed.

You seem to have already done all the thinking and have arrived at a logical and considered view and can ignore the broad-brush nature of the phrase because you hear it with an unspoken parenthesis about the cut-off point.
But the phrase still remains, at best, only partially true in this context.




It's not unprecedented, e.g. laws about seatbelts, helmets and drugs ... we revive attempted suicides ... etc.
As someone mentioned earlier, filibustering is fine when one agrees with their point but not fine when one doesn't.
That's what I mean about the innate conflict between conscience and democracy.

If you don't have a uterus, therefore never face the possibility of being pregnant, it doesn't really matter what you think.

A woman's body is her business, who someone has sex with is their business (consent permitting, obviously), who someone marries is their business.

Religion shouldn't come into it as the US is constitutionally a secular state.

The major problem in defining a cut off point is that there is no cut off point in nature - no-one can state with any certainty that any random foetus would be able to survive if delivered at 22, or 23, or 24 weeks and there is no set date at which a baby is suddenly an independent unit.

Just checking random facts on t'internet shows that a couple of births at just under 22 weeks have survived and one of those was in 1987 when treatment was almost experimental, so its possible.

The stats I've read though state that only 9.8% of birth at 22 weeks survive but at 23 weeks its 53% and at 25 weeks its 83% - these babies still need massive medical intervention of course but it indicates roughly where the moveable line in the sand should be.

Having said all that most dates of development are educated guesswork anyway based on the date of a mothers last menstrual cycle before the pregnancy - so any development stage given can't really be pinned down to an accurate week number unless you allow two or three weeks worth of variation - something you can't do if you're basing an abortion law on very defined timelines.

Riiiight ... so you'd allow abortion right up to birth if the woman decided so?
Thank you, you have demonstrated exactly what is wrong with the phrase about the woman's right to choose.


Not really relevant to the issue but, for the sake of response, I agree.


True but, ethics come into it and many people's ethics are informed/influenced by religion.
Even as an atheist myself, I have to admit they must have the right to voice their ethics, distorted as I find them to be.

Technically speaking, no woman has entirely that right even now, since doctor's consent must be given in order to permit a legal abortion even at the earliest stage.



I agree entirely on this.

But in a secular state laws ought not to be framed on religious basis. The only large group of people I know of who want abortion abolished are people who take a particular religious rather than ethical view. In that sense I don't think its right to say their ethics are influenced by their religion because they aren't expressing an ethical view but a religious one.

Isn't it more the case (as with gay marriage and whatnot) that these people have a view, then they look (very selectively) for scripture to justify their views, rather than the other way around. I mean, you don't see these same people campaigning to ban shellfish or mixed-fibre clothing, do you?

Granted you wouldn't make law purely on the basis of what it says in a holy book but I'm not sure how you could avoid/prevent a person's religious views influencing their ethical outlook.


Whilst I wouldn't claim that to be the case universally, I do believe it is very often as you say.
Indeed, how many times have we seen it on this very forum where people can't back up their unthinking prejudice with a real reason.