General Chat

im suprised that this thread is still up.x

yes Ron
I totally agree with you , :-D

Suzanne - my comment "Murder" is in reply to the thread title re "Sex of Child"

Am more or less OK with abortion where without it there could be major health probs.

Ron

thank you everyone for all of your very interesting posts,although we seem to have gone off the topic a bit its interesting all the same.
I agree that a woman has a right to choose,but after saying that,i remember a friend of my sister, who used abortion as a form of contraception,so like every thing in the wrong hands it will be abused.

I also agree that lots of handicapped people bring joy and happiness to everyone they meet,but when i talk of abortion for medical reasons,im talking extreme and complex illnesses,most of these babys with complex medical issues dont live for more than a few yrs(a lot only months)and suffer terrible pain they spend most of their short lifes medicated with morphine ,unable to see or hear and unable to understand whats going on around them,what quality of life is that? :-(
Getting back to the thread,this thread is about woman aborting healthy children because they are the wrong sex,and its happening in this country,although illegal,someone will always do the deed when money is on offer. :-(

Mixed feelings on this . If its for medical reasons and one sex will carry some problems then maybe BUT we have a delightful step grandson who has a faulty gene inherited from his mother who has the same fault but of a lesser effect,
He is a handful but to think he may have been aborted because of his potential problems doesn't bear thinking of.

To abort a child because they are the wrong sex is outrageous in my opinion

Well I ,ve read this and its an interesting debate albiet gone off track a little. I agree with what Muffy says,its only right that any woman has the right to decide about her body.no one else. I agree with Julia as well, the old days things were not as they are today,however magnificent advances have been made in technology and medicine and most people are grateful for it ,( and are alive because of it)previously they would have died.The reason for these abortions (Sex Selection) is because in certain Countries it is and has been acceptable and still is for this to happen,Boys can work and keep the parents in old age etc.here it should not happen and I think its probable that the people concerned are immigrants from Asian Countries. At one time over there if it was a girl child not wanted they would just throw her away and let her die. Sad but a fact over there.Its bad that it has continued here and whoever did or does it should be punished.**M**.

In an ideal world there would be no such thing as the "wrong sex".
Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world and this abhorrent practice of gender selection will continue.
Nothing is black and white though and there will always be women who need / want an abortion because of exceptional circumstances, i.e rape. In such cases it can only be right that the woman gets the help and support needed when faced with a very difficult decision.

In 1946 my mother became pregnant at the age of 39 and was asked by a neighbour whether she was' going to get rid of it'. My mum quite surprised said ' no' she was going to keep it. Early in 1947 I was born. I was told this story very late in my mothers life. My reaction was one of ambivalence. Had I not been born I wouldn't have known about it and on the lighter side there may be plenty of people who had wished I hadn't. What the story for me shows was the acceptance of illegal abortion by 'ordinary' women.

Having worked for the ambulance service in the 60's I have taken calls for what the drivers in those days called 'Knitting needle jobs'where a woman lost so much blood that their lives were in jeopardy. I have known of girls who have gone to a particular GP for a secret abortion and lost so much blood but daren't go to the hospital because the GP would get found out. The same GP ending up in jail because he tried to help the desperate women who came to him.

I would not like to go backwards but like all progress there is the 'pendulum factor' that abuses the very law that was designed to protect women from the back street illegal abortionists. If abortions have been carried out, purely for the child being of the wrong sex, then the person procuring the abortion should be jailed.-jl

Yes Muffy, it is a good job the world of everyday folks have moved on. We only have to see this in medecine in general, to wonder what would have been done for these ;modern illness' in those days.

Julia in Derbyshire

lol....Julia...I did take that on board hon when I replied...which is why I said thank goodness things had moved on.... I think we both agree that it's better that everyday folk have more options and opportunities nowadays?.

x

Muffy, I did not say that this was my opinion, just that was how it used to be.
You didn't question it, just as you didn't question other things that had gone on before. That was life and you just got on with it, because working class people where just interested, in putting a roof over there heads and feeding the family.
The finer points of life, were just beyond them. People having children in my era, had probably got parents that had lived and possible taken part in a war. Many memories were still in that era. They knew no better themselves, so how could they teach you any different.
Heavens above, it was not until my mid-teens that you could buy a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover, albiet in brown paper cover.
We knew no difference, and just accepted what there was.

Julia in Derbyshire

Then I'm glad times have moved on Julia....for the better x

Muffy, I'm afraid that was what is was like in those days, and you had no idea that anything was going to move on. You just accepted your lot in life.

Julia in Derbyshire

PS. And no, I am not a Bible thumper either.

Well thank goodness it is no longer illegal and women are no longer dying from injuries associated with back street abortions that's all I can say.

If we just accepted everything that *god* willed(sorry I'm agnostic so it means nowt to me) so I'll go with nature on this one........we'd not be striving for cures for cancer or examining life on other universes.......we'd just accept our lot as the way things are supposed to be and move no further on.

***one could take this a step further and say that folk used to die from flu before antibiotics and that they went against nature....ok...it's not the same thing but the inherrent argument behind it is still the same x

In my day, and sorry to be cliched here, you accepted what God and nature had created.
If you heard of someone having an abortion, it was probably more rumour than fact.
Abortions where something done by some Gin addled old crone, down a back street, with a knitting needle, amonst other things.
I am not saying it was never done, because it was, but you were not aware of it in your everyday life. And, it was illegal.

Julia in Derbyshire

Morning Gwyneth,

I think he is saying as I read it, that you can't choose defect or not the world is made up of very different people, Hitler tried to produce and choosen race a perfect race and was deem a psychopath which he was, and now Dermot liking the parents that choose the same as Hitler.

Gwynne, I'd 'think' that Dermot's point is that because someone is likely to be born with a disabilty is not strong enough a reason to deny them life? where they might have a quality of life, in spite of disabilty' and bring joy to others?

Watching yesterday, the house thing on Homes, young lad tetraplegic from an accident... no doubting that he is the inspiration for all his community...

that's a different subject to the thread though :-D

What point are you making, Dermot? Not sure I follow.

Are you equating women choosing abortions to concentration camp guards?

Gwynne

Hitler & his mob had a go at getting rid of, in his opinion, the unwanted; the diseased - physical or mental & anyone else he didn’t particularly like.

The whole world rejected his philosophy then & has decried it ever since. Lessons learnt? I doubt it!

There are so many opinions here I agree with this, I also of course have my own, but the subject of the right to choose springs to mind but then I do not agree with others.

Women have the right to choose if she doesn’t want to continue with a pregnancy. But that is not the question here, as I understand it. When a woman is told she is carrying a baby that has a genetic condition that the chances of survival after birth or quality of life are low then she has the right to choose. The couples that choose to terminate, as the sex is not of their preferred choice, don’t! I think that couples that already have a child with an illness that breed another child to provide medical assistance to the child already have is wrong.

So how many times have I contradicted myself there.

Edited as I have confused myself. :-0