Friday, May 23, 2008

Abortion debate

I was distressed to see that parliament did not take the opportunity to reduce the time limit for abortion. Simon Hughes made the point on television last night - although statistics show that since the present limit of 24 weeks was set medical science has not been able to save any more babies born at 20, 21, 22 or 23 weeks gestation, the fact remains that it can save some. Therefore a 24 week limit means that we are killing some babies who could survive.

My own view is that there should be very few grounds for 'therapeutic abortion' -chiefly when the mother's life is threatened, and then the aim is to deliver the mother, not kill the baby. However, this is not the majority view and we live in a democracy. What has changed is that we now have moving 3D pictures of the baby in the womb at an earlier gestation, and not only can we see that this is not a 'blob of jelly' as the abortionists claim, but a human being who flinches and moves away when given a painful stimulus.

I did find this quote on the Cramner blog:

They might even consider the words of a current practising abortionist, Dr Vincent Argent, who is a consultant gynaecologist and a former acting medical director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

Dr Argent is not remotely content with Nadine Dorries’ 20-week amendment. In The Daily Telegraph he argues for 16, yet even this is considerably more than other European nations, where the limits are:

France 12, Germany 12, Italy 12, Belgium 12, Bulgaria 12, Denmark 12, Czech Republic 12, Greece 12, Hungary 12, Luxembourg 12, the Netherlands 13, Poland 12, Slovakia 12 and Sweden, the most ‘liberal’, 18.

Yet the UK persists with child sacrifice up to 24 weeks.

Dr Argent was brought up a Roman Catholic, but says: ‘any religious beliefs I ever had have left me’. His opinion on late abortions is not formed by ‘religious bigotry’, but by ‘more than 30 years' experience in abortion services for the NHS and private clinics’ during which time he saw what was involved, and the ‘flimsy grounds on which some women sought them’, and thereafter he ‘could not stomach the idea of providing such a "service".’

The doctor notes that people do not realise just how distressing late abortions can be: ‘The procedure remains the last taboo. While heart and brain surgery are regularly shown on television, the reality of a late abortion has never been seen on British screens’.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the United States, no candidate for President wishes to end legal abortion. There is too much money in it for Planned Parenthood, and too many angry feminists for whom this is one of the reasons for living, to kill other people's babies.

The Obama fellow believes strongly that abortion should be permitted up until and even past giving birth. I understand that he is sympathetic to the view that infanticide is acceptable. Certainly partial-birth abortion he is enthusiastically in favor of.

The West long ago passed into the realm of unconscionable behavior. Now gay marriage (of the one percent of the population which is homosexual) is the law in California, due to judicial activism.

The center cannot hold; the centre cannot hold; anarchy is loosed upon the world. The West has been defeated, rotted from within. The liberals don't understand they will be the first to go.

Thanks for the post.

Terry Hamblin said...

The only difference between abortion and infanticide is an aesthetic one. When the death penalty was abolished a great aid to its disappearance was the graphic and pictorial description of the actual executions. A similar pictorial representation of abortion would turn the public against it. The Cramner link that I gave (you may have to scroll down)has a picture of a recently aborted baby.

Anonymous said...

When a fetus is viable outside the womb, with no intervention from the medical world, then and only then, is this life. As a woman I am always amazed at how quickly the male populace will be against abortion even though they have NO idea what the whole process really feels like or does to one's body. Then, if they do not like the way their life is going after having a child, they walk out on their family, (what I call the accepted abortion of Father's), and leave the Mother and child to fend for themselves. (I am of course speaking about the marriages that dissolve and not the one's that are stable.)
Obama does not believe that abortion should be permitted up until giving birth. That is a ridiculous and uneducated statement. And tell me please, how would you abort a baby at the level of "past giving birth". I think that is called inducing labor.
Planned Parenthood is not a money making business. It is run off of donations.

Jenny Lou

Terry Hamblin said...

So what are those babies that survive with medical intervention to be called? Sub-human? What about adults who survive only with medical intervention? Have they ceased to be alive?

I can certainly countenance debate over whether an embryo is a full human being or even an early fetus (although personally, I believe they are), but late abortions when the fetus needs just another month in the womb to become fully and indenpendently viable are just horrible. It is only because it is done in secret and out of sight of the world's media that it is not regarded as the same as infanticide.

I am the happy father of four and I believe a father's place is with his wife and children.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Dr. Hamblin, for being the brave and good man you are to bring up the subject of abortion. You have explained this hideous procedure in such a way that most people should be able to understand why abortion is so deplorable. I believe abortion is absolute murder against the most helpless of all humanity. From what I have read, Barack Obama is in favor of all abortions including partial-birth, and the media reports that he has a 100 percent pro-abortion rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America. I myself have experienced pregnancy and full well know what it feels like; but can anyone know what that innocent child is feeling as he or she is being aborted?

Anonymous said...

Life begins at conception. There can be no other 'dividing line' that one can draw. Medicine and science is constantly pushing the live of viability outside of the womb. So what is viable today will be different tomorrow.

I reject the idea that women and men are different on these ideas. The person I know who is the strongest opponent to abortion is a co-worker at work. She is a female.

I urged my girlfriend to have an abortion in 1973. I have much guilt over this to this day. Abortion affects men as well, and to argue it doesn't is to ignore the effects it has had on me.

I believe in adoption, not abortion. What is so terrible about this solution?

Anonymous said...

When you abort a foetus you kill a baby. Even the experts make mistakes:-

http://tinyurl.com/6hkvkq

The "right to choose" is merely "a right to abuse". Joseph Goebells would have been so envious of how the feminists have managed to create this new class of untermensch.

However whereas Goebells' attack on the Jews was condemmed in the UK, unborn babies have been left to die.

Anonymous said...

I don't expect you to post this but I think you might like to see it.

http://tinyurl.com/5d79v3