WHAT DOES THE VIEW THAT PREGNANCY IS A CONDITION THOUGH NOT AN ILLNESS MEAN FOR ABORTION RIGHTS?

Abortion is more complex than some people let on.

Some who say direct abortion is always wrong seem to permit indirect abortion. Indirect abortion makes out the loss of the child is an accident or collateral damage. It is seen as an unintended side-effect. Yet if direct abortion is a human right they will not admit that the purpose of abortion is to respect the body and rights of the woman and that it is not really killing for the death is a side-effect.

If a woman has to take two pills to effect an abortion there is a chance that the baby might survive if she fails to take the second. But what about the complications for the mother and the baby? Reason says she is better even for the sake of the future child to take the second pill.

Once the first pill is taken the pregnancy can be classed an illness.

The placenta prevents the body of the woman from rejecting the baby growing in her womb. It protects the foetus from her immune system which would end the life of the foetus. As nature seems to do things a bit haphazard it is clear why some see unwanted pregnancy as an illness. The body does not want it and so as luck would have it the placenta has to solve the problem.

Pro-life people often think they win the argument by accusing pro-choice of seeing the baby in the womb if unwanted as a parasite. This term seems hugely offensive and medically and scientifically inaccurate. Imagine if a top doctor needed to be connected to your body and plugged into you and only you can keep him alive at least until he passes his lifesaving superior knowledge on. You are kidnapped and forced to be connected to him. The Church would call him a parasite. And as for the unwanted baby who endangers his mother's life he is not a parasite! Such hypocrisy.


What if a woman is pregnant and it is known the baby will pass away inside her or die when it is born. She may seek an abortion to spare the baby suffering and because the baby will die anyway. The Church condemns abortion even then. It might say she cannot know what will happen. But even if she could and did, this knowledge would make no difference to the Church's anti-abortion position. Thus the callousness or stupidity of torturing a baby over alleged respect for its life is plainly seen.

Ireland legalised abortion if the mother to be threatens suicide. It is true that this rule can be abused. But we have to take the mother to be's word for it that she will kill herself. And as many people commit suicide without being depressed or mentally ill nobody can prove she is probably lying or probably telling the truth. In such cases pregnancy can be treated as part of a bigger illness.

Ireland can jail a woman for 14 years for having an abortion. It is evil of Catholicism to exert such an influence that this could be done to a woman who had a very early abortion when nobody in their right mind thinks the embryo is a person! To say you think that is to indicate that those women should be treated as if they killed adults and to indicate hatred for those women. It is hypocrisy to say any different.

Some people who oppose abortion totally knowing that the abortion law cannot for now be ended completely compromise with it by seeking a ban on later abortions and want laws that lower the time-limit. The Catholic Church cannot agree with that approach as it regards the abortion of a fetus that isn't even visible to the naked eye as bad as aborting a baby at 24 weeks. They trivialise and mock the issue by equating the two. They complain that looking for earlier term abortion leads to an increase in abortion. Mothers to be know that their time to decide is short and so they have an early abortion just in case they decide they don't want the baby when it is too late. They have an earlier abortion because it is easier to feel they have done nothing wrong then. The later the abortion the bigger the risk of bereavement or the feeling that one is a murderer of one's own child. And it is physically safer.

The Catholics claim that abortion is never needed to save a life. The Catholic "expert" cannot supply a single reference to a peer reviewed scientific paper that is of the opinion the abortion is absolutely never medically necessary under any circumstances. Do you not think Catholicism is being fundamentalist and untruthful? It must be for it asserts something as a fact while ignoring the facts.

Even if abortion is wrong, is it not the business of women who are faced with the personal choice to decide if it should be allowed? If they agree with it, they are not forcing their will on others so why do men and bishops for example want to force their anti-abortion views on them?

In the USA in 2019, it was decided in some places that if an embryo was removed it should be reimplanted in the womb. That is alarming if the woman has an unwanted pregnancy.

Women have been artificially and cruelly kept alive on machines so they can carry their unborn babies to viability or to term.

What about hybrid embryos? They are mostly human with some animal genetic material. Are we to keep them alive?

The Church condemns PGD - Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis. This is where embryos that are in test tubes or developed outside the body of the mother and are screened for genetic defects that can lead to them becoming unhealthy babies or babies with a poor chance of survival are destroyed. This is condemned by the Church as murderous eugenics

We conclude that abortion is healthcare in many cases. It can be healthcare in all cases for pregnancy does do damage to the body of the woman though it is not an illness. Banning it forces women to harm their health by going to dangerous practitioners.

Affirming a woman's choice to end a pregnancy is an essential part of abortion care for society must not trigger guilt and self-hate and regret. They can lead to suicide and self-abuse.

We should feel by now that abortion is tolerable at the very least. A necessary deduction from that is to call abortion murder is to call doctors and the mother murderers and is hate speech. If calling them scum is hate speech then calling them murderers is worse. If you really believe it is murder you could end up going berserk and killing a woman for having had an abortion or working as an abortionist. The Church might disapprove but it should call it manslaughter not murder. We need to ask if it is time to legally penalise those who demonise abortion? What about those who use the morning after pill which often causes an early abortion without the mother even knowing? What about users of the abortion pill? If you call them murderers then you have to agree that the state should prosecute these women at least in principle if it chooses to. Nobody would regard you as sane if you called a girl who took the abortion pill a murderer. If you believe it or if you claim to know that it is true then why not tell her to her face?

A person can accuse women that had abortions of murder and claim he is exercising his freedom of speech as in his right to put his view forward. Freedom of speech brings responsibility with it. If you claim to have the right to say something so dangerous and so damaging to the women - some of whom were pressured into the abortion or were confused about what they really wanted - then you have to show that you have done your homework. Anybody who opposes abortion just because his religion or friends do is not exercising his freedom of speech but his prejudice.

If a person wants to see abortion as tolerable that is up to them and how they work this out in their heads. If a person wants to see abortion as liberating and to be celebrated that is up to them too. But in the end the evidence has the final say.

Affirming and embracing the woman's choice is a part of healthcare. Healthcare is a community matter and only starts with the medical professional. It is much more than that.