Quote from the Daily Mail 28/07/05:

'The number of abortions among girls under 14 rose 6% last year ...
'..the total number of abortions in England and Wales hit a record high in 2004 of more than 185,000.
'The rate of terminations has risen relentlessly since the mid 1990s, despite .. the morning after pill...
'The abortion rate was highest in women under 24, and there were 157 abortions among girls under 14 last year, up from 148 in 2003
'...doctors .. can perform abortions on under-16s without parental consent.'

If these figures are true, then I find this worrying and sad.

Young girls should not be going through the physical or mental anguish of pregnancy or abortion.

I couldn't agree more, PDM.
What I want to know is, is a girl under age 14 mature enough to consent to sex, let alone, unprotected sex? Something is dead wrong here...

One example given alongside the Daily Mail's article (above)

'Melissa Smith was only 14 when she had a termination without her mother's knowledge.
'.. Asked if she wanted to tell her parents.. she replied 'My Mum would kill me', so .. an abortion [went] ahead in secret.
'Melissa was left to visit doctors on her own. 'She had taken the first of two chemical abortion pills when her mother found out. She then decided to keep the baby, but it was too late....
'Six months later Melissa became pregnant again by the same boyfriend and gave birth last week. Her mother said she had been 'hellbent' on replacing the baby she had lost'

Absolutely!

We have discussed pre-teen pregnancy here:
http://www.wineintro.com/forum/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000118

"who says abortion is wrong when it is done to save a life?
what about thousands of children born into extreme poverty in India, Bangladesh or Africa ? is not it wrong to bring them into a life with no future?" somsuj

Quoted from:
http://www.wineintro.com/forum/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000162;p=1


Thank you for bringing this aspect of the subject to our attention. I have to admit, I hadn't really thought of it from this angle before.

Basically I'm against abortion, but I do think there are times when it is probably for the best.

I had thought of health problems in mother and / or baby. I hadn't actually thought of situations such as you describe - famine, extreme poverty, etc.

Is it right to bring a child into the world only for it to suffer?
It would make life even more difficult for its parents and siblings too.

This is not only true of children in poverty- and famine-ridden countries, but also where children are left 'to rot' in orphanages (such as those we have seen in Eastern Europe) or just discarded in other ways (I have heard such stories about girl babies in some parts of China.)

What about children who are born into homes where they suffer neglect or abuse? Are their lives really worth living? Maybe if the mother had had an abortion there would be one less child suffering.

In South America, as I mentioned before, unwanted street children are killed. Would it have been better for them to have been aborted before birth? (Not that two wrongs make a right.)

I am still against abortion in essence, but I do think these matters deserve consideration.

I used to have no real problem with abortion, believing that it was only done where there were serious concerns about the health of mother or baby.
It was only when my cousin actually described the horrors of the operation that I really thought about what it meant, for the first time.

She, a theatre nurse, had been present at at least one such 'procedure'. However, she asked not to attend another and being Roman Catholic she was not expected to do so. She is married to an Indian doctor (Hindu) - I'll have to find out his thoughts on the subject.

What do you make of this:

'British Doctors Send Women to Spain for Late Abortions By Liz Townsend

'Doctors working with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the country's largest abortion provider, refer women seeking abortions over the legal limit of 24 weeks to a clinic in Spain, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

The British Department of Health has launched an investigation into BPAS's late-abortion referrals. "We are still investigating the matter of BPAS referring women overseas for late abortions," a spokeswoman told the Mercury. "We are hoping a report will be made to [Health Secretary] John Reid before Christmas."

BPAS, which is funded by the National Health Service, provides more than 80% of abortions in Britain between 20-23 weeks gestation, the Press Association reported. British law bans abortion after 24 weeks except for fetal disability or danger to the mother.

If women consult BPAS for a late abortion, the Telegraph found that they are referred to .... Spain, as a matter of BPAS "policy." "They do over 24 weeks in Barcelona," the Telegraph reporter was told by a BPAS adviser. "I know that we refer people over our usual term of 23 weeks to them. I know they do over 24 weeks."

However, under Spanish law, abortions are illegal over 22 weeks except for medical danger to mother or child. When asked by the Telegraph how the clinic gets around Spanish law, a ... staff member named Jimena said, "If you have a normal pregnancy but still you want to do it, what we do is to put on the paper that there was a gynaecological emergency, and that is [covered] under the law." '

http://www.nrlc.org/news/2004/NRL12/british_doctors_send_women_to_sp.htm

See also:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jht.../ixnewstop.html


There's an item on very late abortion, in the case of abnormality, here:
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=195&id=378472005

Disgusting!

Gutted to see my fellow professionals 'helping out' in this fashion, lying to get abortion.

What is the difference between Shipman and them ?

From recent papers: This article is from the Sunday Times, but was also in today's Daily Mail: [i]A GOVERNMENT agency is launching an inquiry into doctors’ reports that up to 50 babies a year are born alive after botched National Health Service abortions. '[/i] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1892696,00.html One survivor of abortion, Gianna Jessen, is now 19, and has just completed her first marathon. She campaigns against abortion - a practice which left her alive, but suffering from cerebral palsy. She says: [i]'Today, a baby is a baby when convenient. It is tissue or otherwise when the time is not right. A baby is a baby when miscarriage takes place at two, three, four months. A baby is called a tissue or clumps of cells when an abortion takes place at two, three, four months. Why is that? I see no difference.'[/i] Her story was in today's Daily Mail. She was quoted as saying: [i]'If abortion is about women's rights, then what were my rights?'[/i] Her story is also here: http://www.abortionfacts.com/survivors/giannajessen.asp

An interesting development:

Since men can't have babies, but may want to be fathers, I do think that it is unfair for a woman to abort a healthy baby if the father wants the child.

I do acknowledge, of course, that the woman has to go through pregnancy and birth ~ and there can be complications. Having gone through it three times (plus a likely miscarriage) I can confirm that it is not easy.

I still think that there is something intrinsically wrong with killing one's own child ~ and killing someone else's child ~ the father's ~ unless there is very good reason, and that is certainly not always the case.