But if you step back and take a humanist approach, in that it is wrong to inflict pain or kill a another human, you have to set the rules for abortion either when the foetus/child
a/can feel pain or
b/ if a functional human

Now medical science has demonstrated that a foetus can feel pain from 12 weeks, when a human becomes functional is another matter and is a great big grey area, you could argue that a 6 month old baby is not a functional human. Therfore it would be easier and more demonstrable to take a pain approach to abortion, under this premise an abortion should be permissable up to 12 weeks.

In the UK abortion of health babies is permitted up to 24 weeks and handicapped babies up to birth. Most premature babies from 24 weeks survive and survival and fully health outcome is possible from 20 weeks now. So there appears to be some conflict, morally and medically.

Based on scientific evidence of pain it would seem that an abortion limit of 12 weeks would be sensible in the case of normal pregnancies, as it would be very unlikely for a women not to be aware by 6 to 8 weeks giving adeqaute time for the abortion.

In the case of abnormal pregnancy a limit of 16 weeks could be used as this would give plenty of time for medical assessment for abnormalities.

However, if the UK took this more sensible approach, pregnany mothers of ireland would have severe problems as the lack of abnormality asessment, normal in most EU countries, and the late timing of first scan, around 20 weeks, means that irish women of abnormal babies need late term abortions and would have to go further a field proabbly to the US or Russia.

Obviously, where the mothers life is at risk a late term abortion shoudl be available.

The irish position on abortion means that both women and foetuses are suffering unnecessary pain.

What I’m saying is that trying to legislate on the basis of such viability would be problematic. What sort of outlook does a child have to have before we consider it viable? Do we have to be confident that they’ll live 3 days, 3 months, 13 months, 3 years, 13 years… So if you want to legislate to allow abortions for people who find themselves in the same situation as Miss D, you have a method of distinguishing between a foetus with a terminal disease which results in death shortly after birth and one who is expected to die during later childhood.

If you want to set down laws where the right to life is awarded to those with a capacity to live, then you have to decide what constitues a capcity to live. And that’s not easy.

“If it is simply membership of the human species that is important, then do cognitive capcity and/or viability matter?”

1. Membership of human is important
2. Cognitive capacity isn’t the issue, viability is. The key distinguishing issue about anencephaly is that it is NOT about cognitive capacity: it IS about viability. The foetus has NO capacity to live outside the womb. Look, my mother was a midwife and recalls delivering these babies. Niall, this is not about disability. There is no brain. There is no skull. There is a tiny face and then no head behind it. How graphically do you want this explained?
I think its pretty clear cut. This is a life which has NO chance, NONE of breathing for more than a few hours outside the womb. That’s how you decide. The right to life is awarded to those who have the capacity to live.

Sarah. I have no interest in debating if the brain is important. I couldn’t get by without mine. However, given that many, many people consider the presence and/or absence of certain brain structures when defining life or when allocating the right to life to certain individuals, we must examine the reasons why they consider this important if we are to find a principled way of distinguishing betweem life and non-life, between those who we recognise as having a right to life and those who do not. I’ve done the equivalent of asking why things fall to the ground, and you seem to have taken it up as though I asked if things fall to the ground.

You seem to think that it is obvious why we should give a right to life to a “normal” foetus when its mental capacity is dwarfed by that of a dog (which has no right to life), and not to a neonate with anencephaly. If it is the creature’s cognitive capacity that results in the allocation of a right to life, then why does the dog not have a greater right to life than the neonate? If it is the potential for higher thought that results in the allocation of a right to life, then what does that mean for the foetus during early stages of pregnancy? What level of probability of developing higher mental capacities must one achieve in order to receive a right to life? If it is simply membership of the human species that is important, then do cognitive capcity and/or viability matter? These are the types of questions that need to be asked, and it seems that there are no easy answers.

Let me stress, I am not saying that I do not belief that the brain is important, or that we need to have a debate about the importance of the brain in itself. I am saying that because so many people use the presence of certain structure as the basis of their views regarding the begining of life and the allocation of a legal right to life, we have to the logic that underpins these beliefs. If you can think of a way of arriving at a principled and just legal set-up that does not involve the examination of the assumptions and logic on which the many different opinions regarding the right to life are based, then you’re wasting your time blogging. You should be sharing this secret with the rest of the world. If the answers to these questions are so bleedin’ self evident, then please, reveal them. Otherwise, it’s a bit rich to start chiding people for asking them.

Strange, but I don’t ever remember saying anything even remotely like that Sarah.

I asked why is it considered important. How you somehow managed to decide that by asking that quesion I was stating that it wasn’t important is beyond me. That would be a little like suggesting that asking why we have an army was the equivalent of suggesting that we shouldn’t have an army. Cop on girl.

“Does its presence make one alive?” erm yes actually.”

Then I guess you’ve never heard of people who are brain dead Sarah. And the presence of the brain is of little comfort to somebody deprived of a heart. It isn’t sufficient to simply have these structures in place. People who define life based on the presence of certain brain structures often fail to examine the assumptions that underlie the belief.

Usually, the only reason that can be given is that the presence of these structures allows for higher thought processes. The problem with this is that infants do not display these higher thought processes.

For those who are not paying attention, let me stress that I am not suggesting that somehow the presence of these structures is not important, only that :

“The problem for the politicos is that they’d have to come up with legislation that allowed for abortion is cases like Miss D’s but not in cases where a child had a “normal” terminal disease or where the child had a developmental disorder like “autism”. That is not easily done because in principle there is no difference.”

And we need laws that are based on principles, not just whatever makes 51% of the electorate feel a little better, that is exactly what brought us to the High Court in the case of Miss D.

If this difference is so bloody obvious, why hasn’t anybody pointed it out.

“Why is the absence of part of the brain, even the majority important? You seem to assume that it is important, but you don’t give any justification for this assumption.”

What, are you saying its not important? Don’t be such an eejit.

“Does its presence make one alive?” em yes actually.

“Anecephaly is most certainly not a disease – it is a a lethal fetal abnormality, the result of a failure of the neural tube closing.”

I’m not quite exactly sure what the purpose of this statement is. You claim that anencephaly is not a disease, maybe you’re using some sort of different definition, but to be honest, it doesn’t really matter. I’m happy calling it a birth defect, or a developmental disorder. I’ve seen it mentioned previously as a disease of the brain, for instance here:

http://pathweb.uchc.edu/eAtlas/nav/msBrain.htm

My use of the term certainly isn’t some sort of deliberate attempt to twist facts as you seem to assume. Perhaps you should question why it is that you dislike the use of the term so much?

You also said:

“There is not any real chance of life in that foetus – it has no brain and it never had. Essentially it is brain dead.”

The whole point of my comment was that we had to examine what it meant to be alive.

Why is the absence of part of the brain, even the majority important? You seem to assume that it is important, but you don’t give any justification for this assumption. Does its presence make one alive? What are the implications of this for animals? The neonatal brain has very limited capabilities. In fact, the neonatal brain is primative when compared to the brains of certain animals that humans eat for dinner. Does this mean that these animals have the same right to life as a neonate? If the ability of the brain is of no consequence in that circumstance, then why is it important in differentiating between a neonate with anecephaly and one without?

Your claim that the it does not have a real chance of life is based on a personal definition of life. Now perhaps that definition is wonderfully comprehensive and you can justify the assumptions you’ve made, but you certainly haven’t done it here. And if you can perform such a wonderful feat, then you’ll done something nobody else has ever done.

You also say:

“Regardless, it is the choice of the pregnant woman to decide – to force her to carry to term against her will (in any circumstance) is to force a woman to become an incubator for the pregnancy, with complete lack of regard for her own privacy or bodily integrity, or indeed, her own human rights. It would be my view that that would be a sinister development for any society to undergo”

Again, you’ve arrive at a conclusion that you expect everybody else to accept for no apparent reason. What on earth do you think that it is the woman’s right to decide whether or not the foetus inside her should live or not?

“The mother is born already, the child is unborn. To consider the rights of the unborn to take pre-eminence over the rights of the already born is an absurdity.”

Again, I ask you, why?

That child will still be unborn twenty seconds before it is born. By this logic, if it were feasible, you would support the right of the woman to abort one twin after its sibling had been born, which would have been about two minutes before the creature in question would have otherwise been delivered.

Do you really think that geography is the difference between having the right to life and not having the right to life? Maybe you do. But most people could not accept that.

My point was that it is very difficult to make a logically consistent argument for making a distinction between an unborn individual who had a right to life and one who did not. The entire basis of your accusation seems to have been that you didn’t agree with me. Ridiculous.

Niall, I can’t help but think you are twisting facts to meet your argument – anencephaly is most certainly not a disease – it is a lethal fetal abormality, the result of a failure of the neural tube closing. There is not any real chance of life in that foetus – it has no brain and it never had. Essentially it is brain dead.

Regardless, it is the choice of the pregnant woman to decide – to force her to carry to term against her will (in any circumstance) is to force a woman to become an incubator for the pregnancy, with complete lack of regard for her own privacy or bodily integrity, or indeed, her own human rights. It would be my view that that would be a sinister development for any society to undergo. The mother is born already, the child is unborn. To consider the rights of the unborn to take pre-eminence over the rights of the already born is an absurdity.