Outrageous!
Oct. 8th, 2008 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladydraceI'm not usually the type to get easily wound up about some topic in the news or similar. But I've just had 2 serious cases of outrage in as many days.
First there was the news that the Danish law about abortion may be changed so that pregnancies could be legally terminated all the way to week 18 opposed to the current week 12. Even bigger was my shock when I found out that many other countries already have later limits, so many women from Denmark simply go abroad if they have their application for a late abortion denied. Maybe I'm just being frumpy here, but jeez... an 18 week old baby is just that... a baby! Not some sort of primordial ooze or halfway developed mammal mostly resembling a fish... no. By 18 weeks, it's a baby. On a scan you can see its gender and some women can feel it kicking. See an ultrasound picture here and a full week by week series of scans here.
Now I know there are good reasons why they want to move the limit. Some scans for birth defects and such can only be made later in the pregnancy. But I'm sorry to say on this point I'm rather pig-headed. Yes, I think it's fair enough if you feel you can't handle a disabled baby and decide to terminate. It's every woman's right. But still I think we need to set the limit somewhere for how late you can make your choice. I mean you can never really know until the baby is born how it's gonna turn out. Even with all scans, tests, examinations and so on, you ALWAYS run the risk of having a baby with special needs. It's a risk from the moment you decide to have a baby. If you can't handle that risk at all, don't have kids. Or adopt. Or foster. There are so many children in the world that needs nothing more special than loving parents.
And my second outrage from this morning, very much along the same lines...
Baby Borrowers. Feel free to grind your teeth. I sure as hell did...
First there was the news that the Danish law about abortion may be changed so that pregnancies could be legally terminated all the way to week 18 opposed to the current week 12. Even bigger was my shock when I found out that many other countries already have later limits, so many women from Denmark simply go abroad if they have their application for a late abortion denied. Maybe I'm just being frumpy here, but jeez... an 18 week old baby is just that... a baby! Not some sort of primordial ooze or halfway developed mammal mostly resembling a fish... no. By 18 weeks, it's a baby. On a scan you can see its gender and some women can feel it kicking. See an ultrasound picture here and a full week by week series of scans here.
Now I know there are good reasons why they want to move the limit. Some scans for birth defects and such can only be made later in the pregnancy. But I'm sorry to say on this point I'm rather pig-headed. Yes, I think it's fair enough if you feel you can't handle a disabled baby and decide to terminate. It's every woman's right. But still I think we need to set the limit somewhere for how late you can make your choice. I mean you can never really know until the baby is born how it's gonna turn out. Even with all scans, tests, examinations and so on, you ALWAYS run the risk of having a baby with special needs. It's a risk from the moment you decide to have a baby. If you can't handle that risk at all, don't have kids. Or adopt. Or foster. There are so many children in the world that needs nothing more special than loving parents.
And my second outrage from this morning, very much along the same lines...
Baby Borrowers. Feel free to grind your teeth. I sure as hell did...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-10-09 06:31 am (UTC)And why real babies when there are excellent mechanical babies made for this exact purpose? For teaching how to take care of a baby with no donger to real infants. The only reason for bringing the real babies into the equation is the entertainment value. And frankly THAT makes me sick to my stomach. Babies are NOT for entertainment.