"no matter how politely, gently and sensitively the anti-abortion case is expressed in the future, people on the 'pro-choice' liberal-left will never want to hear it."

...how about vice versa? In my experience of anti-abortion rhetoric, it's delivered in exactly the same way; with a refusal to consider the opposing argument. Perhaps because often times there's a religious motive behind it, and it seems that the religious perspective is extremely "black and white" (right or wrong, in this case) on most topical issues.

I often find anti-abortion arguments falling short when the person expressing them is asked something a little tricky, such as "what do you propose to do about victims of rape?".

Also, I find this: "Oh, and one "pro choice" blogger compared me to Jimmy Saville. Classy.", to be a frankly lazy and immature attempt at journalism. It's quite clear at various points in this tale of lessons "learned", that you're prone to make copious generalisations and assumptions about people who support abortion rights. Obviously the response you received above was absurd. Believe it or not, anti-abortionists say some pretty wacky stuff too.

Before anyone reads a Mehdi Hassan - they need to watch the YouTube video where he refers to non-Muslims as animals. This guy is a closet Islamist who believes his hatred of the west makes him a liberal.

Just Google:

mehdi hassan animals

And watch the video that shows up in the search results.

H G Well put the collapse of the Ottoman Empire down to the politics of the Sultan's harem.
These wives knew that bearing a son was a lifeline to future power and favour. So we can assume that these women were only interested in having a child.
However when the ruler died, the power-play and intrigues of the harem resulted in the multiple deaths of the unsuccessful mail 'heirs'. "The Law of the Bowstring"
So then the answer does not lie there.
But surely the male half of such a union must bear equal responsibility. If the women is forced to bear a child how can he be linked to this new human being in the same way as a father in a committed relationship is linked to his child?
He may be married, or otherwise engaged. Fancy free. Uncommitted. Irresponsible.
We all know that this man cannot be irrevocably tied to the mother of his child. The decision to terminate is therefore the woman's right. Society cannot enforce the man to get married.
In the case of the committed man the woman may wish to avoid termination if marriage or its equivalent is a probability. But the decision rests with her. We all know what the law of probability entails. And marriage or a financial commitment must be immediate.
If the woman, for any reason, does not want to marry the father then the decision is hers. Otherwise, we are drawn into the realm of the arranged marriage. The Bible seemed to spread blame(?) equally.

Onan

Rather than debating whether abortion should be legal, not legal, or have a time limit shouldn't we be debating ways to stop people using abortion as a form of birth control. I believe couples should have the right to abort however I abhor the fact that more and more people don't practice safe sex in the knowledge that if conception takes place they can always get an abortion. If we left our ideologies at the door and had a rational discussion to find a solution to this problem we would keep the right to choose, while reducing abortions something I'm sure all pro-lifers would want to see.

When 'pro-choice' people start shooting doctors who won't perform abortions, I will believe they are as intolerant as 'pro-lifers'.

Also whining about how allowing women the right to choose violates the rights of men? Really? Men walk away from their children every day, and leave women holding the bag, so to speak. Physically, emotionally, socially, and economically the impact of pregnancy, childbirth, and raising children can devastate a woman's life. I'm terribly sorry your feelings get hurt when women you have never met don't consult your opinion on what to do with their bodies, but you need to grow up.

In the end, this is about consent. If you want kids, then it should be with someone who has consented to have a child. Forcing a woman to bear a child denigrates her. There are literally millions of unwanted children in this world. When they are all ensconced in loving families and there is an outcry for more babies, maybe there will be a valid argument here. Until then it really looks like the only life the anti abortion camp is interested in saving is one that punishes a woman.

Firstly to the pro-lifers, a foetus isn't a person until its born, and has established some kind of independent existence in the world, social relations independent of the mother. Until then it's an organism developing within a women's body and is totally dependent on the mother to survive. Giving a foetus rights as a person means you violate the rights of the mother to determine what she does with her body and her life. If we flip the debate around, should men be prevented from Deciding what to do with their body because each ejaculation holds the potential for life? You will say this is preposterous, you can't compare sperm with the fertilised egg, but it's just as preposterous as giving "personhood" to a tiny collection of cells in a uterus, a tiny collection of cells which in 20% of pregnancies will be "aborted" through a miscarriage anyway. If god exists, he is the most prolific abortionist.

Secondly the reason us pro-choices get so emotive is very few pro-lifers seem
To care about the actually existing children in the world, yet they invest massive amounts of money and time violating women'a rights and autonomy and making Millions of women's lives miserable (and condemning a good many to death) in order to protect "life", a life which isn't a life. As the Reverend wrote above, many pro-lifers support nukes and the death penalty (and in the US oppose universal healthcare!!!) so your arguments are at best wildly inconsistent, at worst represent a misogynist brutal hypocrisy which is beneath contempt. I'll start having more respect for pro-lifers when they spend more time campaigning for a better care system, better adoption processes and fighting to protect the children the world already has, millions of whom live in the worst poverty imaginable. 1 in 3 children in Britain now live in poverty, do something about that first and people might have more sympathy with your arguments.

Thirdly, the time limits argument is the thin end of the wedge. Anyone with any political
Nous can see this. First it will be 20 weeks, then 18, then 16 then 12, then abortion will be banned. Might take decades, but it will happen if we dont fight it. And each reduction will deprive more women of the option to have an abortion and result in more unwanted pregnancies and more Misery for mother and child alike.

Fourthly, let's be very clear, if you deprive women of the right to abort a foetus, you force them to carry an unwanted child to term. You force them, you deprive them Of any alternative Options. Isn't that one of the most traumatic things to force a woman to go through? That they have to bear a child for 9 months, give birth to it and then potentially give it up as they cannot afford To or are not capable of looking after it? Think of the trauma of having to give the baby up for adoption, or struggling to provide it a reasonable quality of life as you already have children, or are unemployed, or underemployed.

Finally, Mehdi, you should understand why this is an emotive issue. Pro-lifers regularly violate the rights of Half the worlds population. It's going to piss people off. Grow a thicker skin or drop out of the debate.

Firstly to the pro-lifers, a foetus isn't a person until its born, and has established some kind of independent existence in the world, social relations independent of the mother. Until then it's an organism developing within a women's body and is totally dependent on the mother to survive. Giving a foetus rights as a person means you violate the rights of the mother to determine what she does with her body and her life. If we flip the debate around, should men be prevented from Deciding what to do with their body because each ejaculation holds the potential for life? You will say this is preposterous, you can't compare sperm with the fertilised egg, but it's just as preposterous as giving "personhood" to a tiny collection of cells in a uterus, a tiny collection of cells which in 20% of pregnancies will be "aborted" through a miscarriage anyway. If god exists, he is the most prolific abortionist.

Secondly the reason us pro-choices get so emotive is very few pro-lifers seem
To care about the actually existing children in the world, yet they invest massive amounts of money and time violating women'a rights and autonomy and making Millions of women's lives miserable (and condemning a good many to death) in order to protect "life", a life which isn't a life. As the Reverend wrote above, many pro-lifers support nukes and the death penalty (and in the US oppose universal healthcare!!!) so your arguments are at best wildly inconsistent, at worst represent a misogynist brutal hypocrisy which is beneath contempt. I'll start having more respect for pro-lifers when they spend more time campaigning for a better care system, better adoption processes and fighting to protect the children the world already has, millions of whom live in the worst poverty imaginable. 1 in 3 children in Britain now live in poverty, do something about that first and people might have more sympathy with your arguments.

Thirdly, the time limits argument is the thin end of the wedge. Anyone with any political
Nous can see this. First it will be 20 weeks, then 18, then 16 then 12, then abortion will be banned. Might take decades, but it will happen if we dont fight it. And each reduction will deprive more women of the option to have an abortion and result in more unwanted pregnancies and more Misery for mother and child alike.

Fourthly, let's be very clear, if you deprive women of the right to abort a foetus, you force them to carry an unwanted child to term. You force them, you deprive them Of any alternative Options. Isn't that one of the most traumatic things to force a woman to go through? That they have to bear a child for 9 months, give birth to it and then potentially give it up as they cannot afford To or are not capable of looking after it? Think of the trauma of having to give the baby up for adoption, or struggling to provide it a reasonable quality of life as you already have children, or are unemployed, or underemployed.

Finally, Mehdi, you should understand why this is an emotive issue. Pro-lifers regularly violate the rights of Half the worlds population. It's going to piss people off. Grow a thicker skin or drop out of the debate.

I write as a woman who has had an abortion, has worked as a nurse in an abortion clinic and as a midwife. Women who die in circumstances related to childbirth have for many decades had their cases examined and the statistics published. Before abortion was decriminalised in 1967 abortion was one of the major causes of maternal death. The 1967 act changed this and now abortion (which is a comparatively safe procedure) does not feature at all.

My personal opinion is that abortion should be available on demand up till 12 weeks. My reason for choosing 12 weeks is that this is when the placenta becomes operational. At present abortion is not available on demand, it needs the consent of two doctors. I think that it should be available after this time in specific cases, and it is in these cases that women need more support with regard objective information and possibly psychologically.

I regard my abortion as killing a potential human being but do not regret this and have never felt guilt. I have subsequently reared two children to adulthood. The child I aborted was sacrificed for the sake of my mental health and I believe that my subsequent children benefitted from this.

Surely the most important lesson is don't attempt to debate emotive and complex subjects on a ridiculously constructed piece of social media like Twitter which limits responses to a certain number of characters.It is demaning to both the subject matter and the debate.

Mehdi Hasan can dish it out but he can't take it.

He frequently resorts to ad hominem. Then whines when subjected to it himself.

He calls people "idiot" and "pompous twerp" on Twitter and then acts the victim when people call him rude words.

Even this Ten Things focuses on the source of an argument instead of what is being argued. "Something must be wrong if I'm on the same side as Damian Thompson, ho ho."

A favoured Hasan debating tactic is to use a person's unsound position on X to rubbish their position on Y. Norman Geras was denounced as an "ardent" supporter of the Iraq war to invalidate his views on an unrelated issue. Hasan will "take no lessons" from David Aaronovitch because he is unsound on Islam/Islamophobia. It's petty point-scoring and a grubby way of debating. It shows a glaring lack of generosity.

"You were wrong on X so I don't need to take you seriously ever again." Not a sign of open-mindedness or tolerance.

It's all a bit rich. Hasan appeals to behaviour he spectacularly fails to observe himself: openmindness, respectful disagreement. Shrill, finger-jabbing intolerance is what he does.

I can't imagine this hypocritical bleating and whining coming from someone like Christopher Hitchens. "Why is everyone being nasty to me?" And then the self-pitying "I give up" to top it all off. Ludicrous.

Medhi,

I read your original article with great interest. I consider myself a feminist but I also have issues with some of the arguments put forward by many people on this (highly emotive) subject. Many people seem to think that simply allowing an open discussion on the subject with both sides represented, indicates that abortions will suddenly become illegal again, which is obviously, (and rightly), not going to happen! I believe strongly that abortion should be an option to ALL women, it is their choice whether to carry a child or not. However, I am uncomfortable about the 24 week limit. Yes, I understand there will be extreme circumstances which will mean a decision takes longer, and these should be accounted for, but there is a point at which a foetus becomes a person and that should be taken into account. I don’t know whether that should be 12 weeks, or 18 or some other random date. But I am ALLOWED to hold that view. I also hate the present lack of compassion towards people with any sort of disabilities. In reference to an earlier comment, blindness or deafness is not, in my opinion, a good reason to take away someone's life. We aren't all perfect and there is an air of Hitler about that particular argument. *waits for the torrent of abuse to begin*

I am glad you apologised for your remark "fetishise selfishness". I wonder how you would feel if faced with the reality of having to bear for example a deaf/blind child. Now imagine what it would be like to be a single mother faced with having to bear and then raise a deaf/blind child in our current welfare system. In my view for a woman to be a full human being she must have the right to decide whether she will bear a child with all the consequences that that implies. If she cannot choose then she has less than full human rights. She is a slave to her fertility. The ideal would be to have abortion on demand at the earliest possible time when the decision would be the least traumatic. If we follow the logic of Mehdi's argument women are to be forced to bear children they do not want and then presumably hand them over to the state to "care" for them or maybe Mehdi and other "pro lifers" are queueing up to care for them. After all the mother does not want them and cannot be forced to care for them. The problem with abortion is that you are choosing between two evils - an unwanted child or an abortion. That is why it is such a traumatic decision. But I am clear that the one to make the choice is the one who will bear the consequences. I personally would not abort a viable foetus, say one of 24 weeks duration but I still believe it should be a matter for the potential mother's choice believing as I do in the woman's right to choose.

Your views on abortion are irrelevant Mehdi. Nobody cares. This country will never go back to the days before abortion was legalised and all your self-righteous moralising is just pointless hot air.

Agreed with your sympathies for an unborn child, no matter what gestational age. I had a brief conversation with 'LEAVEMYBODYALONE' on the comments page after your initial column re abortion and I regret not suggesting that, maybe it is the unborn child who would be requetsing this and that it is the responsibility of myself and the likes of Mehdi, who need to be a voice for these little people who are being murdered every day.

Medhi,

I read this article with interest.

I would say this: surely you should engage with the best versions of the pro-choice arguments, and not the worst versions? For example, you claim that pro-choicers ignore the question of personhood. But the one of the most famous philosophical articles to be published on abortion, by Judith Jarvis Thomson, argues that abortion is justified even if we do assume the foetus is a person and does have a right to life.

I admired your earlier article, but this not so much. You are not a special or unique case, and people were not singling out you - it's an abortion debate, and they get heated. Full stop. Imagining, as your article seems to say, that you have been the victim of a liberal-left witch hunt I think only supports Hopi Sen's assertion that you are, indeed, quite arrogant.

The moral dilemmas around abortion can never be resolved. We have to remember why the Abortion Act came into being. Prior to this Act, the legal system was in a quagmire over the issue. Illegal abortionist were convicted and sentences varied from imprisonment to fines. Women who had the abortion, assuming they survived, were also the subject of legal penalties. Each case brought up intense legal arguments and as often is the case, depended on your access to finances. Ending legal abortions does not end abortions. We live in a society where diffcult arguments that have a moral impact are resolved in a manner that tries to reach a comprimise between individual rights and how these are exercised in a society where religious argument takes a definitive view. There are many issues where there is a conflict between religious teaching and a modern ethical interpreation of rights.