Best Of

Reading the abortion discussion I feel very conflicted, as birth and issues around it have, at one time or another, featured in our family's discussions.

First of all, eldest son was two months premature which meant, back in the 60's, two months isolation from his mother. He survived and his poor start doesn't seem to have affected him either intellectually or socially.

Secondly, fast forward twenty something years, our daughter, his younger sister was pregnant with her first child, and was told, fairly late in the process, that 'there appears to be something wrong with the baby; do you want a termination?" And I clearly recall her telling us that she could 'hear' the baby telling her that it was fine 'don't hurt me'. She didn't, and the child was perfectly normal, and indeed now has a doctorate.

However, in her late 40's and suffering from MND her contraception failed and she became pregnant. She was advised to have a late termination and did so. We were told the foetus appeared to have 'issues' and might or might not survived. Our daughter died of her MND when the baby would have been about a year old.

Fairly late in my pharmaceutical career I had a post which required me, sometimes, to make up 'balancing feeds' for premature babies, who were, one way and another short of various minerals due to abbreviated foetal development. At least one of these babies still has challenges, thirty years later, although I believe he has quite a demanding job.

I don't feel therefore that there's a simple answer to this matter unless it be to ALWAYS let nature take it's course, which would, equally, have lead to considerable problems in the last case. Thou shalt not kill/but do not strive/officiously/to keep alive seems to be a thought plus cheap, easily available contraception and contraceptive advice.

Are we all in awe of the major event that we would be talking about for centuries that Iran promised yesterday?
It appears to have been a few wind up drones and a couple of missiles. There is no way these jokers have WMDs of any type

The best time to go to war is BEFORE a country has WMDs but when they are working towards it.

That is the case with Iran.

They don't have them yet, let's keep it that way!

So, you're saying we should have attacked Israel in 1965?

Considering Israel is our ally, no.

It would have been a better time for their enemies to attack them than afterwards though. Oh wait, they already did . . . and they lost. Oh well, how sad, nevermind.

Israel is not an ally. India is not an ally. We do not have a formal defence arrangement with them, nor do they have a tradition of coming to our aid post independence. People on PB confuse "a good feeling towards its inhabitants" with "ally": the two are not the same.

Israel is an ally of the UK. We may not have a formal arrangement, pace NATO, but we have significant cooperation on defence, security, counter terrorism, technology, military cooperation and more.

We're not treaty bound, but they are our allies.

Yes, who can forget Israel offering military support to retake the Falklands or their vocal support on multiple foreign policy decisions.

Israel are not our “ally”. We have areas of foreign policy where our interests meet, we have an ingrained reflexive protective feeling for a Jewish State after the horrors of WW2 but that’s really it.

We have significant cooperation in the areas you mention because it’s in our interests, not any great sense of love and support for each other.

More often than not Israel’s actions cause geopolitical problems that conflict with our aims or needs or wishes.

I’m very pro Israel but unfortunately the Israel I am pro is not the current incarnation with so much power in the hands of extremists. But they aren’t our “ally”.

Israel is an informal ally and only because along with the US the three nations are opposed to Iran. When the Iranians burn flags it's Israel, US and UK flags that get burned. Whether we like it or not Iran despises the UK and that means we should support Israel in their efforts against Iran, though probably with intelligence rather than hard military assets.

Israel has pursued an openly independent foreign policy line over the last few years, notably on Ukraine, which it has done very little to support (despite the obvious parallels and Iran's links to Russia).

I see no good reason to give Israel anything at the moment, particularly given how they're carrying on in Gaza and the West Bank. FWIW, I do think their current operation against Iran is justified given both Iran's failure to adhere to its previous commitments on nuclear development, and its open support for Hamas and Hezbollah prior to the Oct 7 attacks. But that's Israel's war, not ours.

Israel is a democracy. Given the struggles they democracy currently has, and the way it is being pushed back in numerous countries, I think Britain has a general interest in being on the side of a democracy - whatever its imperfections - when it is in conflict with a theocracy.

That is a principle I would support were Israel not in the process of starving 2m people in Gaza and shelling those who do come forward for food. There are limits.

If Israel wants more support, it needs to behave like a member of the civilized world. it could also help its cause by being more supportive itself of other countries invaded and bullied by larger neighbours, viz Ukraine.

on the abortion vote, I'm surprised all Reform UK MPs opposed the amendment. Shows them to be conservative more than libertarian, at least on this issue.

I missed the chat on here yesterday; I would have voted in favour.

I don't think it's necessarily inconsistent to be libertarian and anti-abortion.

I'm generally pretty libertarian - do what you like, how you like, with whoever you like - it's your moral problem, not the government's - but I'm quite strongly anti-abortion, particularly late abortion.

Abortion is different, because it's all about the question of "is an unborn child a person". If they are, then it's murder, and you have to be quite an extreme libertarian to be OK with that. I can see how one can argue that a 6 week fetus isn't a person (I'm not sure I agree, but I understand the case being made). I can't see how you can make that argument at 39 weeks, which is what we've just semi-legalised.

I usually agree with you on everything so I was a little surprised to read your post yesterday.

I take the view, expressed by very few on here yesterday, I admit, that it is birth that is key and up to then it is all about the rights of the pregnant woman. There seems to me to be a religious component, which I don't hold, that is at the root of ascribing rights to the unborn (which is why many conservatives separate from libertarians on this issue I think).

I also draw the line at birth, but I recognise that any line is going to be a bit arbitrary, so I can understand why other people would draw it elsewhere.

Even apparently intransigent and inflexible people and institutions can draw the line at different times on this. I believe that church doctrine used to draw the line at the quickening - roughly the end of the first trimester - and that the current "life begins at conception" doctrine is relatively modern.

But this law change doesn't change where society has drawn the line. It only recognises that someone so desperate as to desire an abortion at such a late stage is someone who needs help, and that criminal conviction doesn't do anything to help society or create deterrence.

I'm not sure why we should spend time and money protecting Israel. What's in it for us? I also don't think that Israel being immune to such attacks is a good thing. Such immunity leads to profoundly immoral results. Look at Gaza. It is probably good that, unlike the last time, the Iron Dome has proven to have a few cracks in it and there are consequences for Israel's actions.

The leadership of Iran are appalling, particularly for Iranians, and I would welcome them gone but I think its generally a matter we should stay out of. There's a lot of things like this. We are not a great power any longer. We need to protect our interests but be much more focused on what those interests are.

There's neither a moral nor a realpolitik reason to support Israel. Israel isn't the good guy requiring protection. It's less important in the region than the collective Arab or Islamic states.

Who is more of a threat to us? Israel, the Arabs, or Iran? I would argue Israel is the least threatening of the three, and Iran the most. The Arabs, at the very least, hold some values which don't necessarily align with those of the west.

At present, I don't think any of them are a threat to us, and we should not get involved for that reason. If there was a compelling moral reason why we should get involved - as there was in 1945 after the Holocaust - that would be different. I was brought up to support Israel for precisely that reason (my mother worked for UNRRA and talked about the death camps) However, that generation is by and large no longer with us, and the current Israeli leadership has IMO forfeited any hereditary right to "support, no matter what".

I'm not suggesting that we should support the vile Hamas. But we aren't compelled to support either side and we shouldn't.