[DEFEATED] Repeal "Reproductive Freedoms"

[Christian Democrats]

Submitted! Hopefully, this will reach quorum shortly.

The Assembly is rather dead right now. Summer has hit us hard, but the inactive nations haven't expired yet.

[Sciongrad]

"Issues back home prevented Sciongrad from fully committing itself to this resolution several months ago. Having returned, Sciongrad is fully prepared to submit this draft and, except for some instance where an urgent flaw is discovered, will do so shortly."

[Ossitania]

Seemingly, the cause of repealing GA #286 is a hydra. One head dies, another takes its place.

Hydras are beautiful. Full support.

[Separatist Peoples]

Seemingly, the cause of repealing GA #286 is a hydra. One head dies, another takes its place.

Hydras are beautiful. Full support.

Bell laughed, "At less somebody is getting some amusement out of this. This repeal has some genuinely reasonable arguments. While I must stand opposed, I'm certainly not going to do so vehemently."

[Araraukar]

"This repeal has some genuinely reasonable arguments. While I must stand opposed, I'm certainly not going to do so vehemently."

I'm with Ben here; the arguments are far better than is usual for the repeal attempts for this resolution, but as the end result would still be the same, I can't support it.

OOC: Does anyone have a replacement under work?

[Wallenburg]

"This proposal is written very well and puts forward far stronger and more agreeable arguments than previous repeal attempts on 'Reproductive Freedoms'. Nevertheless, I must oppose this. 'Reproductive Freedoms' is essential to protecting women's right to choose what they do with their own bodies. Even a masterpiece of a repeal could not sway that ultimate finding."

[Elke and Elba]

"This repeal has some genuinely reasonable arguments. While I must stand opposed, I'm certainly not going to do so vehemently."

I'm with Ben here; the arguments are far better than is usual for the repeal attempts for this resolution, but as the end result would still be the same, I can't support it.

OOC: Does anyone have a replacement under work?

Rule 1: Do not expect a replacement, even when explicitly promised.

Rule 2: Do not expect any replacement to pass.

Seeing how no one is probably going to succeed putting another GA#286 on the books, or have the determination of the Faeries to write another such legislation, Elke and Elba is prepared to oppose this repeal based on these issues, and not on draft text per se.

[Bananaistan]

"We previously stated our opposition to this repeal and we will now refine and restate that opposition.

"Firstly, Ambassador Hornwood contributed in a debate on another repeal attempt of the target resolution where he succinctly set out the position of the government of Bananaistan regarding the sex selective abortions argument. I will restate it here: "If your nation is so far up the shitter that its people value one gender over the other, banning sex selective abortions is not going to improve it".

"I believe this is still relevant. Where an issue arises with sex selective abortions, that issue is only symptomatic of a wider attitude in that society regarding one gender or the other. There are a whole range of options open to any society to improve its gender equality long before needing to use the incredibly blunt instrument of having grey men in grey suits interfere in a woman's rights to decide how her own body is used. The repeal text states that "GAR#286 prevents meaningful and necessary action against sex-selective abortion". This is not true. All it prevents is this blunt instrument of politicians and lawyers deciding who can and can't get abortions and why they can and can't.

"Indeed, there's a contradiction in terms, here. How is standing in the way of women's bodily sovereignty supposed to improve gender equality? Can a wholesale restriction of the rights of one gender ever result in reducing gender inequality?

“A boiled down summary of my point here is that if the underlying reasons behind gender inequality in a given society are addressed, then sex-selective abortions will never be an issue. And there is nothing in the target resolution preventing a nation from addressing these underlying issues.

“As to the rest of the repeal text, unfortunately to us it appears to be little more than an eloquently stated national sovereigntist argument although there is nothing we find unreasonable in those clauses."

- Mrs Functionary Mary CP Doe

[Ossitania]

*snip*

For clarity's sake, is the official position of Bananaistan therefore that it will never support any repeal arguments based on the observation that the target resolution copperfasten the permissibility of unacceptable actions or policies, on the basis that no one would ever perform these actions or enact these policies if we addressed the underlying causes and nothing in the target resolution explicitly prevents member-states from trading in all their guns for flowers and teaching people to love their fellow persons and forming a transnational human chain in the shape of a peace sign and sing "Jesus Loves The Little Children"?

If so, good for you, I guess, though I don't really foresee any commitment or consistency from your delegation on this point, for some strange reason.

[Bananaistan]

*snip*

For clarity's sake, is the official position of Bananaistan therefore that it will never support any repeal arguments based on the observation that the target resolution copperfasten the permissibility of unacceptable actions or policies, on the basis that no one would ever perform these actions or enact these policies if we addressed the underlying causes and nothing in the target resolution explicitly prevents member-states from trading in all their guns for flowers and teaching people to love their fellow persons and forming a transnational human chain in the shape of a peace sign and sing "Jesus Loves The Little Children"?

If so, good for you, I guess, though I don't really foresee any commitment or consistency from your delegation on this point, for some strange reason.

I'm sorry, what is this? The POV of Bananaistan is perfectly clear from the previous post and I have no idea what you are on about in your 100 word behemoth of a sentence/question/drug induced lapse of consciousness/whatever it is.

[Ossitania]

For clarity's sake, is the official position of Bananaistan therefore that it will never support any repeal arguments based on the observation that the target resolution copperfasten the permissibility of unacceptable actions or policies, on the basis that no one would ever perform these actions or enact these policies if we addressed the underlying causes and nothing in the target resolution explicitly prevents member-states from trading in all their guns for flowers and teaching people to love their fellow persons and forming a transnational human chain in the shape of a peace sign and sing "Jesus Loves The Little Children"?

If so, good for you, I guess, though I don't really foresee any commitment or consistency from your delegation on this point, for some strange reason.

I'm sorry, what is this? The POV of Bananaistan is perfectly clear from the previous post and I have no idea what you are on about in your 100 word behemoth of a sentence/question/drug induced lapse of consciousness/whatever it is.

Uh, it's a pretty straightforward question actually, although I suppose a bit unwieldy with the clauses and reliant on a grasp of humour your delegation clearly doesn't have since it dropped that lame drug joke, but I'll rephrase it as a facetiously reductive conversation meme for clarity's sake:

the repeal: GA #286 prevents the prohibition of sex-selective abortion
you: yeah but if you just like get rid of gender inequality no one will ever do that so just get rid of gender inequality no need to get rid of good ol' GA #286
me: so are you against any repeals that point out their target resolution allows bad stuff to happen, because if you got rid of the underlying social causes of the bad stuff, the bad stuff would never happen? so rather than get rid of resolutions that allow bad stuff to happen, you think we should leave them as they are and just magically bring about utopia instead?
you:


And then perhaps a mid-way between the facetiously reductive and the somewhat unwieldy, phrased as simple statement rather than a rhetorical question:

Your argument that rather than legal prohibition of sex-selective (which the target resolution absolute forbids), nations can fight it by combating social attitudes and stuff, implies that you would never support a repeal that argued its target resolution allows bad things to happen, on the basis that bad things happen for reasons and you could just get rid of those reasons.

I point this out because I suspect it's not an opinion you would hold consistently across all repeals, that it is, rather, a very specific opinion that you're holding out of ideological and political bullheadedness in regards to GA #286, which Ossitania, as a nation with a very strong pro-choice position and a quite clear pro-bodily-autonomy-particularly-for-marginalised-groups agenda in the WA (which you in particular should recall, given you repealed one of our shoddier early works on the topic), can certainly sympathise with and understand but not condone or accept.

Because GA #286 is an awful resolution with gaping cracks that permit, first of all, lots of unconscionable impositions on the bodily autonomy of people with wombs, including the use of legal instruments to justify physically restraining pregnant people and forcing them to remain pregnant to the point of viability (OOC: which you, as someone from Ireland, should know is hardly a fringe case nightmare scenario), but also loads of other negative externalities that it's totally reasonable for nations to prohibit, including sex-selective abortion.

If this repeal fails, I have a bodily autonomy-focused repeal text lying around because this resolution is literally so bad it has united hardcore pro-choice nations like Ossitania, hardcore pro-life nations like Frustrated Franciscans and general haters of terrible legislation like Sciongrad into a single front dedicated to destroying it one way or another.

Sure, you might think that, at worst, GA #286 just does nothing, because every nation will just permit as much as they want to permit, but where GA #286 is used to prevent access, it doesn't just do it in a neutral way that would lead cost-benefit analysis to support GA #286.

GA #286 means nations who want to prevent access without violating compliance have to wield legal instruments as blunt weapons against individuals (e.g. using court orders on an ostensibly case-by-case basis to prevent access to abortion in the name of protecting a fetus's rights as a patient because it can't give informed consent to a procedure to which it is party, then using delay tactics in court such as motions and stays to make the case outlast the natural lifespan of the pregnancy, then dropping the case, all without ever actually denying the legal rights of any pregnant person) instead of a comparatively less intrusive regime of illegality.

If you think these cases are worth whatever gains you get from GA #286, good for you, but I'm revoking your pro-choice card since you're willing to sell some people and their rights up the river in the name of others,though you actually gain nothing.

Also, apart from all that, three additional responses to your argument:

(1) Suppose there exists a nation with not a single monolithic culture, but many coexisting and internally variant and complex cultures (a shocking hypothetical, I know, but bear with me), some dominant, others not. Let's say that 3% of the population consists of an extremely misogynistic ethnic or religious group and many of their communities frequently use prenatal screening to practice sex-selective abortion.

The rest of the society is not at all misogynistic, they find this group's beliefs and practices immoral and intolerable, as do the government, but they can't do anything about it, because the only permissible impediments to abortion access in a world with GA #286 are those applied to medical procedures of similar risk and complexity, and the group is unlikely to change its views ever, given it already exists in a situation with maximal societal pressure against its views, and hasn't changed so far. In fact, as with many such groups, the more pressure put on them to change, the more steadfastly they cling to their beliefs.

That's hardly an example of a "nation so far up the shitter that its people value one gender over the other" where "banning sex-selective abortions is not going to improve it". In fact, banning sex-selective abortions seems like basically the only way to reduce sex-selective abortions in that scenario, but apparently such a ban is pointless.

(2) Suppose you're right. In the time necessary to destroy the ingrained social attitudes and causes that lead to sex-selective abortion, how many sex-selective abortions are going to happen? The answer is "too many, given we could repeal GA #286 and pass a resolution that bans sex-selective abortion, which would presumably reduce the rate way more, way quicker, and then still do all the things that will destroy those ingrained social attitudes and causes anyway".

(3) Suppose there was a resolution that permitted nations to restrict access to abortion outside the provisions of GA #128 when it wasn't supposed to do that. You think that's not acceptable, so you write a repeal pointing that out. Someone else responds that we could just get rid of the social attitudes and causes that lead to restricted access to abortion, so there's no need to repeal. Presumably, your delegation, as an ostensibly pro-choice delegation, would not accept that argument, because even though it's theoretically true that such massive social changes are possible, they are difficult to achieve, impossible to achieve in a totalising way, and take time in which you would believe, quite rightly in my opinion, that people with wombs were being denied their rights.

I use this example not just to illustrate how ludicrous this argument is (IT'S LITERALLY AN ARGUMENT AGAINST REPEALING RESOLUTIONS THAT DO BAD THINGS AND ALSO IMPLICITLY AN ARGUMENT AGAINST ALL RESOLUTIONS THAT ATTEMPT TO PROHIBIT BAD THINGS), but specifically to illustrate how ludicrous an argument it is when used against GA #286, because GA #286 is the hypothetical resolution that permits nations to restrict access to abortion, and I'm the person who wants to repeal it for reasons of bodily autonomy, and I suspect you would not in the situation above want to occupy the position of the someone else who responds by saying "well yeah but you can just make the world morally perfect, and then bad things won't happen".

So, there, in a more expansive and detailed and hopefully clear fashion, is my question. Are you really going to stand up for this obviously awful resolution on such stupid and untenable philosophical grounds?

[Isle Coolidge]

"The Commonwealth of Isle Coolidge has spent months on end producing a draft for a replacement resolution for "On Abortion" and "Reproductive Freedoms." This draft has been given the working title "Human Health Commitment" as it affirms the World Assemblies commitment to health of all humans, whether they may be woman or fetus. I encourage all those in favor of repealing these two resolutions take a glance at HHC."

[Bananaistan]

I will of course ignore the jibes regarding comprehension and humour. Such behaviour is unbecoming of senior diplomats.

There is a fundamental ideological approach which Bananaistan follows in this area. The bodily sovereignty of women is paramount. Any restriction on that is unacceptable. You can come up with all the hypothetical justifications for bans on sex-selective abortions you want. It will not change the basic nature of such bans, which is that any such restriction is a breach of the right of a woman to do with her body as she wants.

And we would consider the practicalities of how a ban on sex-selective abortions would work in a nation which otherwise permits abortion. By whom and how would it be decided what is and what isn’t a sex-selective abortion? Would a panel be formed and the woman have to justify her decision to them and prove that in her case it isn’t a sex-selective abortion?

Because GA #286 is an awful resolution with gaping cracks that permit, first of all, lots of unconscionable impositions on the bodily autonomy of people with wombs, including the use of legal instruments to justify physically restraining pregnant people and forcing them to remain pregnant to the point of viability (OOC: which you, as someone from Ireland, should know is hardly a fringe case nightmare scenario), but also loads of other negative externalities that it's totally reasonable for nations to prohibit, including sex-selective abortion.

We fail to see how the use of legal instruments as outlined could be anything other than a breach of the requirement to allow “openly accessible procedures” or “provided such policies do not ultimately hinder the individual from terminating their pregnancy.” Therefore, your objection to the target resolution outlined here appears to be unsound although I look forward to debating the full detail with you in the likelihood that this repeal attempt will fail just like all the other repeal attempts, many of which have reached voting and have been consistently rejected by the WA membership.

As to how our approach remains consistent or otherwise with how we may or may not vote in future, I would point out that there are likely to be few, if any, other repeals which would present the same moral quandary as this one does regarding sex-selective abortions. Yes it is likely to be a great societal evil which needs to be addressed in some nations, we simply do not see that the means to address it is through forcing women to justify their decisions and to restrict their rights. Therefore, we suggest that nations address the issue in other ways which do not involve the wholesale destruction of women’s reproductive rights. If you can’t grasp that this is a specific argument relating to a specific right which the WA had guaranteed which we strongly support, then so be it.

[Ossitania]

I will of course ignore the jibes regarding comprehension and humour. Such behaviour is unbecoming of senior diplomats.

Right, but the corresponding jibe from your delegation towards mine comparing our ability to compose sentences to narcotic-induced glossolalia was the height of decorum.

There is a fundamental ideological approach which Bananaistan follows in this area. The bodily sovereignty of women is paramount. Any restriction on that is unacceptable. You can come up with all the hypothetical justifications for bans on sex-selective abortions you want. It will not change the basic nature of such bans, which is that any such restriction is a breach of the right of a woman to do with her body as she wants.

We care about women too, which is why we're broadly in favour of them existing. If your commitment to the bodily sovereignty of women is so absolute that you would stand idly by and permit gendercides via sex-selective abortion, I suppose I can at least understand that, even if I think it's morally bankrupt.

And we would consider the practicalities of how a ban on sex-selective abortions would work in a nation which otherwise permits abortion. By whom and how would it be decided what is and what isn’t a sex-selective abortion? Would a panel be formed and the woman have to justify her decision to them and prove that in her case it isn’t a sex-selective abortion?

The problem of sex-selective abortion isn't that it's practiced by individuals, but by collectives, and the practicality of a ban on sex-selective abortion is not to vet people before they access abortions, it's to treat it as a crime, trust doctors to report anyone they suspect of selecting for sex via abortion, and then prosecute them, thereby deterring the practice so those communities that practice it abandon it out of a preference toward not being economically devastated by frequent encounters with the prison system. Very, very straightforward.

We fail to see how the use of legal instruments as outlined could be anything other than a breach of the requirement to allow “openly accessible procedures” or “provided such policies do not ultimately hinder the individual from terminating their pregnancy.” Therefore, your objection to the target resolution outlined here appears to be unsound although I look forward to debating the full detail with you in the likelihood that this repeal attempt will fail just like all the other repeal attempts, many of which have reached voting and have been consistently rejected by the WA membership.

Wow, great quotemining you've got there. Let's see those clauses in context:

"MANDATES that Member Nations recognise the right of all individuals to have their pregnancies terminated through safe, openly accessible procedures,"

Hmmm, that's weird, that clause only requires member states to recognise the right, and not to actually guarantee access in all specific cases, and, in fact, explicitly permits the possibility of at least some cases where member states can restrict access.

"PERMITS Member Nations to enact policies encouraging individuals to allow live delivery of their offspring, provided such policies do not ultimately hinder the individual from terminating their pregnancy,"

Oh, so the prohibition on hindering termination is only for policies that encourage live birth?

Weird that. It's almost as if GA #286 tried to piggyback off GA #29 and GA #128 instead of actually trying to stand on its own as a decent piece abortion rights legislation, and therefore it's shoddy, vague, muddled and unclear. Here's an actual account of member state burdens from GA #286:

(1) recognise a right to terminate pregnancy
(2) prohibit impediments to accessing pregnancy that would not be placed on procedures of similar risk and complexity
(3) protect providers and patients from targeted animosity
(4) enact no policies encouraging live birth that ultimately hinder access to termination

Everything about access, everything about rights as patients seeking termination, that all comes from GA #29, and the Faeries' use of the phrase "termination of pregnancy", whether it was intended to obfuscate the issue and dupe voters or buy the acceptance of pro-lifers by giving them wiggle room, or they genuinely didn't realise that termination of pregnancy is not just a term used to describe abortions, means that GA #286 in no way whatsoever guarantees access to abortion, in particular because of it's interactions with GA #29 and GA #128. Let's do some recipes for disaster:

DESIRE

To not provide access to abortion outside the terms of GA #128

BURDENS

(1) recognise a right to terminate pregnancy (GA #286)
(2) never compel a physician to carry out an abortion (GA #128)
(3) permit patients to refuse treatment, but not to selectively refuse specific treatments and demand others (GA #29)

SOLUTION

Outside of the provisions of GA #128, only offer termination of pregnancy in the form of a C-section, leaving the patient with the choice of C-section or nothing, since they have neither the right to demand particular forms of treatment, nor the right to demand any physician give them an abortion.

Let's try another. We can skip DESIRE, since that doesn't change.

BURDENS

(1) recognise a right to terminate pregnancy
(2) prohibit impediments to accessing pregnancy that would not be placed on procedures of similar risk and complexity

SOLUTION

Recognise fetuses as persons. Medical ethics already holds that procedures involving two or more persons (e.g. separation of conjoined twins, organ transplants, etc.) cannot be performed without the informed consent of both parties. Fetuses cannot give informed consent. Issue a court order to prevent the pregnant person from accessing an abortion until a court can decide whether the right to access termination of pregnancy, which you recognise in law, overrides the fetus's patient rights, which you also recognise in law.

Then, use delay tactics to ensure the case outlasts the natural lifespan of the pregnancy, drop the case once the pregnancy, a decision is never reached, precedent is never created, and this practice never proscribed. You recognise the right in law, but never allow it to be accessed in practice, because you repeatedly initiate proceedings to resolve a conflict between that right and other rights on an ostensibly case-by-case basis, but never allow those proceedings to produce any resolution that would prevent you from initiating these proceedings in the future. And it wouldn't even be terribly expensive, since people would be deterred from trying in the first place, due to both the guarantee of failure and the prohibitive cost of fighting the case, cost that would be sunk into an endeavour you already know will fail.

You might think these cases marginal, but these and my other compliance-without-abortion scenarios are all plausible, practicable and guarantee the suppression of the bodily sovereignty of people with wombs, including women. If any nation that doesn't want abortion can continue to not have it while still complying with GA #286, then GA #286 does nothing. GA #286 did not legalise abortion anywhere, after its passage, abortion was legal where it was already legal, and still illegal where it was illegal before, and that includes any position on a sliding scale between complete prohibition and absolute permissibility.

So if your absolute commitment to the absolute bodily sovereignty of women is the guiding principle of your delegation's position on abortion rights legislation, it should want to repeal GA #286 just as much as we do. GA #286 did nothing to legalise abortion, but it did force member states who didn't want to legalise abortion in order to comply to take more active, intrusive and punishing measures to prevent people with wombs from accessing abortion than before. GA #286 is a net loss for bodily sovereignty because it attempted to shove all the actual work of legalising abortion onto GA #29, with either a thoughtless lack of consideration for its implications, or a reckless disregard for their effects on the people whose rights it was trying to secure.

As to how our approach remains consistent or otherwise with how we may or may not vote in future, I would point out that there are likely to be few, if any, other repeals which would present the same moral quandary as this one does regarding sex-selective abortions. Yes it is likely to be a great societal evil which needs to be addressed in some nations, we simply do not see that the means to address it is through forcing women to justify their decisions and to restrict their rights. Therefore, we suggest that nations address the issue in other ways which do not involve the wholesale destruction of women’s reproductive rights. If you can’t grasp that this is a specific argument relating to a specific right which the WA had guaranteed which we strongly support, then so be it.

Uh, you think few, if any, other repeals are gonna argue the target resolution permits bad things? I suspect that's something of a common argument. If your claim is that the special value your nation places on the bodily sovereignty of women is the reason you're only pulling out this argument, then, okay, sure, but that doesn't make the argument any less dumb. You're effectively saying you'd rather wait for misogyny to eventually die out in the future than compromise even slightly on your absolute commitment to the absolute bodily sovereignty of women, even though a failure to compromise guarantees continued harm to women (including the routine violation of their bodily sovereignty) until such time as misogyny magically disappears, presumably in an event coterminous with all the nations of the world trading in all their guns for flowers, teaching people to love their fellow persons and forming a transnational human chain in the shape of a peace sign and singing "Jesus Loves The Little Children", as enumerated in the earlier jibe.

[Tinfect]

"At this point, I am prepared to support a repeal of 'Reproductive Freedoms', if only to end the debate. Unfortunately, my opinion is not what matters here. The Imperium will oppose this legislation."

[John Turner]

The Federation maintains it's stance that abortion is not an international matter and s=never should have been in the first place. Whether or not a nation choose to allow abortion within it's sovereign territory is their call and no one else's. We are still fully prepared to support this, and desperately hope for a blocker that ends this once and for all.

[Separatist Peoples]

"At this point, I am prepared to support a repeal of 'Reproductive Freedoms', if only to end the debate. Unfortunately, my opinion is not what matters here. The Imperium will oppose this legislation."

"That won't end it. Then we'll have competing "BAN IT!/LEGALIZE IT!" drafts to deal with. I'd rather suffer with RF."

[Bananaistan]

There is a fundamental ideological approach which Bananaistan follows in this area. The bodily sovereignty of women is paramount. Any restriction on that is unacceptable. You can come up with all the hypothetical justifications for bans on sex-selective abortions you want. It will not change the basic nature of such bans, which is that any such restriction is a breach of the right of a woman to do with her body as she wants.

We care about women too, which is why we're broadly in favour of them existing. If your commitment to the bodily sovereignty of women is so absolute that you would stand idly by and permit gendercides via sex-selective abortion, I suppose I can at least understand that, even if I think it's morally bankrupt.

And we would consider the practicalities of how a ban on sex-selective abortions would work in a nation which otherwise permits abortion. By whom and how would it be decided what is and what isn’t a sex-selective abortion? Would a panel be formed and the woman have to justify her decision to them and prove that in her case it isn’t a sex-selective abortion?

The problem of sex-selective abortion isn't that it's practiced by individuals, but by collectives, and the practicality of a ban on sex-selective abortion is not to vet people before they access abortions, it's to treat it as a crime, trust doctors to report anyone they suspect of selecting for sex via abortion, and then prosecute them, thereby deterring the practice so those communities that practice it abandon it out of a preference toward not being economically devastated by frequent encounters with the prison system. Very, very straightforward.

I’ll deal with these two points together.

In what society in the WA can such a destructive level of misogyny exist that such widespread “gendercide” would be practiced? The answer is none. The WA has many, many resolutions on the protection of rights that this hypothetical practice of sex-selective abortions being enforced by a cultural or a collective norm is incompatible with WA membership. Not the least of the extant legislation is COCR which explicitly bans discrimination and intimidation based on gender. The collective can try to influence the woman as much as they like, but such influence cannot extend into discrimination or intimidation. And don’t forget that this woman and those who would intimidate her are all educated further to GAR#80. Not to mention the free exchange of ideas is guaranteed under GAR#30. Given these protections and the many others guaranteed by international legislation, any society in the WA has all the hallmarks of a liberal and tolerant society. This big bad collective which is going around bullying women into aborting their unborn baby girls cannot exist in this framework.

With this in mind, your approach of criminalisation of women is far more morally bankrupt than our laissez faire attitude.

…. c-section non-compliance scenario …

I’m not a doctor but it seems to me an abortion performed by means of a c section is still an abortion. I cannot speak to whether such would or wouldn’t be ethically acceptable to medical practitioners however. It may also be that case such an invasive procedure would not be safe and openly accessible and, therefore, is not the only option a nation can allow. As I’m not a doctor, I couldn’t comment.

As to the termination of pregnancy phraseology, I believe this was a deliberate wording to allow for methods of termination which do not necessarily involve the death of the foetus while also allowing due respect for our non-human members states.

…. foetus as a person non-compliance scenario …

SP has already stated the impossibility of remaining compliant with WA law while doing so here. (I hope they don't mind me linking to their argument.)

You might think these cases marginal, but these and my other compliance-without-abortion scenarios are all plausible, practicable and guarantee the suppression of the bodily sovereignty of people with wombs, including women. If any nation that doesn't want abortion can continue to not have it while still complying with GA #286, then GA #286 does nothing. GA #286 did not legalise abortion anywhere, after its passage, abortion was legal where it was already legal, and still illegal where it was illegal before, and that includes any position on a sliding scale between complete prohibition and absolute permissibility.

So if your absolute commitment to the absolute bodily sovereignty of women is the guiding principle of your delegation's position on abortion rights legislation, it should want to repeal GA #286 just as much as we do. GA #286 did nothing to legalise abortion, but it did force member states who didn't want to legalise abortion in order to comply to take more active, intrusive and punishing measures to prevent people with wombs from accessing abortion than before. GA #286 is a net loss for bodily sovereignty because it attempted to shove all the actual work of legalising abortion onto GA #29, with either a thoughtless lack of consideration for its implications, or a reckless disregard for their effects on the people whose rights it was trying to secure.

Any good faith reading of the resolution, taking the whole together, shows that it does enforce the right of termination of pregnancy at any stage in the pregnancy. We cannot be expected to close every single possible in loophole in only 3500 words and no resolution can legislate for all Tin Pot Countries without descending into a morass of micro-management. I’m not interested in debating back and forth on increasingly ridiculous hypotheticals in a thread based on repealing the target resolution based on it disallowing national policies prohibiting sex-selective abortion.

Uh, you think few, if any, other repeals are gonna argue the target resolution permits bad things? I suspect that's something of a common argument. If your claim is that the special value your nation places on the bodily sovereignty of women is the reason you're only pulling out this argument, then, okay, sure, but that doesn't make the argument any less dumb. You're effectively saying you'd rather wait for misogyny to eventually die out in the future than compromise even slightly on your absolute commitment to the absolute bodily sovereignty of women, even though a failure to compromise guarantees continued harm to women (including the routine violation of their bodily sovereignty) until such time as misogyny magically disappears, presumably in an event coterminous with all the nations of the world trading in all their guns for flowers, teaching people to love their fellow persons and forming a transnational human chain in the shape of a peace sign and singing "Jesus Loves The Little Children", as enumerated in the earlier jibe.

My position is not that hard to understand. In a nutshell: the pros of what the target resolution protects outweigh the cons of the bad things it allows. I have no idea why you have your knickers in such a twist over it. Care to explain or do we want to just keep restating the same point at each other a hundred times?

[Ossitania]

In what society in the WA can such a destructive level of misogyny exist that such widespread “gendercide” would be practiced? The answer is none. The WA has many, many resolutions on the protection of rights that this hypothetical practice of sex-selective abortions being enforced by a cultural or a collective norm is incompatible with WA membership. Not the least of the extant legislation is COCR which explicitly bans discrimination and intimidation based on gender. The collective can try to influence the woman as much as they like, but such influence cannot extend into discrimination or intimidation. And don’t forget that this woman and those who would intimidate her are all educated further to GAR#80. Not to mention the free exchange of ideas is guaranteed under GAR#30. Given these protections and the many others guaranteed by international legislation, any society in the WA has all the hallmarks of a liberal and tolerant society. This big bad collective which is going around bullying women into aborting their unborn baby girls cannot exist in this framework.

With this in mind, your approach of criminalisation of women is far more morally bankrupt than our laissez faire attitude.

You assume the woman is intimidated or bullied, which is a pretty misogynstic assumption given women have agency and the capacity to hold misogynstic cultural beliefs, since it assumes one or both of those things are not true and treats women as a reductive monolith.

You assume only uneducated people hold misogynistic beliefs, which is just obviously not true.

You assume the free exchange of ideas results in the adoption of the ideas you deem correct. If so, we have presumably already reached the fabled utopia of moral perfection you want us to strive for, and we no longer need any WA regulation to ensure right conduct. I shall notify the repealophiles. After all, "any society in the WA has all the hallmarks of a liberal and tolerant society", so who needs human rights legislation to make sure?

Finally, you most egregiously assume any extant legislation, CoCR or otherwise, applies to fetuses in countries where fetuses are not recognised as persons. Point me to the legislation that actually prevents sex-selective abortion and I'll drop my support of this repeal.

I’m not a doctor but it seems to me an abortion performed by means of a c section is still an abortion. I cannot speak to whether such would or wouldn’t be ethically acceptable to medical practitioners however. It may also be that case such an invasive procedure would not be safe and openly accessible and, therefore, is not the only option a nation can allow. As I’m not a doctor, I couldn’t comment.

As to the termination of pregnancy phraseology, I believe this was a deliberate wording to allow for methods of termination which do not necessarily involve the death of the foetus while also allowing due respect for our non-human members states.

I definitely agree you're not a doctor, because C-sections are not abortions or a type of abortion, they are a method of terminating a pregnancy via live delivery through surgery. C-sections are such common medical practice that many medical institutions practice them as a matter of course, deeming them preferable in many ways to natural live birth, so they definitely meet the criteria for safe and accessible.

What you say about the termination of pregnancy phraseology is exactly why abortion is not provided for by GA #286, because to what extent it provides anything, like access, it provides it only in relation to "termination of pregnancy", a broad category of procedures of which abortion is just a subset, and which nations can therefore provide for without providing any access to abortion.

If you really believe in maximal choice, you should want to repeal GA #286, so pregnant persons can decide whether they want to terminate their pregnancy via abortion or live-delivery methods. If member-states can make only live-delivery methods available, the state can compel people to remain pregnant when they don't want to, which obviously infringes on their bodily autonomy.

SP has already stated the impossibility of remaining compliant with WA law while doing so here. (I hope they don't mind me linking to their argument.)

Their argument is based on a false premise, namely that GA #286 allows for abortion before the point of viability. I've explained why that's not the case, as the only thing it does, if it does anything, is provide a right to access termination of pregnancy. If it doesn't allow for abortion before the point of viability, it doesn't conflict with GA #222, if it doesn't conflict with GA #222, it's possible to recognise a fetus as human and remain in compliance. In fact, doing so would make it even easier to not allow abortion, as recognising a fetus as human would mean, as indicated, that legal abortion results in non-compliance with GA #222, which basically means any nation doing so is, in fact, mandated to only provide for non-abortive methods of termination of pregnancy while complying with GA #286.

Huh. That actually makes my job of explaining why GA #286 is bullshit way more straightforward. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Any good faith reading of the resolution, taking the whole together, shows that it does enforce the right of termination of pregnancy at any stage in the pregnancy. We cannot be expected to close every single possible in loophole in only 3500 words and no resolution can legislate for all Tin Pot Countries without descending into a morass of micro-management. I’m not interested in debating back and forth on increasingly ridiculous hypotheticals in a thread based on repealing the target resolution based on it disallowing national policies prohibiting sex-selective abortion.

These hypotheticals are not ridiculous. The C-section hypothetical in particular is straightforward, plausible and arises from the text itself, because the text uses the term "termination of pregnancy". This isn't a case of failing to "close every single possible in loophole in only 3500 words", this is a case of creating loopholes where there ought not be any by choosing an overly broad term. Meanwhile, not only is the fetus-as-person hypothetical also not ridiculous, your response actually makes it way more straightforward than I had conceptualised it.

This isn't a case of "failing to legislate for all Tin Pot Countries", this is a case of failing to legislate for countries that don't have legal abortion in a resolution that's supposed to legalise abortion. If you can comply with a piece of abortion rights legislation without legalising abortion, probably it's a bad piece of abortion rights legislation, and you can't just say "good faith reading" when the abortion rights legislation explicitly does not mention abortion and explicitly defines termination of pregnancy as a medical procedure in order to give it rights and protections purely by reference to extant legislation, GA #29. If you still don't think GA #286 is a bad piece of legislation, there's nothing I can do to convince you and I'm not going to keep trying.

My position is not that hard to understand. In a nutshell: the pros of what the target resolution protects outweigh the cons of the bad things it allows. I have no idea why you have your knickers in such a twist over it. Care to explain or do we want to just keep restating the same point at each other a hundred times?

That's not the argument I was criticising there. I was criticising this argument:

“A boiled down summary of my point here is that if the underlying reasons behind gender inequality in a given society are addressed, then sex-selective abortions will never be an issue. And there is nothing in the target resolution preventing a nation from addressing these underlying issues.

To boil it down further than your own explanation, your argument here is essentially that any repeal argument pointing out a bad thing permitted by the target resolution is invalid if there is nothing in the target resolution that prevents member-states from addressing the underlying reasons for the bad thing happening, because if they address the underlying reasons, the bad thing won't happen, and it doesn't matter that the target resolution permits the bad thing, because it's not happening.

I questioned the validity of this argument given you probably wouldn't credit its use against repeals you supported. In your response, you seemed to imply two things, namely (1) that it's an argument you only support in this specific case because of the high premium your nation places on the bodily autonomy of women, which doesn't seem like a response so much as you saying that you're willing to use any argument, however invalid, and (2) that "there are likely few, if any other repeals" that point out bad things permitted by the target resolution and argue the target resolution should be repealed because those bad things shouldn't be permitted, which is just obviously untrue.

If you are running with the first response, that you're only trotting out this terrible argument because you place such a high premium on the bodily autonomy of women that you're willing to pay any cost to maintain GA #286, including the permissibility of sex-selective abortion, pending the end of misogyny, and, as I've extensively outlined, the illegality of abortion outside of GA #128 and lots of other impositions on the bodily autonomy of people with wombs, then okay, but that doesn't make the argument less terrible, it just completely undermines the credibility of your delegation, since you will apparently stand by any terrible argument as long as you are sufficiently ideologically motivated.

If you still think I'm misunderstanding your position, I'd rather we just left it, to be honest. There are more crucial points of disagreement and more fruitful areas of debate elsewhere.

[Bananaistan]

OOC: Perhaps in your next essay you might address the central point of how you want to criminalise and jail women rather than let them exercise choice over their own bodies?

Anyway, I'm out. Find someone else to condescend to.

[Railana]

Not the least of the extant legislation is COCR which explicitly bans discrimination and intimidation based on gender.

So it is your view that the fetus is not a person yet can still exercise rights under CoCR?

Joseph Fulton
Chief Ambassador, Railanan Mission to the World Assembly

[Ossitania]

OOC: Perhaps in your next essay you might address the central point of how you want to criminalise and jail women rather than let them exercise choice over their own bodies?

Anyway, I'm out. Find someone else to condescend to.

OOC: I dunno why you felt you needed to go OOC for this, if it's because I was being condescending, then it's probably right that I should go OOC too, given you were being just as condescending, because we both have condescending IC ambassadors. For the record, no essay needed: ICly my nation doesn't really see a big deal with sending people to jail for doing something it thinks is immoral. I didn't address it because, rather than a central point, you mentioned it as brief aside, and I forgot to do so while responding to your other more expansive material.

If the problem is you've somehow inferred I want to criminalise and jail women IRL, and that bothers you, it probably shouldn't, because the player behind Ossitania is a radically pro-choice prison abolitionist who spends 98% of his time in WA debates about abortion trying not to scream at everyone for saying "women" rather than "people with wombs", on account of all the people with wombs who aren't women, i.e. not the traditional demographic for criminalising abortion. If you're out, I'm not gonna fight to get you back, I don't think I RP'd so condescendingly that I violated either IC or OOC decorum.

IC:

Not the least of the extant legislation is COCR which explicitly bans discrimination and intimidation based on gender.

So it is your view that the fetus is not a person yet can still exercise rights under CoCR?

Joseph Fulton
Chief Ambassador, Railanan Mission to the World Assembly

Ambassador Fulton makes the point more forcefully and succinctly than I.

[Bananaistan]

Not the least of the extant legislation is COCR which explicitly bans discrimination and intimidation based on gender.

So it is your view that the fetus is not a person yet can still exercise rights under CoCR?

Joseph Fulton
Chief Ambassador, Railanan Mission to the World Assembly

No it is not and never has been. The point there was that COCR is a protection against grown women being forced into sex-selective abortions through an oppressive cultural norm or outright intimidation.

[Bananaistan]

snip

OOC: tag was in the wrong spot. I wouldn't make any inference about your RL views nor would I see them as being at all relevant no matter what they are.

IC: I find it hard to accept being called morally bankrupt by the rep of a nation which wants to be able to jail woman for having abortions. You say it's only for those who'd sex-selective abortions. I say it's wrong to place any restrictions on her bodily rights and if she wants a sex-selective abortion then that's her lookout. I'd also say that it's incredibly hard to discern to exactly what her reasons are and nobody knows her heart save herself.

[Ossitania]

OOC: tag was in the wrong spot. I wouldn't make any inference about your RL views nor would I see them as being at all relevant no matter what they are.

OOC: no worries

IC: I find it hard to accept being called morally bankrupt by the rep of a nation which wants to be able to jail woman for having abortions. You say it's only for those who'd sex-selective abortions. I say it's wrong to place any restrictions on her bodily rights and if she wants a sex-selective abortion then that's her lookout. I'd also say that it's incredibly hard to discern to exactly what her reasons are and nobody knows her heart save herself.

We want the ability to jail people who have sex-selective abortions because this ability is a deterrent to communities who practice sex-selective abortion: it is simply not the case that any attempt to curtail sex-selective abortion will focus on individuals in the way you conceptualise it. The only evidence that will ever exist that anyone is practicing sex-selective abortion is a discernible pattern of sex-selective abortion. If a pattern is the only evidence, no one will ever want to leave a pattern, as doing so would result in their prosecution, ergo the fact that we can send someone to jail for practicing sex-selective abortion means that we'll almost never have to do so, and when we do, it will be to punish people so dedicated to weakening the position of women in future generations that they're willing to risk getting caught to do so.

You say nobody knows the heart of a person seeking an abortion but themselves, yet I presume your nation considers coercing someone into having an abortion a crime. If we can trust the legal system to determine the sincerity of someone's desire to have an abortion, I think we can trust them to figure out that someone with a pattern of aborting shortly after the point they can identify the fetus's genitals, from a community with a similar pattern of abortions, is practicing sex-selective abortion, and that anyone who doesn't fit that profile probably isn't. We trust the legal system to scrutinise motives, intentions, feelings, opinions and beliefs all the time, and I don't see why we can't trust them to do so in this case.

All in all, that seems like a rather tiny possibility of meaningful harm to prevent communities from using abortion to select for male children in a way that solidifies the subordinate position of women in those communities.

And regardless, if you don't believe any restrictions on the bodily rights of people with wombs are acceptable, you should welcome a repeal of GA #286, which allows nations that already prohibit abortion to continue doing so, and, in light of GA #222, may even allow some of them to claim a WA mandate to do so. GA #286 is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad resolution.