Lear, edit your post. We aren't allowed to say "cunt" and if a junior gets banned, it's perma.
What's the current limit? 12 weeks sounds very short... like, "I only just found out and now I have to do something really, really quickly" short.
Jeremy Hunt, the new Health Secretary, supports halving the legal abortion limit from 24 weeks to 12 weeks after conception, it emerged last night.
Although he stressed the Government had no plans to alter the current cut-off, his surprise intervention will reopen the controversy over when abortions should be carried out.
His comments provoked immediate criticism last night from medical groups.
Mr Hunt said in an interview with The Times: "There's an incredibly difficult question about the moment we should deem life to start... I'm not someone who thinks that abortion should be made illegal.
"Everyone looks at the evidence and comes to a view about when that moment is and my own view is that 12 weeks is the right point for it."
He said he had previously voted in favour of a 12-week limit and had not changed his view.
Although he is a Christian, he said he had not reached his view because of his faith, adding: "There are some issues that cut across health and morality, a bit like capital punishment does for crime."
The limit was reduced from 28 to 24 weeks in 1990 to reflect medical advances. MPs voted to retain it in 2008, rejecting calls to reduce it to 22 or 20 weeks.
Maria Miller, the new Women's minister, this week said it should be lowered to 20 weeks because of the rapid advances in caring for extremely premature babies.
More than 90 per cent of abortions take place before 12 weeks, but critics said imposing that limit would effectively prevent testing for conditions such as Down's Syndrome.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists denounced the Health Secretary's comments as "insulting to women".
Kate Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the college of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: "If everybody had to have abortions by 12 weeks, my worry would be that women would be rushed into making decisions: 'I have to have an abortion now or I can't have one.'
"That's an absolute shocker. You will absolutely create mental health problems if you start dragooning women into making decisions before they have to."
24 weeks. A limit of 12 weeks would apparently prevent testing for foetal abnormalities, so it would basically condemn women to carry to term foetuses that have no chance of surviving. I think you can quibble a little bit about the current limit (personally, i'm of the view that it's fine as it is) but 12 weeks is just absurd, and will result in women having dangerous illegal abortions.
and I find this very interesting. scotland's free services in their current form aren't sustainable and need to be revisited.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19839096
it's a long read but well worth it.
I don't really buy the story. It's one set of opinions and seems pretty politicised to be in alignment with the rhetoric coming from Westminster. Can't have Scotland showing Westminster that service cuts aren't needed and often pay for themselves through cost reductions in other areas.
I think the Tories absolutely are in favour of a compromise, but it needs to work for both of them (and let us not forget that The Tories have about 5 times more MPs than the LDs).
Five times the MPs but only 36% of the vote compared to the 23% the Lib Dems got. The idea that LD policies should be 1/6th of the coalition and Tory policies 5/6ths is ridiculous and another exageration from our abysmally disenfranchising legislative electoral system.
Five times the MPs but only 36% of the vote compared to the 23% the Lib Dems got. The idea that LD policies should be 1/6th of the coalition and Tory policies 5/6ths is ridiculous and another exageration from our abysmally disenfranchising legislative electoral system.
Osborne's still moving goalposts:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/08/george-osborne-austerity-2018
I know that I make this point every time this comes up, but this is precisely what Keynesians predicted would happen when he announced his 'recovery' plan of austerity during a recession.
you're right, I wasn't really able to form a proper opinion based on how one sided it was. still, it will be interesting to see how it plays out and if it attracts more attention.
what does everyone think about the mansion tax not happening? it was obvious it wouldn't, but what will, if anything, the lib dems now do? just accept that it's not going to happen and hope people forget about it or try to push for it?
they must realise by now that tories aren't interested in compromising, when will they take action to try and keep some respect for their party?
Osborne's still moving goalposts:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/08/george-osborne-austerity-2018
I know that I make this point every time this comes up, but this is precisely what Keynesians predicted would happen when he announced his 'recovery' plan of austerity during a recession.
Hopefully they will not still be in power come 2018.
The AV vote was a shambles. The Tories got away with fraudulent scaremongering scot-free, and most people voted against it because they had no idea how it worked.
So police in Lancashire have arrested a Matthew Woods for a tasteless April Jones joke on his facebook wall. Now I don't know about you, but I'm fucking outraged that we live in a country where people can be arrested for making bad jokes.
Posting the slashdot forum link because it contains the actual joke...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/10/08/0033233/uk-man-arrested-for-offensive-joke-posted-on-facebook
So police in Lancashire have arrested a Matthew Woods for a tasteless April Jones joke on his facebook wall. Now I don't know about you, but I'm fucking outraged that we live in a country where people can be arrested for making bad jokes.
Posting the slashdot forum link because it contains the actual joke...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/10/08/0033233/uk-man-arrested-for-offensive-joke-posted-on-facebook
EDIT: Didn't see the other thread!
There are a few petitions on the HM website on the subject. I know they don't define policy, but I think for too long governments have assumed that those of us who love free-speech are a minority, or that those who hate free-speech are more vocal. We just need to shout loud enough that this kind of bullshit use of police and court time is not okay.Yeah, the joke is tasteless and sick, but being arrested for it is seriously disturbing.
There are a few petitions on the HM website on the subject. I know they don't define policy, but I think for too long governments have assumed that those of us who love free-speech are a minority, or that those who hate free-speech are more vocal. We just need to shout loud enough that this kind of bullshit use of police and court time is not okay.
https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/18809
There's nothing stopping people saying what they need to say, but we do need some kind of laws to stop people standing in the street with a megaphone shouting jokes about a missing, probably murdered 5 year old whilst there are hundreds grieving.
Its called common decency and this country appears to have none.
Facebook and Twitter are the internet equivalent of a megaphone, what you post everyone gets to see.
Facebook and Twitter are the internet equivalent of a megaphone, what you post everyone gets to see.
He put it on his own page, someone else posted it to the April related facebook page.
...and frankly, I couldn't give a shit if someone walked down the street with a megaphone being a wanker. That's their problem, not mine.
He put it on his own page, someone else posted it to the April related facebook page.
...and frankly, I couldn't give a shit if someone walked down the street with a megaphone being a wanker. That's their problem, not mine.
George Osborne, the Chancellor today invited employees to give up their workplace rights in exchange for tax-free shares in their companies as he urged workers of the world to 'unite'.
Mr Osborne also confirmed that he would not support a so-called mansion tax, or extra wealth taxes on the most wealthy.
Mr Osborne also confirmed reports that he plans to cut £10 billion from the welfare budget by 2016, and disclosed that he would tackle the £16 billion in savings which need to be found with a ratio of 20 per cent in tax rises to 80 per cent of public spending cuts.
Exactly. If they were shouting incitement to violence in their megaphones the police would be justified in stopping. Same if their megaphone were outputting at a noise level higher than local noise laws permitted... Otherwise? No.
The person being arrested is a joke, millions of people get offended everyday maybe we should arrest all those responsible as well
they've already outlined the removal of benefits for school leavers who want housing benefit. I wonder where else the cuts are going to come.
Fuck that.
If you want to live in a country where you have the right not the be offended then you deserve every last thing you get. For gods' sakes; we've been using terrible jokes to make light of tragedies for decades. It's who we English are. And a bunch of free-speech hating fucktards want to stop people voicing their bad jokes on their own non-public-space social feeds? How out of touch with reality do you have to be to condone that?
The state and the law should not give one shit whether a person is grieving. The law, the police and the courts are there to protect us from criminals, not harmless people with a dubious sense of humour.
Posting sick jokes about potentially murdered kids on the internet is not an incitement to violence?
Do you have kids?
Do you not have an issue with school leavers being given council houses?
Clay, you're not allowed to say the C-word on NeoGAF anymore. Edit now or you'll be banhammered. Don't hate the mods, hate thegame.lack of free speech on a private forum
Besides, can't you see that you're offending kitch9's precious sense of "common decency" or whatever his latest excuse for being an authoritarian wingnut is?
Won't somebody please think of kitch9's sense of common decency?
[USER WAS ARRESTED FOR THIS POST]
Clay, you're not allowed to say the C-word on NeoGAF anymore. Edit now or you'll be banhammered.
I struggle to understand how you guys can defend it.
CHEEZMO;42990531 said:I have good news for you.
BTW, the joke was hilarious. If you think anyone should face legal action over anything even twice as bad as that you're a fucking dumbass.
There's lots of bad jokes about bad things Michael Jacksons death caused a particular spike in them, but if you are going to do something particularly hurtful about someone's suffering , you better take lengths its not going to end up in their face like it did in this case.
The guy has accepted his punishment, makes me think he didn't have a leg to stand on. The judge hears the argument from both sides and makes a decision.