A dear Trevor letter

James says:

10:43am | 26/02/10

Agreed Adam.  It seems that the abortion debate is one where many tend to polarise and adopt extreme positions.  For my partner and I personally, abortion is not what we would choose - indeed, we didn’t choose it despite being very young when she fell pregnant.  It was raised by my mother in law, and we rejected it outright as we thought it was morally wrong.

That is certainly not to say that those with a differing view should be denied the choice we exercised, though.  While we consider it to be wrong, never would we dream of robbing someone else of making that choice and reaching their own position on the matter.  Neither would we judge them for the choice they make.  It is more to say that, in our considered opinion at the time, it was wrong, but there are myriad other circumstances out there that would tend towards a different direction.  I wonder how many out there are capable of taking a nuanced position on such emotive issues as this.  I would hope many, and I guess we shall discover as this thread wears on.

Kim says:

02:27pm | 26/02/10

I agree Adam.  Neither my husband or I would want anyone else to miss out on the birth of a child as this is nature at it’s best.  In saying that, I would also never condemn anyone for choosing to abort their child either.

This should be the choice of both parents and whether or not anyone else thinks it’s morally wrong is irrelevant.

N. Harley says:

11:00pm | 04/03/10

with 5000 abortions performed yearly in this state while basic medical care is denied and hospitals are crammed with waiting lists i too welcome the opening of this debate…
as a ‘true’ pro choicer i welcome BOTH sides of the debate and question those whose instant opposition would paint, pull down or try to hide corflutes that stir up the search for information and discussion about this important choice…
As a believer in our democratic nation, the right to free speech (and someone who has given up on trying to fight the Advertising beureau who were happy to let my daughter learn at age 5 about ‘longer lasting sex’ but now have a problem with ‘save the unborn…go figure) i applaud Trevor Grace’s courage and uphold his right to stand for what he believes in… GO the nick xenephons and TG’s of this world who are unallied with politcal parties not bought and paid for and can truly stand up for what they think against all opposition at great cost to themselves…
Lastly a 12 week old is NOT a blob they have a beating heart, can feel pain, hear sounds, and we now have great 3d imaging of sucking thumbs, little faces etc.
most abortions DO NOT occur earlier then 12 weeks (the admittedly fishy embryonic looking stage) as many women have only just ascertained that they are indeed pregnant by this stage or take time before acting…
whatever you think about earlier development be that : yes it is a life as it has its own seperate dna and the mother need add nothing further just be a warm home, or whether you believe that a mother has a right to expell her unborn children that is for you to decide. But how ignorant to want to decide without all the facts. to be afraid of posters depicting babies, to not explore further make a decision and not be able to go back later…
To denegrate Trevor Grace in your letter as some religious zealot women hater and oppressor is pure defamation… If you would meet him, or read his bio you would find he is a loving husband, father an inspiring high school teacher and a gentle non judgemental man who has the passion of his convictions and the courage to follow them despite the cost…
Enough from me, but whatever you do or do not believe…it is the height of ignorance to defame a candidate just because you do not agree with his platform… a cheap and disappointing misuse of your wit and intellegence and it is clearly NOT pro choice when we offer only one choice (abortion) and all other choices are hushed up,covered up and unacceptable… what are we so afraid of .... the truth?

Anne says:

04:45pm | 08/03/10

Whatever N harley, can you proove that they feel pain- can you proove that they can hear sounds if not, then I think you should probably shut up I’m just saying…

Helen says:

01:18pm | 16/03/10

indeed, we didn’t choose it despite being very young when she fell pregnant.  It was raised by my mother in law

“It”? Didn’t you ask what the sex was? And did “it” ever get a name?

“... and we rejected it outright as we thought it was morally wrong.”

I think you are referring to abortion, but grammatically, that “it” appears to refer to the poor child, again.

I suppose it’s not all that inappropriate since most of the opponents of abortion treat children like political footballs rather than humans, despite their assertions otherwise.

Clementine says:

09:13am | 26/02/10

The kind of tolerance that involves telling women they should feel guilty for having abortions? The kind of tolerance that involves using misleading images of actually born babies on a corflute calling to ‘Save Unborn Babies’? The kind of tolerance that Trevor Grace is showing towards women who’ve made the often emotionally turbulent decision to have abortions because of complex reasons that he can never hope to understand? Oh, yes please.

As for the capitals, I would have thought it was perfectly obvious that it was an imitation of outraged letter writers. I should know. I’ve received enough of them

Now, off to my monthly feminazi coven book club. Today we’re discussing Valerie Solanas!

iansand says:

09:37am | 26/02/10

Free speech is a tricky little thing.  The right to free speech must encompass the right to oppose it.  At which point you disappear up your own backside.

DG says:

12:06pm | 26/02/10

Voltaire:

I agree with the your point about allowing others to express their views. To quote the philosopher Mathers: “....stand and fight for the right to say something you might not like”.

I don’t have a problem with people saying their god is great, nor do I have a problem with people telling me that I should feel guilty about this, that or the other. They are entitled to their opinion and they are entitled to express it - similarly, I am allowed to disagree.

Now the tricky bit - When you go from talking about the abstract idea, to threats you have (possibly) crossed the line.

I say possibly because “We should execute paedophiles” is a reasonable suggestion in the debate of crime and punishment (whether or not I agree with it). “We should go and bash those people at Cronulla” is inciting violence.

Voltaire says:

12:38pm | 26/02/10

Yes, Clementine, you should tolerate views that you don’t like.

You should even tolerate people that express views and seek to act on them in a political arena by garnering political support for said views.

Even if this means people inciting hatred (eg race riots that DG mentioned).

Thoughts are not crimes, actions are crimes.

If you seek to publically censure people that you do not like because of what they say then you become the biggest traitor to democracy imaginable.

Need I remind you of what Benjamin Franklin said about giving up liberty?

Just because you might be incensed, or a bit miffed, or upset by what someone says does not mean that they should be censured.

You also should not be telling people what they can and cannot experience or understand. We are all shaped by our perceptions. To imply that one perception is of more merit than another is a gross value judgement that cannot be supported.

You should know better than that.

Harquebus says:

12:44pm | 26/02/10

One rule for us, another rule for them.

Clementine says:

01:24pm | 26/02/10

Ah but Voltaire, I never said he shouldn’t be allowed to express his views. I didn’t call for him to be strung up in the stocks and pelted with tomatoes. I simply expressed my view that his views are archaic, unreasonable and small minded. I would say, based on your argument, that I’ve fallen exactly in line with what you’re advocating.

Trevor Grace on the other hand has taken it upon himself to speak for all women who’ve had abortions when he says that everyone woman who has an abortion regrets it. Well, he didn’t seek my opinion on that. Because I have, and I don’t.

Aren’t you trying to curb my views here by telling me what I should ‘know better’ than to say? Methinks you need to turn your crude moral compass a little inward..

Voltaire says:

01:56pm | 26/02/10

No, Clementine, I am not saying you should not express your opinion. I am encouraging both yourself and whatshisface to express yours.

But the implication from the first para of your 9:13am reply is that you don’t seem to tolerate his views or his right to express them.

Or is hiding behind a passive-aggressive facade a deliberate attempt to obfuscate your meaning?

Hopefully, this weak device is something I rarely employ as I am often called blunt, direct, abrupt and to-the-point. Of course, I can have my bad days

James says:

04:02pm | 26/02/10

To be practical, on the issue of abortion there is not two sides voicing equally valid opinions that differ from each other.  While those espousing a pro-choice opinion would not prevent people who disagree from choosing whatever they feel to be ethical and correct, those espousing an anti-abortion position would - at any opportunity - prevent those who disagree from doing what they feel is ethical and correct. 

Thus, while this Grace fellow has every right to voice his opinion, if acted upon his opinion would in fact rob people of the chance to do what they see as being right and correct.  A pro-choice person seeks to do no such thing - those who do not choose abortion are still free to make their choices.  Thus, in reality, the opinion expressed by Clementine is in a different category to that expressed by Grace.

DZR says:

04:17pm | 26/02/10

Voltaire, do your “bad days” include frequent bouts of dizziness and ad hominem ad nauseum? There’s a pill for that-

Gwen says:

01:36pm | 01/03/10

Just in regards to the Australian adoption issue, that’s very complex and has a whole lot of issues of its own- it’s incredibly expensive, and so many Australian unwanted children are never eligible for adoption and remain in transient foster care until adulthood- Australia has a HUGE focus on reunifying children with parents who often just cannot be bothered.

Anna says:

10:43am | 26/02/10

What data do you base that on? I know several women who regret having children and several who say that having an abortion was the best decision for them and they don’t regret it.

James says:

11:26am | 26/02/10

Indeed Anna.  Just another example of why this is not a clear cut, black and white kind of issue.

ej says:

11:51am | 26/02/10

Really? And I suppose you have spoken to every woman who has had a child and every woman who has had an abortion?

I had an abortion and I don’t regret it for a second. As soon as I peed on a stick and saw the double lines, I called the clinic to make my appointment. It was not at all an agonising decision, but a decision that my husband and I had discussed and agreed upon many years before.

It was a completely logical and rational decision not some fraught, hysterical, painful decision. Believe it or not women are capable of making logical and rational decisions. We are capable of making our own choices.

And I am not now some mad woman, locked in the attic, gnashing my teeth and tearing my hair out in despair. I am a perfectly happy, capable, well-adjusted normal person. And nor am I baby hater. My husband and I are planning on trying for a baby next year. A planned one. One that we can afford. Because not only are we logical, rational folk, we are also practical too.

So Yuty, you are very wrong. Not every woman who has an abortion regrets it. Sorry.

Yuty says:

01:50pm | 26/02/10

To Anna,

“I know several women who regret having children” - do they tell their children they regret them being alive? Sounds like these women are the worst kind of evil that can exist. Funny thing is the leftists call ‘wishing your children weren’t alive’ Progress.

DG says:

04:15pm | 26/02/10

Its one thing to make a statement such as “No woman regrets having a child, every woman who has an abortion regrets it” if you genuinely believe it to be true.

The worst in the world are those who make such statements yet, when faced with evidence to the contrary, refuse to revoke their statement or correct the record. Instead they attack those who point out their errors.

Actually after re reading your first statement (09:52am | 26/02/10) I’m not sure which way you are leaning - your first paragraph suggests that you are “pro life” the second seems to be an admission that being “pro life” is about telling other women what to do with their own bodies.

Either you are saying “Everyone should do what I think is right - they should have no choice of their own” or you are of two minds.

Which is it?

LP says:

11:46am | 26/02/10

I’ve submitted the site to the ACMA for review

Rebekka says:

11:42am | 01/03/10

Zeta, that is the most witty thing I have read in a long time.

JC says:

12:56am | 02/03/10

Love your work, LP. Maybe it might disappear in Conroy’s black bag black list.

Video Dude says:

03:40pm | 26/02/10

Yes I think I have those videos too….. They all look ike they are having fun and exercising their choose of being there or not!..... Somehow they are choosing not to go

Clementine says:

01:29pm | 26/02/10

Sorry, I had assumed that The Punch was a national site for all states. I didn’t realise we were only allowed to discuss Sydney and Melbourne here..but hey, thanks for clarifying!

LP says:

11:53am | 26/02/10

“it seems that some of those who oppose abortions also oppose safe sex education”
In my experience it is the opposite. Generally those opposing abortion are the same ones who think the best kind of sex education is to teach abstinence. Sex education is inherently evil in and of itself.

Kim says:

03:40pm | 26/02/10

I would assume you’re quoting the Catholic Church here.  My sister, who married a catholic, had to join her husbands church.  It seems that the Catholic Church abhors safe sex.  After my sisters third child she was told that if she fell pregnant again, she would more than likely lose the child and also her own life and was urged to have a hysterectomy.  The Catholic Church denied her the right to have a hysterectomy.  She was told that it was her *duty* to both her husband and god to have more children.  Of course, everyone knows that if there’s a choice between saving a child and saving the childs mother that the Church will always save the child?  My sister fell pregnant with her 4th child.  Luckily for her she had a wonderful doctor who managed to save both her and her beautiful daughter even though the child was born 4 months early and weighed half a pound.  He then performed the hysterectomy immediately following childbirth.  Needless to say, neither my sister or her husband have been allowed back into the church.

Clementine says:

01:39pm | 26/02/10

Ah well, can’t win them all! 

DG says:

05:00pm | 26/02/10

Formersnag:

I know this was aimed at Clementine But I’ll have a stab at this.

To begin, I would like to point out the difference between killing an independently viable entity and a non-viable entity. An entity that does not have lungs with which to breathe the air would expire within minutes. It is clearly non-viable. Further that entity is incapable of digesting the nutrients it needs to live, it is incapable of transporting oxygenated blood around its own entity and has no capacity for life (beyond a few moments) without an external source. Compare this to a living breathing entity that is generally capable of existing and living on it’s own.

We see the same issue going “backwards” if you will. An entity that has ceased to be able to operate as a viable entity has the ventilator and heart/lung machine turned off and is allowed to expire. The test is always the viability of the entity.

So to address your first point - the punishment for murdering a pregnant woman should, if the foetus is sufficiently advanced in its development (i.e would, on the balance of probability, be viable outside of the womb if removed at a hospital in the appropriate conditions on the day of the murder) be considered a double homicide.

For that reason I would suggest that mandatory euthanasia is substantially different to removing the sustenance from a non-viable being. Life begins when the entity is ‘viable’ in it’s own right (i.e capable of breathing, maintaining the integrity of it’s own cardio-vascular processes and digesting nutrients) and ends when it ceases to be viable.

Having said the above, I believe that a person should be sovereign controller of the entities that exist within, or protrude from, the epidermis. This includes all manner of parasites, infections, diseases and other biological processes. Euthanasia, chemotherapy, extractions and other removals are all about controlling and or removing biological processes within a sovereign individual. Whether it be getting ones stomach stabled, liposuction,  botox, antibiotics or the pill -  the individual should have the right to affect their own biological processes as they so choose.

formersnag says:

05:49pm | 26/02/10

DG, assuming both father & mother are reasonably healthy, then the foetus is always viable, if left in the womb. Death can occur either naturally or unnaturally at any time between conception & birth or after birth.

Loony, left, radical, extremist, lesbian, feman-nazi paedophiles cannot have it both ways. IF they believe a criminal who kills/assaults a pregnant woman, aborting the foetus in the process, is guilty of murder, then all abortion of developing babies is murder. If a man does not have “the right to use his body to kill a foetus” then why should a woman have that right?

If a young man considers himself to be, “unready for fatherhood” & wants his girlfriend to abort, but she insists on keeping the baby. Can he opt out of child support payments, by showing the CSA an affidavit that he asked her to abort within the 12 week period?

DG says:

12:11am | 28/02/10

My response related only to the distinction between abortion and involuntary euthanasia. I did not attempt to address the rights of the host over the rights of a process within that host as I did not consider it necessary in drawing the distinction. 

While I agree that the foetus may remain viable so long as it remains within the host - as you’ll see from the following I consider the rights of the host superior to those of any of the biological processes within that host. (I hinted as much in my earlier message where I said “I believe that a person should be sovereign controller of the entities that exist within, or protrude from, the epidermis”).

I’ve addressed the first part further down in my response to Eric. Simply put the rights of the host are superior to those of any biological process happening within that host. The rights of those biological processes may be superior to those of third parties (such as the biological father or the drunk driver that runs over the pregnant woman), while remaining inferior to those of the host.

As to the issue of child support - I’m not sure as to the relevance of this to a discussion about the rights of a host person as opposed to the rights of any entity within that host person,

However I will attempt to refer to this with regard to the points I have raised below.

A person has rights over themselves. If they have contributed to a reaction inside another person whether it be hemorrhaging or pregnancy they are responsible for the consequences of that action.

Now, there is an exception. Where the other person does something to end that reaction within their own body, the first person may be absolved of any wrong doing (and liable only for the reaction that happens). I.e stabbing someone. If they do something to stop the effect of that would (such as getting medical treatment) the first person is only guilty of assault rather than murder (which would have been the case had the person died from their injuries).

So to that end -  a person is responsible for any change in biological processes that they cause in another person. If that other person ceases the biological process (within their own body) then the liability of that first person may be waived or reduced.

A person’s responsibility can not be waived simply by asking the other person to cease a biological process within their own body. That other person has the rights over their own body and the biological processes within it and that first person remains responsible for causing that reaction in the other person.

However, as an aside, I do believe that couples should be able to “agree” before hand that, in the event of a pregnancy the ‘host’ will terminate the pregnancy or, if they fail to do so, absolve the other person will be absolved from responsibility for that ongoing biological process.

Do you still suggest that there is an inconsistency?

Elizabeth says:

06:14pm | 26/02/10

Exactly right Scub!! And women are so untrustworthy with children we should steralize them all to make sure we don’t have to worry about children ever again. Since Tony Abbott want to bring back the death penalty we should ask that he kill all women just to be certain we have get rid of their menace

Bruce says:

08:01pm | 26/02/10

That is a way cool idea. In Utah USA,  A new law makes it possible that a woman who has had a miscarriage will have to a police interrogation to make sure she wasn’t a sneaky liar that just did it on purpose. I bet Tony wishes he thought of that first.

DG says:

11:47pm | 27/02/10

I would agree with you on that.
Personally, I am of the opinion that life begins when the entity is viable without being dependent on a host.

But at the same time I would not purport to impose my view on others.

To that end I would also draw a distinction between an action taken by one person towards a another person external to the first person and an action taken against an entity within the epidermis of that first person.

The outcome being as follows:

A person has absolute right with respect to the cessation of any and all biological processes occurring within that person.

Subservient to the rights of the first person, but actionable against any other person, are the rights of the biological processes within that first person. Including any biological processes occurring within that person that may be viable outside of that person.

Therefore, a foetus has rights against persons other than the host. And the Host has rights over itself and a a right over the foetus *with no obligation to act in the best interest of the foetus”.

Any medical procedure carried out on the “host” with the consent of the host would be legal on the grounds that the rights of the host take priority over those of the dependent entity. Meanwhile action against the host, without the consent of the host, that harms the subservient entity is actionable - as the external party does not have the rights of the host.

Eric says:

10:16am | 28/02/10

If you’re against theft, then don’t steal! If you’re against murder, then don’t murder! Simple, isn’t it?

DG says:

12:09pm | 28/02/10

I’ve got to agree with Eric here - the vast majority of the law is telling people that they are not allowed to behave in a certain manner. Even property law, which is primarily about ownership, really comes down to determining who owns something to apply the rule: If you don’t own it, don’t touch it.

As I said above - there is cause and effect. However, as cause and effect is deemed insufficient for a complex society such as the one in which we all live the community elects people to make additional rules about what people are, or are not, allowed to do. The law creates additional “effects” for certain actions.

The “If you don’t like it, don’t do it” theory doesn’t really get us very far. Regrettably it comes across as a rather primitive “I should be able to do whatever I want” argument. To be effective I think that it needs to be expressed in the context of competing rights rather than one of absolute self determination (which, if applied to everyone, creates anarchy).

Sim says:

11:06pm | 28/03/10

Sean,

I think you’re attempting to put words into my mouth and manipulate me into feeling guilty for having thoughts of my own that have not been pumped into me by religious institutions. I never said that I thought it was okay that people were taking the posters down, so why don’t you try reading what has actually been written rather than turning me into something I am not. To tell you the truth it would be a waste of my time to write a ridiculously long response to the bullshit you wrote above. I think it’s a little bit sad that you wasted so much time attempting to make me out to be an idiot. So “with all due respect”, don’t address me directly again.