A response: (Unborn) Human Rights 101

Tim Cannon says:

12:36pm | 23/02/11

“The question is whether their right to life should legitimately be at the expense of someone else’s quality of life.”

Ending slavery compromised lots of slave owners’ and slave traders’ “quality of life”.

sarah says:

12:58pm | 23/02/11

Thats a horrible thing to make someone compromise their right to life in order for someone to get a better quality of life. It reminds me of that American woman who killed her two kids in that lake because they ‘hindered her quality of life’. And secondly, carrying a child until birth and than putting up for adoption will do very little to hinder your life. In fact, it will greatly boost someone else’s.
GOOD REBUTTAL TIM - this is why I am pro life because of the scientific evidence.

L. says:

01:08pm | 23/02/11

“Ending slavery compromised lots of slave owners’ and slave traders’ “quality of life”. “

That’s a pretty piss weak response to Jade’s retort to your article. If you’re going to reply, could you at least address what Jade specifically said..?

bael says:

01:18pm | 23/02/11

@Tim. The comparision of abortion to slavery is a poor one. Slavery was about the theft of liberty from the “born.” We are talking about the developing unborn human life form.
I am aware of the issue and the science is not black and white. I myself was faced with this choice 6 years ago, an unwanted pregnancy. However we made the choice to keep her and I have a wonderfull child and the thought of her not existing is horrible. However that was our choice and I think it needs to remain a choice.
Many people fall pregnant for many reason and under many different circumstances abortion is the best of a bad lot of options. I fear that legislation that reduces choice and ties the hands of those who know best, the mother and the doctor is going to increase the amount of suffering in the world.
In the end I think the focus should be and end of suffering, in early term abortions the lifeform is abject and never knows just like natural miscarriges. However late term abortions are a complicated issues and then it is up too the doctors and the poor mothers not politcians to decide the best course of action.
I really jut want people to look at this issue with an open and compassionate minds. I wish every baby was wanted and born healthy, but that is not the way of this world. Please show love.

Leah says:

01:29pm | 23/02/11

No Tim, It didn’t affect the quality of their life, it affected the quality of their bank accounts.

Not the quality of their mental health, their physical wellbeing and their emotional well being.

It is incredibly offensive that you compare a woman continuing with an unwanted pregnancy to the emancipation of slaves.

It’s not a victory for the rights of the ‘baby.’

The baby won’t realise that it hasn’t been born.

If it is born it may have to grow up with the stigma of having been born to a single mother or to a mother without a support network or growing up in poverty or growing up to an immature mother who is unable to look after herself let alone a child.

I could continue but I shall leave it here.

Doesn’t every child have the RIGHT to grow up safe and wanted?

Faz says:

01:41pm | 23/02/11

@ Tim

‘That my right to life if you are the only person with an available matched kidney does not trump your right to your kidney.’

You didn’t address this point, Tim.

Leah says:

01:49pm | 23/02/11

Sorry, I did not mean to cause any offence to Single Mothers out there doing great things for their babies.

I meant to say “it may have to grow up with the stigma of having been born to a single mother without a support network.”

I just got a bit passionate and didn’t proof read before hitting ‘Submit.’

Jade says:

02:25pm | 23/02/11

@L and Faz,

I actually sent a comment asking Tim to respond to this. Notice it hasn’t been printed…truly not surprised.

Tubesteak says:

02:57pm | 23/02/11

Jade is almost at the heart of it.

What we have here is one side interferign with the choice of another based on their unfounded belief system that a few cells is the equivalent of life or a foetus that can’t sustain it’s own life is alive.

You are entitled to your beliefs but you are not entitled to force them on others.

No side is right or wrong in this debate but each side should be free to live their life as they choose.

Likes Joining Dots says:

03:27pm | 23/02/11

@Jade

‘That my right to life if you are the only person with an available matched kidney does not trump your right to your kidney. Even when you are a corpse.’

Like you and Faz, I’m still keen to hear the full response from Tim on this point.

sylvie says:

03:34pm | 23/02/11

Apples vs. Oranges. Slave Trade vs. Abortion. Really? Then I’ve just won the debate with this excerpt from legally blonde
Elle: I have to wonder if the defendant… kept a thorough record of every sperm emission… made throughout his life.
Professor:  Interesting. Why do you ask?
Elle: Unless the defendant attempted to contact… every single one-night stand to determine… if a child resulted in those unions… he has no parental claim over this child whatsoever. Why now? Why this sperm?
Professor: I see your point.
Elle: And for that matter, all masturbatory emissions… where his sperm was clearly not seeking an egg… could be termed reckless abandonment.

That said, it comes down to choice, studies show that when abortion and contraceptives are made available legally maternal mortality rates decrease.
Look at the goals of the WHO
“Some 215 million women who would prefer to delay or avoid pregnancy still lack access to safe and effective contraception. It is estimated that satisfying the unmet need for family planning alone could cut the number of maternal deaths by almost a third.

The UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health aims to prevent 33 million unwanted pregnancies between 2011 and 2015 and to save the lives of women who are at risk of dying of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, including unsafe abortion.”
http://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_goals/maternal_health/en/
Millenium Development Goals

Jade says:

03:42pm | 23/02/11

Tim, I will ask you again, do you believe that one human being should be strapped to a table and forced to give up a kidney, or a liver, to be donated to someone who will surely die without it? How about forced blood donations? You in favour of those?

By seeking to keep abortion criminalised, you are in essence condemning women to be life-support machines for another human being, without their consent. You are giving rights to some humans that the rest of us don’t have.

LMS says:

04:29pm | 23/02/11

The problem is Jade that there is no special relationship between you and Tim that would warrant your request for his kidney. Such a special relationship involving duty does exist between a mother and her foetus / child: it is through her actions that the foetus / child was brought into existence. Excluding the less contentious rape-cases from the discussion, the foetus / child did not march into the woman’s uterus demanding shelter, so the parallel to forcible kidney donation does not hold up.

Do we have a right to life? Yes. Do we have a right to a quality of life? Well, what exactly does that mean? Does it mean a right to a perfectly comfortable life? In that case the answer would be no. Do women also have the option of adopting their children out after giving birth to them? Yes. It seems that, in such cases, where there is a special relationship of duty between mother and foetus / child, and the woman’s quality of life is not destroyed by being forced to raise a child she does not want, as this is not the only option, that right to life does indeed outweigh any rights to a certain quality of life.

Adam Diver says:

04:31pm | 23/02/11

@ Tubesteak

“No side is right or wrong in this debate but each side should be free to live their life as they choose”

The breath-taking ignorance of comments such as these are a concern. Its irrelevant which side you are on, but if someone believes (and has a sensible argument to support it) that at point X cells become a human being, how can you honestly expect them to reamin silent whilst others are murdering children (in thier eyes).

Also the issue with stupid analogies is they do not compare apples with apples. Jades stupid analogy does not take into consideration that the individual needing a kidney was not created by the individual denying them. As well as that being pregnant is hardly a quality of life issue (with exceptions).

The whole slavery argument is equally poor. If you make an argument set some parameters, starting by when a child in the womb is a baby with human rights.

LMS says:

04:41pm | 23/02/11

Leah:
You say that the child wouldn’t even realise that it hadn’t been born, so that it can hardly be an issue of the child’s rights. If the quality required for a right to life, or for qualifying as a person, is consciousness, would you also argue that an adult in a persistent non-responsive state, or an adult with severe mental disabilities, has to right to be kept alive?

Furthermore, you say that it’s not a question of a child’s rights, and a that child in utero cannot have a right to life. But then how can you also say that it can it have a lesser right like the right to grow up safe and wanted? So abortion both is and isn’t a question of rights? It seems that the only condition is whether or not the foetus is wanted, which shifts the debate significantly.

Horald says:

09:52pm | 23/02/11

Adam Diver
Tubesteak’s statement wasn’t ignorant at all.

If someone believes a few cells equals life then it’s just their belief. I don’t belive that. That person has no right to force their beliefs onto others.

If they want to choose to keep the baby and never have abortions then they can. But they con’t go around focing choices on other people.

If so, then I should be able to force everyone to vote for Labor because I believe the Liberals are heartless, soulless vermin only out to exploit people for profit and they turned our society into an economy.

Jade says:

09:31am | 24/02/11

LMS - The special relationship which you believe exists between a mother and child is an example of the emotive arguments which forever cloud the debate. In biological terms, there is no duty between the host (mother) and the dependent clump of cells growing within her (child). The child will die without the use of the mother’s womb, it is true. But there is as much obligation on the mother to provide her womb for this developing human as there is on Tim to provide his kidney to me.

Both you and AdamDiver fall into the trap of assuming that a woman consenting to sex is a woman consenting to pregnancy. This is false. AdamDiver states that being pregnant is not a quality of life issue. It most certainly is. Pregnancy exerts a severe toll on the human body. It means that for many women, they will experience diabetes, severe sinus problems, kidney problems, high blood pressure, heart problems, and potentially death. They may also have to quit their job, and pay hefty medical bills. You have absolutely no right to assert that another human being has the right to endanger someone’s life to live.

You further state that in the case of pregnancy the child was brought into being by the mother. This is also false. The child was created as a result of the actions of two people. However, one bears all the physical danger and cost. That person is the one who decides whether the risk is worth the gain.

Jade says:

10:05am | 24/02/11

Furthermore LMS and AdamDiver…we do not force women to contribute organs to their dying offspring. We expect that a mother will do this if she is able, but there is no law compelling her to do so. Therefore the argument that a mother has a special duty because the child happens to be inside her womb is void. What makes the womb a more special organ than a kidney or a liver?

Susan says:

10:47am | 24/02/11

@ Tubesteak “You are entitled to your beliefs but you are not entitled to force them on others.” - isn’t that what you are doing when you abort an unplanned pregnancy - forcing your beliefs onto someone else?

Al says:

12:59pm | 24/02/11

The whole argument is this thread is pathetic.

To those who are claiming that the person having the kidney forcibly removed wasn’t responsible for the others birth is pathetic.

How about this situation:
A MOTHER has the ONLY compatible kidney for her dying child, but has a number of health conditions which make it likely she would suffer complications if removed, should she be forced to give up her right to her kidney so the child can live just because she gave birth to it?
I don’t think so!

Mike says:

02:59pm | 24/02/11

@Al: You’re right that the kidney analogy is poor, but not for the reason you suggest. Your extreme scenario can only be seen as an analogy in a minority of abortion scenarios.

A more accurate analogy in most cases would be something like: A Mother, in a consentual (and pleasurable) act with another person, has caused unintentional damage to the kidney of her child, who is dying as a result. She has the only compatible kidney and is asked to lend it to her child for nine months, by which time the child will be able to survive without it and the woman can then have it back. There is no known threat to the mother’s health of this procedure, but she is worried about the inconvenience it would cause her.

Should she be forced to go through the inconvenience? Who knows? But what is right? That should be pretty obvious in a “civilised” society.

Francesca says:

06:03pm | 24/02/11

Are you really trying to say that you wouldnt sacrifice nine months of sore feet, bulging belly and morning sickness so that another human being could live it’s life?! I am no expert in these matters but that is possibly one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard…
You know what..you are right. I have a little sister who is 13 years old, she steals my food, wakes me up early in the morning and takes away money from my parents that could be spent on me…gosh, she is reducing my quality of life, I guess, by your reasoning, I can kill her.
Besides of which, your kidney analogy falls flat, the woman is not going to die by giving birth to her baby.

trentyn says:

08:13am | 25/02/11

@Jade (OP)

Try toeing that line with anyone who has served our country at war.

Carly says:

09:33am | 27/02/11

” If they want to choose to keep the baby and never have abortions then they can. But they con’t go around focing choices on other people.”

Well said!

For myself, I am pro-choice and I would never presume to advocate abortion to anyone else but it is my right. I am always careful to use contraception but should contraception fail, I am entitled to the right to choose whether I have an abortion or not.
If another person wishes to extract the foetus, has the technology to keep it alive, and agrees to accept all financial and parental responsibility, they can have it with my support. But if not, then they can respect my choice and be silent.

To all of those people who argue for an unborn child’s right to life; have a look at the life some of the children out there suffer through. Some of the most horrific parents destroy children’s lives or teach them the worst possible life lessons and governments don’t have the money to step in and act.

Put as much time arguing for children’s welfare (and put your money where your mouth is) as you do arguing against abortion, and you’ll have an unbelievable effect. Before you argue for a right to live, I say all children should have the right to live in a safe, happy, loving home environment. Don’t get ahead of yourself.

LMS says:

12:22pm | 27/02/11

Jade: would you also say that a mother has no duty to her 10 year old child?

Henrietta says:

05:04pm | 28/02/11

@Carly,

The ‘if you’re against abortion, don’t have one…but don’t deny me my *right* to have one’ simply doesn’t stack up.

What if I said to you, If you’re against killing animals for fur coats, don’t. But don’t deny me the right to kill animals for fur?

Tim Cannon says:

12:39pm | 23/02/11

But isn’t the whole point of universal human rights that we are bound to respect them?

Tedd says:

01:07pm | 23/02/11

Tim,

So, you acknowledge the rights of a woman to determine?

Article 1 of the UN’s UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Seems ‘born’ is a key point about being a human child and even being a human baby.

Article 4: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms”

Arguments about life beginning at conception ignore the fact that conception is continuation of life by virtue of a living sperm and a living ovum (egg) conjoining.  A few million same-ejaculate living sperm are condemned to death without pro-life concern.

Moreover, your particular argument about conception above is essentially just an argument from authority and using the likes of Justin Bieber undermines such claims of authority, particularly when there are claims he was misquoted -

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/justin-bieber-was-misquoted-on-abortion-rape-source-says/story-e6frf7jx-1226009795192

Another key point ignore by pro-lifers is viability of the foetus outside the uterus - not until about 23-24 weeks - as a determinant of independence.

L. says:

01:16pm | 23/02/11

“But isn’t the whole point of universal human rights that we are bound to respect them?”

Article 1. of the Declaration of Human Rights:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Born… If you are not born, you have no rights.

Sam says:

03:22pm | 23/02/11

Is it manslaughter to punch a pregnant woman in the stomach and cause her to miscarry?

Sam says:

03:22pm | 23/02/11

Is it manslaughter to punch a pregnant woman in the stomach and cause her to miscarry?

VickiPS says:

03:36pm | 23/02/11

Exactly, Lola.

@ Tim:  If you insist that pre-viable foetuses are encompassed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then the next step is logically straightfoward :  Here’s the foetus, I’ve set it free, you go ahead and incubate it.

Elphaba says:

03:59pm | 23/02/11

@Sam - I think if the foetus is viable outside the womb and dies as a result of an assault, it’s grevious bodily harm against the mother.

James Leach says:

04:14pm | 23/02/11

Anyone who claims that the United Nations charter of universal human rights justifies abortion is either being dishonest or is just plain ignorant.

The first problem with the above arguments is that they misunderstand article one of the charter. Article one is saying that when children are born they already have these inalienable rights. It is not saying that the unborn do not have these rights nor is it saying that birth is a condition of receiving them.

The second problem is that all the objectors have left out other important segments of the charter which contradict their view. for example in the preamble the charter states that it recognizes the “inalienable rights of all members of the human family”. This means that not only can theses rights not be taken away but that they are given to all human beings without condition. This means that any claim that a certain member of of species is too young or too mentally disabled to qualify for basic human rights is in direct contravention of the charter. 

When you take this in conjunction with Article 3 which says “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”. It is clear that those who use the charter as a vehicle to push a Pro-abortion agenda are being grossly inconsistent.

Erin says:

05:24pm | 23/02/11

@Sam
In the eyes of the law, no it is not. It is a horrible thing to do though, akin to coerced abortion. Surely you can understand the difference between someone interacting with their own body and someone else interacting with it. If a woman wants to have an abortion that should absolutly be her choice and noone else’s. It is also her choice if she wants to carry it to term.

Voxpop says:

09:58am | 24/02/11

James Leach “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”.
Yes and it is the woman’s rights that trump the unborn in this case.  You have to first take away the woman’s human rights of which these words you’ve quoted hold significant value.
Being forced to go through with an unwanted pregnancy as the anti-choice* crowd would have it is in fact akin to slavery.
* I refuse to call these people pro-life while their members show no regard for the living that are forced to make these decisions and the fact that many in their number have murdered pro-choice advocates.

Direct says:

03:15pm | 25/02/11

Voxpop, unless the mother dies from giving birth to the child, I can’t see how her human right to life is being taken away. If you think that your right to liberty trumps the child’s right to life, then you are effectively supporting the right for men to kill any woman they have impregnated.

iMitchy says:

02:15pm | 23/02/11

Thank you James1,
I was trying to push that point yesterday but had no takers whatsoever.
I respect you and anyone who doesn’t push their view onto others.
So you are not Anti-choice, the same way Pro-choicers are not Anti-life.
But I think you are the only one.
Pro-choicers like myself are not pushing anything onto anyone and it doesn’t affect anyone but ourselves. We would just like to continue to have the legal permission to hold our view and receive the same courtesy in return. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Pro-lifers are advocates for taking away the right for others to choose the circumstances of their own lives - kinda like the way slave traders took away the right of slaves to choose the circumstances of their lives - just to keep on topic here…
I’m not sure what to make of your opening sentence. Are you saying that you believe in creation and therefore cannot take their opinion on abortion to be reliable or that creationists with strong pro-life points of view cannot use the evidence supplied by evolutionists because it would be hypocritical?

James1 says:

09:23am | 24/02/11

On my first line - I’m just attempting to have a bit of fun. 

However, I would have liked to hear the author’s thoughts on it. Given that the basis of biology is evolution, and that nothing makes sense in biology without it, I would have been interested to see if the fact that the experts set out in their investigations with the assumption that evolution is in fact real affected the author’s views on their conclusions regarding life in the womb.

For the record, I am a firm believer in evolution.

Tim Cannon says:

10:42am | 24/02/11

James1: yes, they are still experts.

This may surprise you, but my religious faith - Roman Catholicism - is absolutely no impediment to my being capable of accepting scientific evidence on its merits.

And believe it or not, that’s the stock-standard Catholic position:
http://catholicism.about.com/b/2007/08/04/evolution-and-catholicism-compatible-pope-says.htm

Uncle Bob says:

12:34pm | 23/02/11

@Shane At some point during the pregnancy the foetus develops sentience or self awareness. At that point it has its own separate consciousness, quite unlike an organ such as a liver or kidneys etc.

Shane From Melbourne says:

01:16pm | 23/02/11

@Uncle Bob- The OP is arguing that it is separate from the moment of conception. Nothing in the piece about it being a separate individual from the moment of sentience and self awareness which is different criteria

iMitchy says:

02:33pm | 23/02/11

@Uncle Bob,
I think almost all Pro-choicers would have an issue with late term abortion with the distinct exception of a severly disabled fetus’ or serious risk to the health of the mother. As a pro-lifer (and this is not accusational or rhetorical) what is your stance of the human rights of the unborn child in these two scenarios even at the later stage where detection is possible?

Samuel says:

03:01pm | 23/02/11

A fetus is genetically and biologically distinct from the mother at the moment of conception. It is, scientifically speaking, seperate from the mother.

Tubesteak says:

03:13pm | 23/02/11

Uncle Bob
Humans don’t develop self-awareness until they are toddlers. Hold a mirror up to a baby and it thinks it is looking at another baby. It does not recognise itself. This is similar to many of the Great Apes (chimpanzees, gorillas) that only develop self-awareness after they are a few years old.

MrMac says:

03:35pm | 23/02/11

Samuel,

it is not separate form the mother “scientifically-speaking”; science would say it is attached by a vital support system - the placenta.

sylvie says:

03:43pm | 23/02/11

@Samuel, and yet it can not exist outside the mother, what do we call a seperate organism in a host body?
Dictionary.com offers this definitions of a parasite
1.  an animal or plant that lives in or on another (the host) from which it obtains nourishment. The host does not benefit from the association and is often harmed by it
Could I then define a foetus as a parasite?

Uncle Bob says:

03:57pm | 23/02/11

@iMitchy For the record, I am an atheist and pro-life (Yes we exist). If there is serious risk to the life of the mother - and/or the foetus is found to have deformities that are extremely severe -  then abortion is, in some cases, justified imo. What I object to is the blasé attitude of the left to abortion as an alternative to contraception. It’s not just a “women’s issue”. It’s a human rights issue.

Also the legalization of abortion up to term in Victoria has the potential for gross abuse -and its happening already.  See: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/aborted-babies-being-left-to-die-20101006-167u0.html

Uncle Bob says:

04:08pm | 23/02/11

@Tubesteak Are you saying that, because babies can’t recognize themselves in the mirror, it means we should have the right to kill them as well if it’s a woman’s choice? You try telling my 9 month old that he’s not self-aware and he’ll probably end up poking you in the eye.

persephone says:

04:38pm | 23/02/11

Uncle Bob

one person (who obviously has a barrow to push) claiming things are happening and quoting other unnamed people who apparently told him they were (but strangely didn’t actually give the information to someone who could actually do something about it) is not evidence of anything, other than that one person’s determination to overturn the abortion laws.

iMitchy says:

04:45pm | 23/02/11

@Uncle Bob,
I don’t think it has anything to do with religion and I wouldn’t make those assumptions. But my point is that if you and I both think it is okay to terminate at the late stages even after they have developed self awareness (as you believe, I am on the fence about this one but I certainly think that pain is perceivable), then how can one of us be against terminating an unwanted embryo before any kind of awareness is possible?
I think it would be disgusting for anyone to use abortion as a contraceptive but we cannot let the actions of idiot minorities be the basis for the creation of laws that affect the decent majority, and unfortunately there will always be idiots everywhere who will abuse human rights regardless of the law. In any case, do you think a baby deserves to be parented by such a person?

Evewasframed says:

10:30pm | 23/02/11

@ Uncle Bob, in my many discussions with many women who have had abortions, not one of them has EVER referred to abortion as a form of contraception. In fact, most of these women had been using some form of contraception and for one reason or another it had failed, placing them in the very difficult situation of assessing whether they are in a position to continue with a pregnancy or not. Don’t have such little respect for these women. Abortion is never an easy decision, but you should have some respect for the depth of thought and emotion that goes into making any choice around an unplanned pregnancy. I find your naivety offensive.

Direct says:

03:26pm | 25/02/11

@iMitchy, you say “but we cannot let the actions of idiot minorities be the basis for the creation of laws that affect the decent majority” but the reality is this happens all the time. Road safety for instance. The decent majority has the common sense to be able to drive at appropriate speeds for conditions, yet we have hard and fast penalties for breaking speed limits which are set at levels for idiot minorities.

@Evewasframed, irrespective of how much thought and emotion was involved in the decision, the stark reality in the case you’ve highlighted is the abortion was one of convenience. This is one of the aspects of the current abortion climate I find abhorrent.

iMitchy says:

03:35pm | 28/02/11

@Direct,
Speed limits are in place for safety and will be altered due to criteria such as average amount of traffic, road surface, surroundings, history of accidents etc.
We have not outlawed driving altogether, rather, we have made the roads a safer and healthier place to be able to drive, should we ever need to.

Tommy says:

03:29pm | 23/02/11

Agree brother Bob - maybe the Punchers aren’t such a bad lot.

How many punchers does it take to change a light bulb? None, cause they already seen the light

Bilby says:

06:58pm | 23/02/11

Maybe Tommy, but we’ll argue the meaning of that light till we explode in a brilliant supernova of contradictions and hyperbole, the shock wave of which will be felt around the world

Uncle Bob says:

07:59pm | 23/02/11

@iMitchy I think we found the critical fork in the road at which our opinions divert when you said “...we cannot let the actions of idiot minorities be the basis for the creation of laws that affect the decent majority”. Although I agree in principle with this idea - it’s not, unfortunately, reflected in the stats which tell us that 90,000 abortions are occurring annually in Australia. That’s enough aborted babies to fill the MCG.

I can’t speak for other states but I know that, in Victoria at least, the abortion laws have been hijacked by the far left and this has led to a lot of innocent young lives being mercilessly snuffed out. What’s hard to believe is that the current Liberal regime also backs the current laws that legalize abortion up until term if 2 doctors agree to it. Yes - you read that correctly. You can legally get an abortion in Victoria at any stage of pregnancy. What’s more the parliament voted against administering any pain relief to babies born alive after an abortion. If that’s what they call ‘progressive’ these days then I am definitely a conservative and proud to be so.

iMitchy says:

01:07pm | 24/02/11

That is a large number, but what number would we find acceptable?
Lifers and choicers alike would rather see a rate of zero but the best we can do is try to minimise that rate.
I think we would need to see a break down of the abortion statistics state by state, and then compare that to the states’ statistics of total unwanted pregnancies, child abuse, poverty rate, single mothers on welfare, age comparisons etc. to see which laws seem to be working the best to minimise abortion without creating negative knock on effects.
We must use that lamppost like a sober person my friend.

progressivesunite says:

12:57pm | 23/02/11

ahem - it’s not just women who make this decision you know….

Markus says:

02:19pm | 23/02/11

@progessivesunite, I think you will find that from a legal standpoint it IS just women who make this decision.
Men have no legal rights in this regard.

HappyCynic says:

02:26pm | 23/02/11

“Unfortunately, the unborn are powerless and voiceless”

Not just powerless and voiceless but without sentience.  When life begins isn’t in question here I think the question regarding any limitations on abortion should not be “when does life begin?” because that’s over-simplistic but “when does living tissue inside a mothers womb become a separate human?”

I think that is a much more interesting question and one that doesn’t seem to have any scientific consensus.  Until it does it should be up to the mother’s judgement and anyone she sees fit to include, not anyone elses.

Also @Tim Cannon - the term pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion.

Conservatives Unite! (AdamC) says:

02:38pm | 23/02/11

Well, in our system it the mother’s call ultimately. Partners, family, friends, counsellers etc may influence that decision, of course.

AdamC says:

03:30pm | 23/02/11

“Not just powerless and voiceless but without sentience.  When life begins isn’t in question here I think the question regarding any limitations on abortion should not be “when does life begin?” because that’s over-simplistic but “when does living tissue inside a mothers womb become a separate human?”

I disagree. You are just trying to rationalise away the denial of life to dismiss the gravity of the action.

Abortion is the act of denying an otherwise viable foetus the ability to be born and live. I cannot think of another instance in our society where someone has that power over another. It doesn’t really matter at what point in the foetus’ development that the decision to deny life is made, because it is actually the future of the foetus that is being taken away, not just the present.

Later on in the process, questions about the infliction of pain arise, but that is another debate entirely.

Zaf says:

10:12pm | 23/02/11

Let me spell it out for you: I believe that women have an absolute right to kill their unborn babies.  This right flows from women (and everybody else too) having a fundamental right to control their bodily integrity - ie control how their bodies are used.  FORCING someone to have sex is rape - it’s illegal.  FORCING someone stay when they want to go (just for eg) is also unlawful.  Why is FORCING someone to give birth essentially different?

All this fluffling around about when life begins, and when a foetus can start feeling pain, etc. is an attempt to sidestep the issue by trying to define abortion as a not very important choice because it’s just some cells, etc.

While this is arguably a politically strategic approach, in terms of preserving women’s liberties, I feel that it’s counter-productive in terms of firmly establishing the principle that adults have a fundamental right to control their own bodies.  When life begins, and whether a foetus can feel pain or not, are emotive subjects but essentially irrelevant to this principle.

Birth is not a right, it’s a gift.  If a woman wants to give it to her foetus, then okay, otherwise, don’t force her to.

Stephy says:

08:02am | 24/02/11

HAppyCynic, since the cells and genetic makeup of the foetus are different from the mothers, I’d say pretty much from the word go. The baby isn’t an attachment of the mother, like an extra finger, but an actual being in itself.

Also, if men have the right to kill off unborn babies (which, according to some posters, they do), then they surely have the power to stop an abortion going through if they want the child to live. If that’s so, then I’ll let someone else tell two grieving men I know who’s girlfriends got abortions despite their wishes and now lament the loss of their children.

Zaf, how is forcing the baby to veto a chance at life fair in your definition? The mother DID have a choice - immaculate conception isn’t a regular thing, y’know - and should carry through consequences of making the decision to procreate in the first place. Essentially women are given a “get out of jail free” card. They don’t have to answer to their actions. I mean, it’s not like sex creates babies or anything, right? But people still insist women have the choice to terminate a baby that came from the choice of having sex. Please explain.

Zaf says:

10:26am | 24/02/11

Steph, until it is born the baby’s rights are completely subsumed with and subordinate to the mother’s.  I am not arguing that a foetus is not a baby or a person - frankly who know? - just that this does not matter in terms of a woman’s right to have an abortion or to decide to bear the child.  The fact that most women make their own rights subordinate to their child’s is a choice they freely make.  They don’t have to, they choose to.  The baby or foetus only has the rights its mother gives it.

A lot of abortions take place when women fall pregnant after the birth control method they are using fails.  No method is perfect.  So you could say that theyd didn’t choose to procreate, they chose to have sex.  But that, really, is irrelevant to their rights.  Even if they chose to procreate and then changed their minds, they have an absolute right to control their own body, and this includes having an abortion if they so wish.  Even if they just have sex without protection without any thought of the consequences, they still have the right to control their own bodies.

I repeat: women have an absolute right to kill their unborn babies.  Can I get any more direct?

Direct says:

03:46pm | 25/02/11

Zaf, not only is your position morally and ethically repugnant, it is also legally wrong according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the the NSW Crimes Act. I’m sure a thorough reading of the other states Criminal Acts would show they there was no legal right for mother’s to kill their unborn children at will.

Ally says:

03:16pm | 23/02/11

Could not have said it better myself….The difference between people who are pro-life and people who are pro-choice is that those who are pro life want to force their beliefs on to other people. Those who are pro-choice believe women should be able to make their own my mind up about continuing on with the pregnancy or choosing to terminate it….something that also amazed me about this article was that the writer barely mentioned the women who find themselves in these situations. It was all about the foetus. The rights of people who are already born should take precedence over those who cannot exist outside a womb….People need to remember that the woman should not be forced into a having a child she does not want. Creating that kind of situation would not be good for the woman, society and especially the child. Women are more than incubators.

BK says:

04:56pm | 23/02/11

The whole point of the article is that many supposedly pro-choice people will-not recognise the right of others to have different opinions. They viciously attack anyone who offers a differing opinion on abortion. Imposing one’s views onto others isn’t just something that Christians do.

Evewasframed says:

11:05pm | 23/02/11

@BK. How I understand what Ally and Would Like to Shut Up….. have said is that the whole underlying ideology of identifying as ProChoice is “Choice”. Having that choice is of the utmost importance and then you can chose what you want, whether that be to continue with the pregnancy, or not. From the article, I understand though that this open viewpoint may cause problems for someone identifying as prolife as prochoice focuses on the individuals choices and the prolife focuses on society. But ultimately noone I know who identifies as prochoice would ever force a decision on anyone - that is the beauty of advocating for choice. If you do not believe in abortion then you do not have to choose to have one.

Erick says:

12:56pm | 23/02/11

And why should anyone give a eats about *your* thoughts on the matter?

Nobody has more or less right to have an opinion than anyone else.

Lamberto says:

01:17pm | 23/02/11

And that is the crux of the matter. Pro-lifers and the religious right always seem to ignore incidents of rape or incidents where the pregnant mother’s life is in danger.
Question: If a mother is told by medical experts that she will die if she carries out the full length of the pregnancy, should she still deliver the child? With the added risk that the child may not survive too? By definition, anyone preventing that abortion would also be a murderer as they are knowingly letting a woman die for the sake of their own political beliefs.
That is why pro-life is so impractical, it is based not on science but on religion.

KH says:

01:23pm | 23/02/11

Erick - I was the 15 year old.  Thats why.

Adam Diver says:

02:02pm | 23/02/11

@ KH, I would deem murder worse then rape. If someone believes that an abortion is murder do you honestly think that they should stay silent on this issue.

You don’t have to agree, but your circumstances give no more weight to this issue than anyone else.

My deepest sympathies for your traumatic childhood. You should of never had to make the decision in the first place.

BT says:

02:10pm | 23/02/11

Sheesh Erick, Blind Freddy could see she was talking about herself. Show some sensitivity please.

Make me Laugh says:

02:30pm | 23/02/11

Erick
Sensitivity
BAHAHAHAHAHAH

iMitchy says:

02:51pm | 23/02/11

@Erick,
I agree, all have the right to an opinion and to choose what to believe and how to live.
In the case of the abortion debate, the pro-choicers are playing defence while the pro-life crowd are on the offence.
Pro-choicers are not trying to push our beliefs, we are merely defending them to those who wish to force their opinion on us.

Erick says:

03:57pm | 23/02/11

Makes no difference.

Everyone has the right to express an opinion about abortion, or about anything else.

Claiming that only certain types of people have a right to an opinion is discriminatory and anti-democratic.

iMitchy says:

04:50pm | 23/02/11

@Erick,
So you are pro-choice then….?
I think you just reinforced my point.

The issue isn’t opinion, it’s the wish to convert that opinion to law.

interloper says:

05:06pm | 23/02/11

Pregnancy from rape is a desperately sad situation. Forcing the mother to carry the child prolongs the abuse for nine months. But we don’t kill children because of the sins of their fathers.
And most pro-life people I know would agree that abortion is necessary when there is a big threat to the mother’s life. But that’s a rare situation.

Chris L says:

02:19pm | 23/02/11

Are you expecting someone from the Australian Family Association to listen to the arguments they’re responding to?

iMitchy says:

03:04pm | 23/02/11

I think he is mistaking the thread that ensued for the article.
Even so you are quite right, I was about to post something similar.
If he did indeed get confused between the article and the thread, then I don’t see why he assumed that the atmosphere was pro-choice rather than pro-life. I think that they were both well represented in the thread.
If anything, I think that Tori’s article tried to offer a solution to the debate by combating the cause.

Ally says:

03:24pm | 23/02/11

While I agree with you about having realistic sex education the only problem is that the second you mention it many parents, conservative politicians and pro life church going types freak out that we are encouraging kids to have sex. I have found that many people who are pro choice are also anti-sex especially for teenagers. No one wins and the situation we have continues…

Tim Cannon says:

01:00pm | 23/02/11

Slave owners made similar claims. “Slaves are my property, and no one else’s business.”

But if you concede that the child (or the slave) is human, then clearly it’s much more complicated than you claim. You have a child’s human rights to deal with too.

Shane says:

01:25pm | 23/02/11

Allow me to be Captain Obvious for a moment: The body growing inside of her is not her own.

Gamete (from mum) + gamete (from Dad) ? Mum’s Body.
Gamete (from mum) + gamete (from Dad) = Zygote.

Simple science really. I agree that this is not really a true response to Tory’s article yesterday, but it is a practical and reasonable explanation of how science absolutely conflicts with the “not quite a child” argument we are fed by women’s groups and men who haven’t got the nads to stand up and say “Wait a second. That’s half mine.”

Tedd says:

01:30pm | 23/02/11

Tim,

sure you are not arguing that the stages of pregnancy are slaves?

Conversely, by advocating all pregnancies go to term, you are essentially making the women slaves to pregnancies and your whims!

In doing so you deny the millions of conceptions to people using, or claiming to use, contraception reasonably well

Jill says:

02:22pm | 23/02/11

The slavery analogy you keep pushing is cheap, simplistic and offensive. You seem to be missing the crux of the issue - a woman’s body is her own. Nobody else can tell her what to do with it. Are you honestly suggesting that ownership of one’s body is comparable to “ownership” of slaves?

Jamesadel says:

02:31pm | 23/02/11

@ Tim

The crucial difference is each individual OWNS their body, and while developing the foetus is nothing but a parisitic organism that cannot survive outside it’s host until is in the later stages of development. To compare unwanted pregnancies to slavery is absolutely ridiculous.

And to force women to have a baby when they clearly do not want it is SLAVERY itself.

Hypocrite.

baal says:

02:38pm | 23/02/11

@Shane. The fetus is built completly by the incubator. The male zygote gives the baby 50% of the genetic instructions but really contributes nothing else.
Basically the male contribution is half the design whilst the woman is the other designer, builder and owner of the child.
This is the way pregnancy works. Mother contributes female zygote and all the energy, effort and physical risk that goes into making a baby.
Her body, her effort, literally her blood and energy taken form as a new life.

sam says:

03:34pm | 23/02/11

No not simple, that’s the point!

Jim says:

04:23pm | 23/02/11

@Jill “You seem to be missing the crux of the issue - a woman’s body is her own. Nobody else can tell her what to do with it. “

My backyard is my property too…does that mean I can kill someone who trespasses because “it’s not right for me at this point in time”?

I’m pretty neutral on the issue, but comments like “it’s my body therefore my right” is the height of conceit.

James says:

04:24pm | 23/02/11

@peter

The unborn child is a whole other human inside her. It must be respected and protected, if not by her, then by other humans willing to stand up for the it. Leave the poor creatures alone. You all were once in the very same place, growing inside your mother.

Jill says:

06:02pm | 23/02/11

@ Jim: How is it a conceit to claim ownership over one’s body? It’s a fundamental civil liberty. Are you suggesting we don’t own our bodies? Who does/should, then?

The backyard comparison is the same kind of deliberately obtuse analogy that Tim is making (although not as vulgar and nasty, since it doesn’t disingenously appeal to a disgusting, criminal tragedy in an attempt to score points in an unrelated argument).

Ownership of a thing outside of and separate to you is not comparable to ownership of your physical self. There is a fundamental conceptual difference which I think most people are able to grasp without too much difficulty. Your backyard is not YOU. Your body is.

Tim Cannon says:

01:06pm | 23/02/11

What would you say to the slave trader who says, “wait a minute, are you against ALL forms of slave trade? Even if that means I go out of business and my wife and children starve?”

My response would be: it’s not about wanting you to starve Mr Slave Trader. It’s about recognising that those slaves have rights too.

(As for not being enough of a response, I suppose an alternative title to this article might be: Recognising the Rights of the Unborn = Fewer Abortions.)

progressivesunite says:

01:34pm | 23/02/11

@ Tim - leaving aside that it’s more than a little offensive to be equating women who find themselves in this situation with slave traders…maybe I don’t understand your argument, but you seem to be saying that abortion is never ok, in any situation?

So, it’s a shame if a woman dies as a result of a dangerous pregnancy (or slave trader starves) but the rights of the foetus (slave) trumps anything else (ie: women have fewer rights than foetuses, no matter what). Is that really your argument? Women are just vessels for embryos and have no other meaning?

Direct says:

04:10pm | 25/02/11

@progressivesunite

You talk about shades on grey in your first post but then you try and paint Tim’s position as an absolute. Well let me paint this in terms you can understand. Do you support a woman’s right to unilaterally kill an unborn child growing inside, irrespective of her reasons?

For example: What about if the mother found out the child was girl and she wanted a boy? What if she was a white girl and found out the baby inside her black and she hated black people?

Ish says:

02:19pm | 24/02/11

This is precisely what Tori’s article was about. Proper sex education and readily available contraception would help to lower the rates of abortion. This is also precisely what Tim ignored and went on a rant about foetus’ being human and having rights from the get go.

He didn’t address Tori’s article at all. Which would have made for a much more interesting article. Why if he is so anti-choice would you not look at the source of the issue rather than just jump up and down and say “No, No, No!”?

Erin says:

09:22am | 25/02/11

To say that parents make the decision to terminate a child with a severe illness of defect because they aren’t educated is ignorant and offensive in the extreme.

Sandy says:

02:44pm | 23/02/11

Totally agree.  But surely you can see that terminating nearly one hundred thousand babies a year in Australia is one sure way of winding up the pro-lifers.  That’s a rather solid statistic for pro-lifers to argue the case that perhaps some people or instututions (including governments) aren’t taking the consequences of enforcing their ‘rights’ seriously enough.

As for ‘rights’ per se.  Australian’s have none. Any ‘rights’  Australian’s think they have are really just priviledges granted by our States, Constitution and Common Law. And those priviledges can and do get taken back, get taxed and get suspended.  Hence, they are not ‘rights’ per se. Rights can’t be taken away under any circumstances .... ever.

Inter national institutions care more about your rights than Australian institutions. And our States, Constitution and/or Common Law can withdraw from them, and hence recind those ‘rights’, at any time. Of course there will be consequences, but that doesn’t change the fact that Australia can withdraw. A right is something that can’t ever be taken away. Right?

Jade says:

04:18pm | 23/02/11

@Sandy, most of those stats cite D & C procedures which are also carried out after a miscarriage or in cases of diseases such as endometriosis. The pro-life lobby uses those numbers to bolster its cause and its spurious claims of cavalier women eliminating children at whim.

There is no way to quantify the number of abortions performed because Medicare does not have a separate item number for these procedures. It uses a standard item number for procedures and does not distinguish whether these procedures were used in the termination of a pregnancy or for other purposes.

The ABS has some interesting data here http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rb/2004-05/05rb09.htm

Sandy says:

08:30am | 24/02/11

Fair call Jade. Appears their claims worked on me.  Sorry to have perpetuated them.

But my next question is: why is there no data?

I can get data on how many people die choking on pen lids every year.  But not on how many viable pregnancies are aborted for economic or lifestyle reasons.

So neither side wants an open debate? The brawling will continue I guess. Until there’s reliable data.

Kate says:

11:49am | 24/02/11

@Sandy, what exactly is wrong with having an abortion on ‘economic’ grounds?

For example, I’m 22. I’m a uni student, working part time, and I can barely afford to support myself. My boyfriend is in a similar financial situation. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just the stage we’re both at in our lives.
Now suppose I fell pregnant and couldn’t have an abortion. I can’t afford nappies, baby clothes, baby furniture etc. If I stop work to look after the baby, I can’t afford food. I could move somewhere that charges less rent, but then baby wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep. My parents and his parents aren’t wealthy, they can’t support us, and they all work so they can’t babysit. I would have to drop out of uni, meaning I wouldn’t be qualified for a better job once the kid is old enough to be in school.

We would try to be good parents. But you can bet that our child would be disadvantaged for much of its life due to our financial situation. My mother grew up extremely poor, so did my boyfriend. They had very disadvantaged childhoods and it’s not something I’d ever wish on a child.

Because of this, I am very careful with contraception. I have never had a pregnancy scare (touch wood). But the Pill does have a small failure rate even when taken correctly. If that happened to me, I’d have an abortion straight away, because I want my children to have the best life possible.

Sandy says:

03:17pm | 24/02/11

Kate.  And this line of argument is the exact point where, I understand, the numbers of pro-lifers disagreeing with you balloons. This is the point where they say: no, a poor life is better than no life at all. I speculate that the vast number of pro-lifers don’t go beyond this point. I speculate that not many of these pro-lifers are demanding the banning of abortions for rape victims, life threatening pregnancies and disabled feotuses.

Going back to my original reply to Loxy:
“But surely you can see that terminating nearly one hundred [sic] thousand babies a year in Australia is one sure way of winding up the pro-lifers.” OK, so 100K is an exaggeration. But isn’t e.g. 30 thousand a big enough number to whip up a crowd?

And no, you do not have any rights.  Neither Labor nor the Coalition have given you a bill of rights.  So the pack decides what you can and can’t do. 

I’m happy to be proven wrong.

Elphaba says:

01:15pm | 23/02/11

@Mikko, if Beethoven hadn’t been born, you wouldn’t have known any different.  We can’t mourn that which we don’t know.

Using people that have already gifted the world with their genius is a tenuous argument at best.

Chris L says:

02:25pm | 23/02/11

Mikko, you might as well wish that AH (Godwin forgive me) had been aborted since he was the product of incest. Millions of lives might have been saved.

Shelly says:

02:56pm | 23/02/11

What if Pol Pot had been aborted? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

baal says:

01:21pm | 23/02/11

@ great comment BT. It is a complicated issue and I wish more people showed empathy like yourself

BT says:

02:12pm | 23/02/11

Thanks. I should clarify that I meant to say “some people’s circumstances”. Oops.

Duff says:

03:22pm | 23/02/11

Yes, good comment.  The issue is not straightforward but is a mixture of scientific, philosophical and spiritual questions.  You, like most of us, rightly take what I think is the reasonable view and try to find the common ground between competing arguments.  Unfortunately, there are two many simple-simons on both sides of this debate who think the answer is “obvious”.  It’s only obvious if you are a one-eyed supporter of dogma (religion/feminism).

Bitten says:

09:50pm | 23/02/11

If I understand this correctly we should outlaw abortion as it interferes with the slave trade.  I could be wrong.

Oh, I needed that after my day today! Much props my friend.

L. says:

01:46pm | 23/02/11

So you believe that every life should be saved at any cost..?

progressivesunite says:

02:44pm | 23/02/11

A life is a life - except if that life is a woman who is in danger if she continues with a pregnancy? Except if it that life is a 15 year old girl who ends up maimed or killed by a backyard abortionist because her access to safe abortion has been removed? Except if that life is a traumatised woman who is only just coping with being raped and now finds herself pregnant with her rapist’s offspring?

You’re 22 - life can be pretty black and white at that age….but there really are grey areas….(studying law hasn’t taught you that yet??)

Peter says:

06:27pm | 23/02/11

progressivesunite, of the 100,000 or so abortions carried out in Australia every year how many would fall into the categories you describe? No more than 5% would be my guess. If the number of abortions carried out each year where reduced by 95% far fewer people would be against them.

Bilby says:

02:12pm | 23/02/11

So clumsy. So heavy handed. So Labor.

Jim says:

04:24pm | 23/02/11

You should have seen the tripe that was deleted! MMR has a problem…a big problem.

Tim Cannon says:

01:54pm | 23/02/11

I agree Rosie, we all need to respect human rights. I don’t condone the violence at all.

Defunding Planned Parenthood is more complex. The USA is a democracy. More than half of US citizens identify as pro-life. So I’m not surprised that their representatives should move to defund an organisation whose principal focus (and source of income) is providing abortion. Fair enough.

If I was a US taxpayer, I wouldn’t want my money going to Planned Parenthood. There are plenty of other organisations who can provide health services without being abortion providers.

As for outlawing abortion, it’s an incredibly vexed issue, and we have to walk a very fine line. I support legislation which protects the unborn in all circumstances, because I see no rational grounds in depriving an innocent human being of his or her rights (and life) for reasons beyond their control.

At the same time, I have no desire to see women locked up or penalised. We need to talk about this, really work it through, and chart a course that protects everyone, women and the unborn.

A big part of the solution is ensuring adequate support for women who find themselves unexpectedly expecting, and counseling them through options which respect the life and the needs of both mother and child (like adoption).

Tedd says:

03:40pm | 23/02/11

” ... options which respect the life and the needs of both mother and child (like adoption).”

Yeah, right! ..  /sarcasm.

notSue says:

03:59pm | 23/02/11

Tim. It amazes me how people just throw around the idea that a woman should carry a foetus to term against her will, because hey, she can just adopt it out. There’s your slavery, buddy!  I mentioned yesterday that I’m an adoptee, but our side of the story is rarely considered. Our birth mothers are convinced that they are doing the right thing for us by reliquishing us, yet we are left in limbo, neither one nor the other, belonging yet not belonging, feeling different to everyone around us, even if our upbringing is loving. You can never know the pain of that, unless you’re an adoptee. Not to mention the pain and anguish that most relinquishing mothers feel because they carried the child to term, went through childbirth, then had the newborn ripped from them. It’s all very glib and comfortable and out of sight for people who push adoption instead of abortion..and if slavery analogies are being used, babies who are “placed” in infertile women’s homes to satisfy a mothering need are being acquired as a commodity, in one sense. Yet, it’s seen as an act of compassion and everyone goes “awww”, forgetting the price paid by the other side of the triad.
Von brought the idea up that many adoptees may not have wished for their fate yesterday. Most of you were shocked at it.  I bet most adoptees have had that thought. at some time or another, although we generally keep it to ourselves.

I will not address the funding issue, since i find your whole argument to be wrong. A blastocyst is not a child. A foetus becomes a human at viablility. Full stop.

Voxpop says:

11:39am | 24/02/11

Again, incubator = slavery and it seems there’s a disturbing correlation between anti-choicer’s and baby farming.  Why this need/desire to only adopt babies?  When there are so many abandoned children in need of care?  Anti-choicer’s profess to having the moral highground yet their compassion doesn’t extend that far.

Tim thinks it fair that almost half the USA’s population that want the availability of Planned Parenthood’s services be denied - just suck it up hey.  Democracy? or an example of religious fundamentalists having too much power.  Well here in Australia over 70% of the population support the right to choose - thankfully here we don’t have the overly religious fanatics subverting our system - though they try.

Tim I’m disapointed you talk so much of slavery but on the issue of terrorism from anti-choicer’s ie. murdering abortion providers etc. etc.  you provide so little.  You don’t condone the violence hey but what of other’s within your organisation inciting this violence, because you need to see that it’s anti-choicers using heated emotional tactics that stir up the unbalanced within their groups thereby giving them legitimacy.

Horse says:

02:15pm | 23/02/11

Science clearly tells us a foetus in not a viable human being before about 23-24 weeks.

Science does not tell us the developing structure in-utero is a child, you have just extrapolated the notion of conception being the start of life.

Jade says:

02:23pm | 23/02/11

But the point which I and others have made and that you have steadfastly ignored is that by restricting access to abortion, you are giving the unborn MORE rights than the born.

It is well-established that regardless of urgency, you do not have a right to harvest my kidney. Regardless of whether you will die without it, and regardless of the comparatively negligible effect on my health and wellbeing. You do not even have the right to take an organ from my corpse, when clearly there will be no effect to my life. However, you ARE suggesting that a baby has the right to do this to another human being, simply because of its stage of development. Noone has the right to do this.

Lee says:

03:30pm | 23/02/11

Enough with the slavery comparission. a foetus is NOT a slave, it is never forced to do things. If anything the woman carrying it is the slave, her body will starve itself to feed the child. And regarding the US situation Planned Parenthoods main purpose is not abortion. It is sexual health, contraception, pelvic and breast examinations etc. and people who use Planned Parenthood’s abortion services pay for them they do not rely on federal funding to run that section of their services. Tell me, what is your alternative to abortion? What is your stance on contraception? What are your thoughts on all forms of sex ed in schools and not just abstinance only? And why did you obviously not reply to the poor woman above who asked why you would have forced her 15 year old self who suffered a sexual assualt to then have to suffer the traumatic results of that? You have run the abortion is wrong line here over and over again so tell us what do you propose instead? What do you think should happen when a pregnancy is most likely to kill the woman carrying the baby and the unborn baby as well. Should they both die just so abortion didn’t happen? And for the record pro choice is not pro abortion pro choice means allowing people to decide for themselves.

Tim Cannon says:

03:37pm | 23/02/11

Jade, all I am saying is that a child in the womb has the right not to have its life taken away. Do you agree?

I’m not forcing anything on anyone. I’m just standing up for the rights of a child who cannot stand up for itself.

Horse: science tells us that from the moment of conception, the embryo is a human life.

You, on the other hand, are isolating an arbitrary point of that human life - viability - and asserting that it is only at this point that the human being in question has any rights.

No offense, but I’m going to side with the fetologists on this one.

Viability is a moot point. Strictly speaking, a five year old isn’t independently viable without the support of its parents either. That has no bearing on the fact that the child is a human being with human rights.

Hair Spray says:

04:08pm | 23/02/11

“The science”, is a very dubious argurement unless you define the basis of the theory, which you have studiously avoided. In your case I get the impression the premise behind the theory is “conception is the start of life, if it has human cells then it is a baby human”.

There are several definitions of when life starts, when the sperm interacts with the egg / when cells divide and multiply carrying RNA/DNA strands / when the nervous system is formed / when the vital organs become operational / when the cells are able to operate without the support of the incubator / when it is actually born.

I go for the nervous system definition myself. That is when pain is theoretically possible and far enough along to have a reasonable chance of being carried to full term.

A womans body is the biggest operator of abortions, the number performed by doctors is small in comparison to the number of cell groupings a womans body will reject.

Lee says:

04:25pm | 23/02/11

Actually a five year old can survive without their parents. It happens all the time in the third world. Sure it’s not a great life but the fact is they can survive on their own.

Jade says:

04:33pm | 23/02/11

No I am not asserting that the child does not have any rights prior to viability. I am asserting that the child does not have the right to use the mother’s body as a life support system without her consent. The very unfortunate side effect of this is that the child must die, similar to those waiting on donation lists for organs.

Those waiting for organ transplants do not even have the right to the functioning organs of those who have passed away to preserve their life. People, including babies and children, die all the time waiting for organs. Organs such as a liver, which the average human adult can lose 2/3rds of and regenerate. Yet we would not even contemplate forcing someone to relinquish 2 thirds of their liver, even if it means that a child waiting for it in a hospital bed is surely going to die.

We do not say that the child waiting for a liver, or living on dialysis has a right to another’s body parts, even though they will die without it. Why are you not standing up for these children, who cannot stand up for themselves? Demanding that all adults and children relinquish one kidney, and 2/3rds of their liver so that they can have a right to life? Or is their right to life at the expense of another’s body not as important as that of a child in the womb?

What you are advocating is giving children in the womb MORE rights than anyone else alive, by permitting them to live from the organs and the body of a non-consenting person.

Jason Todd says:

04:58pm | 23/02/11

Tim: Bull. By five years old, a human is independantly mobile, capable of feeding themselves and communicating, albeit in a rudimentary form. If a five year old’s mother dies of a heart attack, the five year old will not die along with her. That is the point that is being made about viability. Confusing the issue by comparing “A five year old may need help to survive” to “An early term foetus is completely reliant on its mothers survival for its survival” is intellectually disingenuous.

Science does NOT tell us that an embryo is a human life from the moment of conception. That you superimposing your belief over the science. At the moment of conception, an embryo has the POTENTIAL to become a human life. There are plenty of things that can happen between conception and the viability of the foetus to change that. Regardless of its potential, the embryo at conception has no sentience, no concept of life nor is it even assured that it will BECOME a human life. Yet, you are suggesting that from this point, the woman has no say in what happens to her, and her life is at the whim of a bunch of cells.

Yes, there is a line to be drawn. Aborting a foetus at four weeks or aborting a foetus at 32 weeks have very different implications. But where do we draw that line? Some would have it drawn at birth, others at conception. We as a society have placed that line somewhere in the middle for non-life threatening terminations. However ultimately, if it is the mother’s life at risk, then that line should be drawn wherever it needs to be.

Look, noone rejoices about abortion. Pro-choice advocates don’t arrive at their belief system because they just love the idea of people terminating pregancies. They get there by a considered weighing of the argument. The same way that I’m sure that you have. Personally, I’m not in love with the idea of abortion, but I do recognise that it is a nessesary evil, because I feel that it would be morally wrong to deprive grown adults of their rights because of a potential life growing inside them. I think that the consequences of outlawing it outweigh the outcomes of allowing it.

Horse says:

05:34pm | 23/02/11

Tim,

“science tells us that from the moment of conception, the embryo is a human life.”

No, science does not tell us that - you just cherry picked a few views from selected authorities - You arbitrarily define it as that.  It is biologically living cells, but it is not independent viable life.

” Strictly speaking, a five year old isn’t independently viable without the support of its parents either.”  Yes it is, it is independent of its parents biologically and able to survive, if its parents were killed, with other care.

LauraBoBaura says:

02:17pm | 23/02/11

Life begins at conception, there I said it. But that in no way diminishes a woman’s right to abortion.

Tedd says:

03:30pm | 23/02/11

Conception is the continuation of biological life, but independent human life does not begin until the later form of the conceptus is viable away form the womb.

iMitchy says:

03:56pm | 23/02/11

Careful with the wording @Jerome,
No one has said that they are pro-abortion. Pro-choice is the belief that women should be entitled to have the option of whether or not to continue with a pregnancy and have the safe means to discontinue if they so wish, regardless of circumstances. We do not get upset if one wishes to keep their baby.

loxy says:

03:59pm | 23/02/11

Jerome, pro-choicers mostly don’t bother with definitions of when life begins because either way they believe in a women’s right to choose!

Tim Cannon says:

02:10pm | 23/02/11

In our ideal world, there is still slavery. People still traffic slaves, even here in Australia. But because we reconise that all human beings have rights, we have a responsibility to defend the rights of the defenceless.

If unborn children are human beings, as the science indicates, then don’t we have a responsiblity to defend their rights too?

Grumpy says:

02:17pm | 23/02/11

Do you have something against hookers, smoking and drinking nancy?

Tedd says:

02:18pm | 23/02/11

“If”?  You keep repeating the false premise the unborn a children and thus are human beings.  They are not at least until they are viable.

LauraBoBaura says:

02:25pm | 23/02/11

Tim, you are really reluctant to let this slavery analogy go, but you didn’t actually address persephone’s point about backyard abortions though did you?

On the subject of your slavery analogy, the legal definition of slavery being:

the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune.

Now - you could claim, that by forcing a woman to carry her unborn child to full term against her will, you are in fact exercising ‘absolute control’ over her life, liberty and fortune, could you not?

Would it be fair then, to say that by advocating the illegalisation of abortion, you are in fact condoning slavery?

baal says:

02:25pm | 23/02/11

@Tim please stop with the slavery argument, it is not analogous. A fully functioning born slave is not comparible to a 8 week old fetus.
Responding to every argument with your silly analogy only muddies the complex waters. Please engage with the public or you just com across as a sermonising preacher who is so convinced of the brilliance of his argument and that is all he ever needs to say.

Bilby says:

02:28pm | 23/02/11

We don’t often agree, but on this I think you’ve got it spot on. If women were prepared to risk their lives when there was no medical abortion available, then as a compassionate society we need to change that. The idea that a termination occurs because the child is “unwanted” is the most callous, heartless thing I’ve ever heard and supporting it is to the detriment of society, yet I still support their ability to seek out a termination in a clean medical environment.

Life is not clean, life is not clear. Sometimes we’ve just got to make least bad of a truly shitty situation.

Tim Cannon says:

03:52pm | 23/02/11

Let’s not get too tetchy about the analogy. It is intended to illustrate the following:
- denying the humanity of slaves is one of the things that enabled people to support slavery for so long;
- some people recognised that slaves were in fact human and tried to convince the rest of the population to treat them as such;
- they used science to show that African Americans were just as human as you or I;
- after an epic struggle, slaves were recognised as humans with human rights.

Similarly:
- abortion is often justified by denying that the foetus is human;
- however science tells us that even an embryo is a unique human life;
- accepting the science, we should respect the humanity of the child in the womb, including its right not to be killed;
- no doubt this will involve a long, hard struggle to have the rights of the unborn recognised.

Interesting observation: in both cases it was (and is) those pesky Christians leading the charge, and throwing down the challenge to society to respect the human rights of a dehumanised minority.

Jim says:

04:28pm | 23/02/11

Holy crap….I agree 100%, totally and utterly with persephone….

Well said ma’am

persephone says:

04:32pm | 23/02/11

Tim
Your defence of your flawed analogy isn’t even historically correct:

denying the humanity of slaves is one of the things that enabled people to support slavery for so long;

So why do we still have slavery today, as you repeatedly point out?

The Romans knew their slaves were human, and never denied it. Didn’t stop them having slaves.

You’re muddying your very poor analogy by looking at one type of slavery, which was unique to one period of history.

- some people recognised that slaves were in fact human and tried to convince the rest of the population to treat them as such;

See above. Slavery still exists, and it existed in regimes here the humanity of slaves was fully recognised.

- they used science to show that African Americans were just as human as you or I;

And others used science to show exactly the opposite. The argument wasn’t won because of the science; many of those who opposed slavery still regarded African Americans as lesser beings.

Most historians regard the end of slavery in the US as basically an argument over economics.

- after an epic struggle, slaves were recognised as humans with human rights.

Well, no, because as you point out, we still have slavery today.

Slavery was eliminated from one particular society at one particular point in history. Whether those who were freed were then given human rights is a bone of contention; many African Americans would argue that they’re not quite there yet.

I would also point out that there were pesky Christians on both sides of the argument (Bibles at 30 paces). In fact, if we’re going to use Christian teaching as our guide, we’d still have slaves; it’s sanctioned by the Bible, with St Paul instructing a runaway slave who came to him for assistance to return to his owner.

Anyway, as a few of us have pointed out, in using this analogy the person you’re really casting as the slave is the mother, who must carry the fetus to full term whether she wants to or not.

iMitchy says:

04:32pm | 23/02/11

So Tim,
You realise that slavery still exists. In fact, there is more slavery in the world today than ever before.
So now what we have is slavery being conducted by violent criminals and no authority that can monitor the treatment of slaves (you cannot argue that in this day and age, were slavery still legal, that slaves would not be protected to some degree just as animal rights protect animals).
If you are pushing for the illegalisation of abortion, don’t you believe that it will fall into similar circumstances?
It’s a bad analogy mate, please let it go, it creates more problems than it solves.

As a solely human rights issue, granted that you believe the embryo should be protected by human rights, it seems that the rights of the mother and embryo are perfectly balanced.
I would argue that a pro-choicer believes that each case is individual and that the numbers even themselves out depending on the choice of the mothers, thereby creating equality. A pro-lifer believes that the embryo’s rights trump the mother’s, regardless of circumstance, across the board. That my friend is not equality.

We cannot ignore the silent number of women who consider abortion but choose to carry full term even though safe abortion is available. They may do it because they are strictly pro-life or maybe because they have made a tough decision and are willing to try to be a mum. Whatever the case, at least they were given the choice and will never feel any animosity towards the child.
Which is fairer, legal or illegal? Do we decide that the rights are equal or do we discriminate?

iMitchy says:

05:56pm | 23/02/11

The questions at the end of my last post were not rhetorical guys.
Feel free to jump in and choose which route you think we should take. Paticularly you Tim.
It’s good to see the author getting more involved in the discussion by the way, rather than simply tossing up an idea and then throwing it to the dogs for the day.

Elphaba says:

06:19pm | 23/02/11

“Let’s not get too tetchy about the analogy.”

@Tim, I think we can.  As Perspehone pointed out, you can’t even seem to get the sides right.  You think it’s unacceptable for the foetus to be aborted, but its perfectly ok for the woman carrying the child to give over her entire body and give up her right to have a say - that is, be a slave.

It’s a rubbish analogy.  If you’re going to use it and have it be unsound, then prepare for people to pick at it.  That’s why people are tetchy.

As for pro-choice people ‘protesting too much’ - just exactly what are you doing?  Putting forward a reasonable opinion?  So are many pro-choicers.  I don’t lump all lifers in the same basket, some have completely rational opinions.  I’m pretty sure pro-choicers would appreciate the same courtesy from you.

Likes Joining Dots says:

06:52pm | 23/02/11

@Persephone

Thanks for your post, very well said. Tim has been leaning heavily on that ill fitting analogy throughout this debate.

Tim, I’m not being ‘tetchy’ but you keep going back to that analogy time and time again for most responses to your article. Just let it go and address the questions.

El says:

07:22pm | 23/02/11

I know right. Abortion brings babies closer to God.

LauraBoBaura says:

03:40pm | 23/02/11

What’s your solution then Bob - no abortions ever? The very notion of banning abortion makes women slaves in their own bodies by forcing them to carry a child to term against their will when they want/need a termination. You give an unborn child more rights than an already born woman.

Uncle Bob says:

04:13pm | 23/02/11

@LauraBoBaura No, not at all. Abortion has a moral justification in cases where the mother’s life is at risk or the foetus has extreme deformities etc. I think the position for a lot of so-called pro lifers is “safe, legal and rare” with emphasis on the rare.

LauraBoBaura says:

04:30pm | 23/02/11

Bob -  I believe that the majority of prochoice & prolife, both agree on this. It’s not a matter of left/right/conservative/liberal/man/woman. I think anyone with a logical set of morals on either side agrees that abortion is not a contraceptive, & should be a very rare occurance.

One of the places prochoice/prolifetake different routes, is what should serve as justification for this ‘rare occurance’

Shane From Melbourne says:

07:12pm | 23/02/11

Umm..the SS were full military units, not paramilitary units. They were incorporated into the German order of battle in most European theatres of war during World War II.

St. Michael says:

11:50pm | 23/02/11

“Unless that foetus can survive out of the womb, by itself, with no help, then it is nothing but a parasite. It is not an individual.”

Fail on logic and law, Lucius.

See, my daughter was born 10 weeks premature, i.e. at the 29.8 weeks mark.  She could survive outside the womb, but needed medical help to do so.  My wife and I were able to hold her for brief periods 8-10 days after she was born.  She was able to open her eyes very blearily.  She responded physically to our sound, smell, and touch.  She cried when she was first born, even when premature (which was a good sign, they told us).

She was also, by force of the Australian Births, Deaths, and Marriages Act, an individual—a human being.  Her birth date on her birth certificate is the date she came out of my wife’s body, even if she couldn’t survive by herself without help.  She was no parasite so far as the law was concerned, and certainly not a parasite as far as we were concerned.

She is also 3 years and 9 months old, and is doing very well.  And kudos once more to the medical staff of King Edward Memorial Hospital—best in the southern hemisphere, if not the world.

Trevor says:

08:36am | 24/02/11

I’m with St Michael on this one Lucius, you’ve got it wrong pal.

You are essentially saying that our 2 year old triplets that were born at 28 weeks and required 1 month in neonatal intensive care and another month in special care before they were well enough for us to take home should have been left to die on the operating theatre floor because without medical assistance they weren’t able to survive by themselves outside of the womb, even though they are now fit, healthy and well developed 2 year olds. Man, I’m pro-choice but some people need to calm down and realise that the extremes of both sides are not productive positions and concede that there has to a middle ground solution. My own position is that early termination should be an option but late terminations should only be allowable in the most extreme of circumstances. In most cases, a pregnancy is detected at the 5-7 week mark, surely this would be the time to decide whether to continue with an unplanned pregnancy or not, not leave it until 20 weeks!

Tim Cannon says:

03:40pm | 23/02/11

And now sarcasm! Thanks Shelagh, I was hoping we’d get the trifecta.

shelagh says:

06:10am | 24/02/11

thanks:) happy to help

Dave-o says:

03:16pm | 23/02/11

Here comes the eugenics lobby

Damn breeders says:

12:51pm | 25/02/11

Dave-o Eugenics is similar but I’m not discriminating against any particular race or genetic traits, not saying to breed certain traits… just saying stop breeding sooo much, adopt instead since there are far too many kids without parents or in bad homes that need a good home with good parents. Eugenics is something else all together.

Understandably many of us want our OWN kids, but when they are soo many kids without homes and families it does seem a bit selfish to keep pumping out kids when there is no need to. Especially parents that have 10 kids which is ridiculous, unless we want to end up like China as far as population density goes maybe we should have some kind of limit on how many kids people can have.

All I can see with this debate here is there is no shortage of kids that’s for sure.

Barry says:

04:56pm | 23/02/11

Explain how not aborting a baby is selfish compared to aborting one?  I’m fairly certain that although many women have huge health difficulties, and various other very good reasons for aborting their foetus, which is completely understandable, there is on the other hand, a very large portion of women who abort their foetus simply because it’s neither affordable, nor suits their current lifestyle.  That’s fine if you are pro-choice, but let’s not muddle things up with useless, baseless, illogical generalizations about selfishness.

LauraBoBaura says:

03:21pm | 23/02/11

How do you know that Matt? People can justify a woman’s right to abortion without being ignorant to the way an abortion is performed.

MrMac says:

03:32pm | 23/02/11

Cutting to pieces hardly happens in abortion!

persephone says:

03:40pm | 23/02/11

Matt

no, the truth is that most abortions are carried out when the fetus is a very small collection of cells, which are usually flushed out by something a bit like a vacuum cleaner.

The anti abortion lobby pretend that the exceedingly rare practice of late term abortion (which is only undertaken after a panel of medical and psychological experts are convinced that there is no other option) is the norm.

LauraBoBaura says:

04:06pm | 23/02/11

Couldn’t of said it better myself.

LC says:

06:48pm | 23/02/11

Elphaba, the problem is that the pro-life brigade’s ultimate goal is to make abortion illegal, for themselves, for you, for EVERYONE.

Elphaba says:

08:05pm | 23/02/11

@LC, I know that.

But what they want, and what is likely to happen, are two different things.  They can want it all they want, and voice it all they want.  It’s not the law, which means it’s an opinion, and I will disagree all I want, and vice versa. 

I wouldn’t want the pro-life brigade telling me I couldn’t voice my opinion.  Likewise, I would not tell them they couldn’t voice theirs.  It doesn’t matter what either of us want - the law is the law, and in the end, it’s where I’ll be basing my moral decisions - not on emotive language and scare-mongering.

Glad to be alive! says:

10:00pm | 23/02/11

Hey Elphaba, what about the baby’s body and the baby’s choice? Your offensive, dismissive to the rights of the unborn and attitude that you have the right to decide who lives and who dies is disgraceful. Are you glad that you weren’t aborted, Elphaba? Why deny that same right to babies just because they are inconvenient to their parents?

Elphaba says:

07:59am | 24/02/11

@Glad to be alive! thank you for your comments.

You are entitled to your opinions, and I respect your right to voice them.  However, I disagree with you, and because of that, this cannot be a friendly discussion, only an argument - and I have no interest in arguing with you.  Arguing is pointless.  My post says everything it needs to say on where I stand on this issue.  Anything else is hyperbole.

Have a nice day.

Jason Todd says:

05:12pm | 23/02/11

Jerome, the terms that are used are the correct ones. Embryo, zygote and foetus are all different scientific terms with very specific meanings. When the term “baby” is used to refer to an embryo, it is not being used in a strict scientific fashion the way that the others are. The use of baby is imposing the hopes of the mother on the material that has the potential to become a baby. It would be much the same as me looking at a pile of steel outside the Holden factory and referring to it as a car. Sure. One day, given the right conditions, maybe this will eventuate, but there is a hell of a lot that can happen between here and there that may disrupt these plans.

LauraBoBaura says:

04:35pm | 23/02/11

Kind of like comparing slavery with abortion?
I think Jade’s comments were a lot more apple/apple orientated than the original article.

Jade says:

05:05pm | 23/02/11

The mother who chooses abortion is unlikely intending to kill. She is intending to stop her body being used as a life-support system. For whatever reason. The unfortunate side effect, much as with a refusal to donate organs, is that the human dies.

Jason Todd says:

05:17pm | 23/02/11

Jade is talking about allowing one person to use another persons body for the potential to extend their life. The example that you have given “Refusing to donate to extend life” can be reframed as “Refusing to allow another to continue living at the expense of themselves”. The point I think that Jade was making is that people should have the right to refuse a request to sacrifice their own well being for that of another.

Cara Nguyen says:

09:24pm | 23/02/11

nice semantics guys!  yeah….it’s not really killing it’s just refusing to donate life-support.

Sorry but sending instruments or chemcials to kill the unborn and flush it down the toilet…sure sounds like killing to me.  Left alone the mother’s body nourishes the child and brings it to term.  The action is killing, with intent to kill that thing that is “jeopardising my life”.  The reason given is “quality of life etc etc”,

On that logic, anyone who jeopardises our “quality of life” could be killed right?

Ish says:

03:44pm | 24/02/11

Then with your semantics Cara a spontaneous miscarriage would be manslaughter?

Like someone previously posted a mother’s own body is the most likely to abort a foetus.

Cara Nguyen says:

09:12pm | 17/03/11

Ish, sorry but in ethics there is a BIG difference between Intended action, the intended outcome and the REAL action and REAL outcome.

It is frustratingly obvious even to my 5 year old daughter, that a spontaneous misscarraige involves NO INTENT to kill.

Please….get some logic into this debate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LauraBoBaura says:

04:34pm | 23/02/11

Yeah Mary - I think that is too simple, all the contraceptives in the world are not foolproof, are you suggesting we stop having sex because condoms/birth control have a failure rate?

iMitchy says:

05:08pm | 23/02/11

Actually it’s too complicated St mary. Abstinance is not a viable option.

LC says:

06:13pm | 23/02/11

I agree with iMitchy. Abstinence is a nice idea on paper, but simply fails to work in real life, much like communism.

Look at Texas for example, they teach abstinence, yet somehow they have the 2nd highest teenage pregnancy rate in the US.

mary says:

10:12pm | 23/02/11

Can’t believe that no-one here seems to know about the tantric methods.

iMitchy says:

01:27pm | 24/02/11

Tantric methods still have a fail rate, and are a lot harder to learn than popping on a franger.
After the debate created in the aftermath of Tori’s article about sexual education, imagine how hard it would be to get Tantra lessons taught in schools, which by the way require a lot of practice.

I hope you were joking.

LauraBoBaura says:

02:09pm | 24/02/11

Imagine how creepy tantra lessons in school would be!

persephone says:

08:38pm | 23/02/11

Ooohhh, oohhh, oohhh….pick me! I know the answer to this one!! Pick me!!

Um, because it’s just like slavery.

I mean, if a baby’s born with severe defects, it isn’t a slave.

And if the mother’s life is in danger, it doesn’t matter, because she’s a slave trader and they’re nasty people, and we wouldn’t want to be nasty people, would we?

Or something.

Did you know slavery still exists? And that that means abortion shouldn’t be legal?

Oh, and people who are pro choice keep saying nasty things about people who aren’t.

I rest my case.

Tim Cannon says:

10:03am | 24/02/11

Vicki, leaving aside the whole issue of refusing to actually engage with the arguments by calling them ‘crap’ and ‘straw man’, let me answer you.

Firstly, regarding defects:
- Every human being has basic human rights.
- Fetologists, embryologists and geneticists consistently point out that, from the moment of conception, the child in the womb is a human being.
- Human rights are not conditional upon the human in question being free of defects, whether they are life-limiting or less severe. Denying someone’s human rights on the grounds of disability is a serious breach of Equal Opportunity law in Australia.
- Therefore the fact that a child will be born with severe or life limiting defects is no reason to end its life in the womb. In Australia we have the resources and the ability to provide care for the severely disable, even if the baby’s parents cannot. The human rights of the disabled child place a responsibility on us, as a community, to care for the child.

If the mother’s life is in imminent danger then there is a tragic choice to be made. It is like having two patients in need of a heart transplant, but having only one heart available. The death of one patient is unavoidable, and there is no moral obligation to save one rather than the other. If a decision is made to save the life of the mother, so be it. As I said, it is an unavoidable tragedy.

This situation is extremely rare, and does not account for the overwhelming majority of abortions which are voluntary, and where the mother’s life is not at risk.

If the pregnancy is the consequence of rape, or if the mother is a child, or the mother is a girl or woman with a severe intellectual ability, the key questions are:
- does the pregnancy threaten the life of the mother? If so, then the above reasoning applies.
- do we, as a community, have the medical and social resources to ensure the health and safety of both the mother and the child throughout the pregnancy, childbirth, and subsequently?

If the pregnancy is not life threatening, and the abovementioned resources are available, then we have a situation in which it is possible to respect the rights of both the child and the mother, and I think that is the best outcome for both.

This situation may present extreme difficulty, especially in cases of rape, and it is impossible to do justice to all of the nuances of that particular situation within the confines of a blog comment. However I have heard the testimony of several people (e.g. http://www.rebeccakiessling.com/) who were conceived through rape, and whose mothers carried them to term, and they argue adamantly that not even rape can justify taking away the innocent life of the unborn child.

Again, I want to point out that the hypothetical circumstances you have raised are extremely rare. If abortion was only available in the hard-case circumstances you put forward, abortion in Australia would effectively be non-existent compared to current numbers.

So I think it is you who are putting up a straw man argument, by using these extremely rare cases to justify a general right to abortion in that vast majority of cases where there is no imminent danger to the mother’s life, the mother is not a child or disabled, the child was not conceived through rape, and does not have severe or life-limiting defects.

I am putting the case that the unborn have human rights, because science says that the unborn are human beings. Even if we take your hard-case scenarios out of the picture, we are left with the vast majority of cases in which the child is being denied his or her human rights for no pressing reason.

I am trying to convince you that we owe unborn children more than to ignore their human rights.

iMitchy says:

04:15pm | 24/02/11

I understand human rights and I understand your point, but the circumstances that we endure as children and in adulthood are all very different. Human rights are abused every day across the world, better those whose rights are abused are never conscience and never experience any pain.
Have you ever heard people talk about those who cannot have children and how it doesn’t seem fair that abusive drop kicks can have kids that they don’t look after yet the state has limited powers to remove them from the parents’ custody? Meanwhile, good people have to jump through hoops for years to even make it onto an orphan recipient list. With no guarantee of getting a child in the end.
My point is that by removing the option to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, you are effectively promoting the existence of unwanted children, whose mothers never wanted the burden of caring for them in the first place. They cannot simply be given to a loving family, they can only be put into the care of the state who then must decide who is worthy to receive the child. And you have to come off looking like a bloody saint to even be considered for permanent custody, until which time though the children are bounced around between foster homes never being able to form personal attachments with others.
What will be the knock on effects of this? Higher teen suicide rates? Higher crime rates? Higher depression rates? Increasing mental health issues? Will some young mothers even suicide without the option of abortion because they see no other option?

It is not an open and shut issue. There are consequences.

It sounds to me Tim, that the human right that you are advocating is the right to exist, not to “live” per se, and it’s not exactly a right as much as a legal obligation, for suicide is a crime as is voluntary euthanasia.

We need to minimise the number of people who need an abortion, not the number of abortions themselves. Which means that Tori’s article made a very good point which did not deserve a rebuttal.

VickiPS says:

03:24am | 25/02/11

@Tim:  Thank you for responding. 

You were going great until you wrote “So I think it is you who are putting up a straw man argument, by using these extremely rare cases to justify a general right to abortion”.  Excuse me?  Is it because I didn’t jump right in cooing “ooh yes Tim, you’re right Tim, pontificate some more, big boy” that you leaped to the assumption that I was arguing for abortion based on the really tough dilemma scenarios.  I told you it wasn’t a trick question, but I’m a bit offended that you chose to believe I was trotting out that tired old saw.  Feh.

See, that’s why your argument turned to crap.  My position is, and has always been, that if you take up an anti-abortion stance on the basis of the sanctity of human life, then for it to be accepted as a rational position it has to be all or nothing.  If you morally oppose ending human life from the moment of conception, then there can’t be shades of gray.  I don’t respect the views of “pro-lifers” who straddle the fence on these rare tough cases.  I respect the fact that people who believe abortion is murder won’t shut up about it—well, you wouldn’t, would you?  You’d feel morally obligated to do whatever you could to stop it.  Good for you for having a rationally coherent ethical position.

As it happens, my personal position differs from yours.  However, I believe it’s pointless to pit pro-choice against anti-murder—two completely different dialogues, with no middle ground.  The argument is like the proverbial task of trying to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time, and annoys the pig.

And, while I’m on about rubbish arguments and invalid assumptions, let me reiterate what others have said. 
-  Being pro-choice does not automatically mean rejecting the fact that human life starts at conception
-  Pro-choicers do not automatically assume that all pro-lifers are mediaeval religious cranks
- Ignoring and eliding facts, or just plain making up factoids , doesn’t advance anyone’s cause
-  Setting out an invalid and unsupported proposition and then knocking it down is so too a weasel tactic and crap journalism, so nyah! nyah! to you
-  Just because I’m not with you, don’t assume I’m agin you.  I might be standing back defending your right to disagree with me.

Elphaba says:

08:17pm | 23/02/11

I have looked at the website.  I have already commented though, so I apologise for that.

Unsurprisingly, human foetuses look like teeny humans..  I kind of expected that given that they’re well… human.

Basing the entire argument on late-term abortions is a bit unfair though, given that late-term abortions only form a small percentage of all abortions performed.  The decision of when a foestus is a baby is, as I said above, subjective, pertaining to the individual.  If it was without a doubt, at the time of conception, than the law would be changed.

I am still pro-choice.

Thank you for the link.

Jade says:

09:16pm | 23/02/11

I also want to add that late term abortions are only done if there is serious risk to the mother and or baby by continuing the pregnancy.

St. Michael says:

11:56pm | 23/02/11

trevor does tangentially make a point that is infrequently made in this debate, though: whichever way you choose to go on abortion, you can’t think of it in abstract terms or vaguely suggesting “it’s some sort of suction pump sort of thing for most cases.”

I think that is cheating yourself on knowing what you’re talking about.  It is cheating yourself on making a fully informed choice about whether you support it or not.  Ultrasound and better technology for seeing the foetus actually contributes to abortion workers leaving the trade because they can’t keep the results “out of sight, out of mind.”

I refer to one other columnist’s thoughts on this, which can be found here: http://johntreed.com/headline/2010/10/12/abortion/

But the most salient part I would like to quote none the less:

“Note that I have not said anything about whether the woman should abort or not. I am not sure. The mother certainly has more at stake than I do as a third-party observer. What I am saying is let’s stop having it be some sort of abstraction. Ideology plays a role in our civilization, but not in abortion. Abortion is an act that our brains are not wired to accept. I did not wire the brains so don’t blame me. I recommend avoiding unwanted pregnancies. If you have an unwanted pregnancy, I urge you to research thoroughly what it means to abort it if you are considering that. See Silent Scream. Talk to women who have had abortions. Watch one and the disposal of the fetus. The reason to do all this is that having an abortion is irreversible. If after thoroughly researching it and knowing exactly what you are getting yourself and your fetus into, you still decide to go ahead, I, as a male who never went through it in the shoes of either parent, am not in a position to judge. I am simply trying to save you from a life of regret that might surprise you—regret that cannot be expunged.”

persephone says:

10:24am | 24/02/11

St Michael

Let’s extend your requirement that women watch an abortion take place before they choose to have one - how about making them watch a natural birth before they become pregnant?

Or have another woman honestly tell them what it’s like to give birth? (I only had my second child because they promised me a Caesarean and drugs. They lied!!)

I’m sure that would lower the birth rate.

St. Michael says:

01:21pm | 24/02/11

@ persephone: I completely agree with you.  Teenagers—male and female—probably should have to watch a birth, if only a taped one on TV.  Hopefully it’ll be the scariest thing they ever watch at school and keep them from having kids until they’re mature enough to cope with them at least.  It’s not as if they aren’t seeing stuff similarly blood-soaked on the nightly news.  And it will do one thing, which is bring home the reality of the issue to the kids.

It’s not that much different to the very good (and underused) school course where they give you a “mechanical” baby doll to take home and care for, which then cries incessantly roughly when a real baby does.  From memory I think the experience shows the unplanned pregnancy rate drops pretty dramatically in schools where that takes place.

If women tell lies to one another about what birth’s like, that’s their problem.  The birth rate is also not an argument for or against abortion.  It’s meaningless.

Nice try at the straw man, but you fail because the comparison meant to ridicule my point is actually very on point and merely strengthens the point I was trying to make.

Erin says:

11:14am | 26/02/11

Anti-choicers want to deny the right all persons should have - the right to autonomy over their own bodies including the right not to have one’s organs used to support another developing foetus that cannot support itself on its own. Women are not incubators.

True Believer says:

08:35am | 24/02/11

@Brissy Boy

The person who believes there is no God is irrational as they have no way of “proving” their belief is true.

Unproveable non-belief in something does not an intelligent person make. :0)

LauraBoBaura says:

01:56pm | 24/02/11

Unproveable belief in something does not an intelligent person make either, so we must all be morons.

Brissy Boy says:

04:57pm | 24/02/11

@True Believer your statement “a person who believes there is no God” is an oxy-moron. Onus of proof is on the believer. 

In the alternative you can’t prove your non belief in the flying spahgetti monster making you, by your own account, irrational.

Either way it reinforces my point.

Elphaba says:

09:03am | 24/02/11

That’s an excellent point.  There are many people who oppose abortion, but support the death penalty.

There’s a definite anomaly in that logic.

Luce says:

09:58am | 24/02/11

Wow I never even thought of that.. Good point Tim.

Tim Cannon says:

10:18am | 24/02/11

Couldn’t agree more. Neither could Pope Benedict XVI.

An excerpt from http://www.cacp.org/vaticandocuments.html:

“It cannot be overemphasized that the right to life must be recognized in all its fullness,” the pope said. He called upon governments to enact laws and public policies that “take into account the high value that a human being has at every moment of existence,” and added: “In this context, I joyfully welcome the initiative by which Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2005, and the recent measures adopted by some Mexican states to protect human life from its beginnings.”

St. Michael says:

01:24pm | 24/02/11

Toby Ziegler on “The West Wing” was ahead of you all: “Whatever else you say about the Catholic Church, their stance on life issues is morally unimpeachable.  No abortion; no death penalty.”

iMitchy says:

05:30pm | 24/02/11

But what about the right to death?
Do pro-lifers oppose an individuals’ request of voluntary euthanasia just as they oppose an individuals’ request to terminate their own pregnancy?

Direct says:

03:05pm | 25/02/11

Yes iMitchy, they do. That’s why their called pro-lifers.

Do try and keep up.

iMitchy says:

03:46pm | 01/03/11

@Direct,
It was an assumptious statement formed as a question to point out their inhumane and unmerciful nature by taking such a tough stance on the issue of an obligation to life.
BTW
T, H, E, Y, apostrophe, R, E spells they’re.

Do try and keep up.

Dan says:

09:30am | 02/03/11

I am not part of the pro-life movement but I am pro-life, pro-euthenasia and anti the death penalty. I guess you could say that I believe each individual life is sacred and entitled to make its own choice about its own death.

Re Richard if your child was in a coma and temporarily unconcious with no sense of self would you be entitled to kill it while it was in that state?

RichardJ says:

09:22am | 24/02/11

As a non-female, I still agree with you.

Elphaba says:

10:33am | 24/02/11

Why not just opt out of treating fatties as well?  Drunks?  Extreme sports enthusiasts who break their bones several times a year?

Then there would be no money for healthcare because everyone opted out of covering those with different lifestyle choices for them, so that when you did go into hospital, you’d get jack all treatment because there’s no money.

Healthcare is for everyone - even people who make a choice you don’t agree with.

What a stupid argument.  Almsot as good as your “What is Beethoven had never been born?”

Sandy says:

11:26am | 24/02/11

Elphaba. Your fatties, drunks and extreme sports enthusiasts are only directly harming themselves.  And X number of us will do that at one stage in our life.

In contrast, abortion harms viable babies. If the number of Australians who support lifestyle abortions is far less than X, then Mikko has debateable point.

Australia is a democracy with no inalienable rights.  Hence the pack decides what ‘rights’ you get.

Elphaba says:

11:44am | 24/02/11

@Sandy, a foetus is not immediately viable.  Only late term abortions potentially deal with viable foetuses, and once again, when a foetus becomes a baby is a subjective view.

The point is, if you open the door to opt where your tax dollars on health care are spent, there’s nothing to stop people withdrawing their funds from all sorts of lifestyle choice-created illnesses that we don’t agree with.  Doing that would cause a collapse of the health care system as we know it.

The abortion debate is still raging, and whilst we’ve experienced a shift between abortions being banned to being made legal, I doubt the shift is going to go back the other way.  Until that unlikely day, foetuses are not people, and all people are entitled to quality health care, regardless of their lifestyle choice.

Sandy says:

12:31pm | 24/02/11

Elphaba. The debate on when life starts aside. What other treatments for ‘lifestyle choice-created illnesses’ directly affects others? I can’t think of one so I can’t agree with your slippery slope argument. I’m open to it though.

If my brother needs a kidney, I’m not forced to be involved, I’m not forced to give one up?

‘Until that unlikely day’  I’m not so certain. The religious are doing what they have always done so well, breeding. And they all vote.  Demographic ratios are apparently heading in their favour. Which may explain while the debate is raging. And suggests it will get worse.

Better get that bill of rights installed as quickly as we can. Because when might is right - the only other options for you is compromise or war.

Elphaba says:

01:19pm | 24/02/11

@Sandra, read some of the blogs on obesity, or smoking, or organ donation?  Many people complained about their tax dollars being used to treat people who made poor decisions with their life - even if the person who stuffed themselves with fast food every day is having no affect whatsoever on the complainant’s life.

You’ve asked to disregard the debate for when life begins, and then claim that abortion effects others.  Say there’s no man voicing his opinion, it’s just the woman making the abortion decision (one of many situations).  If you think that life starts at conception, then the abortion is affecting the unborn child.  If you don’t, then the only person you’re affecting is yourself.

So when you say abortion affects others, do you mean the unborn child?  Or do you mean other people that were involved in the conception? If the other people involved have no interest in the outcome, and you believe that a foetus is not a baby, then the only person being affected is the mother.

We disagree, and that’s fine.  I’m not trying to convince anyone to adopt my thinking - just putting it out there.  Thanks for your response.

Sandy says:

02:41pm | 24/02/11

Elphaba. Yes I’m aware of the debate over paying for healthcare for dealing with lifestyle choices. But I argue that abortion can be distinguished from the other life style. And distinuishing one set of circumstances from another set is what our legal system revels in.

Yes, in ‘abortion affects others’ I meant ‘abortion effects the unborn child/foetus’.  I’m just trying to point out that the ‘conscientious objector’ approach could be put forward to neutralise pro-lifer’s argument that it’s insulting that they’re paying for abortions through their taxes.

Alternatively pro-choicers to set up and fund a trust fund to pay for abortions without.  How much would it cost?  A cup of coffee a week?  But I’m guessing the pro-choicers would say: why do the pro-lifers get their way with Medicare funding.

Elphaba says:

03:13pm | 24/02/11

@Sandy, the only way for healthcare to work is for it to be available to everyone, regardless of the reasons why you need it.

That’s all there is to say, really.

Tim Cannon says:

03:37pm | 24/02/11

Hi Luce, and thanks for getting involved in the debate.

I have outlined (10:03am today) why the slave trade analogy is relevant. It can be boiled down to this:

In pre-abolition America, slavery was justified on the basis that slaves were not human. Science indicated that slaves were in fact human, and this was the catalyst for the (eventual) recognition of the inherent rights of African Americans as human beings.

I draw the parallel because abortion is usually justified on the basis that the foetus or embryo is not human. Science suggests that the fusion of the sperm and ova results in the formation of new, unique human entity. On that basis I argue that, as happened with slaves in the USA, we should afford unborn human beings those rights which are inherent to their very humanity.

I’m sorry, but I think this argument does have merit, and it is too flippant to simply label it a straw man argument. I think people can be too hasty to use rhetorical cliches like ‘straw man’ and ‘apples and oranges’, and it is disappointing, because it often prevents them from seeing the point that is being made.

You say “the issue of when an embryo becomes a child is more philosophical then (sic) it is technical…”

I disagree. Philosophy throws up any number of definitions of personhood. From Aristotle to Descartes to Peter Singer, notions of what it means to be a ‘person’ are convoluted. This hardly seems to be a solid foundation for determining who has human rights and who does not.

A technical approach provides much firmer ground. The specialists in this field of medical research assert that the moment of conception a new, unique human life is formed.

True, that human life has many stages to go through: zygote, foetus, baby, toddler, pre-adolescent, adolescent, adult, etc. But through every stage, it is the same human life.

This technical basis for determining when human life begins seems practical and dispassionate to me. It is not motivated by emotion. So your claim that it “is argued from a place of emotion rather then practicality…” is unfounded.

You say: “Slaves were fully grown humans, with full consciousness and depth of experience.”

But neither consciousness nor depth of experience determines whether someone has human rights. An adult may temporarily lose consciousness, but they do not temporarily lose their rights. A baby has no depth of experience, but it has human rights.

We have human rights because we are human and we are alive. The fetologists say that the embryo is a human life, so I ask: why don’t we recognise the embryo’s human rights?

With regard to slaves, you say:
“Treating them like dogs is now seen as inhumane because of the pain and agony it caused them at the time.”

This is not the whole truth. Pain and agony are not the only reasons that the treatment of slaves was inhumane. Denying that the slaves were human was what enabled people to treat them as inhuman, and inflict pain and agony. Denying that the slaves were human was the principal affront to their dignity and rights as human beings.

In fact, many slaves would have accepted the prevailing opinion that they were not fully human. They would not have known that the denial of their humanity was a grave injustice. But even though they didn’t know it was a grave injustice, it was still a grave injustice.

By the same token, denying that the child in the womb is a human life is an affront to that child’s dignity, whether or not the child knows it, or feels any pain, or has any experience of it.

By relying so heavily on this idea of self-conscious personhood, you roam into dangerous territory. The popular and influential philosopher Peter Singer has argued that it is not immoral to kill young children up until such a point as they experience self-awareness.

He argues that a 6-month old child is not really a person, and that it therefore doesn’t matter if we kill it.

Do you agree with Mr Singer? Would you agree that new born children have no human rights? Would you be happy with a society in which the killer of a 6-month old child was not charged with murder?

Finally, with regard to the mother’s rights. Yes, I agree that women, like all human beings, have human rights. But I also would urge women to consider that once the child in the womb exists, there is no justice in pretending that it doesn’t have rights too.

Once upon a time women were considered inferior to men, and without rights. Men, who are physiologically stronger than women, were capable of subjugating women by use of brute force. But even though men are still physically capable of subjugating women, our understanding of universal human rights for all men and women has resulted in a wholesale change in the way that men treat women.

A similar relationship exists between the woman and the child in utero. Yes, there is an imbalance of power in the relationship, but justice insists that the woman respect the rights of the child in her womb.

R Moxey says:

04:40pm | 24/02/11

For Tim.

Science didnt indicate that slaves were actually human.  The first people to fight for slaves were lead by WIlliam Wilberforce.  You should actually read about about him.  Then the knowledge slowly transfered over to America.  It wasnt science it was a christians passion to show love to all people no matter where they come from or what they have done.

Luce says:

04:57pm | 24/02/11

Tim, thanks for your well thought out response. I wish I had time to respond to all of it (that’s not a cop out, I genuinely don’t have time). I do have one question though: if both the baby and the mother have rights, how do you equalize those rights, or decide who’s rights are more important? A blanket policy of making abortion illegal surely can’t be the answer as it automatically denies the rights of the mother every time.

iMitchy says:

05:06pm | 24/02/11

@Tim,
Instead of trying to headbutt each other through a brick wall….

I will subdue to your arguement of the embryo being human temporarily to make this point without the “cell cluster” bias / justification. I think that everyone has agreed that the tiny human is neither self aware nor has the ability to feel pain.

Without returning to the repetitive cries of opposing opinions, differing interpretations of analogies, when life starts and rare “what if"s…. which has not really made a dent in the debate, I will ask you this:

What of the greater good? Not an ideal world, but simply the greater good.
Do you believe that in a world where the option to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy was illegal would contain more, or less human suffering?

Tim Cannon says:

05:21pm | 24/02/11

Hi R Moxy,

Actually the argument that slaves of African origin were inferior beings was a pivotal point of contention in the struggle for abolition. The 1857 US Supreme Court case of Scott v Sandford made that clear. The judgment of the court can be found at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZO.html

I refer in particular to the following paragraph (at p407):

“They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”

Tim Cannon says:

06:28pm | 24/02/11

As for scientific debates, there were, at the time, major clashes between theorists of polygenism (supporting racial inferiority of Africans) and monogenism (supporting equality) which were harnessed by the respective sides. Thankfully the monogenists won the day, thanks to the efforts of scientists like James Cowles Prichard, and people like Ralph Waldo Emerson who worked hard to refute the polygenist claims.

Having said that, I do completely agree with you R Moxy - the efforts of Christians such as William Wilberforce were undoubtedly the driving force of the abolitionist cause, motivated by love for their fellow man. Inspirational, to say the least!

Luce says:

03:09pm | 24/02/11

So, Peach, you only have sex for the purpose of procreation? Nothing else?

still can't shut up says:

04:27pm | 24/02/11

And when you use a motor vehicle to convey you to your destination, knowing that 2000 (ish) people die each year using similar vehicles, you are consenting to die in a horrible death?  Or would you sue the pants off the people who caused death or injury to your loved ones because of said crash?  Or would it just be “God’s Plan”?

Francesca says:

07:56pm | 28/02/11

in regards to backing up that women use abortion as another form of contraceptive, yes i do have some statistics to back it up. i suppose the actual feelings of the women at the time are impossible to record, but repeated abortions suggest that a)women are being alot more careless because they now have too much confidence in contraceptives or the assurance of abortion or b) perhaps they dont mind so much getting pregnant because they can go down to the abortion clinic whenever they need. ‘The Telegraph’, and english news paper, says that ‘more than 20,000 women under 25 had repeat abortions last year. the NHS says that 3800 women had had more than 4 abortions. 1 in 106 londoners have had at least one repeat. the number is growing. according to a statistics site called broadsheet says that in the US half the women who get abortions have had at least one previously. and so on and so forth. not only does this suggest that morea nd more women are being cavalier about it, but they are putting themselves at serious risk. abortions have been proven to do all sorts of damage to the woman and any future children.
of course, never having been in that situation i dont know how i would react. as it stands now, i would like to think that i could at least give birth to the child, looking after it…i think maybe i could, and if not then perhaps give it up for adoption, especially if it was the result of a rape. agreed, mothers and babies need more support from the government and community, but failing this, i cannot justify killing the baby. as i have said before, give the child a chance at life, rather than take it away before it is born because it seems too hard or it will be miserable.
i dont think we will ever agree on pro-choice/proabortion thing. perhaps we should leave the phrasing for another debate, though i am far from convinced.
i agree with you-animals should be treated with respect, and given as happy a life as possible. i am staunchly against bettery hens, sow pens and other form. ‘They have even less rights and standing than unborn foetusess of animal cruelty. ’ apparently not. if animals were rutinely torn limb from limb, stabbed in the back of the head and given no rights, the world would be up in arms! unborn foetuses do not get anywhere near this kind of support. you yourself have admitted this-you seem to detest animal cruelty but support cruelty against unborn children.
i think you do need to look at the link, the silent scream, it proves that the child has awareness of what is happening and does feel pain. it seems that the nervous system is pretty much developed in week 10,so it seems a safe bet it can feel pain, maybe before that…so by your reasoning at least at week 10 abortion becomes inhumane because the foetus feels pain and has awareness.
please do not insult me by making abortion about the childs rights. the child has no rights, it seems the mothers comes first. if a child had rights, the mother would not be allowed to kill it, no matter what the quality of life the child will have. othwise you could justify a mother klling her 10 year old because he is depressed or disabled.

Jade says:

10:18am | 25/02/11

You’re sixteen so I’m going to take a gentler tone with you than I would those who should know better who pull out the late term abortion argument.

Generally speaking (and that means 99.9% of cases), the child is already dead, or is certain to die very, very painfully, within hours of being born. Google anencephaly for an example of the conditions to which I refer.

The pro-life lobby unfortunately, likes to promote the idea that late-term abortion is rampant and so unbelievably common, because the method that has to be employed is so visceral it makes an impact on impressionable people. Similarly they fudge statistics to make it sound like 100,000 abortions are performed in Australia, when it reality, there is no way to track the number of abortions performed.

Furthermore, if you have never been a victim of severe abuse, you have no understanding of how some of them feel. Many of the people I know who were severely abused are quite happy to state that they wish their parents had aborted them. To the point of attempting suicide even after they had escaped their home. Talk to seven year olds who have tried to hang themselves, to escape the horrors of their home, and then tell me that their life is better than no life at all.

iMitchy says:

10:49am | 25/02/11

Stop using the term pro-abortion. That is an inaccurate, ignorant and accusational term. The term is pro-choice. Because we believe that people deserve to have the choice. That includes the choice to feel as though you could never yourself terminate a pregnancy.
If you would like to change some terminology, try starting with changing pro-life to anti-choice. This better captures the attitude of those who wish to remove the option to make decisions about their own body.
Would you like it if you were refused the option of certain medical care, or equally were forced to receive certain medical procedures - not on the basis of medicine, rather the morals of groups of other people?
Just remember that by being pro-choice, we would prefer someone to keep a baby, we just don’t feel that one should be forced to.
Principle, not procedure.

Peter says:

01:04pm | 25/02/11

Agree with Jade, Francesca unless you have actually been in that situation of being raped you can’t really say how you would feel. You can only guess at that.
As pro choice It does not phase me even if the early term abortion was considered a human, if I were aborted I wouldn’t care because I won’t remember or even know what is going on. I have a great memory and can remember back when I was 2 years old but beyond that no. Its not a justification just if I was aborted I wouldn’t care. Plus if your religious (which I am not) an aborted child would go right to heaven.

But seriously not everyone wants this golden glow of life, there are many people out there suicical and depressed who have never expereienced any joy in their life just suffering who wish they were never born. (I know I feel this way a lot, the more I find out about the world the less I want to live in it).

So should be so arrogant to assume everything wants to live in this world given the way it is currently? I know how that sounds but suicide exists aplenty and no though goes past the unborn here.

Jason Todd says:

01:58pm | 25/02/11

Hate to break this to you kiddo, but I am not pro-abortion. I am in fact, anti-abortion. I don’t think it is a good thing. I am far from pro-abortion.

However, I do believe that the consequences of outlawing abortion are far worse than allowing the procedure to be taken advantage of when needed.

That would in fact make me pro-choice. Pro-Choice. I don’t like the procedure, but I believe in the mother’s right to choose to partake of it if the situation is deemed to require it.

Guess what? I am also pro-life! Not in the way that it is represented in the abortion debate, but seriously, can you find me anyone who will admit to being anti-life? It is a weasel worded term used to demonise the other side of the debate.

This is what steams me about this debate; the pro-choice side gets demonised as pro-abortion or anti-life. But who could possibly bring themselves to argue against pro-life? I agree with posters suggesting it be called “anti-choice” or perhaps “Anti-freedom”. Both names are more apt than “pro-life”

Bilby says:

02:38pm | 25/02/11

iMitchy - pro-choice IS pro-abortion because the choice to have a termination is the point of contention. If we’re not talking about that choice, what on earth are we talking about?

If it makes you feel uncomfortable, live with it. I do. I can be pro-abortion while being completely honest with myself about everything that that entails. Can you?

Francesca says:

07:01pm | 25/02/11

Jade-I am a little confused as to what point you are making with anencephaly? If you are saying that babies should be aborted because of various mental or physical abnormalities, I would have to disagree with you. Whether they have down’s syndrome, spina bifida or any number of other ‘defects’ then they still deserve whatever life and happiness they can get. My best friend’s brother has Down’s Syndrome, it is of course sad that he cannot have a ‘normal life’, but he is SO happy, and so is his family for having him! Everyone around him just feels happy in his presence; he is so full of life that it is impossible and down-right evil to try and even consider taking that away from him. Is it acceptable to kill somebody when they lose use of their legs in an accident, when they are brain-damaged, or otherwise badly injured? To contemplate such an idea is disgusting. How does that make us better than (yes, I am going to use this-overused analogy) Hitler-according to him Jews, African Americans, gypsies, and disabled. Indeed, this takes us back to ancient Greece, when the Spartans would abandon disabled or unwanted babies on the hillside to die of cold, or hunger or be eaten by wild animals!

Francesca says:

07:11pm | 25/02/11

Cont’…I may as well add this (and get a whole lot of crap thrown at me for it). Yes, sex is pleasurable (so I am told ) but its main purpose in the continuation of the human race. So people, if you aren’t ready to have a baby…gents-keep your pants up, and ladies-keep your legs closed. Shock! Horror! A 16 yr old who doesn’t believe in promiscuity and ‘free love’ or whatever you call it these days!! You may think ‘but we want freedom’, well I say, I want women to respect themselves and men to be real gentlemen. That may be an old, medieval idea, surely pressured upon me by religious nutjobs, but just because an idea or moral is old doesn’t mean that it is bad, and has no application in the real world. You are probably thinking ‘who is this kid? This obnoxious child doesn’t know what she is talking about, she is brainwashed!’  But you should know that I question everything. I have looked into both sides of this issue, and have yet to be presented with any convincing evidence as to why I am wrong.  I am fairly independent, and very stubborn-as my parents repeatedly tell me- I am not the kind of person to be easily brainwashed, but I like to think I am open to listen to other peoples’ ideas. That sounds arrogant, but I think people need to be more firm and educated in their convictions. There is all this crap about free speech, equality and religious freedom. You accuse religious people to be pushing their beliefs into you, but you do the same to us. Whether it be all the sex on tv, anti-Christian propaganda and jokes, mardi gras parades…and yet when we speak out we are abused by the press (just look at Justin Bieber) and marked as idiots with ideas from the dark ages. I have drifted off topic a little, apologies, but it brings me back to this. Not everyone can be pleased, not everyone can be right. And this issue is too important for people to be allowed to ramble along with their own ideas. That sound harsh, but it is true. I beg you, just keep your mind open to this, use your brain and your conscience and I think you cannot help but be against abortion. For those who refuse, good luck to you. And although I am by no means an expert on any of this, this affects me, my generation, the future of the human race, if you want to be melodramatic about it. I do care about it, so if you disagree with me-go ahead.

Jason Todd says:

06:51am | 26/02/11

Oops. Francesca, winner by Godwin’s Law.

Or not.

To you I would say, if you aren’t ready to die in a road accident, well then best not get in a car. After all, that is a reasonably likely outcome. You indicate that the main purpose of sex is procreation. On that I would disagree. The creation of an offspring may be a side effect of sex, but given how infrequently that it occurs, (relative to the number of sexual encounters), I would suggest that the main purpose of sex for our species is recreation. Far more people view it in those terms than for a purely procreation standpoint. We have evolved past that as a species. Back in the day, eating used to be purely for nutrition, but as we have developed as a species we have evolved to take more pleasure in what we eat. This isn’t a bad thing. Just a change from our roots.

You are young, but you are obviously passionate about this, so I will cut you a break; but the way that I viewed the world at 16 and the way I view the world now are two very different things. You can be sexually active without being promiscuous. Women can enjoy sex without losing respect in themselves and there are still men out there who can have sex without being ungentlemanly about it. The real dirty secret about sex? It isn’t dirty. It isn’t bad and it isn’t something to be feared and spoken about in hushed tones. I think that if more people were frank and honest about sex, we would have fewer problems with it than we do today.

Not going to bash your beliefs, but you have to respect that other people have different ones. You might find them morally repugnant, as I find some things in society morally repugnant, but I still respect peoples right to hold those beliefs and live as they see fit. If you don’t like abortion, I hope that you are never in the position to be forced to consider one, but I am not going to look down on women that do need to take that option. I’m certainly not going to stand by legislation that forces them to not take that option. I too came to these conclusions with an open mind, using both my brain and my conscience, and I can’t help being for the option of abortion, as the lesser of two evils, despite your protestations to the contrary.

Just Another Pro-life Nutter says:

07:56am | 26/02/11

Jade - have you actually looked at the link Francesca sent you? She asked you a question at the end, as well. Why not answer it?

Ancephally is awful, I admit. But, would I abort a child who has it? Most likely not. And there are many others whose children had ancephally did not choose abortion:
http://www.anencephalie-info.org/e/report.php

Besides, taking folic acid is a good prevention of ancephally.

But, let us face it. The majority of abortions are for social reasons.

Francesca, you may be young, but you give a good argument. Kudos to you,

Just Another Pro-life Nutter says:

07:56am | 26/02/11

Jade - have you actually looked at the link Francesca sent you? She asked you a question at the end, as well. Why not answer it?

Ancephally is awful, I admit. But, would I abort a child who has it? Most likely not. And there are many others whose children had ancephally did not choose abortion:
http://www.anencephalie-info.org/e/report.php

Besides, taking folic acid is a good prevention of ancephally.

But, let us face it. The majority of abortions are for social reasons.

Francesca, you may be young, but you give a good argument. Kudos to you,

Francesca says:

08:53am | 26/02/11

well, i guess this is where the argument breaks down. if we have totally different ideas about morality then obviously nobody can change your point of view, and i dont think me trying to give you catechism lessons would help. (and did you just quote ‘Scrubs’ to convince me about the sex argument?) And i am still far from convinced that sex is a sign of self-respect, or that its prime object is recreation-but perhaps this is too much to ask of the modern world.
i guess i should point out that, being a catholic, i dont believe in evolution (seriously just cannot get that, bigbang-something came from nothing, non-life turned into life, and that life bettered itself from a single cell into ridiculously complicated creature like us-and i use the word creatures deliberately-this philsophy was the foundation of communism!)
i see where you are coming from with the ‘live and let live’ attitude, but i dont think that this is an issue where a pro-lifer can do that. see it from my point of view-innocent children are being slaughtered by the hundredsof thousands, and i am not going to shut up about it because it offends somebody or makes you feel uncomfortable.
ok, so maybe i am not the best debator, but maybe you should have a look at a few people who are pretty good at this. there is this guy you can look up on youtube, he is catholic (dont groan) but he is pretty fair and he actually doesnt bring god into this particular one very much. its called ‘the cost of abortion’ -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyvgIM7E9Do . if nothing else it will give you more ammunition to use against prolifers and a giggle at the ‘crazy guy’. win-win, right?

Jason Todd says:

11:50am | 26/02/11

I was never saying that sex is a SIGN of self respect. Only that it can be enjoyed without needing to sacrifice self respect. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it should ONLY be enjoyed if you aren’t sacrificing self respect to do so.If that means that you only have sex for procreation, or wait until marriage, then that’s your line, and who am I to question it.
If you have sex with someone and can’t look yourself in the mirror after, that’s a pretty good indication that you shouldn’t have been doing it to start with.

Confusing your theories there; Big Bang is the Big Bang Theory, First biological life is Abiogenesis, Evolution is the theory of descent with modification. It is different and separate from both Big Bang Theory and Abiogenesis. I am going to cut you some leeway for the remark about the foundation of communism, other than to suggest strongly that you do some more reading before you espouse such demonstrably false views.

See it from my point of view; There are people out there who want to make it the law that vulnerable men, women and familes are forced to suffer hardship, force babies to be born into loveless homes. Force women to have risky and illegal medical procedures that risk their lives and wellbeing and force society to cover the cost. Morally, that will not stand; and I’m not going to shut up about it just because someone else’s god thinks that I should.

Didn’t catch the Scrubs quote, but it’s possible, unless you are referencing the fact I called you a girl’s name?

Francesca says:

05:00pm | 26/02/11

thanks for the support pro-life-nutter, nice to have another moral person in this conversation.
ok admittedly, i went a bit off topic with the big bang, and evolution stuff, but in a way it is related-existance of god, morality etc etc. but i am not going to start trying to convince you about all that, unless you fancy another argument, which by the way i am open to.
as for the communism thing, its true. look it up, marx and engels in their letters to each other greatly admired the work of darwin and founded their basis for communism on it. look at http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i1/communism.asp if you dont believe me. (pehaps not what Darwin intended, but an inevitable result of strong-overthrow-weak, you can do whatever you like if your big enough to etc etc, thats what it boils down to)
not that its very important but the scrubs quote (yeah, im a fan despite some of the messages in there) is that JD says ‘maybe the dirty secret about sex is that it isnt dirty at all.’ not important though i am in fact a girl and am therefore not offended by being called a girls name
as for the sex thing, i guess we come from different upbringings, and it is probably pointless of me to throw the ‘sex outside of marriage is bad’ thing at you cos lets face it, who is gonna listen?
yes, i think i can see where you are coming from. and i agree, its hard. but who are the living to decide on the fate of the unborn? yeah, sometimes life sucks. sometimes parents cant afford their kids. sometimes the kids are abused and lonely and scared. but from adversity comes courage and hope and everything that is good about human beings. if the family cannot look after them, then there are other people who can. society is already covering the cost of abortion, morally, economically. and as a side note do you not think it wrong that taxpayer money-many of whom absolutely despise abortion-is being used to fund the things that makes us sick?
  beside, is the answer to not having a POTENTIALLY hard life to have no life at all. is the answer to ‘forcing’ women to carry the child (which was conceived in consensual sex in over 99% of cases, it seems from my research) to force the child not to be born at all? no, the baby should not suffer because its mother isnt ready (which is once again where recreational sex comes into it)
did you look at the link i sent you? the guy makes some pretty good points. i wonder if i were to say, you can have the 1% of abortions because of rape and incest and leave the other 99% alone, what would most of you pro-abortionists say…? i beg you, watch that link all the way through (to warn you, the first part is more about America, but it is significant to the global situation and still quite interesting)
if those later parts of this show dont move you to tears you are not human. watch what abortion really is.
but i was thinking, maybe if we are to get anywhere in this discussion we should start from the beginning?

zoe says:

06:10pm | 26/02/11

Hi Francesca don’t know if you’ll see this or not but if you do I just wanted to say how refreshing it was to hear from a 16 year old like yourself somebody that actually thinks about these issues without just going with the crowd.  I hope that my own children will one day be teenagers like you that are thoughtful, articulate and have an appreciation for life.
Don’t let the other responses get you down.

Francesca says:

12:08pm | 27/02/11

thanks for that zoe, it does mean alot to know that decent people are still out there

Carly says:

12:17pm | 27/02/11

@ Francesca
I’m glad you’re thinking about issues such as these, and I respect that you obviously have strong beliefs and you are willing to back them up.
In return, I ask you to respect that other people have separate views from you, and regardless of the topic, different does not always mean wrong.
To begin with, I honestly think you have the wrong idea about people who have abortions. Very few people (if any) think having an abortion is a badge of honour, and most people only consider it when they are in extreme distress and see few or no other options.
Regarding the babies who are born with birth defects or diseases; there is extreme pressure on families and very little government funding and support. Aside from the sheer financial drain (which many families simply cannot support, even if they wanted to) there is often the emotional and mental drain of constantly having to support a child. There are stories of families being so depressed and worn out, feeling so hopeless that they have actually killed the child. Hopefully no one else will ever get to this stage, but please acknowledge this situation is not an easy one. If it was easy, everyone would do the right thing (whatever that is) with a smile.
Pro-Choice is not Pro-Abortion and many Pro-Choice people would not go on to have an abortion if the situation happened to them. They are exactly as stated- they want people to have the choice. Pro-Abortion would be people going around and trying to convince every pregnant person to abort their child. Calling someone Pro-Abortion is not only rude and disrespectful, it is also a sign of inferior reasoning and logic as it signals name-calling as a last resort. (Francesca, that point was not aimed so much at you as Bilby).
Francesca, I could say that based on my moral reasoning, killing an animal just for food is wrong. I could then argue that no one else should ever be allowed to eat meat. But is it fair for everyone else to be impacted just because I believe it is wrong? That is up to personal opinion, and I believe that I cannot make decisions for other people. I can hope that they will see things my way, because I believe it is right, but I cannot force them.
It is the same with religion- some people believe religion is harmful and should not be taught at a young age or in schools at all. Should religion in schools be banned because those individuals believe it is wrong?
If you truly want to convince people not to have an abortion, I would recommend the following:
1) Talk to people with respect and empathy. This means not insulting someone just because they believe differently from you. Not all different views mean “wrong”. The minute you start the blame game, you lose your potential audience.
For example, you said ” nice to have another moral person in this conversation”, thus implying that because I have a different view, I have no morals. This is disrespectful, because I do have morals, even if they are not quite the same as yours. |2) Do research from pro-choice sites, and see the other side of the story. The more you understand the other side, the more you can help convince them.  Talk to people in this situation or read their stories and try not to judge them or blame them. Listen to why they have done it, and try to empathise, even if you don’t agree.
3) Look at how you can prevent unwanted pregnancies (i.e contraception) . It is illogical to tell people “not to have sex” because it is proven not to work, especially in this day and age. So how else can you prevent unwanted pregnancy? This can be something you are involved in to actively make a difference.
4) Stay impersonal and reasonable. When a person resorts to insults and name calling, they lose credibility.
5) In situations there are different approaches, for example the “talk someone around” approach or the “keep attacking them until they give in”/ “sledgehammer” approach. The sledgehammer approach tends to make people keep fighting back (“I’ll never give in!”) and wins you a lot more enemies than friends. 
6) Remember no one can be right, all the time, and even if someone disagrees with you, they are still a person with feelings.

I hope this helps a little. Have your own beliefs; stand up for them even, but not at the expense of others’.

Francesca says:

02:54pm | 27/02/11

thanks for being level headed, carly, i guess i can get a bit carried away sometimes.
in regards to -different does not always mean wrong- in this case i am afraid it does. pro-lifers say ‘abortion is wrong all of the time.’ pro-abortionists (or pro-choicers, for your sake) say ‘abortion is wrong SOME of the time’, or ‘abortion is never wrong because it is the woman’s choice’ You see how these are totally opposite beliefs, they cannot both be right. someone has to be worng, and i suppose it is these kinds of debates in which we try and find the truth.
i understand that for many abortion is not an easy choice, that they are not neccessarily proud of what they are doing, or the situation they are in. also, i dont neccessarily think that abortion is used as a last resort. it seems that alot of propaganda floating around paints abortion as not a big deal, easily done, and safe. some, i suppose, consider it another form of contraception. this, of course has proven not to be true. the emotional and physical damage of an abortion affects the women long afterwards, especially in other pregnancies.
as for babies born with birth defects, i agree it is hard for families, but that does not give the mother a free license to kill her child. they are people too, who deserve respect, even if they have not been born yet. alot of people conveniently forget this. perhaps the problem then lies in the government not giving enough support to single mothers or mothers with disabled children. this of course must be fixed…in my ideal world the money currently used to fund abortions could be used to help mother and child during and after birth. i do feel sorry for the women and children in these difficult circumstances, but i feel even sorrier for the child whose life is stolen from it by its own mother.
as for pro-choice/pro-abortion..if you support the ‘choice’ you support abortion, even though you may never undergo one yourself. i wonder why it is that ‘pro-choicers’, supporters of abortion, are offended when they are called ‘‘pro-abortion’. is it that somewhere deep down you do recognise abortion to be an ugly word, even though you claim it to be a word that symbolises the ‘freedom’ of women today?
you must admit, that killing an animal is different to killing a human child. would you not be much more offended if you saw a baby being sliced apart than an animal painlessly put down so that a person can eat? religion does not even have to come into it, it is simple human decency and morality. would you not fight to stop foreign governments torturing and oppressing their people. surely, you would be angry if you saw a dog being beaten and abused by its master? this is what i see when i see abortion, only a hundred times worse. it is human rights, not just individual belief. also, abortion affects everyone on the planet, take a look at the youtube link, its an hour but i think you might find that hour worth it.
thank you for the advice, i will try and stay calm and keep it in mind.

Francesca says:

07:25pm | 27/02/11

for those who are in doubt or against the idea that the baby is not sentient and does not feel pain, i suggest you look up ‘the silent scream, part 3’ on youtube. as well as any other footage or pictures you can. if you cant watch it because it makes you feel uncomfortable, what does that tell you? if you wont because you are so sure of your beliefs, well, if you are so sure then watching these things shouldnt shake you, should it?

Carly says:

07:42pm | 27/02/11

@ Francesca

Everyone gets carried away on such an emotive issue!
In regards to the “some consider [abortion] to be a form of contraception” comment, how many do you know have done this? Do you have statistics to back it up?
In an ideal world families would have more support, especially when children are disabled. However, I’m sorry to say abortion funding would not even come close to covering costs. Disabled children (whether physically or mentally) come with astronomical costs- there is no easy solution on this one. Before you judge the mother, are you willing to take on the burden of care and financial support? If you are not, then please don’t make comments about things you don’t fully understand.
I am offended by people calling pro-choice pro-abortion more because it shows that the person saying it is either ignorant or deliberately looking to insult. I am not ashamed at all of being pro choice- which means supporting either life or abortion as per the needs of the mother. I am not pro abortion as a contraceptive, but support abortion in the case that the foetus will harm the mother physically or mentally. I support the choice, and sometimes this means I support abortion and sometimes it means I support life. Calling the two the same is simply incorrect. And pro-choice individuals may only support abortion in specific circumstances.
“you must admit, that killing an animal is different to killing a human child. would you not be much more offended if you saw a baby being sliced apart than an animal painlessly put down so that a person can eat?”
Oh Francesca, animals being painlessly put down? I’m sorry to tell you, but this very rarely happens. Many animals bred for food live a stunted life of fear and torture, before being put down in the easiest possible method for the owner. Take Halal meat for instance, or battery hens, or any other number of animals bred for our convenience. I’m no Vegetarian, but I can acknowledge that there is a definite disparity in the way we treat humans and animals- because animals feel pain too, and we can all survive perfectly well on a vegetarian diet.
What kind of morals do you think you have if you are so willing to fight for human life but award animals with no compassion? They have even less rights and standing than unborn foetuses! 
“would you not fight to stop foreign governments torturing and oppressing their people. surely, you would be angry if you saw a dog being beaten and abused by its master? this is what i see when i see abortion, only a hundred times worse.”
I don’t see how killing cells that will become a human that have no sense of awareness can be a hundred times worse than the torture of a person or animal who most certainly is aware. 
I don’t need to look at the youtube link, I understand perfectly well the dark truth of abortion from previous research. Yes, I find it distasteful and unpleasant, but no, it has not changed my opinion.
When a baby can be extracted without harm and finish growing in an artificial womb and parents can waive all responsibilities, I will support making abortion legal with pleasure.
But let’s work on children’s rights first, since the right to life doesn’t always include the word “happy”.

Jason Todd says:

08:42pm | 27/02/11

Just quietly, be careful with what you are suggesting by saying that Pro-life nutter is a ‘another moral person’. You seem to be making the implication that some of us have no morals. I resent that implication, and I’m sure others do too.

I’ll take that argument about god, morality and the space between whenever you’re ready. We’d probably both learn something. Probably needs to be in a different forum though.

I have looked up the communism thing, and I suggest you refer to a source other than Answers in genesis. For everything. What you (and answers in genesis) are presenting as the theory of evolution is NOT what evolution is about. The two arguments that you state here (Strong overthrow weak and You can do whatever you like if you are big enough) are NOT what it boils down to. You might have been using size as an example, but physical size and strength is not at all that matters. It is about consistent small improvements to better suit an organism to its environment. It is not under anyone’s control, nor can it be.

Not knowing your upbringing, I can’t comment on the differences, but you’d be surprised. I come from quite a strict Catholic upbringing. Like I said, previously, the ‘sex outside of marriage’ deal is a personal choice, good for some, not for others. That decision is your right.

Who are the living to decide the fate of the unborn? Well, we are living for starters. By your own definition there, the unborn are not. You’ve seen the feelings of many about what constitutes a person here, and you shouldn’t be surprised that we place the welfare of the living over the welfare of the not living (or potential living if you prefer). Not sure I take your point on the next one? 

Yes there is a moral and economic component to this argument. We just disagree on where it lies. I think it is morally, ethically and economically advantageous to allow women the choice of abortion, you disagree. No matter which way we go, society will have to support the costs either way. Neither option is going to be completely no burden on society. As for taxpayer money, well taxpayer money funds a lot of things that make me sick. If the position was flipped then the “banned abortion” tax costs would make me sick. Is it ‘wrong’? Well, we live in a democratic society, tax funds are allocated by the elected government, if enough people want to institute a policy, then the system will allow for that to happen. You can’t really complain that the system that is designed to support us all in an equitable fashion funds things that you personally disagree with (even though plenty of people do).

If you could end a great deal of pain and suffering by the excise of a non-life then would you?
From my view, the baby doesn’t suffer because the mother isn’t ready because at the point of abortion, it is not a baby. Besides, I know very few women who have viewed the issue as flippantly as “Oop, not ready yet, may have a baby next month instead”. It is a decision that is thoroughly thought out and considered before it is made.

I watched the video all the way through, and I hate to break it to you, but I was not terribly impressed. I have seen a lot of these sorts of these preachers proselytising like this and they do tend to be very good showmen, lots of flashy preaching, not so much concern for the facts. Perhaps you could direct me to what you consider his best points?

The preacher’s cost argument is fundamentally flawed, it is designed to be sensational and emotionally manipulative but is sadly lacking on a lot of fact. The core of his cost argument is “We have aborted x-many people. That x-many people would have all lived to child bearing age and had y many children therefore we have lost z number of people. Wouldn’t it be great to have that many more people to power our economy!” I hate to break it to this guy, not only is his premise wrong (ie: 100% of the abortions would have led to a viable baby, 100% of those would then go on to be a child bearing adult and productive members of society) but he is only considering profit from people. He is not considering things like welfare, social security, healthcare costs, pollution, all things that place a drain on an economy. A greater population means that there would have been a greater number of people to make the GFC worse than it was. A greater population means that we would have greater population density and all the problems that come with it. If anything, we should be being MORE selective about when and how we have children, not having more children for the sake of it. Overpopulation is a real issue. Am I suggesting that abortion is the cure to overpopulation? No. But the preacher seems to think that we should be pushing our numbers as high as we can.

Jason Todd says:

08:44pm | 27/02/11

(Cont.)
Interesting fact though (from Freakonomics) the legalisation of abortion led to a reduction in the crime rate (in America) that showed drops in crime that coincided with the states that first legalised abortion. Does correlation imply causation? Usually not, but it’s certainly interesting to think about.

(PS: I particularly enjoyed the preacher’s last second recruitment drive “Thanks for watching! Turn to God or burn in hell!”)

By your definition I am not human. Even before the videos, I was aware of what abortion looks like. I am aware that it is horrible to see. I am aware that it isn’t a good solution. But no number of suspiciously edited, gory and graphic videos is enough to move me to support a view which will cause so much suffering. If you are not used to seeing it, any gory image is enough to give you a visceral reaction. If you didn’t know what you were watching, your stomach may turn at video of a lifesaving cancer operation. Just because it is uncomfortable to see is not a reason to ban it outright.

In answer to your percentage question, I would still say no. Yes rape and incest are valid reasons for abortion, but there are many other reasons. I know that the preacher in the video downplays it, but the reason that the definition of ‘health’ is in there, is not so some left wing conspiracy can abort as many people as possible, its there so that all the contingencies are covered. Flip it like this, if I said to you, we will prosecute the small number of murders that are committed out of pure hatred, but everyone else goes free. What would you say? On the one hand, murders out of pure hatred are bad, but on the other hand, that leaves a whole lot of bad people on the streets, and a whole lot of suffering by the families of the victims. I’ll ask you this, say we went with a Biblical definition of life, and allowed abortions before that point, but disallowed them after. Would you agree to that?

In your response to Carly, what constitutes “wrong”? I fear that to get to the bottom of that, we’d have to have a big ol’ ethical debate, and I suggest that God might come into it somewhere. We’ve covered this ground, you view an embryo, blastocyst or foetus as “A person” Whereas I view it as “not a person”. Why is that so? Well, we draw the line of “human” in different places. I don’t think that your point of view is “wrong”, I just think that instituting it and follow it to its natural conclusion would do more damage, and therefore be more detrimental to society than the alternative. Noone is “wrong” and the “truth” of the matter is people have different opinions about the matter. 

I’m not offended to be called pro-abortion. It’s just an incorrect label. Pro-abortion implies that I am going out ensuring that it occurs. I’m not. It’s not an ideal solution, I recognise that. It causes moral quandries such as these, but as I’ve repeatedly stated, I believe the consequences of outlawing it outright would be far more disasterous than allowing it. Would I say that it symbolises the ‘freedom’ of women today? No. Not really. No more than eyeglasses symbolise our freedom to see clearly. I’m pro-euthanasia too, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going out knocking off pensioners as soon as they hit 85.

You make a point about an animal being painlessly put down so that people can eat. The science indicates that animals are much more concious, intelligent, aware and capable of sufferring than early term foetuses are. I can’t remember who said it, but allegedly killing a pig is the intellectual equivalent of killing a three year old. To flip it back on you, if you then eat pork, would you not be much more offended with the killing of an animal that as concious and as intelligent as a three year old so people can eat, as compared to the surgical excise of a collection of tissue with no concept of being, thoughts or capability of suffering that may not even develop into a life?

Religion doesn’t have to come into it, but it does. Frequently. Look back through the past comments. I agree that this debate is about simple human decency and morality. I agree that I would be angry if I saw a dog being beaten by it’s master, and I agree that I would be angry and fight about governments torturing and oppressing their people. That is the reason that I am pro-choice. I don’t agree with a governments right to legislate the torture and oppression of their people

Francesca says:

09:22pm | 28/02/11

yes jasontodd, i have already been told off about that by carly. i get a bit carried away…
agreed, a different forum but it will be interesting to do this.
i assure you, i do not take all my facts from one website, that was just an example, but you can look up marx and engels letters to each other from an independent source, it its all there. not what darwin wanted, but it seems to have happened. there is a documentary, called ‘the bloody history of communism’ not sure how independent it is but i think it mentions darwin and communism…once again though…maybe a different forum..
surprise surprise, my parents are strict catholics too, thus far however, i am sticking with it. yeah, i guess that it may be a bit late to undo all the ‘sexual freedom’ stuff, people like it too much. i dont agree with it, but at the same time, i cant stop you, not unless you are heading that way yourself…but if you must have sex without wanting children, dont be too surprised if every now and again contraception fails and this is where abortion comes into it.
apologies, that was mis-worded. i meant the living outside the womb adult people..oh you know what i mean. i maintain that the unborn are living individuals, and have the right to life. and they ARE individuals, even though they are nourished by and contained within the body of the mother. a normal woman does not have 4 eyes, 2 hearts, 2 bloodtypes, 2 separate sets of dna etc etc. where awareness occurs (above i have said at the most 10 months, where the baby can feel oain and sense what is around it, have a look at ‘the silent scream’ if you havent already)..anyway where awarness occurs i think is in some ways irrelevant. toddlers are not self aware, i think you said that yourself. yet we dont try and justify killing toddlers, do we? the fact is that however much the baby relies on the mother, it haas its own body and its own life, and that must be respected. our society is founded (at least partly) on respect for human life, and all life come to that. that is what sets us above animals and barbarians. without that respect, society will eventually fall apart and all our high ideas about morality, knowledge, truth etc will mean very little.
As is fairly obvious by now, i dont believe it morally or ethically advantageous to society to allow abortion by any stretch of the imagination. as for the economical benefits…only a small percentage of aborted babies would be a ‘drain’ on resources. i am having difficulty finding an exact percentage. however, there is support for them, maybe not quite enough, but people get by. are you suggesting that all downs sydrome babies and those with cleft palates etc should be ‘removed’ because they are expensive. i know many mothers and children who would be rather angry at that. besides, life is priceless. ok, so maybe the majority of people support or are indifferent about abortion. but just because something is socially acceptable does not make it morally right. at the end of the day i have my own conscience to answer to. i guess everyone else will have to deal with theirs.
‘If you could end a great deal of pain and suffering by the excise of a non-life then would you?’ in answer, no, i would not, because i dont believe the baby to be a ‘non-life’, and the idea of performing a ‘mercy killing’ sickens me.

Francesca says:

09:24pm | 28/02/11

cont’ ‘From my view, the baby doesn’t suffer because the mother isn’t ready because at the point of abortion, it is not a baby’ it has been proven that the baby feels pain at 10 weeks, more or less. so it does suffer a great deal as its limb are torn off and its head is crushed. (once again, ‘the silent scream’ and other videos may help to illustrate this) and what about the (admittedly rarer) abortion after 6 months, when the baby is able to survive outside of the womb. are you not just a little squeamish about partially birthing the baby (which is very much alive and kicking) then stabbing it in the back of the head? if you do not want the child, why not just give birth to it and give it away? and i never said the choice was easy (for most, i hope, anyway) but easy or not, i still believe it wrong.
ok so preachers..not your cup of tea. i guess that video was not aimed so much as the undecided or ‘pro-choices’ but at pro-lifers… it was more the images which i found disgusting (this coming from a pretty hardcore horror movie fan) not so much because they were gory, but because..i dont know..its hard to put my thoughts into words..because they were human children..ripped apart..by their own mothers…this idea is just..so backwards and grotesque. you see mothers die for their children, then you see them throw them carelessly away…
back to the preacher, agreed the number could not have been 100% accurate. but the starting number-the number of abortion performed..was conservative, the smallest number possible what with not taking into account chemical abortions and the fact they were pro-abortion researched numbers. do you see his point though? people are taken out of the economy, millions and millions of them, so they do not become consumers, so they do not stimulate the economy. you must admit this to be a fair point. if a person is taken out of existence, they dont contribute to business.
also, the idea about a ‘stolen life’ is an interesting one. you must admit, when a baby’s existence is stolen, ihe does not grow, be born, grow up, go to school, play with friends, worry over exams, get nervous over girls, graduate, get a job, get married have children, grow old with his wife, die. even simple things like yelling at the television, or enjoying the sun..things that the baby will never get to do. look at me getting all romantic..but no, that idea is one that holds some merit, i think. YOU were once a growing baby inside your mother, she decided to keep you, you were born grew up etc etc..all until today, when you (unknowingly maybe) try and take that away from someone else
no, of course people shouldnt have babies for the sake of it, they should be more careful not to get pregnant in the first place. once the baby is conceived however, it has a right to live its life

Francesca says:

09:46pm | 28/02/11

cont’ interesting, but irrelevant. you cannot legalise one crime against humanity to stop another…
haha, yeah sometime they do go a bit OTT dont they?
i have to say, i find it a little disturbing that you are unmoved.. i dont think it fair to say they are suspiciously edited, they are realy photos, if you think not then look for other more ‘reliable’ sources. as i said above, i dont find it disturbing simply because they are bloody, i find it disturbing that a mother (and society) is capable of doing that to her own child. something must be really wrong in the world if people can look at a a baby’s dismembered body and not bat an eyelid.
as for incest being a valid reason for abortion…not really . once again, not the baby’s fault (not the mothers either but sometimes life sucks). but what better way to help the offender than give him abortion!? he can take his daughter sown to the clininc, have the evidence of his crime removed, then take her home and start it all over again. just a thought…
setting murderers free and giving life to innocent children are a little different, dont you think? the baby’s existence is not a crime, murder is plus a hundred other technicalities. what exactly is the Biblical definition of llife (gee, i feel like i should know this, but i dont want to be answering something i may not understand)
yes, the definition of wrong may become a problem, but we are both two sensible human beings with consciences…i think…but once again, if you are up for a debate on the god subject..more than happy.
ahh, once again, ‘nobody is wrong’..logic says otherwise, we have two contradicting points of view, logic says one or both of us must be wrong. and may i ask, what great damage is a child’s birth doing? physical pain to the mother, of course, but mothers go through this happily every second..what about the physical and emotional damage an abortion does to the mother?
yes i guess that we will never agree about what name to give each other…outlawing it would do some damage, but more than is being done already? maybe people should pay a little more attention in sex education class..besides, right is right and wrong is wrong, and it would be dishonourable and unethical for the law to allow so great a wrong because it is afraid of what will happen if they do what is right. maybe i am too optimistic..i suppose the world will beat that out of me in due time…
no, i would still be more offended if a child was killed than an intelligent animal…but as above ive said that foetuses are capable of pain and awareness. in fact, some studies have been done that foetuses even start developing peronality in the womb, i will look into that further.
‘I don’t agree with a governments right to legislate the torture and oppression of their people ’ well, as i see it, that is exactly what is happening. this i think is the fundamental difference in our point of view:foetuses ARE people, tiny, new, undeveloped, but people nonetheless.

Carly says:

10:20pm | 01/03/11

@ Francesca

I’m confused by the flow of your replies. I’m unsure who they respond to at times, and I find them difficult to follow.

“but if you must have sex without wanting children, dont be too surprised if every now and again contraception fails and this is where abortion comes into it.”
I think if a person takes reasonable care (for example many people use an oral contraceptive like the pill AND a condom) then why shouldn’t they be surprised?
Realistically Francesca, people have sex outside of marriage and outside of religion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it as long as those involved are safe and respect each other. How would you feel if someone implied that you going to Church was dirty or wrong? It would be silly and strange to you, but it also isn’t very nice. If sex outside of marriage for you is wrong, fine, but don’t insult other people for whom it isn’t wrong.

You misunderstood me when I was talking about disabled babies. I was not saying they should automatically all be aborted. I was saying you probably don’t understand the sacrifices families must make to raise a seriously disabled child. And if you are not willing to make those sacrifices yourself, you should not judge others or expect them to.

“outlawing it would do some damage, but more than is being done already?”
If a baby does feel pain, then what is likely to be worse- an abortion or an even longer, protracted and drawn out death by blunt force trauma and internal bleeding? Abortion will happen legally or illegally. The only difference is surgical instruments and efficient kills, or stairs and a coathanger.

“people are taken out of the economy, millions and millions of them, so they do not become consumers, so they do not stimulate the economy. you must admit this to be a fair point.”
It is/would be a fair point except that these people also aren’t drawing money FROM the economy (e.g. pensions, utilities, healthcare).

“yes, the definition of wrong may become a problem, but we are both two sensible human beings with consciences…i think…”
Insult.

“ahh, once again, ‘nobody is wrong’..logic says otherwise, we have two contradicting points of view, logic says one or both of us must be wrong.”
If we all know the sun can burn our skin and person A says “The sun will never burn human skin”, that is wrong and incorrect.
If person A says “All Catholics are pure evil” and person B says “All Catholics are angels”, this means they have a difference in opinion. Person A will believe person A is right. Person B will believe Person B is right.
For example, you believe abortion is wrong and I believe that curtailing freedom is wrong. Our opinions are different, but as they are opinions and not facts, it doesn’t mean one is “wrong” in the eyes of all.

“maybe people should pay a little more attention in sex education class..”
Ironically, often the people who want to ban abortion also want to ban sex education and contraception. Go figure…

“besides, right is right and wrong is wrong”
As stated before, different people have different ideas of right and wrong. If I thought it was “right” to ban all religion, is that fair to you? Would you accept that?

If you don’t want to have an abortion, you should never, ever have to, and I would fight for your right to keep your child. But I would fight for anyone’s right to choose. A word of warning- if you try to force other people to choose your choices, you may not have many friends in the end…

Francesca says:

03:57pm | 02/03/11

@carly…sorry for confusing you with not labelling my answers, i will work on that
“I think if a person takes reasonable care (for example many people use an oral contraceptive like the pill AND a condom) then why shouldn’t they be surprised” it has been proven over and over and over again that contraception is not 100% effective. you take the risk of getting pregnant when you have sex, proven fact.
as for the whole sex before marriage thing, i said before i was fighting for a lost cause here. however, i am sick of all the P.C crap. if you think that my religion is stupid, tell me, be honest with me and yourself, this way even though people will be upset, issues can be resolved (sometimes anyway) i dont mind so much being insulted if it is a by-product of someone standing up for their beliefs. by your own reasoning, you have insulted me by suggesting sex before marrige and abortion is all fine, because i dont believe it is. i am not going to tell you to stop telling me that though, because we apparently live in a democracy. i am not gong to chain you up and beat you til you agree with me, but i am not going to stand there and act like i dont care. free speech is all one-sided anyway, if a guy stands up in public and say ‘i am catholic. i believe in god. i believe in not having sex before marriage. i belief that abortion is murder and is digusting and should be illegal. i dont believe in gay marriage. etc etc’ everyone would jump on him, the media would destroy him. he would be labelled as the backwards-thinking crazy person. so please dont give me all that about repecting other peoples beliefs. i am not going to stand there and call you names and look down on you and treat you like crap because you believe something different, but neither will i stand there and pat you on the back and say ‘dont worry, everyone is right, nobody can ever be wrong’. that is not free speech. that is not democratic. respect and freedom is a two way street.
as a side note, have you heard about whats happening in the phillipines at the moment. Planned Parenthood and other proabortion/prochoice (whatever) groups are pushing laws that will not only legalise abortion in a mainly catholic country, but will make speaking out against abortion an imprisonable offence. hows that for free speech?
‘I was saying you probably don’t understand the sacrifices families must make to raise a seriously disabled child’ i have seen these sacrifices firsthand, but in comparison to the joy this disabled boy brings, the happiness with which he lives his life, and the infinite value of that human life, the sacrifices are nothing. and i am absolutely willing to look after a disabled child. do you think the childs disability disables the parents to love him? that is disables his human rights?
‘Abortion will happen legally or illegally’ so we should give up? should we legalise murder, rape, theft and drugs too? that is cowardly. that is sick.

Francesca says:

03:58pm | 02/03/11

cont’ ...‘It is/would be a fair point except that these people also aren’t drawing money FROM the economy (e.g. pensions, utilities, healthcare).’ really? gosh there are 6 billion people in the word doing just this-giving and taking from the economy- and the economy has been able to cope (just) so far. maybe killing everyone would stabilise the ecomony…
“yes, the definition of wrong may become a problem, but we are both two sensible human beings with consciences…i think…” Insult.’ actually, i was talking about myself, i didnt want to look arrogant.
‘Our opinions are different, but as they are opinions and not facts, it doesn’t mean one is “wrong” in the eyes of all.’ you have proven by your own example that someone has to be wrong! someone says the sky is blue, another says the sky is purple. somebody is obviously wrong!! is you say yes, some people believe thism others believe this, i guess that noone is wrong’ society falls apart. we need rules. we need morals. otherwise murderers and rapists will be allowed to do whatever they want because we ‘must respect their opinion’
‘A word of warning- if you try to force other people to choose your choices, you may not have many friends in the end… ’ i am not forcing anything on anyone. do i have i gun to your head? am i holding your family hostage in return that you convert to christianity or become prolife? no, i am trying to talk to you. to reason with you. is is the prochoicers that are forcing their opinions onto others eg on the baby that is being killed or the people you are pressuring with the threat of being ostracised if they disagree. and to be honest, i dont care about popularity, i care about doing the right thing, about living with my conscience. ‘if theres one thing that doesnt abide by majority rule its a person’s conscience’-to kill a mocking bird-harper lee.
i think we are having a bit of a non-debate here. you believe i am trying to ‘curtail’ freedom, (i guess in a way i am, but this is accepted in society, after all, what else is a law) but actually i am fighting for it. for the freedom of the child, who you believe either does not have life or a right to it, as apparently the mother’s comfort come before its human rights. prominent prochoicers have admitted to abortion being murder
http://bloodmoneyfilm.com/blog/abortion-pro-choice?msg1 ,
this debate is NOT about the mothers rightsm its about the child’s

Francesca says:

06:36pm | 02/03/11

just like to say that i accidentally posted part of a reply on the answer to the comment above this rather huge comment thread. it was meant to be somewhere in my above rebuttals but i guess i posted it in the wrong ‘reply’ box, dont think you wouldve seen it.

Francesca says:

05:14pm | 26/02/11

but who is the parent or the doctor to decide that for them? do you value your life? perhaps how ever many years ago your mother fell pregnant, but she though ‘my baby is going to be growing up in a pretty crappy world.’ arent you glad she didnt abort you? We cant see the future, and even if we could it still wouldnt be right to perform a ‘mercy killing,’ in that way you could justify killing any human being.

Carly says:

06:41pm | 28/02/11

If you’re happy to take on all financial and parental responsibility, have the technology to remove the foetus from a womb and care for it artificially then go for gold.

Pete says:

10:27am | 15/03/11

“When does it become night time? The fact of twilight isn’t evidence against night.” When does a baby become a human being? The fact that it is indeterminate and hard to say very early on is not evidence against say that a four month pregnancy involves a human being. If a line is fuzzy that doesn’t mean that I can’t be definitely on one side of it or the other. And of course if there is any doubt .....

I feel bad for criticizing the quote “human life commences at the time of conception-and ... It is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances.” This is spot on (even if perhaps a little unclear). What annoyed me was that it was made out to be an appeal to scientific experts. What is supposed to count as scientific evidence that a zygote is a human being? It’s as if someone could say, “well, neither of us know anything about the matter; you trust your experts that say abortion is murder and I’ll trust mine that say it isn’t.” And then at least they’d be acting completely in good faith!!

Obama was asked when a baby gets rights (or something similar). He answered that he didn’t have the scientific, philosophical, and theological expertise to answer that question with specificity. Man I wanted to punch him in the face so bad! Imagine a Nazi leader being as ‘humble’ and deferring to experts about whether Jews had rights.

Pete says:

04:07am | 16/03/11

Oooooh, didn’t mean to get political. Obama’s got a tough job. Haha that was a young and foolish comment about punching him.

I don’t think my tone conveyed my admiration for you Tim.

Now that the more important debate on this thread has wound down, I wonder (if you do read this) whether you still insist on your second premise as you summarized your argument. Your first was about the rights of all human beings. The second was about what fetologists and geneticists and so on consistently say. You stated it differently in different places: sometimes that it is a human individual and sometimes that it is a human being from the moment of conception. The former should not be controversial; when it seems to be, really what people wish to deny is the latter. You mentioned that you are a Roman Catholic and I want to point out that the Catholic Church, while always condemning abortion from the moment of conception, has never affirmed that we are human beings from the moment of conception.

A Christian will perhaps be inclined to ask “when does God infuse the soul?” it is partly this picture that inclines them to say that it IS determinate and a zygote is a human being. The question is hard to answer because the concept of a soul has become almost completely useless. A long long time ago “has a soul” was another way of saying “is alive”. (actually I don’t think English ever had this equivalence but that’s not important). Science has not gotten rid of “is alive” and need not have anything against “has a soul” said about plants and animals. And a christian need not either. This way of putting it allowed you say that different living things had different kinds of soul: they are alive with a different kind of life. Plants are alive with the life of nutrition and growth; animals with the life of nutrition, growth, sense and motion; Human beings are alive with those, and reason.

Infants have rational souls, but this doesn’t mean that they actually perform reasonings. A man may be blind from an accident or blind from birth. A man may be speechless (dumb) from being deaf and never being taught or from being handicapped and never developing properly. Cats are born blind; a carrot can’t be blind and a cat can’t be speechless. That humans are born speechless is the same sort of fact as that cats are born blind.

The phrase “has a soul” has been mixed up with eternal life and it sounds like some self-subsisting thing that is joined to a body somehow and can survive just the same without it. Who needs the resurrection of the body?!

If we still had this way of putting it we would say that a zygote had a soul of course: it is alive with the life of nutrition and growth. And gradually (and indeterminately) it comes alive with animal life: the life of nutrition, growth, sense and motion. And gradually (and indeterminately again) it comes alive with the life of these and reason. It doesn’t have the capacity to reason but has the capacity to acquire certain capacities.

(Just to make it clear what i think: every time a new rational soul comes to be, there is a special divine intervention. You cannot describe human language and activities in the language of natural science.)