I liked your article, Tony, it explained a little more about how adoption effects the families involved, something I've had no experience with. It does seem that the media was happy to put a tentative foot forward with the 'Abbott and Son' story, serving up a little of the "see, you stay pregnant, have your baby and meet again happily in twenty years time" scenario.
In this situation, with a high profile person, I doubt we would be privy to the rollercoaster emotions of which you write. It's a pity, because in this debate we need to adequately explore the emotional turmoil present in both abortion and adoption.
But, regardless of personal opinion, it must be realised that Government can never 'solve' the problem of unwanted pregnancies. It belongs to the arena of the personal, not the political. It is the large expanse of grey, when people, understandingly enough in many ways, wish for clear-edged black and white.

So the emotional rollercoaster ride of adoption is now derided as something worse than death.

Of course it is preferable to abortion – just ask Tony’s son. It's funny (no, sad), how we have lost all sense of relativity. Some would say, lost our way.

Trying to piece together some figures from this article and others including:-
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12340287%255E32522,00.html

http://www.womhealth.org.au/studentfactsheets/infertility.htm

There are between 80,000 to 100,000 abortions per year, (or about 20% of pregnancies).

There are now nearly 7,000 children being born through IVF, (or about 2% of children being born).

There are 21,795 children presently living in out-of-home care, (a 50% increase since 1996.)

There were 73 children adopted last year, (as compared to 10,000 in 1971-1972) and another 370 adopted from another country.

These figures do not seem logical somehow.

Look, it's obvious you guys hate the thought of abortion. You'd love to control whether women have it or not. You'd like to control how many children we should have by curtailing contraception. you'd love to give us no choice but to go full-term in every pregnancy that happens in our bodies. You believe women shouldn't have the choice to say, "There is no way I want this baby, I'm not having it."
You throw up adoption as a choice. There's no choice in that...you still have to be pregnant, and give birth and regardless of your level of empathy, no man can be egotistical enough to say he can imagine what that must be like. Because you can't.

Pregnancy is often horrible even when you can't wait to see your child! It has huge effects on a woman emotionally, physically, and mentally. it drains her efficiency in the rest of her life. Fatigue is a very common, little-discussed phenomena that is almost unbearable in a busy life, which most of us have today.

To bear all this (and more) while carrying a child you don't want, wish you didn't have to have, can't believe you are being made to give birth when you don't want to.....THAT is the world you see for me and my daughters?

Deal with it! No man should ever have the right to tell a woman she has to give birth if she doesn't want to.

You're a product of your times, I'm afraid. Bitter, powerless men who feel the need to direct and control the lives of those you blame for the ills of your own, or the erosion of family or religious values, or whatever other bee flies up there in your bonnets.

Abortion will always exist, because women like me will always make sure it exists. And there is not a damn thing you can ever do about it.

Oceangrrl,
I have noticed that you have now made many generalised statements regards men, but not once have you referenced your statements to any known reliable study. In other words:- it is more than likely that you have made it all up, and I have noticed that nearly all other feminists in our society do very similar.

For decades women have been asking for cheap, reliable and safe contraception. Guess what, women now have it.

A woman can now spend 15 mins in a doctors surgery and receive a contraceptive implant that will practically guarantee that she will not become pregnant within the next 5 years, unless that contraceptive implant is somehow forcibly removed. Most of it is subsidised by the taxpayer, so what more can women ask for, and when will they ever stop whinging.

Because you have just made so many unfounded, un-referenced, generalised and maligning remarks about men, I’ll now ask you:-- why such a high rate of abortion (ie nearly 20% of pregnancies) when there is so much contraception available for women (eg http://www.betterhealthchannel.com.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Contraception_choices_explained?open)

And why so much abortion and IVF at the same time, and why so few adoptions when there are so many orphaned children. None of it hardly makes any sense.

And please don’t resort to a common excuse not answer by saying that is none of men’s business, because it definitely is. Or perhaps you are simply Oceangrrl Feminist Male-Hater, who believes that males are sperm-donors and pay-packets only.

Seems abortion is preferable to contraception because it gives a woman a chance to change her mind. Contraception does not do that. Perhaps gender politics requires a certain degree of negotiating power, at every stage of male-female relations.

I for one, am not against abortion. The pro-choice arguments incite me because there is very little choice for men. Men don’t seem to figure in the fertility equation, or the stakeholder/ownership debate. At the same time, we seem to hold men up to their responsibilities more so than women. Why for example, can men not decide to walk away from their responsibility for the child, just as women can, up to late-term pregnancy (even though the baby can already survive outside the womb).

An article in SMH today, explains we really have no idea what the actual abortion rate really is.
http://smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/01/1109546871412.html

These statistics should not be hidden or disguised – there is something very conspiratorial and sinister about such women’s business. I think we should all know these figures, and they should be much more precise then they are; fathers should know if they are a biological parent as a matter of procedure. Why should we all not benefit equally from current medical technology, and when is the law going to catch up?

Let women decide by all means – but don’t treat fathers as fools. Please.