Yet another article that seems to confuse the issue of abortion.

“The decision to terminate a pregnancy …It is a private matter between women or couples and their medical practitioner.”

Is this fact or myth?. There are abortion clinics that advertise on the internet, and about all those clinics require is for the woman to have a Medicare card and proof that she is pregnant. They require no proof that she has talked the matter through with anyone.

“Second, women pay their taxes just as do other Australians and like other Australians they are entitled to medical services under Medicare including contraception and termination should they arrive at that decision.”

So why do women become unintendedly pregnant when there is so much contraception available?. Some of this contraception (eg injections and implants) is near foolproof and can last up to 5 yrs. Should the taxpayer have to bear the cost of abortions, when cheaper alternatives are possible, such as contraception.

“Would not raising the pension above the poverty line and leaving it in place until the child is 18 as currently happens provide that young single woman with a wider range of choices?”

Has the author ever considered the cost of this, and who will have to pay for it?. Would such subsidising lead to a massive welfare state, where the employed have to work longer hours to pay for those that do not work. Does this type of welfare state provide the workers and the taxpayers with much “choice”.

I think simplified thinking is that the foetus is in the mother’s womb so she owns the baby. However if this thinking extends to when the baby is born, then the mother still owns the child and has total say in how that child is to be raised. I think this type of thinking is now endemic in such things as Family Law, where the father has almost no say in the upbringing of the child, and almost no rights as a parent, other than the payment of child support.

Noticeably, the author never mentioned any of this

Anne, can you clarify your views on the role/rights of the father of the child in determining if an abortion should proceed.

The prevaling view amongst the pro womens choice lobby appears to be that the father should have no say in the matter (unless the mother chooses otherwise), but that if she decides to carry the baby to term he should be financially responsible for the child, the impact on the mothers earning capacity etc.

I gather some feminists have challenged the hypocricy of this but the voices have not exactly been loud and clear in the material I have seen.

The issue is about a lot more than money, some men may wish to raise a child a mother chooses to terminate. In 350 words I can't come near that discussion so I will stick to the simpler issue of financial responsibility if the choice is the woman's.

To modify one of your comments
"a lot of men can’t believe that in this day and age there are so many women who think they can determine what men should and should not do with their income and lifes choices.

I just cannot understand why a mother or a mother and father can kill and especially the way the killing is done in an abortion, and then discard a beautiful normal healthy baby, unless it is to save her - the mother's - life. regards, numbat

I would like to make some polite objections to Anne’s article. Firstly, we have become used to human beings being split along gender lines as if women are a different species from men. This gives a warrant to talk as if women, or men, I suppose can make decisions on life and death without regard to the opposite sex, as if they were not a part of common humanity. Of all of the things feminism has produced this attitude is the most dangerous.

Many of the arguments pro abortion are centred on the idea of choice as if that is the end of the question. When we do this we suspend any discussion of right and wrong asserting, as human rights language does, the right to choose. But what about what is chosen! How do we choose anything at all, isolated as we are expected to be, from any tradition that would guide our choices! This is not freedom at all, but decision making in a vacuum.

I would like to point out the logical absurdity of the following statement: “Third, religious views should not dictate public health policy. Religious beliefs are just that, beliefs not fact.” This playing off of belief and fact just will not do. Are we to assume that the choices the people make in their ultimate and isolated freedom are based on fact? A fact may be that the foetus is a being distinct from the mother and thus may not be dealt with as superfluous tissue. A belief may be that having a child is impossible at this time. Our view of the world cannot be simply divided into belief and fact.
Peter Sellick

I would agree with most of what you have said Sells.

The arguments currently being put forward by pro-choice groups are almost identical to the arguments that were put forward many decades ago, as if nothing has changed, and of course feminists have been heavily involved in most pro-choice groups.

However a lot has changed, including more access to reliable contraception, more access to counselling, more access to social welfare payments etc, and the early arguments that were put forward by pro-choice groups are no longer valid.

The belief that abortion should be readily available to women breaks down on almost every level, once facts and logic are incorporated, and the belief that abortion is a “right” for women is obviously a type of political power play by many women and feminists.

Their emphasis seems to be that only women can bear children, so women are more significant than men, and women have to be given special privileges accordingly. Women have to prove nothing, other than being female.

Many women and feminists are now trying to exercise their belief in their own “uniqueness”, by saying that women have the right to decide the life or death of a child.

In reality, the child or foetus has actually become irrelevant in this political power game, (and of course so is the father).

Thank you very much for this article Anne. It seems that men whose actions have an eternal effect on women, simply won't take responsibility for those actions, but instead want to enhance their own power and control over those women, by forcing them to have abortions, not to have abortions, or refusing to pay child support or whatever. Governments need to put the responsibility for the initial activity firmly where it belongs. These situations do not happen by immaculate conception.