juliepm, "Abortion: An intensely personal decision made by a politician and her colleagues (Qld 2010)"

Corrected that for you, Anna Bligh is still Premier of Queensland.

You're a brave woman Angie. It's nobody's business what decision you made - you did what you thought was right for your health and the well being of all family members. I admire your courage! Take care of yourself. Only the best wishes for you all, especially your dear little boy! Stay well!

I am also an atheist (or something very closing resembling an atheist) but I find the blase tone of this post a bit distasteful. I wholeheartedly agree that a woman should be able to access abortion facilities legally and without fear of shame or persecution, but I also think we need to appreciate some of the tricky ethical and definitional questions surrounding abortion.

What is a human foetus? Is it just a collection of cells or does it have some inherent and meaningful value? Are there ethical differences between aborting, say, a 5-week old foetus and a 25-week old foetus? If so, what are those differences and why are they significant? What should the cut-off criteria include? Level of consciousness? Capacity for pain? What exactly?

Of course I'm not advocating any particular view with regard to the human foetus - I'm simply making the point that this is not an entirely black and white issue from an ethical standpoint. I still agree with the bottom line view that a woman should be able to access abortion legally and without religious counsel. However it is wrong and misleading to imply that only crazed religious extremists feel any moral ambivalence towards abortion.

Ok Mandy, I'll bite and give you my 5c worth.

At some point we have to accept the realities of nature. Most
women have around 400 chances in their lifetime, to have yet
another baby. They cannot keep, feed, clothe them all, cute as
they all may have been. Darwin was correct. Far more of
any species will be created, then can ever survive. That is reality.

So we flush ova and sperms down our toilets, by their hundreds of
billions, without a second thought.

So where do we draw our line in the sand? What constitutes a person?
To me a person is somebody with a human brain. Once that brain stops,
its a corpse. A couple of cojoined cells, have the potential to
become a person, but they are not a person. Just like an acorn is
not yet an oak tree.

Most abortions happen in the first 12 weeks. What you have, is little
more then a group of dividing cells. What can be called a human
brain, first starts to come together at around week 25 or so.
Without a human brain, there is no person and if there is no
person, I don't see a problem.

My other point is that if babies born were actually wanted and loved,
there would be a whole lot less suffering in this world, which I
think would be a good thing.

I bet the author's son is glad he had a wedded dad to help get him over the line!