...Women carry the baby from inception to birth, but proof says, the baby has “rights” of self-ownership held in custody by the mother and as a consequence, the baby must be protected by law..

...I am happy to see you “squirm” on this one issue of Christian morality alone, but the issues of morality are as cluttered as the field of the Melbourne Cup, and include some other favorites such as Gay rights of course!

The fact is, Abbott is simply unelectable.
His is the most repugnant politician in Australian history;
The worst part is, I'm not sure what's worse about him- the fact that he's a complete flip-flopping sellout willing to completely abandon his (supposed) principles for even the lower bidder or when it could sabotage Labor (as if they needed it)- or the fact that his principles are so abhorrent that were he to actually resort to them (that is, making OTHER people live up to them- not himself)- our rights would reset by another century.

Simply put, I will not vote for this clown, and many of my mates who are Liberal voters won't either- and the lot of us are quite conservative.

Many agree, King Hazza.

It's likely the Coalition would have romped in last time if they had had a different "leader".

A good article, Jennifer. However I think that there is a difference.
The USA is the most religious Western nation on the planet, Australia
one of the least religious. America got the religious nuts, Australia
got the convicts, it apparently still shows.

No doubt Cardinal Pell would be regularly lobbying Abbott, should
he ever become PM. But IMHO if Abbott ever tried to force the
Catholic line onto the Australian public, the public outrage would
be so large, that he would not survive for long.

To make it in US politics, politicians have to be seen to be religious.
In Australia its sometimes more of a liability to them
and we freely elect agnostic politicians without a second thought.
Lucky us.

The Christian Taliban are not a major force here, as they are in
the USA

The Christian Taliban are coalescing to seek to have more influence. Especially in the Coalition.

Check out "Dominionism".

The author shows her hypocrisy. She lists human rights as one of her interests. Yet she endorses the slaughter by abortion of 100,000 babies per year in Australia, and millions elsewhere. In so doing, she refuses to recognise that unborn babies have human rights, and that women who undergo abortions are party to premeditated killing. She misleads and deceives by misrepresenting the provision of abortion services as women's reproductive health.

She does not stop there, but engages in fullscale vilification of Catholics for opposing abortion on moral grounds. She is at her negative best in deriding Tony Abbott.

It would be in order to include religious bigotry and promoter of the culture of death as her interests.

*Yet she endorses the slaughter by abortion of 100,000 babies per year in Australia, and millions elsewhere.*

Err Raycom, a foetus is not a baby, a human organism is not a person.
No human brain equals no person.

All the misuse of language by you and others is not going to
change that.

Raycom, are you completely dense? Did you not read the incident involving the critically ill woman hazed by Mitt Romney. If the life of a foetal blob is so concerning, why not the life of a living, breathing woman?
Now, re the comment concerning Abbott and Pyne, if the externals are teased away, Pyne's limiting of comment to late trimester terminations ought to be illuminating- Pyne and Abbott are actually from different ends of the lib.
Abbott is a dour fanatic; true Lyons Forum material. Pyne is more worldly, from the libertarian/city wing, but as a true self reflexive bon vivant, opportunist and urbane cynic, mutes his comments.
I think people ought to wake to the repressive, "sado" mindset and control-freakery from the inside out pathology involved with the Mad Monk and his ilk, to me actually very sick..

Catholics are the predominant protesters in this debate. It is not compulsory if you don't like it don't go near it. Women have a choice, no matter what religion they supposedly use to the letter. Abbott is one of the religious, minority. So it would be advisable to steer clear of that lot.

Tut, Tut, to the atheists!

…# The irrationality of a thing (Christianity) is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it #... Nietzsche.

...Observation proves the truth of that statement. Since abortion is at war with Christian ethics, then an anti-abortion position must/will be defended. I am personally impressed with Abbotts rhetoric on the issue of Christian morality.

What's the brain-or-no-brain argument got to do with it, Yabby?

If you find a burglar inside your house, you should be able to kill him and dump his body in your bin (I am aware that current laws do not allow it, because the country is ruled by a bunch of politically-correct humanists). How much more so when you find someone inside your own body?

Raycom's term "culture of death" does not scare me - we already live in one, and as a Christian he should know that even Jesus drowned a herd of 2000 pigs. If you eat meat, then you, directly or indirectly, slaughter others every day (which also happen to have brains).

That elitist nonsense as if humans have more rights than other species, just because their bodies happen to have similar DNA to ours, holds no water.

Raycom you are wrong.
Something that lives inside of another body and feeds intravenously off the other's bloodstream, it is not an 'individual' warranting rights, but just another part of the host individual's body as much as a kidney or a tumor is, until they separate.
And that individual deserves the right to decide whether they want some other organism using their body as space.

Of course, you never once consider how the unwanted child is to be brought up- most likely once they're born you lose interest in their 'wellbeing' and leave them to fend for themselves (and society to deal with the problems that are left to someone born in an unwilling family).

Now, how do you measure the rights of conjoined twins, fetus-in-fetu, and other cases where one twin is fused to the other's body and dependent on this for survival? Are you equally affronted when a boy whose conjoined twin is nothing but a 2kg tumor dangling from their shoulder wants to cut it off?

The simple fact is anti-abortionism is a kneejerk reaction based on distaste for the woman's lifestyle decisions alone- the alternative is a considered view based on logic and the consequences of the birth.

This article doesn't actually seem to be about abortion. Rather it's another attempt to convince us that Tony Abbott is a bad man, presumably because he doesn't agree with the author's point of view. A moment's thought will convince you that there is no possibility of Fedeal laws prohibiting abortion being passed by Parliament. The Leader of the Opposition knows that, so does every other Federal politician.

If the polls hold - and there's not much evidence of a change - Tony Abbott will be the next Prime Minister of Australia. The Coalition will have been voted in by a significant majority of the Australian electors, who will have shown once again that they know an incompetent government when they see one and have determined to rid themselves of it.

I am concerned that certain members of the the Opposition/Coalitions front bench share the same religious affiliations, quite a number of Tony Abbots front bench are practising Roman Catholics and as such probably present a united view on certain contentious subjects such as abortion and stem cell research, subjects which certainly conflict with their religions stated viewpoint.
Australia is said to be(hopefully) a secular society where religion and affairs of state are said (expected) to be quite separate.
With Abbot, Pyne, Hockey, Robb,for example, this separation of politics and religion is somewhat blurred, and the suspicion remains that in certain political decisions affecting all the mainstream Australian public, will their religious affiliations overide their secular obligations to treat the matter before them on its merits? I personally doubt this judging by past statements made by the above named Shadow Ministers.

It has all the right stuff to be very biased, and women would have to take that into account, as catholic women have abortions to. It is their choice, it is their body.

Few issues in recent years have so divided people
as has the morality of abortion. In the past the
practice was generally illegal except under limited
conditions - primarily where the health of the
mother or the unborn child was at serious risk.
However, "backstreet" abortions by private physicians
and untrained practitioners were fairly common.

At the root of the controversy is a basic value
judgement about the status of the fetus. If the
fetus is considered a baby, then abortion is a form
of killing; if it is considered a mere collection of cells
and tissues, then abortion is a morally neutral surgical
procedure.

But the status of the fetus is ambiguous;
it is neither self-evidently just tissue (if these
matters were self evident, there would be little
disagreement about abortion). On the one hand, the
fetus is not a human being in the usual sense, for it is
generally not viable. Indeed, no society treats the
fetus as human; for example, if the mother
accidentally miscarries, the fetus is not given a
funeral, but is simply disposed of like any other
tissue.

On the other hand the fetus is potentially a human
being, one that might become as alive and unique as
any of us. The conflicting value judgements about
abortion stem from this fundamental ambiguity in the
status of the fetus.

Anyway, I doubt whether Mr Abbott would get very far in
attempting to take away from women their right of
choice in this matter. As another poster stated -
the public outcry would be too great a risk for him
politically. I don't envy any woman having to make
this sort of decision - and I'm sure that it wouold
only be made under the most dire of circumstances.

Let me see if I understand the good doctor's argument...
1. Several candidates for high political office in another country hold strong views on abortion that the writer disagrees with.
2. Those candidates also happen to be religious.
3. Tony Abbott is religious.
4. Tony Abbott has strong views about abortion.
5. People (like the writer) who oppose people who are religious and hold strong views about abortion should be concerned about Abbott becoming PM...
If my summary is correct then the writer would have done much better to limit herself to the last (perhaps last two) points. The first two are irrelevant and tend to show religious bigotry on the part of the writer.
The third (and fourth) are already well known. Anyone who is concerned by abortion rights would already be well aware that Abbott as PM is unlikely to support wider abortion availability and could very well limit it.
Finally, abortion is very much a feminist issue - but not in the way Dr Wilson contends for. The vast majority of foetuses destroyed by abortion are girls. Gender selection is a common reason for abortion in the 3rd World. Where is the feminist outcry?

Senior Victorian- by all means tell us why Tony Abbot is anything but a bad man?
He is the single worst man ever to set foot in parliament house- worse than Keating and Menzies combined (cronyistic corruption and authoritarian moralistic pontification combined).
By letting that clown be party leader was a big mistake of the Liberals- it tells the public he's the best person they had to represent them?
The fact that he's the default alternative to Gillard and another 3-4 years of Labor screwing the country up is hardly a qualification he should be hanging on his wall either- as quite frankly, I don't think Abbot would do much better.
In fact, his one selling point was vowing to turn the boats back- yet when faced with the choice of doing exactly that or letting them come here, he took the second option out of pure pettiness because Labor would take another publicity drop.

JS Mills- so, women's rights are stronger if they are forced to carry pregnancies, simply so the census papers show a more even distribution of males and females?

Hay Kingy, perhaps you could explain to me why our wonderful Labor lot, & you it seams, are claiming Tony Abbott is the boogeyman who made their Malaysia plan fail. It would seam to me that they should first look at their coalition partners the Greens, & their leader the wonderful Bob Brown.

Surely it should be their coalition partner they should expect to vote with them, supporting their policy, not the opposition.

Yes I know, they couldn't lie straight in bed, & you are sounding a bit the same. If it doesn't spin, they can no longer understand it, but please, put the blame where it belongs, & drop a bit of the unproven ideological attacks.

King Hazza

I find your comments indicative of your expectations about PMs of this country.

You've only compared Abbott with PM's. You haven't compared Abbott with other opposition leaders or dumped leaders ... Latham, Beazley, Crean, Nelson, Turnbull and of course Rudd.

And why be sexist about it? Don't you regard either of the current Labor PMs as worthy of comparison as leaders either?

Hasbeen
Believe it or not I'm not some muppet who can only think in binary about Liberal vs Labor- especially considering I've slammed Gillard in every post I've made.
Truth is, current Labor is complete rubbish too. They have not been able to pass ONE single promised policy and hold onto it for more than a few weeks, and as I said, both Gillard and Swan clearly haven't a clue what they are doing.
And the fact is, BOTH parties are to blame for our border fiasco;
-Gillard's non-Lib border policy was garbage, definitely, and both parties used the issue to try to sabotage the other rather than solve a gaping legal hole in our border protection policy.
Having said that, the Greens would not have been able to make an impact in parliament or senate by themselves.
The fact is it WAS a good proposal, and both parties became too petty to support it;
What does that tell you?
(the answer is they're both dangerously incompetent and don't care one bit for the policies as much as trying to dupe the other party for personal gain- even if it costs Australia our border protection policy)

Juliannutter;
Quite right; all those listed are rubbish too sadly; The lot of them are dodgy as race cars- especially Turnbull- whose only virtue is being able to spin well enough to make the other mugs in parliament look silly in debates- which is actually a bad thing for the country.
Rudd was/is a reasonable leader of reasonable competence, but he has so much mental baggage and poor attitudes to several of his duties I would only vote for him if he specifically pushed for several issues I demand, retracted his "Big Australia" advocacy, and the only alternatives were the other people you listed.

Pro-abortionists have had decades to get their act together on limiting abortions. Instead they've increased dramatically over the years. Bottom line is, you've had your chance to fix it and you've failed miserably and made the problem worse. Soon, there will be a new sheriff in town with a different approach to stopping this barbaric process, and everyone will be better off as the most oppressive message our society can send to women is that they need to abort their own baby in order for them to live.

@Progressive Pat
I have never heard of anyone in "society" telling women they must abort their babies in order to live. There are occasions on which doctors have to give that message to pregnant women.

I'm not a "pro abortionist." I don't know anyone who is. Pro choice is not the same thing as pro abortion.

Well said Briar Rose. I too hate the idea of abortion, and doubt I could ever have had one myself. However, I would still fight strongly for any other woman's right to have an abortion if she chooses.

We don't want to go back to the 'good-ol-days' in Australia where desperate women tried to do their own abortions, or they went to dirty backyard abortionists, and died nasty deaths.

I am with the author in that I too have severe misgivings about Abbott having anything to do with the top job. I don't care that maybe other members in his party may not agree with him about his religious/moral views, I am still worried that he may wield too much power.

I would vote for Liberals in a heartbeat if Turnbull was back as leader though.
He is a very bright, well-spoken man, and I still don't understand why they chose such a poor public speaker over him.

Well said Briar Rose. I too hate the idea of abortion, and doubt I could ever have had one myself. However, I would still fight strongly for any other woman's right to have an abortion if she chooses.
Suseonline,
I agree with you on that. I know of a situation where the mother's life would have been made intolerable had she not had a termination. This woman was devastated to have to do it but she had to take into consideration the stupidity of bureaucrats who had power over her. Most terminations are on social grounds brought on by those with no connection to mother or child. That is the tragedy.

Wouldn't it by more helpful if people occasionally read the thread starters.
Then we wouldn't have to see people embarrass themselves with silly comments of the sort that the oxymoronically-named Progressive Pat came up with.
Dr Wilson was at pains to define the problem of a woman's safety as a legitimate issue, with her citing of the incident involving US politician Mitt Romney and a woman ( a mother with responsibilities to four or five other actually living children), forced to terminate due to potentially fatal bloodclots.
Progpat reduces this to only one possible explanation- that the woman was somehow hoodwinked by pro-choicers into a termination that actually had its roots in a medically diagnosed life threatening situation for this woman and mother..
It's murder to terminate yet not murder to see the woman and mother die just to save the foetus?
This is as insane as it is arrogant and callous, in its dismissal of am actually living woman's (person's) rights and needs.

Oh come on Suzieonline, I can't think of a worse criteria for a leader, than their public speaking ability, & I won prizes for it.

Just think what a disaster Obama has been, & about his only ability is rhetoric, a real southern preacher that one.

Then cast your mind back to WW11. Hitler was a real rabble rouser, & Churchill was also renowned. Hitler killed how many, & brought how much destruction on his people? Even with Hitler going a bit mad, Churchill would have lost the war, if his generals had not sat on his head, [or given him the whisky] on a regular basis.

I do admit I shudder a little at Abbott's public speaking, but with Turnbull you know that the BS is being spread with a shovel, just like Ruddy.

When it comes to intelligence, Keating was pretty bright, it's just a pity none of the smarts were ever used to help the ordinary Ozzie. I reckon we'd get even less look in when Turnbull was giving out the spoils.

I'll take stumble bum Abbott over any of the others offering any time.