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The Forum > Article Comments > The right to choose the right to choose > Comments

The right to choose the right to choose : Comments

By Natasha Stott Despoja, published 29/9/2005

Natasha Stott Despoja argues pregnancy counsellors who won't refer for terminations should advertise the fact.

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The Big Fish wrote " I hear the apparent large numbers of abortions performed, and ask, why?"

More that you could possibly imagine, in some city area statistics it reaches 1 in every 2 women.

Here is some stats from UK
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=8648&More=Y

It just makes no sence with the pill availability. There must be other factors involved that diminishes the killing of a living but unborn life from being considered as paramount in these situations. We as humans are becoming more 'creatures' than 'animals' which dont kill their own.

Hope we can stop this soon.

Sam
Posted by Sam said, Friday, 30 September 2005 7:52:11 AM
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Rossoc, Is it really off topic, Why should pregnancy counselling start when a woman is pregnant? Why not counsel young men that there is a potential risk if you due not have a condom during sex, is she on the pill. It is only usually 99% effective? whatever? Again prevention is better than cure. Should these organisations not be encouraged if they are balanced, or at least not a pressure groups. Might help alleviate the problem altogether.

Have not read seen Sam Said's statistics yet. Will be interesting.
Posted by The Big Fish, Friday, 30 September 2005 8:27:02 AM
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Confused, your post actually seems the least confused of the lot.

This is the heartland of difference between those who are pro choice and those who are not.

As Natasha says, no-one is pro abortion. No-one wants to have one, we all prefer to avoid unwanted pregnancy. When we fail to avoid it, for all sorts of reasons including, contraceptive failure (by far the major reason I imagine), carelessness, a drunken encounter, irresponsibility, rape or whatever, those who are pro-choice believe such unfortunate women should be given the whole truth about all their options, without the counsellors personal beliefs coming into it. A good counsellor should be able to be opposed to abortion in her own life, but perfectly able to offer unbiased assistance to someone else who may not share her beliefs.

The trouble with some counselling services is that their agenda is first to push their own anti-abortion beliefs and second to counsel the woman. Nothing wrong with that, as long as they are open about it. Having had an abortion myself more than 20 years ago, I can testify that the counsellor at the clinic I went to gave me all the facts and did not attempt to pressure me into a decision either way. Had I decided against termination, I am sure she would have helped me just as thoroughly and compassionately. That's as it should be.
Posted by enaj, Friday, 30 September 2005 10:34:13 AM
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Although the 'pro-life' camp don't like it, a strong majority of Australian voters are in favour of the availablility of safe and legal abortions to women who need them. As Natasha Stott Despoja and others have said, it is not a case of being 'pro-abortion', but rather a simple recognition that there have always been, and will always be, situations where women are confronted with unwanted pregnancies and will choose to have an abortion over the alternatives. Of course it would be better if unwanted pregnancies didn't happen, but the great majority of Australian voters have consistently supported the availability of safe and legal abortions for decades.

This may be why 'pro-life' activists have begun to resort to dishonest and unsavoury methods to further their minority agenda. These people are entitled to their views, but when they set out to deceive vulnerable women by disguising the anti-abortion philosophies or religious affiliations of their so-called 'counselling' services, then one has to question the honesty of their methods.

Worse is when they engage in actual violence against 'pro-choice' supporters (as occurred only last weekend in Melbourne), or force vulnerable women to run an abusive gauntlet when they try to enter abortion clinics. Worse still is when their more extreme members engage in actual murder (as also occurred in Melbourne) or in terrorist acts (e.g. bombing of clinics in the USA).

While I'm not a Democrats supporter, I think that Natasha Stott Despoja is right on the mark this time. Those who oppose the availability of safe and legal abortion should be honest about it, and promote their agenda by honest, peaceful and democratic means.
Posted by mahatma duck, Friday, 30 September 2005 11:23:01 AM
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Either the pro-life people are under-represented on this forum, or they are a lot smaller a group than I (perhaps cynically) originally thought. That’s pretty cool.

Temperatures invariably run high on the issue of abortion and related issues, so it’s important to remember that abortions have been practiced by humans for a very, very long time. In fact one may go so far as to say that there is no reason to consider it an unnatural practice, but rather an unfortunate yet necessary fact of life.

Enter modern society, mounting pressure on young women to raise a family (not so much these days, but still an issue), and the relatively new concept of having an abortion being somehow on par with ending a life. Many young women have parents that would never understand, and therefore desperately need the sound, unbiased advice and help of a counsellor.

People promoting their agenda’s to someone in such a vulnerable position is just…well, I don’t have the words. It reminds me of missionaries promoting abstinence to poverty stricken Africans as a way to avoid AIDS.

It’s just insane, and I’m very relieved the majority of posters agree.

By the way, Natasha rules, and I would totally be all for the Democrats if Bob Brown didn’t rule even harder.
Posted by spendocrat, Friday, 30 September 2005 11:54:23 AM
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Trying to keep it simple, is the objective of this legislation to simply to let the client know from what ideology a service is counselling? This has a direct impact on the type and options of services available.

A counsellor (whose role is important to the abortion issue) can certainly have a personal opinion on it the issue of abortion. However, a counsellor should be clear on what basis they are providing advice. From what bias the advice is coming. We expect our advisers, in all occupations, to nominate their bias, if not actually succumbing to it.

That is what the issue is. It is not whether you agree with abortion or not. That is for the individual (we do live in a free democracy, right?). It is about a service being open about its ideology and the impact this has on its scope of service.

Imagine if our major corporation or political parties hid their true ideology through omission or … oh, wait…. damn…
Posted by Reason, Friday, 30 September 2005 12:03:22 PM
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