Laurie,

I believe the women in all these scenarios have the right to seek abortion to end their pregnancies. Whether the male has the right to an opinion in b, d and f is not (or shouldn't be) at issue. But the male should have no right in stopping or enforcing the woman's decision to terminate. In scenario (d), the male made the decision to partner with a woman that does not want children - she should not be subjected to his misfortunate.

I had a silly thought to share with some posters (probably too left field for this topic)- imagine a situation where men were not allowed (ie: prohibited) to engage in sexual intercourse with a condom or other contraception as this would result in the destruction of living sperm, which are SO important for the creation of life. Other activities that waste sperm would also be considered immoral. Vasectomies - outlawed. Destruction of a sperm that comes in contact with an egg - well that's just sacrilege. Oh, yes, some people do agree with this philosophy.

Confused, have you been watching Monty Python? :)

Hi everyone, how about this?
Every part of my body grows/operates/functions in response to the signals coming from itself (my body moves itself- life is self-movement).
(I am my body by the way in case anyone thinks otherwise)

Now a foetus grows/operates/functions not- I reapeat- not in response to the signals coming from the mother-organism but ITSELF (remember, life is self-movement)

A foetus is a human life (its DNA is human and it is self-moving/alive)
A society has hit rock bottom when the weak and defenseless are persecuted.

I have no opinion on abortion for or against, but I support a women's right to choose.

However, I disagree with NSD's policy because it is unnecessary. If there is an advantage in offering all options, then such organisations can easily advertise that they "offer all options" and people will go to those organisations. If an organisation that did not offer all options claimed that they did -- they could be sued for fraud under current laws.

The last thing our country needs is more laws. But then, it is the job of politicians to come up with laws to make sure they look busy.

Timkins,

I can remember when abortion was not legal in Australia. In 1971 the following conditions existed

The births of children born out of wedlock in Victoria were written in red ink and marked "illegitimate"
Unwanted babies that couldn't be adopted were placed in orphanages where the most terrible abuses occurred
Single women did not have access to the contraceptive pill
Poor women who had the "back yard" abortions ran the risk of grave complications
Rich women had access to abortions
I worked beside men who fled to Western Australia to avoid their child payments
There was no single parent pension
Women earnt 2/3 of the male wage for doing the same work
Up until in mid 1960's women lost their public service jobs upon marriage
Women could not take out mortgages
Still born babies couldn't be buried in consecrated ground because they hadn't been baptised thus they had no soul

I do not want to return to those times when women had no control over their bodies and could only secure their financial future through marriage.

I think that unless a man has committed to the woman through marriage he has no say in whether a pregnancy continues to term and he forfeits that privilege if he is abusive.

Laurie,
“It is a horrid thing to even contemplate”.

In all the texts by this author, I have never seen her regard abortion as being “horrid”, or anything similar. She seems to advocate more abortion, and most other feminists do similar, but rarely will they advocate more adoption, better contraception usage, better statistics or studies to be undertaken etc.

If feminists don’t love abortions, they certainly seem to want more abortions to occur. If the author writes another article about abortion, she could include details of how much abortion would constitute too much, as the abortion rate certainly seems high enough already.

There are few details in your scenarios, but you seem to infer that if a mother doesn’t want the child, then the child has no value, and should be destroyed.

This seems a very common misconception, because most abortion legislation stipulates that an abortion can only be carried out if the mother is in serious danger (ie. either physically or mentally). Not wanting the child is not the same as being in serious danger, and in our society, very few women are in serious danger.

Of course the mother can continue with the pregnancy, and then adopt the child out. There is a large waiting list of parents wanting to adopt children, although most feminists will rarely speak about adoption, but concentrate almost entirely on abortion.

There are no details in this article about what should occur during pregnancy counselling, but I think the author would agree that information about abortion should not be hidden or suppressed. So the parents could be shown a video of an abortion.

Eg
“The Silent Scream reveals (through ultrasound) the actual responses of a 12-week-old fetus being aborted. As the unborn child attempts to escape the abortionist's curette (abortionist's tool), her motions can be seen to become desperately agitated and her heart rate doubles in fear. “
http://www.abortiontv.com/Movies/silentscream.htm

!2-week abortions would be common in Australia, so after the video was shown, the parents could be given further details regards adoption, abortion, keeping the child etc.

That would seem unbiased counselling.