Stezza,

"Peer-reviewed data" is your criteria, not mine. I have given you the truthful testimony of several clinic operators, and you don't want to know. Your 'peer-review criteria' is just a deflection.

What you need to do is explain to me how what they say is a lie, not try to hide behind scientific terms. They are not expressing an opinion, they are describing how they ran their business, which directly answers the question - does promoting contraception promote abortion? Clearly it does, since they saw how promoting it to children increased their business. If you want facts and figures, get your hands on their business profit statements at the end of each month! You think a study would be the ultimate evidence? Actually, I think the fact of cold hard cash flowing is about as tangible and strong as it gets. Money talks and in this case, you are deciding not to listen, even though the message is clear.

You are simply being obtuse while trying to hijack the language of objective investigation. But you don't really care about truth, only appearing like you are interested in truth. If I pointed to a study you would likely reject it anyway. But what matter most is when people actually employ the connection between contraception and abortion and make money. That has happened over and over again. That is a fact you cannot just dismiss, but you are trying to deflect attention away from.

So you need to answer this before anything else: why would abortion business owners actively promote something (contraception) you claim would actually reduce their business? (abortion) Makes no sense - unless - as former operators testify - it actually did not reduce abortion numbers at all, quite the contrary.

Poirot,

"Show me a truly caring and engaged society (which is what is needed here) and not merely an ideological stance."

...so says the person who wants to justify killing children as civilised, as if that wasn't an 'ideology' in itself. Right, that makes sense! Wow.

Settle down, Stephan.

And don't put words in my mouth.

Nowhere did I attempt to justify anything, mate.

I was addressing Rhys Jones and his view on the subject of what we as a society "should" be doing to support and value all children...and the fact that we appear to be moving backwards in our support for vulnerable women and children.

My point being, and I agree with him here, that any women we might dissuade from abortion can not take it for granted to be embraced by society while bringing up her child.

You'll get your message across much better if you lower your hackles and cease calling people like me "...the person who wants to justify killing children..."

Can't you debate with resorting to stunts like that?

Dear Stephan,

The fact is that abortion is legal in Australia, and the law does not consider a fetus the equal of a person that has been born. It has been a struggle to get legal abortion, and I think it is for the best. I just wish it had come earlier so my cousin could have benefited from it. However, it is available for my descendants.

Abortion is killing a fetus. A fetus is not a child. I think you are aware of that, but you insist on referring to it as killing children. If you can get enough people to agree with you then we will return to a past which I don't think was as good as it is now with respect to abortion.

You wrote: "Stop the ridiculous fearmongering about being a theocracy." Apparently you didn't even read what I wrote. Let me refrest your memory. I wrote: "I quoted from the Bible to point out that it is not a reasonable guide for law. Australia is not a theocracy, and laws should be made to serve justice not some archaic religious injunction."

Get that. I wrote that Australia is not a theocracy. Since you really don't seem to care what I write there doesn't much point in continuing.

However, I think you have your views in good faith which is something you want to deny me.

I think we are far more civilised at this time in respect to having legal abortion, and those who make our laws apparently agree with that or it wouldn't be legal.

I also think the current laws are fair in that they regard a woman as more than a baby-making machine. We will not agree so I guess that is that.

"So you need to answer this before anything else: why would abortion business owners actively promote something (contraception) you claim would actually reduce their business? (abortion) Makes no sense - unless - as former operators testify - it actually did not reduce abortion numbers at all, quite the contrary."

Stephen,

Using this logic, heart surgeons suggesting their patient eating less cholesterol must mean that cholesterol is good for the heart, and a mechanic telling a customer to make sure they put oil in their engine means that oil is bad for the engine. See you logic does not make sense. The thing about "peer-reviewed" science is that it is not based on anecdotes, it requires unbiased reasoning, data and statistics. This is why what you say is BS.

David, legal is not necessarily moral - that is apparent even from your own argument since you admit that it once was not legal, and could therefore be so again. So what are you trying to say? Never mind the irony of including this statement, "it is available for my descendants" - those aborted excluded of course.

"A fetus is not a child."

Science says otherwise. With half the chromosomes from the father and half from the mother, a child is exactly what it is. Even as an adult now, I am a child to my parents, so it is not even a word limited to when you have a single digit age or thereabouts. Various dictionaries differ with you too - one definition being "a human fetus.", another mentions pregnancy as also being called 'with child'.

Furthermore, your point about theocracy is a well known smear that you are now trying to obfuscate. Your argument assumes opposition to abortion equals theocracy. But given that Australia has never been (not just "is not" as you argue) that, bringing up the idea is just fearmongering. Maybe you will stand up for what you assumed in your argument now instead of trying to weasel out of it.

There is nothing civilised about abortion. It is on par with pagan child sacrifice practices that long precede the Roman empire. I find it funny when pro-aborts wish to smear pro-lifers in respect of the 1950s or something like that, when they actually hold to an idea that regresses society to before the dark ages by millennia!

I don't know a single prolifer who thinks of women as a "baby-making machine". So - I challenge you to find me just one prolife organisation that characterises women this way and - in practice - is 100% run by men and refuses to allow women do anything other than have children. Because that is what you are saying. Could it be that you have a pathological need to misrepresent your opponent’s arguments and motivations because that is so much easier that actually facing up to the truth?

Stezza, a balance sheet is quite unbiased and is effectively peer-reviewed by the fact of cold hard cash. A thousand dollars is always a thousand dollars, whereas a study might be claimed to have all kinds of flaws. Numbers do not lie and cannot be fudged because operators cannot just print their own money. If promoting contraception increases abortion business, and multiple operators testify to this, you have no argument.

It is clear you are avoiding the evidence presented because it does not suit your baby-killing ideology. The idea contraception reduces abortion is the real lie and if anything is biased it is you!