Thank you for this article. I have to admit I am unashamedly pro-life (I have even begun a University of Tasmania student society to promote pro-life views!). My main motivation for making my views known is to let people know that women who advocate abortion do not speak for me. When I was 20 I saw women protesting in favour of abortion for any and all circumstances. Since then I have felt that I must speak.

I do not think contraception can solve abortion. After looking at this issue from many angle in the past four years, I do not think abortion will be reduced unless people going into a relationship are at least a bit prepared to have a child. When they are completely unprepared they can only be devestated - confidence in contraception only compounds the shock and dismay of discovering a pregnancy. If contraception was going to solve abortion, it would already have done so. We are swamped in it. I am not saying this because I am a Catholic (I am a Protestant), but because I believe evidence supports it!

The argument for abortion I most dislike is that "children will suffer if they are not aborted". I do not think the majority of people born into underprivileged circumstances wish that they had been eliminated earlier.

I also think that some people need a biology lesson before deciding to comment on abortion, because they make a lot of uninformed comments about the fetus.

I passionately believe that women and children should not be pitted against one another, as they have been in the abortion debate for many years. We should all be looking for ways to help them both. It is a sign of something deeply wrong with society when a woman feels her unborn child is her enemy. Women deserve better than abortion, and so do children.

I could go on all day, so I'll stop and go now!

Rossco
You are confused.

“You have indicated elsewhere that you don't believe anything written by a female”

Is that true is it, or are you just making that up?

Basically I have made many links to other articles on the net, and about 50% would be by female authors. But in overall terms, female authors do not generally write good non-fiction. Female authors write considerable amounts of literature, but only a few have ever received major awards for non-fiction (and mixed gender committees normally decide those awards). All that is a verifiable fact, whether people like that fact or not.

But if there is an award for non-fiction articles of this length, then I would nominate this one.

The article covers most important aspects of the topic. It does not use unreliable anecdote or hearsay, or use propaganda type techniques. It is well thought out, and is unbiased. Most of the technical type data contained in the article would be verifiable (and I have previously read of similar data in various other sites), and I believe it does not try and intentionally hide data.

It is essentially honest, and so far as abortion goes, it is in direct contrast to many other articles written on the topic of abortion, and it would be a good place to start a proper debate on abortion.

How do you convince a Nazi that a Jew is a human being?

How do you convince a pro-abortionist that a foetus is a human being?

Pretty tough things to do, huh?

Oh, well, I guess it's up to the Nazi (and woman) to choose for himself.

Dear Brazzuca,
When you take the life of a Jew you kill a sentient human being who knows they are alive and wants to stay that way.
When you take the life of a foetus you kill a potential human being who knows nothing of life and has no conscious feelings about it one way or the other, particularly prior to 12 weeks. I believe the vast majority (over 90% of abortions) occur before 12 weeks.

“When you take the life of a foetus you kill a potential human being who knows nothing of life and has no conscious feelings about it one way or the other, particularly prior to 12 weeks.”

Hmmm ... does not exactly sound like a compelling argument from an ardent pro-choice supporter

Excellent article. The justifications for the two positions are more developed than most and in the case of the anti-abortion reasoning more secular, so it is both generous to those positions and capable of producing reasoned inquiry. But it is not wise to trust statistics from a site that, among many other things, states a definite link between abortion and breast cancer.

Men can empathise but not completely and the same is true for women who have never been in a situation where abortion was considered. Abortion is a philosophical issue, and while the emotions and feelings of people are relevant considerations, rational arguments should prevail over appeals to emotion (many of which are covered by other matters or cannot be reasoned with) which rely on subjective views. The credibility of subjective things will depend on the experience of the person making the claim. The best course of action is to eliminate subjective issues so far as possible, which the cognitive pro-choice position does.

Positions based on religious views, especially conservative religious views, rely on assumptions that cannot be objectively demonstrated, are not universal and have little place as justifications for criminal sanctions in a secular society. They should not be censored, but their positions should not be used to override the views of others unless they can be supported without reference to those religious views.

"It would seem that this would be an important issue to discuss, yet many wish to suppress it."
I don't think people want the issue suppressed, but there is acceptance of the status quo and a realisation that the issue cannot be resolved. Additionally, both major parties would be brough into differing degrees of turmoil over the issue, with no clear beneficiary.

It would be nice if this article brought about some well argued justifications for the anti-abortion position, including both the issue of abortion being morally wrong and the basis for imposing that view on those that disagree. But I have yet to encounter any that could sensibly explain the basis for placing such high value on something without mental abilities.