Danielle,
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me on medical advancements or not. 0.01% is pretty close to zero.

You're right to say my comments on incest don't constitute a complete argument, something which is often difficult to achieve in 350 words or less. 

But I was hoping they would provide some food for thought. Our immediate reaction to victims of incest should not be to terminate their progeny. Termination sounds like the voice of the aggressor. Or do you doubt that perpetrators of incest would be keen to encourage abortion, considering it's perfectly legal, and all?

You seem to be a fan of statistics. Perhaps you could tell me, of the tens of thousands of terminations in Australia each year, how many are performed on primary school aged children, or however else you want to define the word 'child'? Or if the number is rather small, are you happy to lead with that example, so that that legal loophole will ensure that the tail will wag the dog?

I can also share some accurate statistics. 100% of us have a condition which at some future point will lead to death. In that sense, we are all terminally ill, irrevocably condemned. 100% of us will endure some type of suffering in our lives.

Our immediate reaction to suffering should not be one of termination. We should be about promoting life. I want to challenge that attitude that has infiltrated our society which answers difficulties and challenges with a culture of violence and killing.

Dan S de Merengue,

I believe that a child is under sixteen; indeed many sixteen year old girls are not sufficiently mature to cope with pregnancy and childbirth. Girls are maturing much younger now and I would hazard a guess that there are abortions performed on primary school children.

As for being terminally ill, medical ethics debates the issues of when we are prolonging life and when we are prolonging the dying process, particularly in the case of acute suffering.