If the author is going to refer to “rights” when it comes to abortion, surely she needs to address the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (to which Australia is a signatory) which states in Article 3, “Everyone has the right to life . . . “

The Preamble of this document makes it clear who this “everyone” is : “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world” .

Then there is The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990), to which Australia is also a signatory, and which reaffirms in the Preamble the following statement from the earlier Declaration of the Rights of the Child(1959): “Whereas the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, both before as well as after birth.”

The first and sixth articles of the Convention read:
“Article 1: For the purposes of the Convention, a child means every human being below the age of 18 years . . .
Article 6: (1) States Parties recognise that every child has the inherent right to life.
(2) States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.”(emphasis added)

As a lecturer in law I would have thought she would be aware of these documents, so simply to ignore them is inexcusable.

Like the unjust Victorian and ACT legislation, the Tasmanian legislation grants the 'right to kill' unborn babies up until full term, but grants no rights whatsoever to the innocent party, the unborn. The fact that human life starts at the moment of conception, is completely ignored.

Thus, women are given unfettered access to abortion on demand so as to 'remedy' consequences of their irresponsible sexual behaviour, and then take advantage of the 'privilege' of receiving compensation for abortion expenses from the taxpayer through Medicare.

Furthermore, the Tasmanian legislation contains provisions compelling doctors to give patients information about abortions. As a consequence, the exercising of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion is now denied. Like the Victorian legislation, it compels doctors to perform or comply with an objectively morally wrong act.

The Tasmanian legislation is even more unjust, as it makes the right to protest against abortion a criminal offence, if that protest takes place within 150 metres of the unborn-baby slaughter house. The protest ban appears likely to face a High Court challenge, as some regard it as an infringement of the Constitution's implied right to political communication.

I applaud Tasmania joining the other 2 states in dragging themselves into the modern age of secularism in our country.
All the other states and territories will soon follow.

JP, I think it's time to move on from a preamble written in 1959.
Why not concentrate on the rights of the many babies already born, and living in poverty and neglect, than ranting and raving about legal abortions that are none of your concern?

Raycom would do well to remember that it takes two to make a baby, and that it can often be the daddy who insists on an abortion.
As usual, the women are blamed.

You guys need to drag yourselves into the current century!

Ronli should be thankful he/she got a chance at life unlike the thousands butchered before birth. How heartless can a nation become in the name of feminism. Thankfully most woman would not dream of such crimes.

Dear Suse,

If you truly seek women's freedom to abort, then the militant style of your writing achieves the opposite: it gives the impression that your motives are different.

Go ahead and abort a baby every week if that's what you want.
It's none of anybody else's business (and you should not even need doctors for that, it's not a health issue).

But the impression you create is that your ultimate goal has nothing to do with your (or other women's) intimate life, that instead you are on a crusade and your ultimate goal is to uproot all religion and force other people into your 21st-century lifestyle.

You tell JP that it is none of his concerns, but the agenda to uproot religion and drag everyone into your 21st century, including the forcing of doctors to act contrary to their conscientious convictions, should certainly be his concern.

This attitude could bring Australia into a civil war, we could have our own Belfast. Is this what you want?

What rubbish Yuyutsu.
Who forces Doctors to abort babies? No-one.

I have said many times before that I hate the thought of abortion and have never assisted with them in any way in my medical career.

However, I do not believe in forcing women to do something they don't want to do either...carrying on with a pregnancy they don't want.

How is it worse 'forcing' a Doctor to refer a woman to someone else who can help her if he can't , than forcing a woman to go through 9 months of pregnancy and labour against her will? How would YOU force her?

Obviously, I am amongst the majority in these thoughts, with three states decriminalising abortion so far.

Dear Suse,

<<Who forces Doctors to abort babies? No-one.>>person

Not with their own hands, but by referring them to another doctor.

If you hire an assassin, you are guilty of murder.
If you knowingly drive a rapist to the place of rape, you are guilty of aiding and abetting the resulting rape.

Whether abortion is murder or not is besides the question: what matters is that certain doctors see it as such, yet you still demand that they aid and abet what they perceive as murder - or lose their license.

How would you feel in their situation?

<<However, I do not believe in forcing women to do something they don't want to do either...carrying on with a pregnancy they don't want.>>

Neither do I, but I don't go about as a result shouting "down with religion, drag everyone to the 21st century".

<<How is it worse 'forcing' a Doctor to refer a woman to someone else>>

For a religious Christian, this feels like rape, if you need to place it on scale, or like a mother who is forced to sell her child into prostitution in order to feed her other children. A Christian doctor who did so, would feel as a murderer, guilty to the core for the rest of his life. He would lose all self-esteem and might even become suicidal.

<<How would YOU force her?>>

I never would. It goes against my moral grain.

<<Obviously, I am amongst the majority in these thoughts>>

Producing this majority-thing as a justification for cruel acts is the material that ignites civil wars.

'Obviously, I am amongst the majority in these thoughts, with three states decriminalising abortion so far. '

yep just like the majority of Germans shut their mouth or were deliberatley ignorant of the jews going to the gas chambers. Very similar attitude.

And yet, most of those Germans were Christian Runner, so go figure.

I realise you guys are disappointed about the decriminalisation of abortion.
Why not concentrate your efforts on a subject you can actually do something about, like all the neglected and abused children actually living in this world?

If the fetus is not a human being from the moment of conception then when does it become one?

Yuyutsu

<Producing this majority-thing as a justification for cruel acts is the material that ignites civil wars>

Castigating Suse for using supposedly militant rhetoric and then warning her that her kind of attitude ignites civil wars and could turn Australia into another Belfast is a tad hypocritical.

Every Australian opinion poll taken on the subject in recent decades records a substantial majority support for abortion on demand. Excuse me, but that's not called 'justification for cruel acts'; it's called 'democracy'. However, you appear to view rule by majority as an inconvenience to the moral and religious views of a minority.

runner

The majority of Germans WERE ignorant of what was happening to the Jews. Those who DID know also knew that to speak up meant the same would happen to them. Also, the majority of Germans didn't even vote for Hitler. The Nazis received 44% of the votes and only after their main political rivals had been eliminated. So take your tedious Godwin's Law moralising somewhere else.

Is Mise, the fetus is human from conception of course, but is not viable outside the uterus before about 25 weeks gestation in Australia.

Most abortions are carried out before 12 weeks gestation.
I would rather advocate for more effective and cheaper contraception than abortion, as abstinence is something even some Catholic Priests can't seem to handle...

True Suse, but what should one call the old trick of punching a hole in the baby's head with a knitting needle before birth i.e. when the head is in sight?

Killarney

obviously can't handle the truth. Seems like pro baby murderers are prepared for all kinds of violence in order to defend their crimes.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b83_1386107661

Is Mise, that sort of thing apparently did happen in the bad old days, when women could not access safe abortions, and thus were desperate.
This is exactly the reason why we have safe, legal abortions now.

Dear Killarney,

You missed me completely:

By 'cruel acts' I referred to the forcing of Christian doctors to act against their conscience, not to abortions.

Yuyutsu, I hope you aren't suggesting it is only the morally superior 'Christian Doctors' who object to taking part in abortions?
Because that would be a very naive and wrong assumption.

There is a big difference between asking Doctors ( religious or not) to take part in abortions, and asking them to refer women onto another doctor who will do this, or knows someone who will.

Doctors take an oath to try to help ALL patients who come to them, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any other difference.
If they personally don't have the qualifications or the expertise in helping that patient, then they are obliged to refer them on to someone who will.

If anyone feels too morally or religiously superior as to judge someone for choices about their own body, then they have no business being a Doctor in the first place.

Perhaps you are confusing the job of a doctor with that of a priest?

Dear Suse,

You are right of course: although the majority of doctors who oppose abortions are Christian, NO doctor should be forced to act against their conscience, Christian or otherwise, either by performing an abortion or by contributing to it in any way.

What you claim a "big difference" is only a small, insignificant one when matters of morality and principle are concerned.

You may not see the cruelty in your words, but perhaps others will.

"Doctors take an oath"

While I could argue much about the oath, my explanation would be too sophisticated for you to understand and the discussion would spread into a whole gamut of other topics, so I'll just say that what you are essentially and childishly telling those doctors is,
"Hehehe, I caught you by your word, I'm holding your ring of power, so now you are mine, you cannot resist me and you must do whatever I tell you".

Never mind that Hippocrates rolls in his grave, that he never imagined his oath being abused this way, never mind that Hippocrates never meant that doctors must separate the soul/spirit from the body and treat the body separately as if nothing else matters, never mind that the women in question who see the doctor do not even visit for a health issue, so they are not truly 'patients'.

Never mind that the girl who visits the doctor knows well in advance that he'll not help her to abort because there's a big sign on his door: "We do not support abortions", or perhaps because the only sign on the door actually says "Ophthalmologist".

Never mind that the girl is not really even pregnant, but she enters the office of a heart surgeon and says: "Doctor, I need an abortion", keeping a recording-device in her purse in order to trap him, then she throws out a party: "Hurray, another Christian out of work, another Christian will not afford to send his children to a Catholic school, another Christian will have his kids indoctrinated by MY ideas!"

You really are looking for a civil war, Suse.

Suse,

What I asked was what would you call puncturing the baby's head before it had emerged, not in which time frame it happened?

Is it an abortion if the head is still inside?

Is Mise, you are a sick man.

Yuyutsu, how do you know the majority of doctors who oppose abortion are Christian?
I'm sure the many Muslim doctors would disagree with you.

Once another poster resorts to personal comments such as saying I'm not 'sophisticated enough to understand' an issue that they believe only they are right about, then it's best I leave the argument.

I would hate to upset you any further.

See you all on another thread.

No, I'm just curious as to what it would be called, murder or abortion?

Quite a simple question and one that should not be hard to answer.

Suseonline,

Ducking for cover?