Debbie Garratt is Executive Director of "Real Choices Australia". Checking out their website reveals they are basically a front for the anti-abortion lobby. Follow the money ...

For the record, I have had two abortions. I do not regret them and I do not suffer from psychological harm as the website suggests. I suspect a majority of women who have had abortions agree with me; they just don't speak up because of the hysterical outpourings of those who feel obliged to impose their religious views on others.

On the contrary, having safe and legal abortion available was extremely comforting. The counselling provided before I made my decision was very professional and caring.

Safe, legal abortion should be widely available. Women who choose to have abortions should not be made to feel like pariahs.

Debbie Garratt "we know that abortion advocates have truly lost the plot."

We've known that as soon as they told us the destruction of a living human didn't need to be justified.
Any time, any stage, no reason required.

Shocadelic,
So, you'd rather see people live in misery than aborting a handful of cells ?
Why aren't anti abortionists putting their money where there mouths are, helping, caring & paying for people which their parents didn't want to bring into this world due to a quirk of fate ? If nature can be so cruel as to not give people a natural choice then people should not judge those who want to prevent miserable lives.
We're not all born equal, some have wealthy parents, some have poor parents & some aren't born perfect, some are intelligent & some aren't. I say let the mother make a decision if you don't want to be there for her when she requires support.

@anaminx. We are not involved in any way with any anti-abortion lobby. We do however provide education and information on the adverse impact of abortion, which is significant, for a significant number of women. It is abortion related ideology that perceives this as anti-abortion, rather than appropriately educational and informative. I am glad that your experience has not been negative.

@individual. There is no evidence that the mothers of abused or negative children considered abortion any more frequently than those who are more positive parents. Many people who dislike abortion do provide valuable services to women and families. Interestingly though, when they do, they are often accused of ulterior motives. Can't win it seems

Debbie Garrett, do you not think there is already a plethora of information in books, online and from medical personnel about the fors and against re abortion?

Surely most couples these days already have all the info they need to decide whether they want an abortion or not? If they don't, then they would surely know where to find it.

At the end of the day, it is up to the parents and their doctors whether they have an abortion or not, and no one else's business unless they ask for help?

Abortion is legal and readily available in Australia, as it should be.
We should be concentrating on efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, with free contraception perhaps.

Debbie Garratt “We are not involved in any way with any anti-abortion lobby.”

You expect anyone to believe that Debbie? Real Choices is an anti-abortion lobby group. One only needs to read the blog articles by Debbie Garratt on the website to see that. Or indeed their activities in the wider media, such as this media release http://lifenetwork.org.au/_blog/The_Case_Against_Abortion/post/Real_Choices_Australia_responds_to_'A_call_for_free_abortions'_/ or this one http://lifenetworkaustralia.designexperts.com.au/_blog/The_Case_Against_Abortion/post/Dancing_in_the_streets_to_celebrate_abortion_-_Real_Choices_Australia_Media_Release/

If Real Choices were not a lobby group, they would have no reason to place such materials in the media.

Debbie, it is my position that women should be able to have a safe and legal termination of pregnancy if they choose to do so. What is your position?

Well, usually consent is needed, to actually make a woman pregnant!
If this is not so, then there is a case for medical intervention, ditto where there is a very real risk to the health and well being of the mother, or where there are already too many mouths to feed, or the mother just too young and still at school, with the rest of her life before her!!
That said, on demand abortion should never be a substitute for contraceptives, which include condoms, the pill, and the morning after pill; the latter simply prevents ovulation, while any sperm remains viable!
If there is a case for abortion, a battered or raped wife, incest, or criminal rape etc, it is one that ought to be concluded, before there is a beating human heart!
Given quite deliberately stopping a viable beating human heart inside or outside the womb, is still murder, regardless of how it is dressed up or dismissed! Like say, in the final solution for an inferior race?
And yes, there are rare cases, where the baby and the mother, automatically reject the other blood or DNA type, in which case, there is no other option but to terminate, for medical reasons!
And there ought to be an option included at the time of any abortion, for informed consent sterilization?
After all, sterilization is the ultimate birth control!
And we can be Shaw about that!
Rhrosty.

The pro-abortionists do not want to think about whether the fetes feels pain because then it begins to look like a human being. The idea that we should have this regard for the doomed fetes signals that something is very wrong indeed: "we are going to murder you but we don't want you to feel any pain".

What kind of society are we when we give the "right" to kill our offspring with no strings attached? What kind of society are we that suffocates the future promised by new human beings?

Peter Sellick

individual "So, you'd rather see people live in misery than aborting a handful of cells?"

By the time most abortions happen, we are well beyond the clump of cells stage.
If it has arms and legs, it's not some indeterminate "thing".

Who will be miserable?
The woman? She doesn't have to keep it.
The children? They can be adopted by people who really *want* them.

Everyone in this world is miserable to some extent.
Nobody lives a truly satisfying life.

"If nature can be so cruel as to not give people a natural choice"

Nature doesn't give us a choice about *how* we reproduce.
But we always have a choice about how we engage in sex.

There is only *one* way to get pregnant.
There are dozens of ways to give and receive sexual pleasure that won't get you pregnant.

If you engage in the *one and only* reproductive sexual act, knowing the potential consequences, you have already made your "choice".

Peter Sells, what are you on about fetes for? Aren't they places that sell cakes and sweets etc?

If you are going to comment on abortions of women for reasons you know nothing about, at least get the spelling 'fetus' right.

The woman? She doesn't have to keep it.
Shockadelic,
So, are you volunteering to support & look after such a child ? Why do think there are so many dysfunctional families with just as dysfunctional kids who in turn produce dysfunctional kids which in turn results in a stuffed up society we have now ?
I would prefer women to get free contraception before anything else. I'm not in favour of picking up the tab for some mass breeders. If they want that particular pleasure then let them deal with the consequences, stop fleecing me.

I feel the same way about the men who impregnate them, Individual.
Obviously, they don't use contraception to prevent a pregnancy either....

Susanonline,
Well you got me there, or predictive text did. I do know how the spell foetus and I know that it is not a part of the body of the mother. Is it a cancer? What else could it be but a potential human being that we coldly eradicate. The prochoice lot are so obsessed with the "rights" of the mother, that invented reality, that they do not see the potential child and the life it would live. This must be the only age in history that predicts misery at the conception of a child.

Suseonline,
Why should men use contraceptives, they can't get pregnant-yet.
The sex in control should take control.

Peter Sells, it is none of your business what women do to their own bodies, and luckily the law agrees.
The foetus is attached to the mother's uterus, whether you like that or not.

If abortion was made illegal again, then women all over the world would still have abortions one way or another, and women would die as well as the foetus.
Maybe you would be happy with that outcome?

Individual, it is attitudes like yours that result in more unwanted pregnancies....

individual, I, nor any other person, need take responsibility for the child.
The state can do that.

Access to abortion doesn't seem to have diminished the number of dysfunctional families out there, has it?

Suseonline "it is none of your business what women do to their own bodies"

And that is where your whole argument falls to pieces.

The embryo/foetus/baby is *NOT* part of "her" body.

It is *another* body, which will naturally become capable of independent existence.

It's temporary residence within her body doesn't make it part of her.

She can rip her own arms, legs and head off if she likes, but she has no right to have someone else's arms, legs and head ripped off.

"If abortion was made illegal again, then women all over the world would still have abortions one way or another"

And that would be their "choice".

Abortion is already illegal all over the world, with very few exceptions.
Even in Australia. The laws are simply not enforced.

Shockadelic, Queenslands abortion laws aren't enforced, you are correct.
Why is that do you think?
Exactly HOW would you force any woman to go through with a pregnancy she doesn't want?

No amount of ranting and raving from the anti-choice lobby will change the fact that babies ARE part of the woman's body, at least until they can survive outside the uterus themselves.

I don't think we will ever agree on this subject Shockadelic .

Australia will never go back to the dark ages and force women against their wills to carry on with a pregnancy she doesn't want., so I am more concerned with trying to find more effective contraception to stop unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

All I can say is do-gooders stay out of others' lives. We're over populated the way it is.
Have a look at inner cities anywhere & poverty striken societies with hundres of thousands of small children suffering because do-gooders want to feel warm n'fozzy.
If those people aren't educated into contraception AND abortion then those pro life at any cost should be made to bear the cost. I certainly can't figure out how they can sleep at night whilst so many children are suffering so horribly.

Suseonline "the fact that babies ARE part of the woman's body, at least until they can survive outside the uterus themselves."

So if we had artificial womb technology, there'd we no justification for abortion.

Can another "part" of your body ever exist independently?
Can your arms just wander off and never come home?

Why do think women have miscarriages?
Because their body doesn't recognise this tissue as its *own*, and her immune system attacks it.

So the baby can't survive alone in the early phase.
That somehow gives you the right to destroy it?
I don't see the logic there.

Human babies can't "survive" without assistance for many months, even years after birth.

Should we allow post-birth "terminations", since the baby/infant can't be self-sufficient and is therefore a burden on someone's time and finances?

Mother charged with murder of infant triplets.
Acquitted! They were a "burden" and threat to her mental health.

individual "hundreds of thousands of small children suffering" in poverty.
In Australia?
With a welfare system available to all?

If children suffer, it's because of their parents' actions, not do-gooders.

I suppose do-gooders shouldn't be concerned about other people's children drinking industrial waste or breathing in toxic pollution either.
Mind your own business!

emasculated men and feminist think its ok to multilate babies. What a sick society. Oh but its legal and as Susie says its MY body. What a pathetic defense for the indefensible. To think of the thousands of couples who want to adopt babies and must go overseas because we murder ours justifying it with junk science and seared consciences.

It cannot escape pro-abortionist attention that the most inhumane and capitalist movement around is socialism. It supports this procedure, filling the pockets of medicos and more absurd, it is funded by public Medicare. With over 100,000 abortions a year, clearly this has contributed to declining funds. There is no credibility in an organization of people that cry for justice with some issues, but decry the cause of unborn babies. Leaders need to wake up to this fact, show courage and do something about it.

Dream on boys....abortion will NEVER be unavailable as a choice for women again.

Why not put all your obvious passion towards preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place, or looking after the welfare of all the babies and children who are already born and need help?

Runner, especially, would be keen to see more effective contraceptions available, am I right?

'Runner, especially, would be keen to see more effective contraceptions available, am I right? '

I would be keen to see a touch of compassion for the unborn babies Susie. am I right?

Runner has it close, prevent unborns from being unborns in the first place. Instill the concept of contraception in the not so bright & the poor ignorant & ignorant poor. Contraception is the ONLY way to overcome the dilemma of unwanted pregnancy & unwanted & unloved children. It would also be very handy for the do-gooders to wash their greedy little hands of providing support for their ideology. They never do live up to it in practical terms. Millions of people would jump at the opportunity to prevent pregnancy, thus negating abortion.
Even the religious morons wouldn't have an argument. Talk about hitting two targets with one stone. With abortion a thing of the past the do-gooders could then focus on preventing the rest from getting hungry.

Well said Individual, but you will never change the anti-choice brigade's minds.

No one ever 'likes' abortion, or the terrible waste of human life.
However, stopping women from having the choice of abortion is not the answer.
Stopping unwanted pregnancies in the first place is the answer.

individual,

never occured to you that people have more education and more access to contraception than ever before. I suppose you want condoms in weeties packets. Your reasoning is pathetic in order to justify killing the most vulnerable. At least try thinking past your pathetic dogma.

runner "never occurred to you that people have more education and more access to contraception than ever before"

By their arguments, you'd think it was still the 1950s, where such things are not discussed.

Anyone can, right now, walk into a chemist or supermarket and buy contraception.

Anyone can, right now, choose to give and receive pleasure in any of the dozens of sexual acts that *cannot* get you pregnant.

If you do not do this, you have already made your "choice".