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The Forum > Article Comments > The politics of abortion > Comments

The politics of abortion : Comments

By Bernard Gaynor, published 23/5/2014

This week's report that Family First will now look at withholding preferences from the Victorian Liberal Party makes perfect sense and is one that I applaud.

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An excellent article Bernard. Your points about the dishonesty of the Liberal Party are spot on.
Minor parties should hold the Liberals to account for this dishonesty.
Posted by MrAnderson, Friday, 23 May 2014 8:50:27 AM
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Perhaps the Victorian Liberals have learnt from the fate of the Republican Party in the US: hitching your wagon to the lunatic policies of the dwindling Christian Right is a recipe for long-term disaster.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 23 May 2014 10:31:37 AM
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It looks very much as if Family First are doing the Victorian Liberals an enormous favour by disassociating themselves from mainstream politics.

Lucky Liberals. Saves them from being tainted by association.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 23 May 2014 12:33:25 PM
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Secular governments have no authority to assume themselves as our moral guardians. Matters such as this, immoral as they are, are for the heavenly court, not for politicians. If someone avoids killing their baby only because they fear going to jail - that doesn't make them any better persons!

As for withholding preferences, it is wrong for parties to influence preferences to begin with - and this, I hear, is going to change in the next elections anyway. It's up to citizens to specify their preferences, not the parties.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 23 May 2014 1:59:26 PM
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If you want to talk about honesty then why not declare that you are anti-abortion rather than pro-life. The word life means a great deal more than not having been aborted. It means freedom of choice, joy, delight, happiness, creativity, wonder, awe, delighting, feeling and thinking and imagining. To suggest that those against abortion are pro-life and those in favour of it are not is the extreme height of arrogance. Such arrogance is also very un-Christian.

If you are against abortion have the courage to say so emphatically and unambiguously – do not hide behind such emotionally manipulative language as ‘pro-life’. Every human being is pro-life but there are some aspects of it that they may find unpalatable. This does not make them ‘anti-life’. It makes them anti the particular things they dislike. Using such emotional manipulation you could just as readily say that those in favour of abortion are pro-life since they support the freedom to choose which is a fundamental value that even Christians accept in general. You could also say that Christians are anti-life since their focus is constantly on getting out of this life and into heaven. Their behaviour denies so much of what it means to be human.

If you are against abortion then say so and give your reasons or are you afraid that your reasons are not valid? You would not need to resort to emotional manipulation if you had water-tight arguments for your position.

Honesty in politics begins when people stop trying to emotionally manipulate debates and present arguments for their position that can be challenged or accepted. No one has presented a case against abortion which does not contain some element of emotional manipulation designed to protect themselves rather than any ‘unborn child’.
Posted by phanto, Friday, 23 May 2014 6:13:49 PM
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Jon J,
The Republicans have been defeated by demographic change, not because of their policies,Bush the younger will probably be the last ever Republican president simply because there are no longer enough White Republicans left to swing a presidential election. Christianity is now a third world faith practiced mainly by social democrats and leftists in the West, so those values you disparage aren't "conservative" anymore because the churches are no longer "conservative" institutions.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Friday, 23 May 2014 8:07:15 PM
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Justice requires that elective abortions be recognized and treated not as idiosyncratic, personal ‘choices’ but as abusive practices, as human rights violations perpetrated by individuals and involving the complicity of politicians and others.

It's a cruel injustice that unborn children are routinely aborted, utterly defenceless victims of current ideological battles between political parties.

Procured abortion is lethal human rights abuse. The legality of child abuse is never to be decided legitimately by opinion polls or by government majority votes.

There is no poll, no democratic vote, no government 'numbers' and no domestic Court decision that can take away the child's right, under international human rights law, to 'special safeguards and care including appropriate legal protection before as well as after birth'. (See UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child )
Posted by RitaJ, Friday, 23 May 2014 10:12:39 PM
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RitaJ considers 'elective' abortions as human rights abuse against the unborn.
Non-elective abortions (miscarriages) result in the same ending....the death of the foetus.
Will you consider miscarriage as an 'abuse' by a god or nature?
If not, why not?

Where do you stand on forcing women to stay pregnant and give birth against their will?
This is not a human rights abuse to you?

Sorry, but the current law of allowing women the right to safe abortion choice in this country is right.
Posted by Suseonline, Saturday, 24 May 2014 1:49:42 AM
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This whole article is based on dishonesty: if the terms anti-abortion and pro-choice has been used instead of pro-life and pro-abortion it might have had some credibility. Anti-abortioners would force women to continue with unwanted pregnancies. Pro-choice advocates give women the freedom to control what happens to their own body.

It really is time we ditched preference deals, how to vote cards (why anyone allows a political party to tell them how to vote has always amazed me) and above all lobby for a return to optional preferential voting. Many people are do not fill in all the numbers on the ballot paper but clearly show their preferred candidate. Their vote is invalid because Labor and Liberal have agreed that we must be forced to comply with full preferential voting - for their benefit, not ours. Consequently our election results do not reflect the will of the electorate. Last year there were 800,000 informal votes nation-wide, over 4000 in Clive Palmer's electorate alone - which he won by a handful of votes.
Posted by Candide, Saturday, 24 May 2014 7:36:14 AM
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Bernard,

The reason that the liberals do so little to stop abortion is that most Liberal supporters are actually libertarians who feel that people should have freedom of choice over their lives.

If you feel that the government should have more control over what you do and think, then perhaps the Labor or Greens parties are more for you.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Saturday, 24 May 2014 2:02:13 PM
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It is manipulative to use terms such as ‘human rights violation’ when talking about abortion. It automatically presumes that a foetus is a human being. Why do we have the word foetus at all if it is indeed a human being? Unless you have absolute proof that it is a human being then it is dishonest to attribute such qualities to it as you would to beings for which there is no doubt. A belief is not proof or certainty. You have to base your arguments on what you know to be true not on what you believe.

Human rights are given to human beings. There is no argument that a being independent of the womb is a human being but there is a great deal of argument about whether a being dependent on the womb can be considered human. If it is at what point does it become a human being? Is a two celled organism a human being? The truth is that no one can make such a definitive call. You cannot say for certain that a foetus has rights but you can say for certain that a pregnant woman has the right to choose what happens to her own body unless it impinges on the rights of a another human being. Unless you can say with certainty at what point humanness becomes operative then the one who has the rights should have preference over the one who does not.

Attributing human rights to something that is not universally accepted as being human is emotionally manipulative and aims to create guilt where none should exist. The burden of proof lies with those who reject abortion and so far they have been unable show any proof that a foetus is the same as a human being.
Posted by phanto, Saturday, 24 May 2014 9:00:09 PM
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Great article Bernard. Pro lifers in both Labour and Liberal parties are usually shoved to the back bench. Sickening to see the 'moral outrage 'against federal budget while most involved in this 'outrage' support the murder of unborn babies. God won't be mocked.
Posted by runner, Saturday, 24 May 2014 9:40:44 PM
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Keep politicians away from womens bodies!
Posted by mikk, Sunday, 25 May 2014 8:30:00 AM
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Keep politicians away from womens bodies!
mikk,
Yes & do-gooders even further.
Posted by individual, Sunday, 25 May 2014 9:04:03 AM
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'Keep politicians away from womens bodies! '

keep butchers away from unborn children!
Posted by runner, Sunday, 25 May 2014 2:49:00 PM
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>>)"?><>:{....cryptic:)of curse.?:{<>)(>:{?<:>"...equals...question.

Runner...I think I've answered your boggle:)

Kat>)
Posted by ORIGINS OF MAN, Sunday, 25 May 2014 7:54:45 PM
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>>)"?><>:{....cryptic:)of curse.?:{<>)(>:{?<:>"...equals...question.
Origins of Man,
Does that say do-gooders put your money where your mouth is ? I wonder if any of them understand that formula ? I have yet to see the do-gooders standing outside abortion clinics offering help & support for women who'd rather have an abortion rather than plant yet more unwanted human beings onto this already overcrowded planet.
Posted by individual, Monday, 26 May 2014 4:11:53 AM
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Indy...its says a little more than that, and your point is in there. See, the equation on lets say rape/birth-defects/unaffordable-offspring/underage-pregnancies/genetically-problems as with runner/OUG/ETC...cost the system/personal/cares/a great deal of time and money, which these do-gooders as you refer to them/which are surely deprived of not only of common-sense..but the circumstances of which the planet simply can not sustain.

Indy....there's an old say for a new world....never argue with the idiotic simplifiers that think..9 billion and all will be...10 billion and everything will even better...and the system wont even see 11 billion, let alone jobs with 45 years of employment to build four walls and a roof...Indy...these people just have zero education or understandings......that's why their called sheepeople.

Indy...they cant even answer one of the simplest question on the planet....

Q...When your child leaves school, where is it going to go?

Lets see if the religious/do-gooders can answer that one.....

Remember Indy...their all waiting for GOD to come and pick them up:).......and this is haft the problem.

KAT
Posted by ORIGINS OF MAN, Monday, 26 May 2014 2:31:42 PM
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I agree with Bernard. I regard abortion as a fundamental human rights abuse. Our own society needs to examine its collective conscience at the legally and socially sanctioned brutality in our own midst. Each year some 80,000 unborn children in our country die from the legally sanctioned killing of the unborn by abortion.
I acknowledge I am opposed to abortion except where it is the unintentional consequence of trying to save a mother’s life. I am morally opposed to the deliberate taking of innocent life based on my understanding of human life and including from a human rights perspective.

In respect of late term abortions, Dr Van Gend at the time of the vote on the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria said “The truth is that most late abortions, which are 20 weeks of pregnancy, are done to entirely healthy babies of entirely healthy mothers, and by a method so cruel I am reluctant to describe it. “
He further stated : “For our generation, late abortion is the test of whether or not our society sinks into savagery, deaf to babies so callously sacrificed to the psychosocial comfort of adults.”

He was reluctant to describe, but allow me to quote from a letter I sent to all State MPs at the time of that debate.
“The methodology of abortion procedures on the living, genetically unique foetus is appalling, especially the late term abortions. Although there has been much debate on the subject, there is no doubt that the foetus experiences pain, some medical research suggests from 8 weeks, but certainly from around 13 weeks. When an induced abortion occurs, depending on what stage of the pregnancy, the unborn child can die a variety of deaths – sucked to pieces, cut to pieces, twisted and dismembered, poisoned, right through to partial birth abortion (just prior to what would be a normal birth, when an induced death would be called infanticide) where after all but head has been delivered, the surgeon jabs the child’s head with scissors and sucks the brain out to collapse the head.”
Posted by bagsyl, Monday, 26 May 2014 8:16:09 PM
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Part 2
Or as more clinically described on the Web : “Under the Intact D&X method, the largest part of the fetus (the head) is reduced in diameter to allow vaginal passage. According to the American Medical Association, this procedure has four main elements. First, the cervix is dilated. Second, the fetus is positioned for a footling breech. Third, the fetus is partially pulled out, starting with the feet, as far as the neck. Fourth, the brain and material inside the skull is evacuated, so that a dead but otherwise intact fetus can be delivered via the vagina.”
Consistency in respect of human life and human rights at all stages of life is one which any person could philosophically derive through a humanistic approach. and such a philosophy is reflected in such instruments as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That each human life has value in its uniqueness and potential from the moment that life begins which by its very nature has to be at biological conception
If we deny such a position I believe that we adopt an increasingly utilitarian attitude towards human life, which has the potential to take us down many questionable roads. Ultimately we reach a point where the question has to be asked “Does the end justify the means?”

In the case of a Christian humanist and human rights activist, a position which I openly subscribe to, there is the added perspective of every human life as having a spiritual dimension and dignity. Conception is the beginning of a human life from which it will progress through many stages until old age and death, unless terminated at some earlier stage before and after birth, by natural or human intervention or misadventure.
Posted by bagsyl, Monday, 26 May 2014 8:18:35 PM
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Bagsyl : You try to present a rational argument in favour of abortion that everyone should accept simply because it is reasonable and logical. Then you resort to telling us that we should refrain from killing ‘unborn children’ because it is the Christian humanist view that we all have a spiritual side. Why do you need to stress this fact? Surely if your argument is valid then it should stand on its own two feet. It is totally irrelevant whether or not any of us has a spiritual side. Abortion is wrong because it is a crime against human rights is it not?

It sounds like you are unconvinced by your own arguments. You do not truly believe that they are strong enough to stand on their merits and so you resort to some kind of teaching that is backed by Christian authorities to promote your position. This is the argument from authority which is not really an argument at all. No authority has the answers to all questions and so it could well be that the authority you defer to has no answers about this issue of abortion. If you are convinced that it is enough to defer to this authority then it is totally unnecessary to present a logical argument in the first place. You should rather be trying to convince us all to defer to such an authority as you do.

The graphic nature of your descriptions seem like the tactic of a desperate person. It is totally unnecessary. If the foetus is a human being then it is wrong to do anything violent against it. It is not a question of the level of violence. Every human being knows that violence causes pain we do not need to hear or see images of violence to be convinced of this. Resorting to such emotional depictions is also the refuge of someone not convinced of their own arguments.
Posted by phanto, Monday, 26 May 2014 11:49:16 PM
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Dear Bagsyl,

On the one hand you start by stating, "I agree with Bernard.", then you proceed to comment about things which Bernard, the author, never mentioned.

This whole article never mentioned the words: 'baby', 'foetus' (or 'fetus'), 'child', 'human', 'right(s)' or 'abuse'. It is not about abortion but about "The politics of abortion" - all about politics.

While there is little controversy about your claim that killing babies is wrong - which surely it is, that provides no explanation as to what gives the state a right to forbid it.

Murder is wrong, including the murder of animals - the product of which you find in every supermarket, but the state does not prohibit this disgusting practice, nor should it - what then allows it to prohibit the murder of human babies who are often less developed and less conscious than the adult animals in question?

You seem to answer this with:

<<In the case of a Christian humanist and human rights activist, a position which I openly subscribe to, there is the added perspective of every human life as having a spiritual dimension and dignity.>>

In other words, pain and loss don't matter, consciousness doesn't matter: all that matters is the granting of special rights for your elite group - humans, which you want government to violently enforce, supported by the arrogant claims as if humans and only humans have a spiritual dimension and as if they and only they deserve dignity. Try substituting 'human' with 'Aryan'.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Tuesday, 27 May 2014 4:29:57 AM
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Dear Yuyutsu
You are right that the article of Bernard Gaynor concentrates on the politics of abortion, and I do agree with him, the Libs are wimping on this issue.
Yes I did primarily concentrate on the actual issue of life, abortion, especially late term abortion that was ushered in in the law changes a few years ago. This was the issue I believe was underlying Gaynor's article's criticism of the LNP.
In terms of animal life and human life - I respect animal life but I do see a difference in purpose. As Phanto complains I make no bones about seeing the nature of human life through a Christian perspective. I realise that you may see things differently but you do go over the top in your last sentence. Cheers.
Posted by bagsyl, Tuesday, 27 May 2014 1:43:07 PM
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"I respect animal life but I do see a difference in purpose. As Phanto complains, "I make no bones about seeing the nature of human life through a Christian perspective"....lion food:)

Abortion is here to stay....so keep waving your arms about:)

KAT
Posted by ORIGINS OF MAN, Tuesday, 27 May 2014 3:54:01 PM
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Hi Origins of Man. What was your origin? Can you explain to me at what stage a human life begins? That is my problem with abortion. As I said in my comment - once conception occurs that a human life begins and will continue through stages of life to death. That death at any stage can be through natural causes, through deliberate act of destruction (abortion, infanticide,murder, war etc) to misadventure (accident).
Posted by bagsyl, Wednesday, 28 May 2014 6:55:11 PM
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