@suseonline. I don't think the seeking of a late term abortion necessarily stems from selfishness. Having spoken to dozens post abortive women, many late term, there is certainly a sense of desperation and a variety of either non supportive or overtly coercive factors at play. If you consider high levels of anxiety, stress or feelings of helplessness to constitute 'mental health', then yes, these all usually exist. My argument is that we can do more to address the circumstances women face than argue that they need abortion in order to be equal. I don't agree that 3-4 late term abortions every week of the year in one state alone is 'thankfully very few', although that is only my opinion.

Making accurate, evidence based information available about abortion is not 'carrying on' either. This is a way of minimising, ridiculing or marginalising a view just because you don't agree rather than debate the facts.

Whilst researching and educating about the impact of abortion is a big part of my work, so is researching and actively working in the area of meeting women's needs during pregnancy and early parenting. I don't think a person has to be involved in both aspects in order to validate one, it just so happens that I have skills, knowledge and a passion for both

@individual. I have lived with the terrible stigma of teenage and single parenthood, and with the challenge of counting every cent and often finding they didn't quite add up to what was necessary. It was terrible, and it shouldn't be that hard. It shouldn't have been that hard for me and it shouldn't be that hard for any woman today. When women are having abortions out of economic desperation, or to keep a job or because they're told to choose between motherhood and an education, we should be doing a lot more about it than offering abortion as the solution.

The evidence also doesn't support a claim that abused children were necessarily unwanted or that women who considered abortion but chose to parent are any more likely to abuse their children, so your argument (albeit a common one) doesn't have any basis in reality.

Hi Debbie, thanks for that, but I still don't believe late term abortions are that much of a problem in Australia.

As a midwife in both public and private hospitals, and given that late term terminations are usually done by inducing birth, not 'tearing babies apart' as is often portrayed by pro-life activists, I would have thought I would have come across more than I have?

I see you are a director of Real Choices.
What can you guys bring to the issue that a woman's own doctor or midwife can't?
Are you all affiliated with the Catholic Church, or any other religious organisation?

I would prefer that women with an unwanted pregnancy were counselled by health professionals without hidden agendas....

@suseonline Thanks for your questions.. You are correct that it is important that accurate information about abortion be provided. Later term abortions result in the delivery of an intact baby. Earlier gestation terminations are undertaken in a way that does remove the foetus from the uterus in pieces.

With the number of late term abortions sitting at the current rate, and undertaken within a very few hospitals or private clinics, I would't expect a lot of midwives to have been exposed to them. The majority of late term abortions in Victoria (particularly for psychosocial reasons) were undertaken in a single private clinic in Melbourne, not in hospitals, as is the case in most states.

Real Choices Australia has no religious, political or ideological association affiliations. We receive no money from any such group, however we would welcome donations from any group as long as it didn't come with strings to compromise our work. We have run a very successful and highly regarded symposium every year that has been attended by people from a wide range of groups and differing ideologies. Our online training is also undertaken by people with all sorts of affiliations and beliefs.

We make our information accessible to the general community, researchers, educators, politicians and health professionals and the media in a way that no other organisation does, as opposed to providing specific information to an individual woman as would be the case with a doctor or midwife.

We do not provide counselling to women; we do provide training to other people who provide counselling including GPs, psychologists, mental health nurses, midwives and lay volunteers from the prolife and other sectors. We don't discriminate in the provision of our services on the basis of profession or ideology (or anything else of course).

Hopefully that covers all your questions and I'm still within the word limit!

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/drugaddicted-mother-killed-six-babies-to-avoid-raising-them-police-say-20140709-zt167.html

That's just plain mad.

Dear new age Feminists, this issue will not fade away as you hope, the media black out on late term abortion can't last forever, eventually someone with some moral rigidity will take a stand as has been the case throughout history; The arc of the moral universe in this particular instance seems to be long but it WILL bend towards justice.

No one that sees a 4D UltraSound can call a pregnancy a blob of tissue anymore.