I really don't see the problem with using aborted or miscarried foetal tissue for research that could save so many lives, or cure some horrible diseases.

Abortion is legal here in most states of Australia (and readily available in all of them), and will always be legal. No Government in it's right mind would alienate at least half of the population by making abortion totally illegal, and dragging us all back into the dark ages.

Even though we currently are religiously top-heavy amongst all the Catholics and Hillsong crazies in the Liberal Government top jobs, they still wouldn't do it, because their religious 'convictions' won't ever overcome their political aspirations.

So why not use the foetal tissue, if it is going to be always available anyway?
It won't make one iota of difference to the abortion debate, and it can only do good.

Susan,
I have no problem with using foetal tissue for research. I have a problem with aborting the child. Just because abortion is legal and easy to obtain does not make it right. It just underlines our bankruptcy as a society. What kind of society is it that kills it's children?
At one point in the child's life it is crushed to death in the birth canal and at another point all love and care and expense are lavished on it. What has happened in between? The child has just progressed on its long journey to adulthood. But because we want to relieve ourselves of guilt we arbitrarily ordain, for no reason at all, that at one point it is a foetus and at another a child. Go figure!

What kind of society is it that makes medically safe abortion illegal? What kind of society is it that bans contraceptives that makes it more likely for a woman to resort to abortion? It is the kind of society that condemns a woman who needs an abortion to the tender mercies of a backyard abortionist, the use of a knitting needle or suicide. It is a society that puts the preservation of a foetus as more important than the welfare of a pregnant woman.

I recognise the rights of a foetus. A woman who ingests harmful substances during her pregnancy makes it less likely for a healthy baby to be born. If she intends to give birth she should see that her offspring would have a good beginning. A person who attacks a pregnant woman and causes harm or death to her foetus is guilty of a crime. However, I do not recognise that the foetus has equal rights with the woman whose body contains the foetus.

I feel that many of those who do not support legalised abortion disregard the pregnant woman. They do not feel that she has a right on her own to decide to terminate a pregnancy. I feel that this stems from the same mindset that kept woman from the vote and political office, that denied a married woman equal rights with regard to property or even to her children and that denied her the right to decide if she would be married and who she would marry.

The decision to have an abortion may be an agonising one, and a woman who has made that decision should be allowed to have the abortion with as little additional turmoil as possible. However, some opponents of abortion would deny her that peace of mind and want to harass her as she goes to the abortion clinic.

I feel strongly that a woman should have equal rights and access to a medically safe abortion is part of those rights.

The personal is the political in my case and in many other cases.

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My mother was a bright and frustrated alcoholic. Her arbitrary and sometimes selfish behaviour was a consequence of alcoholism. She was a school teacher before she got married, but the school district would not allow a married woman to continue to teach although a married man could. My father like many other middle-class men of his generation thought it a disgrace for a man to allow his wife to work. If she had been able to continue to get out in the world I think she probably would not have become an alcoholic, and I would have had a happier childhood. I am glad that women currently have the freedom that was denied my mother.

During WW2 my bright and beautiful cousin who I dearly loved became pregnant. Her boyfriend went off to war, and they had a tearful and I assume passionate parting. Shortly thereafter she found herself pregnant. Two months after her boyfriend left for overseas he was killed in action. She apparently could not tell her mother or anyone else of her condition, and there was no hope of her boyfriend returning so she killed herself. Had she had access to an abortion clinic she could have had an abortion, got an education and later had children. As it was her suicide was her end and the end of her foetus.

One way to limit the number of abortions is to provide sex education including the use of contraceptives and to make those contraceptives freely available. Some people who disapprove of a women’s right to have an abortion also oppose sex education and the availability of contraceptives. My late wife was a visiting nurse and a compassionate person. One of her clients was desperate. She had a number of children and did not see how it was possible to care for more. My wife supplied the woman with contraceptive information and contraceptives. For that my wife was sacked. If her client had become pregnant she most probably would have gone through the risk of using the services of a backyard abortionist.

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Perhaps Peter, the clear difference is definitively contained by the willingness of the potential (and assumedly jointly indispensible) parents to be such at that time. You and many here would dispute their right to make such a decision, even going so far as to question the concept of "rights". well, the "right" of your church to intervene is similarly imaginary. Like the "divine right of kings" it is simply the power to coerce. Long may it remain stunted by the "right" of the citizen to differ.
Every gamete has "potential", every zygote, every foetus, every child, every adult. Potential is clearly not the only criterion. A hundred years ago the Brisbane Hospital did not admit children under five, yet many had straightforwardly treatable conditions. Were they "killed" by deliberate and systemic "negligence"? Most certainly, and by a hospital board of "christians" in a country supposedly 95% "christian". They weren't "worth" the "investment" for perhaps valid practical reasons, principles be damned. Similarly, parents can choose when to invest in potential children, for perhaps valid and practical reasons, for what *they* think are valid reasons. I think you, the church and other objectors may choose to carry any child you can conceive, and good luck.

The real problem here is that Planned Parenthood gave an interview that revealed details of their patients private business, and the greater problem of regarding public medical procedures as having less privacy than equivalent private ones.

I am yet to hear any criticism of the private interests that sought the tissues. If any of the shareholders were "christian" they might benefit from your rebuke more than those who are not.

Rusty

Sells, no one 'likes' abortion as such of course.
We would all prefer that there was no need for any abortions at all.

We need to consider some more full proof contraception for both men and women, so unplanned pregnancies are a thing of the past.

At the end of the day, no one, least of all unrelated males, have any right to say to a pregnant woman that she has no choice but to be forced to carry a child to term and then forced to go through labour against her will.
How would you suggest this would work for you Sells, exactly?