HEAR, HEAR, Happy Christmas & hopefully a healthier more prosperous New Year to all.

What about the rights of all other animal species with whom we share this planet?
What about the rights of the Environment, that which keeps us alive?
Surely this is far more important than so called and overrated human rights.
The arrogance of humanity is incredible.

"The eleventh video released by the Centre for Medical Progress"

It's the eleventh video of lies, even with the very heavy editing it is plan to see to anyone other then foaming at the mouth anti-choiceer's.
Using body parts is a very important part of medical research. The author is one of the crowd that would have us living like they did when the bronze age culture she admires so much was the height of technically innovation.

You know that time were infant morality was very very high, when prayer was a substitute for good medical practice.

I think that medical experiments were part of the Third Reich and a pretty gruesome part. I am not sure if anyone was hanged over them but he should have been. This shows how easily a civilisation can drift into barbarism of the worst kind. Education, technology and prosperity are no guarantees against this.

Post 4 goes to Godwin's law.

"even with the very heavy editing".

The Centre for Medical Progress take the precaution of releasing the unedited footage along with its edited release to demonstrate that the editing doesn't in anyway alter the impact of the events filmed but just removes periods where little or nothing happens. Even so, there are those who assert that the editing alters the intent of what was said. They:
1. Are just regurgitating talking points from Planned Parenthood and/or
2. Haven't bothered to view the raw footing and/or
3 Are dishonest.

Planned Parenthood aren't upset with these videos because they reveal illegal activity. They know that under the current regime approved illegal activity won't be pursued.
What they are concerned about is that the videos reveal the gruesome nature of abortion, particularly post 20 week abortion.
Pro-abortionists have laboured (!) long and hard to present abortion as this inconsequential medical procedure which has minimal effects on the woman and no effects on a life-form that is little more than a clump of cells.

What these videos reveal is spines being broken, in-vitro dismemberment occurring, hearts being kept as trophies, functioning (at some level) brains being sucked out. They also reveal the utter callousness of those involved who see nothing wrong with these acts, joke about it and, even worse, seek to profit from it.

I'm unsure of the correct moral stance on abortion but accept that pre-20 week abortion is probably necessary and should be legal. But after that, the right to choose is no longer the mother's sole prerogative and ought to be illegal save for very stringently administered circumstances.

Babette's still at it, perpetuating this lie that Planned Parenthood are selling baby parts. Of course they're not. That would be illegal. They're only reimbursed for the shipping costs.

Isis, Boko Haran and Planned Parenthood. They all have similar ethics.

mhaze, since i'm not an American then option A is out, i have watch the video's so option b is out so it must be option c.....
But then again http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/unspinning-the-planned-parenthood-video/ backs up what I'm saying.

I would also like to point out the cost of the tissue samples was $30 to $100, they are not getting rich on this work they are covering costs.

Judging by your tone you are the dishonest one.."Pro-abortionists have laboured (!) long and hard to present abortion as this inconsequential medical procedure which has minimal effects on the woman and no effects on a life-form that is little more than a clump of cells. "

I don't think I've ever heard a pro-choice person say anything like that.

Cobber -

“Let’s take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter . . . I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.”
Camille Paglia salon.com 10 September, 2009

Meanwhile this reference reveals how unremittingly awful some/many of the anti-abortion campaigners (terrorists) quite often are. It also provides some very useful historical context for the hysterical reaction(s) of the anti-abortion zealots.

http://www.livinginthecrosshairs.com

Thank you, Babette, for speaking up on behalf of the most vulnerable members of humanity and reminding us of the depraved deeds of Planned Parenthood.
The silence of the mainstream media and our craven politicians is a disgrace.

Nothing like a gruesome video to drum up some controversy...

Just as an experiment, I think we should ban medical abortion and make women seek backyard abortions instead. And then somebody should upload some videos of that variety of gruesome footage, and we shall see how quickly people scurry back to medical abortion.

Abortion will happen whether the bible-bashers like it or not. Better it be done by doctors and nurses in a clinical environment than by some random cowboy.

Well said, and so true Toni Lavis.

"I encourage other Australians who are also concerned about Australia funding abortion in developing countries to write to Mr. Morrison, Parliament House, Canberra, with copies to your local Federal MHR if he or she is in the Coalition, or to your nearest pro-life Senator."

Here is Babette up to her old tricks of spreading lies from the mad, dangerous anti-abortion folk from America. We have witnessed some of these people shooting or bombing others who don't agree with legal abortions. They are terrorists.

Why on earth would we want to discourage funding for abortions in third world countries where over-population leads to huge problems of poverty, starvation and high death rates for children under five?

Many women in those countries die, after having multiple births, of obstetric problems now almost unheard of in developed countries, but yet the many religions that these poor people blindly follow still tells them contraception and abortion are 'against God'.

It is a disgrace that bunches of so-called 'holy' men feel they have the right to tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies. It is none of their business, and indeed no one else's business except the parents and their doctor.

Don't get your hopes up that abortion will ever become illegal again Babette because that will never happen. Why not use your time promoting contraception so we don't have so many unwanted pregnancies in the first place?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no need for abortions at all?

"Better it be done by doctors and nurses in a clinical environment than by some random cowboy."

So that's the only two options, Toni? No middle ground there? Either accept that we have to permit the in-vitro dismemberment of viable fetus, the snipping of spines, leaving unwanted live-births to die. That or backyard abortions. No chance to have a system that mitigates against backyard butchery without enabling clinical butchery?

_____________________________________________________

At some time after the moment the sperm enters the egg, the life attains rights, human rights. That might be at the time of conception or the time of embedding, or 9 weeks, or 20 weeks or 24 weeks, or nine months or at the time of birth or (some say) six months after birth.

Each person has to decide that for themselves and then the societal consensus has to apply. If its, say, 24 weeks, then the life form up to that point is not human and unfettered rights to abortion should apply. But after that point, the life is human and it attains the full value of being human including most importantly the right to not be killed.

It seems to me that this is unassailable, that the embryo will attain human rights at some time. Society, each society, must determine that point and then zealously protect that life from that point on.

mhaze, there are very few abortions attended in this country after about 20 weeks gestation, despite what the pro-lifers lie about.

The few that are allowed are for disabled babies or for the mother's mental or physical well-being. Very often it is the father asking for termination in these cases anyway, so why not punish them as well? I am a midwife and I see first hand what happens. Do you?

In all my years as a nurse I never witnessed nor heard of anyone taking 'body parts' from aborted foetuses. This sort of rubbish has only been circulated amongst mad pro lifers in the US, and then clutched onto by the desperately gullible followers here.

If you would like to see a definite 'cut off point of 24 weeks' to allow legal abortions in this country, exactly how would you enforce that? If, for example, a woman really didn't want to carry a baby with no brain (anencephalic) to full term , only to watch it die during or shortly after birth, would you feel comfortable forcing her to do something against her will? Not every couple can handle a lifetime of caring for disabled kids.
There are enough unwanted children in this world already.

In fact, what right has anyone got to say to any woman "you will carry on with this unwanted pregnancy and birth no matter what you want"? Would you tie these women down until they give birth or what?

Suseonline,

Statistics about abortion rates are rather equivocal in Australia so I'm reticent about being too dogmatic about what and what isn't happening, a policy I'd recommend to you.

" there are very few abortions attended in this country after about 20 weeks gestation"

Statistics are hard to come by on this so I admire your certainty. The best figures I could find were from SA which seems to be the most open about all these issues. It shows that there are about 100 late-term abortions per year. Extrapolated, that gives around 1000 in Australia per year. Whether that's "very few" is in the eye of the beholder, but I'd say its a distressingly high number. (Note that there is almost no data on post 24 week abortions since amost all statistics come from Medicare and there's no rebate for post 24 week abortions).

You might assert that taking body parts from aborted babies is a fiction "circulated amongst mad pro lifers in the US" but you'd simply be wrong/uninformed. There is no question that it happens (see the Planned Parenthood videos). The only issue is whether they are sold at a profit or not.

Re your anencephalic scenario. Well I did say that the life of the fetus should be protected "save for very stringently administered circumstances." The scenario you mentioned would be one such. By that I mean that you'd require a group of non-partisan doctors and ethicists to agree that the life could be terminated. But my point is that once the life reaches a certain point it has attained rights which are equal to those of the mother and cannot be overridden solely by the mother.

"Would you tie these women down until they give birth or what?"
No, I reserve my tying down of women for other times. (nb that was a joke, you have to be soooo careful these days!)
But if a perfectly viable life was ended after a time when it was agreed that it had attained the status of human, I'd charge the mother and any associated medical assistants with murder.

Suse,

Do you agree that there is some time when the embryo becomes human and if so what is that time - 1 week, 20 weeks, when the head is crowning? And do you agree that after that point, killing the human is killing a human? Please don't try to dodge by bringing up issues of the health or prospects of the life. Just decide at what point a healthy embryo becomes a human life.

I'll understand if you don't respond. Addressing this issue tends to limit one's options.

Susie and her likes callous heartless response to the murderering of babies is probably the strongest arguement in favour of abortion. Their only real arguement is to demonise those with a conscience.

I'd say at the moment of conception, mhaze.

<<Just decide at what point a healthy embryo becomes a human life.>>

But that's beside the point.

Mhaze, in the medical world, a foetus is considered viable after 24 weeks gestation, so I would say that this would be a reasonable age to say it is a 'baby'. It is always a human at all stages of development.
I did view one of those awful planned parenthood videos and they made no sense in that they had been cut and pasted poorly...so it would show exactly the lies they wanted to tell. Any basically medical trained person could easily spot the discrepancies.

Look, no one likes to see or be involved in abortion. It is truly an awful procedure and one I did not participate in professionally. I was at the business end in the labour wards.
However, I was involved in several late-term 'inductions' of disabled babies, and believe me, everyone in the ward was crying with the parents.

These are never easy decisions for all involved, but it is the parents and doctors decision, and no one else's ...including any high and mighty 'ethicists'.

I would be overjoyed if there were no abortions at all and I think we should work towards that goal rather than look to punish women(and their partners of course) who choose not to continue with an unwanted pregnancy. It should be a medical decision and never a criminal one.

Your age-old suggestion of making women (and their partners of course) criminally responsible for abortion would drag us back into the last century and bring with it far more problems than there are now, so that will never happen

'in the medical world, a foetus is considered viable after 24 weeks gestation' Susie means in her medical world. The Nazis also did not consider Jews as human. Changing names to disguise simple truth means zit.

We know what happened, when the Catholics intensively lobbied George W Bush and he cut funding to family planning clinics in Africa. Some women were so desperate, they left their babies out for jackals at night. If you want less abortions, so improve family planning options and education for women. Even that however mind offend the Catholics, as condoms are still a dirty word for Rome. Even women who have had 8 children and plead for their tubes to be tied, are denied so by the Catholics, who control many third world hospitals.

A fetus is not a person until it has a human brain and a functioning human brain does not exist until about week 24. So below that, it is neither a baby, a person or a child, as the anti abortion lobby keep claiming.

If people insist on wanting to force women to have all these unwanted babies, so put your money where your mouth is and feed and educate them etc. But no, the Vatican hordes it billions.

suseonline,

"I did view one of those awful planned parenthood videos and they made no sense in that they had been cut and pasted poorly...so it would show exactly the lies they wanted to tell."

You assert they are lies but even Planned Parenthood aren't saying that they weren't selling, albeit at cost, body parts. I think, when you watched those videos, you saw what you hoped was the truth rather than the truth.

If, at 24 weeks, the embryo has become human and has attained the rights that attach to being human then they should receive the most basic of those rights - the right to not be arbitrarily killed. Anyone who kills a human without good cause is a murderer. Unless you think that simply deciding you no longer want to be a mother is good cause, anyone who kills or helps in the killing of a 24 week old fetus is a murderer and should be treated as such.

That is, if you think the embryo attains personhood at 24 weeks. Otherwise insert into the above whatever period you think such personhood is attained

mhaze, luckily, abortions of 24 week gestation pregnancies are very rare in this country.

Certainly I would bet there aren't any doctors in this country who would agree to terminating a pregnancy at that late stage simply because a woman didn't want to be a mother anymore, so you should be safe there.

However, if a doctor and a pregnant woman and her partner agree on the absolute necessity of having an induced labour at that stage of pregnancy, then it would have to be for a very good medical reason. And that should be no one else's very sad business but theirs.

By 24 weeks gestation it is safer for the mother to have an induced birth rather than an abortion anyway. If people like yourself are really that upset about women ending pregnancies of disabled babies at this stage, then perhaps you all can take on the care of these kids if ever it does become illegal to have abortions for any reason...

Seems like Babette Francis is up to her usual nonsense here. The whole Planned Parenthood saga in the US is being driven by the same Tea Party fundamentalism that is currently making the US a worse place to live, rather than better. It is not based on evidence, but on groups of people wanting to control the lives of others.

The decision to terminate a pregnancy should be between the mother, the father and health providers. The Babette Francis' of this world should just butt out.

Oh we have a new player.

So tell us Agronomist, at what point do you think the embryo achieves personhood and becomes due all its rights as a human?.... including the right to live.

"So tell us Agronomist, at what point do you think the embryo achieves personhood and becomes due all its rights as a human?.... including the right to live."

There is little point in me making such a declaration. It will not influence your thinking one bit.

This demand of yours is just you trying to control the narrative.

Suse,

Well said, and I mean that.

Well clearly Agronomist prefers the ad hom to actually addressing any substantive issues, so (s)he has nothing of value to say. So back to

Suseonline,

What concerns me here Suse, and I'm not just picking on you since I see this whenever the issue is raised, is that you feel, if not comfortable, then at least accepting of the notion that a post-24 week life in vitro which you've already agreed is human with all the rights that attach to that, can be ended by the decisions of others because it is less than perfect - possibly very much less than perfect.

Yet, I suspect (and hope), you'd be less than supportive of the idea that a less than perfect life what was 24 weeks out of the womb could be ended by decisions taken by family and their doctors. I'd hope that you'd agree that such a decision requires society's imperateur

So what is the difference between a 24 week old embryo and a 24 week old baby?

To make my position clear. Firstly, push-comes-to-shove, I'd put the date at 20 weeks. More to the point, whatever the date, once the embryo has attained personhood then the women, her family and her medical support loose all rights to make decisions about whether the new life should live or die. Any such decision becomes a societal question and can only be decided at the societal level. Society has a duty to protect all of its members and that includes the unborn ones, irrespective of their health and prospects.

Yes I know its unfair to force the women to carry a child she no longer wants. But greater principals are at stake than the temporary loss by the women over her womb. Its unfair that she's now in this position but that is as nought to the unfairness of killing the life within her.

If it's up to society to decide, then that would be reflected in the laws that have passed by our societal representatives would it not?

As a society we have already decided what is legal and what is not and what our societal responsibilities are. We have voted on it.

By the way, 'in vitro' literally means 'in glass' or outside of an organism. You may be thinking of 'in vivo' or even 'in situ'. Just sayin'.

"Well clearly Agronomist prefers the ad hom to actually addressing any substantive issues, so (s)he has nothing of value to say."

Nothing I wrote was ad hom. You failed to address any of the issues in the post I had made, but instead demanded I give you satisfaction in answering a leading question. It is clear from this thread that you are not much interested in the answers as you are in telling everyone else how they should live their lives.

On this topic, you are frankly wrong. Society in Australia has addressed the topic of abortion and developed a position that is reflective in the current set of laws. In fact different societies in Australia have come to different positions as evidence by the differences between state laws.

The fact that you personally don't like the laws society has settled on is no reason to demand that others should share your opinion.

Agronomist

You have confused state with society and this factual error completely invalidates everything you just said. If "society" agreed with you, there would be no need to threaten everyone with imprisonment and rape to force "society" to obey, would there, you fool?

Tell it to mhaze, Jardine, (s)hes the one proposing criminalising womens choices in the name of 'society'.

Agronomist is right Mhaze. Australia has already decided that abortion should be safe and legal in our country, many years ago. So your points are mute really.
You can of course have your own views on the subject, as we all can.
The difference is that my views are well in the majority.

There is a world of difference between a very disabled 24 week gestation baby , and a similarly disabled baby who is 24 weeks old. The first can't survive outside the uterus, while the second obviously has. If the first baby is induced and born, and then dies, it is saved from a pain-filled lifetime that the second is now enduring.

I have seen how some of these babies and their families suffer, often for years, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy...