There need not be a debate.

Abortion should be a personal choice of the woman in question and the father if he is still involved in the relationship. No if's or but's. It is a private matter and the religious spruikers should play absolutely no part in the discussion.

It is a medical procedure and also a personal, private issue between The doctor and patient.

Geoff

Geoff of Perth,

How are you about late term abortions?

As late as the knitting needle through the head before it emerges?

Geoff of Perth

Abortion is the only medical procedure that involves two patients that has for its purpose the direct killing of one of the patients.

In every pregnancy there is a second patient to be considered.

Decisions between a woman and her doctor should not extend to commissioning the killing of the second patient, a tiny daughter or son being nurtured and protected in her/his mother's womb..

Privacy cannot be invoked to conceal human right abuse of children, including violations of their rights to prenatal care, survival and development. International human rights law has consistently rejected the right to privacy as a defence against human rights violations by adults in positions of power over children in positions of dependency.

No human being has ownership and killing rights over another human being, no matter how small, or dependent or troublesome or 'unwanted'.

RitaJ,

No one has the right to use someone else’s body for their survival. That's another human right, and one that trumps everything you said. You wouldn’t force a mother to donate a kidney to their child, so why do the rights of a child that hasn't even been born yet extend beyond those of a child that has been born?

As I alluded to before, this one simple point trumps any argument the anti-abortionist comes up with. It is the bottom line.

A J Phillips
Adequate nutrition, the protective environment of the mother’s womb, and benign medical care are “basic rights” of every new human being and because of their fundamental necessity to the nurturing of life; they are the unborn child’s minimum and reasonable demands on her/his biological mother.

A mother nurturing her little daughter or son in her womb is exercising her natural duty of care. It is just the ordinary care owed by every mother to her child--nothing extraordinary--just exactly what our reproductive systems are equipped to do. It is just what our mothers did for us and what our grandmothers did for our mothers and what our great-grandmothers did for our grandmothers.

Lethal violence against these tiniest and most defenceless of all children is never 'necessary'. All violence against children is preventable.

Before as well as after birth, children should never receive less protection than adults.

Their mothers' personal and social needs can and should be met by non-violent means.

RitaJ,

The “basic rights” you list are trumped by the pregnant woman’s right to not be used as an incubator. Once again, no one has the right to use someone else’s body for their survival.

<<A mother nurturing her little daughter or son in her womb is exercising her natural duty of care. It is just the ordinary care owed by every mother to her child--nothing extraordinary--just exactly what our reproductive systems are equipped to do.>>

The difference being, of course, that a child who has been born is not using the body of their mother. They can survive independent of their mother in the care of others.

<<Lethal violence against these tiniest and most defenceless of all children is never 'necessary'.>>

It is when it endangers the life of the mother.

<<All violence against children is preventable.>>

Whether it is preventable is beside the point. No one has the right to use someone else’s body for their survival, and consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.

<<Before as well as after birth, children should never receive less protection than adults.>>

But according to you, they should receive more. Once again, you wouldn’t force a mother to donate a kidney to their child (or would you?).

<<Their mothers' personal and social needs can and should be met by non-violent means.>>

Correct, and that includes not forcing women to carry through to term against their will.