This is one of the most pathetic things you every said Greg. What makes even more pathetic, is you're a member of a party that has a strong pro-choice history.

If you you paid more interest in children that have actually been born and now are now being molested by priest of your church.

Good idea, it makes sense.

It should indeed by an additional crime. If someone is going to stoop to the despicable low of bashing a pregnant woman with the specific intent of injuring the unborn child, it is absolutely a greater crime than bashing only a woman. The recognition of a crime against the unborn child is a common sense, fair and reasonable way to recognise this.

“The mere suggestion that we have a criminal offence with terms in it like "child destruction" or "killing an unborn child" will make some people bristle. Those who propose such legislative change will be accused of having a hidden agenda.”

Why not wait until they bristle and then deal with it if it happens or are you projecting the behaviour of others as a way of ‘flagging’ your own doubt about what it is that you are trying to achieve?

This is just a sneaky way to have the fetus given the status of ‘child’. Whether the reality in the womb of the mother is a fetus or a child should be argued on its own merits. This is not an argument one way or the other about that. It is an emotional manipulation which tries to link genuine concern about domestic violence with abortion.

Violence toward a pregnant woman should be dealt with by issuing the same penalties as violence toward any woman – pregnant or not. This author wants harsher penalties on the basis of their being two people attacked or an ‘unborn child’ being attacked.

First you have to prove that the reality in the womb is a child with all the rights of a child. Your argument for punishment is based on the fact that it is a child but such facts do not exist and it cannot be proven. Get the basic premise of your argument accepted and then come back to us about what punishment should apply to acts of domestic violence against that entity in the womb.

"First you have to prove that the reality in the womb is a child with all the rights of a child. Your argument for punishment is based on the fact that it is a child but such facts do not exist and it cannot be proven" says Phanto ..without realising he is himself walking, living, proof of the fact that when a woman is pregnant, she is carrying an unborn child. That's what he must have been when in his mother's womb otherwise he wouldn't be debating on OLO! Maybe Phanto has seen women give birth to mice....kittens or puppies ...but I haven't ...in all my years as a practising midwife I have only ever seen pregnant women deliver baby human beings. Greg Donnelly has no obligation to concern himself with clerical sexual abuse of children. There is a Royal Commission underway into this...leaving no stone unturned to bring to justice perpetrators of such heinous crimes. He is a legislator and if the Royal Commission makes recommendations to legislators, he will then have a responsibility to address them. Anyone reading this knows you are just taking an opportunistic swipe at the Catholic Church which opposes abortion! Two wrongs don't make a right Phanto. No doubt your parents taught you that. It reminds me of some of the hoary old chestnuts thrown up in the early days of the debate on abortion like "What about the starving children in India?" As if killing Australian babies was going to feed them !

Denny:

The argument being put forth by the author is that the entity in the womb is a child when it is attacked. He is not basing his argument on the fact that the entity will become an adult. It is about what to call it when it is attacked. Is a zygote a child? When does it become a child? Should women who are subject to violence be always tested in case they were pregnant and then have their perpetrators punished for two cases of assault?

You do not know when a child becomes a child and you will never know. You will just continue to make silly arguments based on the presumption that you do know.

Domestic violence cannot be regulated by politicians; it occurs in private spontaneously. "Plans" and 'targets', beloved of the political class, are at their most useless in the matter of domestic violence. And, of course the unborn are affected! I don't see the point of this article at all.