I'm pretty confident that any argument that claims to be about "protecting women" in western society is generally an excuse to trample on someone's autonomy. Quite often the women being "protected". Generally it seems to be an argument that women (or other women if the author is female) are not adult enough to make their own decisions and live with the consequences.

I think that there is a significant social negative to having laws in place that are never enforced. It sends a message that law is not something that we take seriously, that it's OK to ignore those you disagree with or for lawmakers that it's OK to pass laws that won't be enforced. The author makes a similar point when she says in regard to one of the proposed changes "There is no penalty. A law without consequences is no law at all."

So if as she claims "no woman has ever been jailed for or even convicted of an illegal abortion in the 118 years the law has been in place." then it would seem that this is no law. On the other hand it just needs a shift in the winds of power and that uneasy social truce could turn out really badly for some.

The laws should be gone, or re-written to suit what the government actually intends to allow/prevent.

They should not sit there as an unknown hanging over the heads of people with the risk that an unfortunate combination of government and judiciary choosing to have the letter of the law enforced (and whatever records of electronic communications the government has access making it a risk looking back in time not just forward).

I don't personally like abortion and I've found the arguments of some staunchly pro-womens choice advocates disgusting when they reject any concept of financial choice for the male party involved but my personal likes and dislikes and the inconsistencies don't alter the basic issues.

The law should reflect what the government intends to enforce, no more and no less.

R0bert

Any woman with natural instincts will tell you that an unborn child is considered a living being from the moment it's existence is known.
Mothers talk to this unborn child, sing to it, poke and prod it to make it move, choose names and dream of what the child will look like and what sort of person it will become.
Fathers do the same things.
Even unwanted babies are considered a live entity.
To say that the casual destruction of this unborn life is not murder is nothing more than semantics.
Yes, there are circumstances that require abortion. In cases of rape, or incest or the health of the mother it is sometimes necessary to commit this murder because that is considered the best outcome for the pregnancy.
To those who argue that we can't impose conditions on a woman's control of her own body, well, the child's body is also involved and the rights of the father as well.
In a healthy woman pregnancy is not a life threatening condition, it's a part of normal female health and the vast majority of women could carry an unwanted child to term then put it up for adoption with no adverse physical effects.
And quite frankly, if women are so obsessed with the control of their own body they should ensure they control it to avoid getting pregnant in the first place

I remain very conflicted where abortion on demand is concerned, and there is no surprise that I largely agree with the words of the two posters before me, even though they arrive at different conclusions.

It is not possible to reach middle age without knowing at least obliquely of a woman who has been obliged by circumstances beyond her control to give up her child or have a termination. That is despite their avowed best compliance with contraception. Over years, even the most diligent can miss a pill, or accidents happen.

As a man I will never know what children I may have fathered, or abortions caused, through unfairly putting the onus for contraception on the woman. I wish for a male Pill and even more so now that I look back.

I am particularly concerned about the lack of will of government to collect statistics to enable independent, scientific study of the high number of terminations in Australia. There is suspicion at least that economic conditions are contributing to a far higher number of terminations affecting women and couples of prime childbearing and child-raising age.

It is worth reminding that it was social, but very largely economic conditions (poor personal and family financial situation and lack of support), that resulted in so many women having to give up their children for adoption post WW2 and later. Could the very same causes be leading to a higher than forecast number of terminations affecting the under-employed and over-taxed 20-30 year olds?

Does social policy contribute, if so, how?

How to examine where data is not being kept?

Big Nana, you need to be corrected. It is a fact that even without intervention, one in every four conceptions will result in a spontaneous abortion. That is just natures way of preventing children with some defect being born, although even then there are some who slip through the cracks.

David

There is absolutely no difference between a natural miscarriage and an abortion? On this premise you could also claim that because so many children die in car accidents, there is absolutely no difference between a child dying in an accident and intentionally arranging for your child to be killed.
It is in the character of each new obsessive ideology which sweeps the world that sooner or later its dogmas founder in absurd irony.
How ironic that extreme ideological feminists have been allowed to foster the untruth that a mother’s son or daughter being nurtured and protected in her womb is not yet a human being with human rights? They have reinvented the old pre-school fiction that a Stork (named ‘A Woman’s Choice’) brings the baby whose existence is instantaneously affirmed only at the moment of birth.
The irony is that this fiction continues to be propagated at a time in history where we have never had so much detailed scientifically verifiable knowledge of the humanity of each child taken to the abortionist to be “terminated”. A mother is able as never before to see her child through an ultrasound window to the womb. Her child is already here; she feels and sees a lively and purposeful presence; she can hear a heartbeat that is not her own.
Ideological distortion of science and reason to dehumanize the most vulnerable human beings before claiming to have a right to exterminate them is very nasty, very old ploy used to devastating effect by other vicious ideologies last century.

David, how can you possibly compare a spontaneous abortion with a medical abortion?
Miscarriages usually occur because of abnormalities in the foetus, a miscarriage is natures ways of preventing the birth of a severely defective child.
A medical abortion is the destruction of a normal, healthy foetus, one that would grow into a normal, healthy child.
There is no comparison!