Fascinating history, Ms Hale.
With birth rates so low these days, the wealthy could maybe pay women to take babies to term and help with their educational and healthcare expenses in the interest of fairness.

 A “woman (has) the right to determine her reproductive destiny” with contraception or abstinence. There is no 'right' to use abortion to cover carelessness or alley cat morals.

Ok so lets try to be fair here?
The women's right to choose...
Can we have a fair discussion or what?

So you've been fight for the right to choose since the 70's and what exactly are you complaining about now, that you want some access to some abortion drug. Maybe it makes the procedure less invasive or traumatic for the mother / terminator... Is it ok to say that?

When does a man get the right to choose?

If a woman can be pro-active and use contraceptives, and a man can be pro-active and use a condom; and lets say both screw up and fail to take responsibility and conception occurs...

Does a man have the right to say...
Nope, piss it off; I was only in it for the root.
Even if you (the woman) want to keep it too bad, I say no.
Does a man have that right?

I mean that's what you women are saying isn't it?
That's the right you're asking for - to kill the mans child at will without any consideration for his wishes?
Are you willing to give that right equally to men?

That if a man says take the damn pill, you'll do it?
Doubtful.
Are you not hypocritically asking for a right that you are not willing to share equally with men?

Another case of total bs
Back to the drawing board girls...

Yes, woman have a right to chose!

Nobody chooses to be raped or subject to incest, that culminates in unwanted pregnancy! And consequently have their lives and career options etc, stolen from them! Yes contraception is easier, yet some men refuse to put on a rubber! Even where they could be spreading HIV/Aids!

And there are times, when choice is removed by medical conditions and life threatening genetic and immune response cellular rejection! Date rape is far more common than reported, yet we still fuss over, over the counter, the morning after pill!

As alway, there are a number of loud, vulgar, banner waving, self appointed judges/religious bigots/flat earthers/stonge age morons, most if not all, with absolutely no medical qualifications whatsoever!

Trying to prevent womenfolk, even those experiencing very real medical complications, from exercising an inherent right to chose! Be they green, blue or red or rainbow warriors!
Alan B.

Extraordinary ! Two pages on the history of The Greens love affair with abortion...and never once was the word BABY used ! A classic example of the old adage "All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering"
Extraordinary also, that in recounting the history of the abortifacient drug RU486 legislation, inaccurately as it happens (the late Tasmanian Brian Harradine was not a DLP Senator, he was an Independent, having been expelled from the Labor Party ...AGAINST the wishes of the late ALP great, Gough Whitlam..of what else is Ms Hale ignorant?) she omits to mention the subsequent reported death of an Australian woman from the human pesticde RU486. Just "collateral damage"?
The Greens Mehreen Faruqi's bill was rejected because a majority of MP's recognised every abortion kills a baby ...and may well signal the beginning of a world wide trend to end the war on unborn babies. After all, Donald Trump didn't win the last US Presidential election. Hillary Clinton lost it over this very issue. Abortion !
Donald Trump may have made Hillary Clinton's skin crawl when she debated him before the 2016 elections, but she herself made the skin of enough people crawl to lose the election in the final debate.She was a gonner when Donald Trump said " I think it’s terrible if you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. Now you can say that that’s okay and Hillary can say that that’s okay, but it’s not okay with me. Because based on what she’s saying and based on where she’s going and where she’s been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb on the ninth month on the final day. And that’s not acceptable ". Her obfuscation, mendacity and support for late term partial birth abortions was a bridge too far for more than just a basket full of deplorables. Hillary Clinton lost the US Presidency in that defining moment.

100000 murdered children a year and all these selfish woman can bang on about is the Greens. What a sick society.

Dial-An-Abortion, how may I help you?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-28/medical-abortion-drugs-now-available-over-the-phone/6810124

Abortion kills. That's the truth of it. The question remains if the killing of unborn babies is nessassery. For us it seems to be the only option. Face shame of having children out of wedlock (the magority of abortions made I believe) isn't an answer people want, nor is that shame likely going to go away (unfortunately for the sakes of the children to be). Nor is the cultural call to roll back our sexual ques to ramp up intrest in sex at earlier ages. Fashion and storybook romance are only part of the issues. It's also advertising and media selling sexy as a means of selling their products or their gorgourse tv shows.

If you can't get rid of the shame, and can't get rid of the behavior, then it's only natural to look for reasons to allow for the consquence of having children to be killed before being born.

Abortion is killing. Remember that. And then ask if it is nessassery. If it is, then feel sick about it. Deep down to the pit of your being sick.

OK. Let's reinvent the wheel all over again.

Women carry the baby to full-term - with ugly morning sickness, repetitive CAT scans, routine invasive body examinations by medical practitioners, heavily reduced activity due to their bodies being rendered little more than beached whales and sent all out of whack, excruciating childbirth (I know, and it's infinitely more painful than the most explicit descriptions of torture, not to mention the humiliation of strangers prodding and poking you when you're wide open) and their bodies are never the same again.

Women give up their financial independence to bear children. Women assume the principal child-rearing role, which while gratifying does not exonerate the all-too-frequent absence of the father in this all-important start in life for their offspring (they have their careers to think of, after all).

Men provide the sperm and supposedly the income to raise a child to independence, which gives them paternal rights. But now almost 50% of marriages end in divorce. Where does that leave women, whose bodies and financial lives have been catastrophically altered by pregnancy and childbirth?

To all you huffer-puffers, ranting on about father's rights and the rights of the unborn (in an overburdened world of 7+ billion people, for goodness sake, with hundreds of thousands dying and mutilated every year as a result of war), get real!

Women's rights ARE the issue. THEY are the reproducers, and THEY should dictate the world's reproductive program. Men, take your bruised egos, calm down and go watch a sunset.

To Killarney,

Do you see the alternative to just not have sex before wanting children as unattainable? If so then no you are actually part of the problem. If we chose not to have sex then we choose to not have children. If we choose to have sex then kill off the children then how is that not sick and twisted?

I was part of the problem too. I see the problem and have taken part of the problem in my younger years. But killing is not a solution I can ever condone. Don't have sex. That is the solution. Don't hype up sex, or all of the imaginings of sex from romantic flings in a failed marriage or exploring all the sexy ways to please ourselves. Theses are in our cultures so much that kids don't have much of a chance to reset sex if they ever find a romantic relationship.

Is it not a sickness that most people are incapable of being in a relationship and waiting until marriage to have sex?

Killing should never be the solution for our inability to control ourselves.

If God hates sex, why did he make it so much fun?

//Don't have sex. That is the solution.//

Or join a Protestant church:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBjsFAyiwA

Thanks, Martin Luther.

//Is it not a sickness that most people are incapable of being in a relationship and waiting until marriage to have sex?//

Nope.

Not_Now.Soon :

“Abortion kills. That's the truth of it.”

You don’t know that for sure. It is just an opinion. Nobody knows for sure when life begins and so they cannot know when killing starts.

Why should your opinion be more valid to a woman considering an abortion than her own opinion?

For you it is just a theoretical exercise but for a pregnant woman it is a very practical dilemma. She has to make a decision one way or the other and live with the consequences of her choice.

How would you like it if someone else told you how to deal with your practical problems when they have no more information about your situation than you do yourself? It would be judged as extremely arrogant.

A pregnant woman cannot avoid a decision either to carry on with the pregnancy or terminate it. She cannot afford the luxury of years of theoretical wavering.

She is the only one who has both an opinion and a decision to make. You only have an opinion to worry about. A foetus does not have an opinion nor can it make decisions. The only person whose opinion is relevant when all other opinions are equal is the person who will be affected by action.

Who cares what females want, they are too toxic to go near. Any sane male should avoid (particularly white) women and if sex is needed; pay so she will go away after.

Keep your filthy, bigoted, misogynistic, male hands off womens bodies.
Keep your immoral, hateful god and his commands out of other peoples lives.

To Toni Lavis. The point is not that sex is hated by God, (nor should we assume that's true), but that abortion is killing. Perhaps in war or in capital punishment of a terrible crime killing is ok, but to a baby. No. As to people being unable to be in a romantic relationship without having sex, that lack of control is not a reason to have an abortion.

To Phanto,

[Nobody knows for sure when life begins and so they cannot know when killing starts.]

That's just wrong. Misinformed or otherwise, it's in error. The earliest moments that we've captured of children in the womb are of rapid cell division that quickly forms the tissues and organs of the child to be. If there's any name to it, it would be that the fetus, the baby, is alive.

For the women who aren't ready to have kids, they shouldn't have sex. If that's not a possibility then I say something is wrong. Very wrong. But not a reason to have an abortion. Expecially if they chose to have sex and it wasn't forced on them.

To Mikk. I've not said anything hateful or bigoted. I'm just pointing out why abortion is wrong. This isn't a woman's reproductive rights issue. This is a moral issue of killing numerous children without them even having a chance to live.

Not now soon:

"of the child to be" So it is not a child but a child to be?

Then you say to Mikk that they are children who are killed.

So which is it? You seem confused.

You don't know when life begins and it is very presumptious of you claim that you do.

Not_Now.Soon,

This debate IS about a woman’s reproductive rights. More fundamentally, it is a debate about bodily autonomy.

<<This is a moral issue of killing numerous children without them even having a chance to live.>>

This is a very emotive way of putting it. A foetus is not yet a child. Furthermore, a foetus has not yet attained personhood. This is important because when we place value on life, we don’t look to, say, a heartbeat or organs (this could lead to all sorts of absurd conclusions such as the valuing of teratomas), we place value on human experience.

More importantly, a woman is not obliged to go through a pregnancy in the same way that a no-one is obliged to donate, say, a kidney - not even if it were for one’s own child. No-one has the right to use someone else’s body for their survival.

phanto "You don't know when life begins"

I think you mean consciousness.
Life is there from conception.
People have reported awareness (NDE/OBE) when no brain activity is present, reporting these conscious experiences after resuscitation.

AJ Philips "More importantly, a woman is not obliged to go through a pregnancy in the same way that a no-one is obliged to donate, say, a kidney"

No-one is obliged to donate... yet.

The next Leftie hysteria: "the right to organs".
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/samuel-walker/compulsory-organ-donation_b_1148385.html

Hey Killarney,
You say 'Women give up their financial independence to bear children.'
So I got a 'comparative' for men...
Why is child support based on the parents income rather than a 'basic cost' of raising a child?

Centrelink doesn't pay you based on what you could've earned if you didn't have kids so why do men have to pay child support based on what they earn rather than the cost of raising a child?

The system is messed up in that it's connected to tax returns and if a man is earning good money in a previous year, and moves into a job or situation where he's earning less money the following year, he's still charged based on his previous higher income; when he isn't earning that anymore and can't afford to pay the higher amount and it causes all sorts of trouble.

Why shouldn't men just pay a standard rate per kid like Centrelink pays?

Now_not so soon

'Do you see the alternative to just not have sex before wanting children as unattainable?'

No. This may come as a shock to you, but women actually enjoy sex - that is, when it's done well (not the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am variety). Traditionally, the woman's sex drive has been straightjacketed into being the moral gatekeeper against men's lascivious desires.

Constantly having to say 'No, kind sir. Not until the ring is on the finger or until I'm ready to have children' gets a bit tedious and can ruin your day - especially when you're feeling horny.

phanto

'Nobody knows for sure when life begins and so they cannot know when killing starts.'

Exactly. Stopping a life before it is born is not the same as killing a life that has been lived. I often wonder whether an opinion poll that asks whether an individual would prefer not to have been born would reveal a startling result. Despite all the joys I've had in life, I for one would prefer not to have been born. Life itself should be good, but the system renders most people a life of financial struggle, wage slavery, little free time and an impoverished retirement. And that's only those living in countries not torn apart by war.

Armchair critic

As the childcare system is based on a man's last tax return, then subsequent tax returns will adjust for a man's decreased income.

'Centrelink doesn't pay you based on what you could've earned if you didn't have kids so why do men have to pay child support based on what they earn rather than the cost of raising a child?'

So who has to foot the bill for the shortfall between what men earn and the cost of raising a child? Oh, of course, the mother.

To Phanto and AJ Phillips. The debate that runs off of word games is worthless. Not just this issue but on any other, if an argument is strengthened only by a name or a rewording of a name, then assure something fishy is involved. Fetus is a medical term, but does not change the fact of what the baby is. Trying to dehumanize the fetus stage is a sham to justify the killing that is involved in abortions. The same is true with the philosophical word games of what counts as a person. Trying to rationalize death by confusing the matter into philosophy is the kind of thing I'd expect from con men. But instead it's a big topic in abortion.

[a woman is not obliged to go through a pregnancy in the same way that a no-one is obliged to donate, say, a kidney - not even if it were for one’s own child]

If she chose to have sex (it was not forced on her), then the potential of having children is on the table. The child dying before it's born should be looked at in the same way as the child's death after birth. It's a tragic event. Volunteerily killing the baby should not be counted as a right of a mother. It's her body that had sex. It's not her body that will get killed.

Killarney.

[This may come as a shock to you, but women actually enjoy sex.]

That makes as much sence as drinking is enjoyable and driving home drunk is convient. If it ends in death it's a crime with a large punishment, and a terrible cost of a life. Ruining the mood might be needed in this case. Very much so needed. Otherwise we have a prostitution society with the solution of abortion to kill of millions in the name of prostitute like lusts. It is a sickening thought. It is a sickness of society and of the indivual. Wait until marriage for the commited relationship.

//That makes as much sence as drinking is enjoyable//

Drinking is enjoyable. Christ, you're not a bloody Mormon are you?

//and driving home drunk is convient. If it ends in death it's a crime//

It's a crime even if it doesn't end in death. Not to mention stupid, dangerous and immoral.

But it doesn't follow from that that drinking is inherently sinful and wicked, unless you belong to a denomination where it is, in which case it is. This is one of the problems with basing your ethics on your faith: there are so many different denominations, all with their own arbitrary ideas about just what is and isn't sinful. But I digress...

As I was saying, there's nothing wrong with having a drink (or a root). It's just that when you do, you should take sensible precautions like making use of public transport or taxis. Same with sex... just take sensible precautions. Unless you belong to one of those weird bible-thumping denominations who preach that god hates fun in general and sex in particular. Which might fly in some parts of the US, but this is Australia where we don't have much sympathy for the views of joyless bloody puritans. What's next, Cromwell, banning Christmas?

//Otherwise we have a prostitution society with the solution of abortion to kill of millions in the name of prostitute like lusts.//

So people that enjoy sex are all whores, eh Cromwell? Filthy wicked whores that shall burn for all eternity in the pit of fire where there be wailing and gnashing of teeth, no doubt.

Keep digging there, buddy.

//It is a sickness of society and of the indivual.//

No, it's really not. Hominids have been enjoying sex for considerably longer than homo sapiens sapiens have existed as a species: sex for pleasure is older than the hills, and the annals of history are chocka-block full of people who did it outside of wedlock. Never heard of a 'shotgun wedding'? What about that famous figure of Italian literature, Giacomo Casanova?

Sex outside marriage isn't new, it isn't weird, and it's definitely not pathological. And suggesting that people who disagree with you are mentally ill is a cheap shot that trivialises genuine mental illness, which I consider reprehensible. Clearly your faith doesn't teach you as much about moral behaviour as you like to pretend it does.

Not_Now.Soon,

I don’t think there are any word games being played here. The semantical discussion is necessary and important if we are to consider the issue seriously. Simply stating that abortion is wrong because it's killing doesn’t cut it, because it completely ignores the rights of the woman, and there ARE rights there too. For some reason, you don’t acknowledge these at all.

I am happy enough to say that life begins at conception, I am even happy enough (for the sake of argument, at least), to say that the foetus has equal rights (although I think that’s silly and a mistake), because I don’t think it matters. The rights of the woman must come first because no-one has the right to use someone else’s body to sustain themselves.

According to your logic, apparently, foetuses have more rights than people who have already been born. Their rights are then downgraded once they are born. Do you think it would be alright to force a mother to donate a kidney to her child if it meant saving that child’s life? Should a court of law be able to order this, in your view?

<<If she chose to have sex …>>

I knew you’d go there, because this is precisely what I would have said when I was an anti-abortionist. The response to this is simple: consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy. That an abortion due to carelessness is regrettable does not negate this.

Useful interpretation for the lay person, attributed to Sascha Callaghan, .."a lecturer in health law and bioethics at the Sydney Law School".

"..a fetus is not a legal person with rights of its own, until it is born. This is not to say that the law to does not protect fetuses at all. Abortion is still a criminal offence in NSW and it is also grievous bodily harm to destroy the fetus of a pregnant woman, whether or not the woman herself is injured – an offence punishable with imprisonment for up to 20 years. Children can also sue people who have caused them injury in the womb after they are born.

However it does mean that while a fetus is still in the belly of its mother, the mother's right to make decisions about her own body will prevail."

and,

"While the needs of fetuses and their mothers usually coincide, it is not uncommon for conflicts arise, such as the mother bring diagnosed with a life-threatening condition, the treatments for which are likely to hurt or even kill her fetus. As the law stands we are permitted to decide to save ourselves, with all the bitterness that might entail, and doctors who act to save a woman in an emergency need not concern themselves with fear of prosecution if she happens to be pregnant."

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/when-a-mothers-rights-clash-with-the-needs-of-her-unborn-child-20150407-1mfzrp.html

I don't know how anyone can compare a pregnancy to donating a kidney. One is a totally natural event that the female body was specifically designed to do and the other isn't.
Pregnancy is not an illness or a disability, it's a natural consequence of sex and is what has kept the human race in existence. For a woman to choose destroying a life over some minor inconveniences for a few months says a lot about the woman.
The vast majority of women who have born a child will tell you that from the moment they knew they were pregnant, they considered that foetus as an individual life. Women talk to their unborn babies, they stroke them, play music to them, they name them. Many men are involved in this as well.
Apart from medical reasons, or cases of incest or rape, no woman has the right to destroy a life, especially without the consent of the father, who gets loaded with responsibility the second the child is born but has no rights prior to that.
Using abortion as a form of birth control in an age when there is a multitude of different types of contraception easily available is unconscionable.

It's really quite simple, Big Nana.

<<I don't know how anyone can compare a pregnancy to donating a kidney.>>

To highlight the fact that no-one has the right to use someone else’s body for their survival. The fact that one is natural and one is not is irrelevant.

<<For a woman to choose destroying a life over some minor inconveniences for a few months says a lot about the woman.>>

I'm pleased to hear that your pregnancies consisted only of minor inconveniences. Each woman's circumstances are going to be different. Either way, no woman should be expected to be an incubator.

<<The vast majority of women who have born a child will tell you that from the moment they knew they were pregnant, they considered that foetus as an individual life.>>

Whether it is an individual life must be a secondary concern to the woman's bodily autonomy.

<<Apart from medical reasons, or cases of incest or rape, no woman has the right to destroy a life …>>

No-one has the right to use someone else's body to sustain themselves either. So, why do foetuses have more rights than people who have been born?

<<Using abortion as a form of birth control in an age when there is a multitude of different types of contraception easily available is unconscionable.>>

Indeed it would be. Luckily, such cases would be virtually non-existent. The idea that there are women out there replacing something as simple and as cheap as birth control with an expensive and life-disrupting medical procedure on a regular basis is absurd.

AJ, you don't know much about what goes on in our hospitals do you? They have special days each week for theatres just to do abortions, endless abortions on woman who didn't use that cheap contraception that is so easily available here.
I know women who have had three or more abortions, just because they couldn't be bothered with contraception.
To say this doesn't happen is a denial of reality.

Toni Lavis. No I'm not Morman. Not that it matters. The simularities between drinking and sex are worth the comparison. Drinking is enjoyable, having sex is enjoyable. People get stupid when drinking, people having sex changes the relationship and adds hardships with strings to muddle through.

From these reasons there's merit to if you drink don't get drunk; as well as to not have sex until your married in a committed relationship. Moving on to addictions of sex, very comparable to being an alcoholic. Moving to the harm done while drunk, crimes linked to drinking, and families broken from adultry. They both show that when done outside the scope of what's mature and resonable both sex and drinking are wrong. Drunk driving and killing a person is very compatible to having sex and then killing your baby.

.... Since you're making a habit to quote out of context, I want you to read it all again. Let it sink in. I'm not against sex. I'm against sex out of marriage. I'm not against drinking, but there is a limit, and there is safety concerns after drinking. I'm against abortion, specifically because it could be avoided to kill by not having sex. In the same way I'm against drinking and driving. Because of the harm it's done to those I love.

And finally yes people who have sex out of marriage are very close to whores and prostutes just like a person who drinks all the time is an alcoholic. It is a cultural sickness though that is also plagued on an indivual level. Not a mental illness, but a sickness none the less. If we can not control ourselves to resist having sex, that is no excuse to kill the next generation before they are born. If you have sex outside of marriage and get pregnet, so be it. Have the child. One wrong is not made right by commited a worse offense. Abortion does not make sex out of marriage ok. It make it worse by killing of the child.

AJ Philips,

[According to your logic, apparently, foetuses have more rights than people who have already been born.]

All people have the right to be alive, (unless criminal charges and laws intervene). The rights of a women to live are the same as the child growing in her. If you truely wanted to have equal rights for an unborn child, you would be able to recoginize this fundamental liberty. In fact in most medical emergencies your right to live is combined with the assumption that you would want to stay alive. Those in an altered mental state, are unconscience, or are children who can't talk yet are all under the medical assumption that they would want to be given life saving care if they were in danger.

The only reason to not give this right to a fetus, is because the medical name had confused people to think the term changes things. Baby. It's called a baby. Ask anyone who's had a miscarriage. They don't cry because of the loss of a fetus. They cry because they lost their child. Having a medical name for the stage the child is in while in the womb changes absolutely NOTHING. Hiding behind redefined words, and changing the meaning to fit your argument are word game arguments. Don't repeat these arguments. It's a conman argument that, unfortunately in the discussion of abortion, has become believed as valid.

If you want to talk about which rights are more valid, and worth more to uphold. I'm fine with that. In my opinion the right to live is stronger then all other rights. If one person being alive inconviences someone else or hampers their other privileges and rights, the first person's right to be alive trumps their other rights. I'm not arguing a forced organ donation. I'm saying that you can't kill for the sake of convience. Tell me a right that is worth more then being alive and why that should trump a child's rights (all of them) before they are given the chance to be born. Go ahead. Make your speach.

Big Nana,

Of course there are women who have abortions because they (and their partners) had been careless when it came to contraception - on multiple occasions, too, for some - but this is a far cry from implying that abortion is used as an alternative to contraception, as though one could duck down to the abortion clinic on their lunch break once every month or two and have an abortion.

Either way, this is not an argument against abortion, but an argument for better education and better solutions to the underlying social problems that contribute to unwanted pregnancies.

--

Not_Now.Soon,

Thank you for actually answering my question (somewhat, at least). You’re the first I’ve ever encountered who didn’t do their best to evade it.

<<I'm not arguing a forced organ donation.>>

So, can I take it then, that you believe it would be wrong to force a mother to donate a kidney to her child? If so, then you are affording more rights to foetuses than you would to a child who had already been born. This is an inconsistency in your position which has not yet been justified.

<<I'm saying that you can't kill for the sake of convience.>>

Denying one’s own child a kidney would effectively be killing that child if no other donors could be found, yet we still wouldn’t force the mother to donate a kidney in such circumstances. We may be appalled by such a refusal, but I don't think many would agree with forced organ donation in such circumstances.

<<Tell me a right that is worth more then being alive and why that should trump a child's rights (all of them) before they are given the chance to be born.>>

Sure: the right of others to not have their bodies used to sustain one's own life. Your right to swing your arms ends at my face.

"Sure: the right of others to not have their bodies used to sustain one's own life. Your right to swing your arms ends at my face."

The unborn child, being what it is and where it is, has every right to use the body in which it was conceived.

//People get stupid when drinking//

No, not necessarily. Ethanol has a biphasic dose response, and a mild dose can actually work as stimulant and improve cognitive function in the short term. Case study here:

http://www.videobash.com/video_show/mitchell-amp-webb-s-inebriati-the-knights-tippler-1453942

//people having sex changes the relationship and adds hardships with strings to muddle through.//

No, not necessarily. Sometimes it's just nice and fun.

//as well as to not have sex until your married in a committed relationship//

Nah, bugger that for a joke.

//Moving on to addictions of sex, very comparable to being an alcoholic.//

No, not in any way, shape or form. Frankly, I'm a bit dubious about the whole 'sex addiction' thing anyway... but even if we take it for granted that it's a behavioural addiction like problem gambling, it's still in a totally different ballpark to a chemical addiction. When somebody is withdrawing from gambling, you hand them a tissue box. When they're withdrawing from drugs, you hand them a spew bucket and a tissue box. When they're withdrawing from alcohol... you keep an eye on them to make sure they don't die. Nobody dies from 'sex addiction' withdrawals. They don't shiver, they don't sweat, they don't hallucinate, they don't have seizures, they don't defecate themselves and vomit, and they don't die.

You're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts.

//Moving to the harm done while drunk, crimes linked to drinking, and families broken from adultry. They both show that when done outside the scope of what's mature and resonable both sex and drinking are wrong//

Who said anything about 'adultry'? Or even adultery? I'm not married, and I don't shag women that are: thus, no adultery. Just what is your problem with fun between consenting adults, Cromwell?

//Drunk driving and killing a person is very compatible to having sex and then killing your baby.//

Yeah, you really haven't got the hang of this analogy thing, have you?

Drunk driving is always dangerous. Having sex is not.

"That's what being a Protestant's all about. That's why it's the church for me. That's why it's the church for anyone who respects the individual and the individual's right to decide for him or herself. When Martin Luther nailed his protest up to the church door in fifteen-seventeen, he may not have realized the full significance of what he was doing, but four hundred years later, thanks to him, my dear, I can wear whatever I want on my John Thomas... and, Protestantism doesn't stop at the simple condom! Oh, no! I can wear French Ticklers if I want."

//Since you're making a habit to quote out of context, I want you to read it all again. Let it sink in. I'm not against sex. I'm against sex out of marriage.//

No, I picked up on that. But as I said before...

Why wait till you're married? I mean really, what's the point? Do you think you'll go to hell if you don't? Because if you're Catholic you can get absolved for minor transgressions like that, and nobody cares if you're a Protestant, especially not Jesus.

//And finally yes people who have sex out of marriage are very close to whores and prostutes//

More vile abuse, eh Cromwell?

My, that's a fine looking hole you've dug for yourself.

To AJ Phillips and Toni Lavis. Are you guys reading eachother's points? One says that abortion is not a contraceptive, and the other's whole point in the conversation to allow abortion is because sex is fun.

AJ Philips.

[Either way, this is not an argument against abortion, but an argument for better education and better solutions to the underlying social problems that contribute to unwanted pregnancies.]

Don't have sex before being ready to have children. Problem of unwanted pregnancies at least 85% solved.

[Tell me a right that is worth more then being alive and why that should trump a child's rights (all of them) before they are given the chance to be born.

Sure: the right of others to not have their bodies used to sustain one's own life. Your right to swing your arms ends at my face.]

That right is given up when they choose to have sex. If they get pregnet they have a responsibility to let that baby live for the term it takes to be born. Being alive is a greater right. All other rights stem off of first being alive in order to have any rights at all.

Toni Lavis.

[No, not necessarily. Sometimes it's just nice and fun.]

That's no excuse to kill off a child in an abortion. Your fun to shag with a woman is not a reason to support abortions. With the scope of this topic pertaining to abortions, you're going to great lengths to avoid the topic of abortion. Address the point you are making.

"Abortions are ok because sex is fun."

NO! They are not ok!

Is Mise,

Yes, the unborn human child has the right to use the body it was conceived in, but not against the wishes of the person who owns that body. If the child who has already been born does not have the right to use its mother’s body against her wishes, then neither does the unborn child.

It’s one thing to claim that the unborn human child has equal rights to everyone else, it’s another thing to afford it special rights just because one day it could be a person. There is no justification for the latter.

--

Not_Now.Soon,

I don’t think Toni Lavis is saying that abortion should be allowed because sex is fun. I think his point about sex being fun is an aside to a more fundamental point (i.e. that the expectation that one abstain from sex until marriage is unreasonable).

Besides, there is no rule saying that pro-choicers must agree with each other on every point. I have already conceded a couple of points that other pro-choicers here were not willing to concede, in order to get to what I believe is a more fundamental point.

<<Don't have sex before being ready to have children.>>

Yes, it’s all very well to say that, but that’s not always going to happen. We need to be realists about the problem if we’re going to reduce it, and the statistics across the US (as we’ve discussed before) demonstrate what an utter disaster the approach of preaching abstinence is.

<<That right is given up when they choose to have sex.>>

No, it’s not. Again, consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy, and applying your assumption to every sexual encounter should conjure dystopian, 1984-style images. Just as forcing someone to donate an organ should.

<<Being alive is a greater right.>>

So, you WOULD force a mother to donate an organ then? You don't think your right to swing your arms necessarily ends at my face?

Just how do you propose we force women to see their pregnancies out and ensure that they don’t resort to dangerous backyard abortions or suicide?

AJ,

When the potential mother (host) engaged in sexual intercourse with a male and with complete freedom of choice and an understanding of the reproductive system then she gave the right to sustenance to a potential foetus.
The baby is not an invasive species to be defended against where the above holds true, everyone has the right to kill invasive species, be they internal or external.

After birth, I agree that there is no right to the direct use of the mother's body for sustenance (although medical opinion is on the side of breastfeeding, at least for the first few weeks/months), however the right to some form of sustenance continues and if it is denied and death results then a murder charge is the likely outcome.

AJ: "If the child who has already been born does not have the right to use its mother’s body against her wishes, then neither does the unborn child."

Mommie: Yes, I gave birth to you, but no, you can't suck my breasts to live.

You also can't waste my body energy making me walk to the kitchen to get milk from the fridge.

So, I'll just watch TV while you starve to death.
My rights trump yours, junior!

Is Mise,

I have already granted that a foetus has a right to life, but there is still the issue of consent. The foetus does not have the right to use the mother’s body to survive without her consent (the same goes for after the child is born), and consent cannot be implied through the knowledge that pregnancy is a possible result of engaging in sexual activity, as the measures required to guarantee that an accident will not occur are unreasonable.

--

Shockadelic,

Your analogies are fallacious appeals to extremes based on a creative and absurd interpretation of what it means to "use" someone else's body.

http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/30/Appeal-to-Extremes

//Address the point you are making.//

Well I kinda already have, but sure, OK:

Sex outside marriage is fine, even for Christians (although apparently not all of them). It's not dangerous, unhealthy, indicative of mental illness, a weakness of character, immoral, illegal or even sinful. It's just good clean wholesome fun between consenting adults. And it doesn't automatically lead to conception or the Pox because the good lord has blessed us with medical science.

Furthermore, I'm curious to know what you think gives you the right to go sticking your interfering beak into other people's private arrangements. Surely people have a reasonable expectation of privacy behind closed doors without the Purity Police peering in through their windows to make sure that nobody's doing it unless they've put a ring on it? It's not just the authoritarian, one-size-fits-all approach of pro-abstinence movement that annoys me: it's also downright creepy. Who ordained you to take such an unhealthy interest in the sex lives of strangers?

Your rebuttal, sir/madam/other?

//"Abortions are ok because sex is fun."//

Yeah, I've never said that.

Making shite up now are we? That's not going to get you very far.

What I've said is that sex is OK because sex makes people happy, without harming anybody else or infringing on their liberty to pursue their own happiness.

AJ,

".... and consent cannot be implied through the knowledge that pregnancy is a possible result of engaging in sexual activity, as the measures required to guarantee that an accident will not occur are unreasonable."

Consent can be and is given by engaging in sexual intercourse; the requirements against accidents are not at all unreasonable, I've been engaged in the pastime for the last 68 years and never made a mistake yet.
Adults engaged in any sporting activity are responsible for their own mistakes and the outcomes thereof.

To say that the foetus has no right to the sustenance of the mother's body to sustain its own life is just a load of codswallop, in fact, the mother has a duty to safeguard the foetus until it can be safely born.

Toni Lavis.

You say you've addressed your points, but yet again avoid the topic of abortion. Outside of trying to gain a reaction on my religion or on being "Cromwell" (whom I had to look into to see if he had anything to say regarding abortion or sex; didn't find anything) the closest topic addressed for your support of abortion is that sex is fun. So no, I don't see that you've addressed any points for why you support abortion. Abortion kills. My point on avoiding sex until mariage (which you twisted to say I hate sex or that being anti sex is my position); was made because I see sex pushed in our culture, and it shouldn't be. As far as I can tell your entire point in this conversation is to not take a stand, but still try to trip up those who are against abortion.

What other conclusion can I make for why you support abortion if you don't disagree that abortion kills, except to give the point that closest matches the topic. You support abortion because sex is fun. If this is your position then sorry to say you sound like a dude-whore. If this is not your stance then yet again I ask to address the point of the topic. Why you are ok with abortion even though it is baby killing.

To your other points (that do everything to avoid taking a stance on abortion), I disagree that sex is just a fun activity between consenting adults. Why? Because I've seen it play out.

1). I've heard sex as a demand in relationships, apparently so common some assume they won't find a relationship without having sex demanded by the guy.

2). Sex adds strings to a relationship. An even more common occurance, people feel they love someone after having sex, then when the relationship doesn't prove they do love eachother it breaks off with nasty fireworks.

3). Sex has the potiential to start a family, and if done casually will leave the mom with all the responsibility after the man leaves, or worse kills the kid before he/she is born. (Is this what you would do?)

4). I've seen sex try to be used to manipulate the other person.

5). The hunger for sex from our entertainment industry endorsing it harms relations with unrealistic standards, and an unhealthy focus away from healthy attributes in a relationship.

...Good enough to move on? Talk about why you support abortion. Why is killing babies ok?

Not_Now.Soon

".... Why is killing babies ok?"

It's not OK, but it is often the only convenient option and certainly the least expensive, in monetary terms.
The whole argument would dwindle away if people simply accepted responsibility for killing them rather than beating around the bush with all sorts of theories as to why abortion is always justified.

Some American Indian tribes had a good system, the mother was allowed to kill her child up to 3 months (moons) of age.

Yes, Is Mise, but contraception is not 100% effective.

<<... the requirements against accidents are not at all unreasonable ...>>

The only 100% effective method of preventing pregnancy is total abstinence, and that is both unreasonable and unrealistic.

<<I've been engaged in the pastime for the last 68 years and never made a mistake yet.>>

And you’re Catholic, too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk

<<Adults engaged in any sporting activity are responsible for their own mistakes and the outcomes thereof.>>

Sure, the but we didn’t all evolve to have an uncontrollable urge to play risky sports, so the sportsman is exercising more of a choice there (c.f. Your flouting of Catholic doctrine).

<<To say that the foetus has no right to the sustenance of the mother's body to sustain its own life is just a load of codswallop …>>

I’ve already said a few times now that the unborn human child has a right to life, it just doesn’t have the right to use the woman’s body to maintain that life without her permission. An individual’s bodily autonomy must necessarily always take precedence because of the costs of not respecting this right. This is why we wouldn’t force mothers (whom, it could also be argued, should have considered the possibilities before deciding to have children) to donate organs/tissue to their dying children.

This is the problem with the anti-abortionist stance: you can denounce abortion all you like, but at some point you need to come up with a viable alternative to it. No-one likes abortion, some of us are just able to separate what we do and don’t like from what can and can’t be done.

<<... the mother has a duty to safeguard the foetus until it can be safely born.>>

Not if it violates her bodily autonomy. To suggest otherwise is to make women slaves to their biology.

Bodily autonomy is fundamental to this issue. There is a very heavy burden that must be overcome before this right can be violated. Simply affording a foetus more rights than a child that has already been born doesn’t achieve this.

//You say you've addressed your points, but yet again avoid the topic of abortion.//

Abortion? What does that have do with anything? We're debating extra-marital sex. You started it with your 'only married people should have sex' claptrap, which I rebutted... and so on.

I hadn't mentioned abortion until my previous post, and only then to point out that you were telling porkies.

//the closest topic addressed for your support of abortion//

What support for abortion? I haven't taken a stance on abortion, ya lyin' wee shite.

//So no, I don't see that you've addressed any points for why you support abortion.//

I haven't expressed support or opposition to abortion. Isn't there some Commandment against bearing false witness?

//As far as I can tell your entire point in this conversation is to not take a stand//

No, I've taken a stand: it's just not the stand you want me to take so that you can dismiss me as some monstrous baby-killer. So sorry about that.

//I've heard sex as a demand in relationships, apparently so common some assume they won't find a relationship without having sex demanded by the guy.//

People can demand all they want: no still means no.

//Sex adds strings to a relationship.//

Nope, they're there to begin with. Don't you pay attention to physics? The universe is made of string.

Toni Lavis. Man up and take a stance on abortion or bugger off.

AJ Phillips. You say you've conceded that unborn babies have the right to life. That's a worthless concession if you then take back the only means for the baby to survive. It's in fact no concession at all. You compare holding on to a pregnancy to donating a kidney. One big difference between the two is that being pregnet for 9 months is temporary, and can only occure if you have sex. Donating a kidney is a permanent change, and is not replaced as time goes on, and requires a much longer recovery period after the surgery. Along the same lines of a permanent effect is the death of the baby because the mother killed it in abortion. No excuse would be made to kill the child after it was born, in fact just neglecting the child to the point of death or harm is enough to be charged with negligence, and be punished by the justice system.

Killing unborn babies after choosing to have sex holds no merit. It's tempory to be pregnet, holds no real permanent changes to the body after the child is born, and can even be offered up for adoption or even allowed into foster care like programs. Either way the child would be allowed to live. The right to live is a greater right then all other rights that we legally support. If they are not allowed to live and have that right defended then there are no other rights after that.

This is not more rights then a child already born. It's only one singular right. One worth protecting, expecially if the mother was not forced to have sex to begin with. The pregnancy is a result of their free choices. Killing due to that freedom should not be condoned.

Next time you concede a point. Really do concede to the point. saying you think the baby has a right to live, but then take away the only means of it's survival is not conceding anything and offers no justification.

Sorry about that, ran out of posts last night and couldn't be bothered staying up a couple more hours to post again. Now where was I?

//An even more common occurance, people feel they love someone after having sex//

Yeah, we have a special word for those people: halfwits.

//it breaks off with nasty fireworks.//

Wow, even fireworks? Man, you really don't like fun, do ya Cromwell?

//Sex has the potiential to start a family//

Not if you do it right.

And here's a tip: 69's can't produce issue.

//I've seen sex try to be used to manipulate the other person.//

I've seen money be used to manipulate people. Maybe we should ban it and go full communist? Hmmm, seems like a bit of drastic response for what amount to 1st world problems.

//The hunger for sex from our entertainment industry endorsing it//

I mostly watch/listen to BBC comedy shows. And whilst they do make jokes about sex and employ some frankly brilliant innuendo, they're not exactly selling sex. Here's an example: this an old favourite of mine, 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again'. See if you can spot the crude sexual reference in the song 'Ferrets of Old England'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b02bc#play

//Talk about why you support abortion.//

Once again, I've never said I support abortion. This video should sum up my position on the matter fairly succinctly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

//bugger off.//

Shan't.

For the sake of argument at least, Not_Now.Soon, yes.

<<You say you've conceded that unborn babies have the right to life.>>

I have also argued, in a previous post to you, why they don’t. I have conceded the point in order to get to what I believe is a more fundamental issue.

<<That's a worthless concession if you then take back the only means for the baby to survive.>>

Not if you can present a case as to why the woman's bodily autonomy should be violated. Perhaps then we can discuss if the unborn human child really does have equal rights? Legally, it doesn't. Most anti-abortionists, too, afford the unborn human child less rights through their acceptance of abortion in cases of rape and incest.

<<One big difference between [pregnancy and donating a kidney] is that being pregnet for 9 months is temporary …>>

Not so: http://www.self.com/story/9-ways-pregnancy-can-permanently-change-your-body

But if you don’t like the kidney analogy, then let’s use bone marrow as an analogy. Bone marrow regenerates.

<<… [pregnancy] can only occure if you have sex.>>

So can having a child that needs a bone marrow transplant. There is a reason why my analogy speaks specifically of the mother.

<<Along the same lines of a permanent effect is the death of the baby …>>

The death of a child needing a bone marrow transplant is also permanent.

<<No excuse would be made to kill the child after it was born …>>

Of course not. It has already achieved personhood and is no longer dependent on the mother’s body to survive. Comparing the killing of the unborn human child with the murder of a some kid who has already been born is silly and emotive.

<<The right to live is a greater right then all other rights that we legally support.>>

Our right to live is not greater than the right of another to bodily autonomy.

<<Next time you concede a point. Really do concede to the point.>>

I did. The problem is that the issue of bodily autonomy came into the mix and things got complicated from there.

AJ,

"<<... the mother has a duty to safeguard the foetus until it can be safely born.>>

Not if it violates her bodily autonomy. To suggest otherwise is to make women slaves to their biology."

Women are slaves to their biology, (as are all of us to some extent), the tensions associated with the monthly cycle have been used as a successful defence in the Courts.
In my book agreeing to intercourse with full consent and knowledge gives permission to the foetus to thrive as nature intended.

There could also arise the situation where women lose all rights and forced pregnancies become a matter of Government policy.

On Catholicism and sex, the whole prohibition case rests on Onan's Sin which was one of greed and not fulfilling the law, that he did this by a form of birth control was irrelevant, abstinence would have been equally unlawful.
https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/1239/what-was-onans-sin/19753

There are various types of Catholics: among them practising, lapsed and practical!!

The ideal is to prepare yourself first, living such a pure and holy life as to deserve to become parent to the world's next Saviour.

Short of this, bring a child to this world once you are certain that you can support them both economically and spiritually, so that they be brought up and educated to walk before God righteously and pursue spiritual progress.

Short of this, abstain from sex.

Short of this, use contraceptives, including permanent methods.

Short of this, kill your baby as early as possible, before they become mentally or emotionally attached to the world.

While this is far less than ideal, you can only do your child a favour by killing them early rather than to bring them into a confused situation where their education will mislead them, where they wouldn't know how to discern between good and evil and into an overcrowded world where their very life would be a burden on others.

[Ecclesiastes 4:1-3]:

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:

I saw the tears of the oppressed — and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors - and they have no comforter.
And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.
But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

Yuyutsu

Wow! Your comment sums up exactly what I think and feel.

You only have to look at anthropological evidence of pre-civilisation societies (which we prefer to call 'primitive'), some of which still continue, to know that abortion was fully accepted and even given sacred status (i.e. secret women's business).

Their wisdom was that you couldn't keep bringing lives into being when there were not the resources or social supports to give them or the wider society a reasonable existence.

Post-civilisation societies reversed this belief system, because the more lives brought into the world, the more slave labour was available to keep the elites prosperous. Religion and control of women's sexuality became their spiritual validation.

I may have gone off on a tangent here, but the fundamental point is that life in itself is not a gift. The life that the baby has to face within a system of inequality, poverty, injustice and war is the real issue here. So too is the quality of life of those immediately affected by their birth, not just the mother.

AJ Phillips. I see your points, but I don't agree with them. As long as a woman chose to have sex (it wasn't forced on her) the result of getting pregnet should be respected. By the woman and by anyone else who is affected by it. Abortion kills. It's an active kill as opposed to a passive letting someone die. (Not that either one is a favorable option).

Because of our values differing I think we will not agree with this. You think abortion is ok in any sitution because it's a woman's right. Any confrontation on that right is a sign of oppression. Does that about sum it up? I think abortion should be reserved only for medical emergencies where the mother's life is in danger. And with a side note of when the woman had no choice but was raped. It's still killing in that instance but it's a gray area that I'm not going to argue. Like stealing is gray when a person has nothing else and is stealing food to get by. It's still wrong but it's a gray area.

Because of these differences, I don't think we're going to change eachother's perspective. You see a woman's body as trumping life. I see life as more important.if you choose to have sex you give up the right to have an abortion in my opinion.

...Yuyutsu? You're ok with the senseless killing of children too? That's what abortion is when it's allowed. Open doors to kill thousands or millions every year.

Is Mise,

It’s no wonder the Catholic Church doesn’t need thousands of denominations if they have multiple doctrines. I was always aware that Catholics were a diverse bunch (with room with even for atheist Catholics) but never realised the doctrine allowed for such diversity. I have always been fascinated by how the Mafia boss can order concrete boots for a former employee before breakfast, and still be in mass by 9:00.

--

Not_Now.Soon,

As I said to Is Mise, you can denounce abortion all you like - you can talk about abortion killing and simply state that a life is a life is a life - but at some point, you need to come up a viable solution or alternative.

<<You think abortion is ok in any sitution because it's a woman's right.>>

Not in any situation. I think the issue becomes a lot more complicated once the foetus reaches a stage where it would be viable outside the womb. However, women seeking abortions at very late stages are virtually non-existent.

<<Any confrontation on that right is a sign of oppression. Does that about sum it up?>>

It would be oppressive, yes. How would you police a ban on abortions? How would you ensure that the woman didn’t commit suicide or seek a dangerous backyard abortion, killing both herself and the foetus? Strap her to a bed and force-feed her through a drip?

When you consider the above, perhaps then you will see why bodily autonomy must necessarily prevail - whether we like that or not. You don’t have to like abortion. I don’t. But we need to be realistic, too. Our principles mean little if enforcing them would result in a decrease in wellbeing and social contentment.

AJ "How would you police a ban on abortions?"

The same way you police anything else unlawful.
Police investigate allegations, press charges (primarily the doctor as they performed the act) and present evidence in court, the judge deciding the merits of each case.

NSW law has already been judged by courts, but their rulings are being stretched beyond the original decision ("preserve the woman involved from *serious* danger").

Shockadelic,

Policing is about more than just responding to crimes. Policing is also about the prevention of crime. So, your response doesn’t really answer my question. How would you go about preventing a woman seeking out dangerous, illegal backyard abortions?

Even if you don’t care about the woman’s life (and it doesn’t sound like you do), the life of the unborn human child is still at risk.

If a stance against abortion is about more than just a misogynistic desire to punish women who threaten insecure men by exercising some control over their reproductive organs, then you would need to explain how we would protect the unborn human child's special right to life by preventing pregnant women, who we know do not want their pregnancy, from committing suicide or seeking out unsafe methods of abortion.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

«...Yuyutsu? You're ok with the senseless killing of children too?»

This must be taken in context. It is not meant as a rule for me and you or for anyone else who is interested in God.

One should first make a sincere effort to follow ALL the better options.

But let us assume that one does not care about leading a holy life, say it doesn't mean a thing to them, say they do not believe that it is even possible. Let us further assume that they are incapable or disinclined to provide their children with wholesome education for a righteous living. Let us further assume that they are unwilling to give up sex, perhaps because they erroneously believe it to be the most important thing in life. Let us further assume that they failed to do the sensible thing in that situation which is to use contraceptives or better still, to perform a vasectomy or close their fallopian tubes. Let us further assume that they are in the habit of killing on a regular basis anyway and have no second-thoughts about killing animals for food which are even more developed, physically mentally and emotionally, thus already have more to lose than the baby in their womb.

Under all these tragic circumstances, what is better for the baby?

To live a meaningless life of confusion, crime and sin?
To be devoid of proper direction, instruction and wisdom?
To brutally compete for resources with another 8 billion humans?
To be fed with murdered animals?
To waste a lifetime with polluted minds and unwholesome activities?
To recursively provide even more bodies for more confused souls like themselves?
To end their life feeling even more guilty than how they started?

I say, better wait, don't push, wait patiently for better times and for better parents!

The golden rule says: "What you hate done unto yourself, do not do unto others", but had I been in the situation of that baby, then I would pray to be killed in the womb rather than be exposed to all that evil outside.

"Policing is also about the prevention of crime."

Which in this case, loops right back to how to prevent pregnancy, a matter discussed at length already in this and numerous other threads.

"Exercise some control over their reproductive organs" by contraception (cheaply available), surgery (if they definitely never want children), abstinence (wait until you know the man actually wants children), yummy non-reproductive sex (too numerous to mention).

Police would learn of any networks, just as they do for other "organised" crime, etc.

As for women taking their own lives, that is the only valid way to abort. It shows your commitment.

Dear Yuyustu. Life and death are both in God's authority. If you kill yourself it is wrong. God placed you here and hasn't called you back yet. So there is more for you here. The same goes to anyone else who is alive. You should not kill an innocent person, because it's very wrong. God placed them where they are just as He placed you where you are. Don't complain, just do as you should. That is our tasks in the world. Love God and love your neighbor. In this way you will act to help heal the world in the places that you can. We are here for a service in a broken world. Each and every one of us.

Do not even joke about killing another because of their innocence, nor about killing yourself out of pain. Both murder and suicide are terrible and tragic events. It should not have to be explained why. Don't try to spiritualized death or find excuses to kill. This is the world we live in. Take it for what it is and live.

AJ Phillips. You ask for a solution. The answer is simple but not easy.

1). Don't have sex until your ready to have children. This mentality is with more then just for the sake of abortion. For abortion though if people hold this as a strong value, it will effect the abortion rates.

The second part is not quite as difficult but is faught more strongly against.

2). Know that abortion is wrong. No more excuses that the unborn baby isn't alive, isn't a real person, or is in some way less then human. If as a culture we can respect pregnancies in this way then even if we do get pregnant, we'd respect the life and bring it to full term to it's birth.

These two attributes to live by and to teach would change a world that screams that abortion is a right, instead of a tragedy. Change the culture and change the world we live in. If we can do this much then we will also be able to make the laws to fit this and the concerns of rape, incest, and medical emergencies. But first we need these two elements to be pursued.

//Police investigate allegations, press charges (primarily the doctor as they performed the act) and present evidence in court, the judge deciding the merits of each case.//

So our already over-stretched prison system will have to cater for doctors trying to save their patients from the butchery of untrained backyard quacks? Sounds like a waste of prison resources, and a waste of 6+ years of taxpayer-subsidised medical school. Sounds bonkers.

//Which in this case, loops right back to how to prevent pregnancy, a matter discussed at length already in this and numerous other threads.//

Yeah, and that's great and all - except that the people who are least in favour of abortion always seem to be exactly the same people who are in favour of the 'Pillow Pants' method of sex education:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKDxpkV14IA

//yummy non-reproductive sex (too numerous to mention).//

And they're definitely not in favour of any of that sort of kinky business. Sex is to be had missionary, under the covers, with the lights off, thinking of England the whole time whilst grimacing slightly. Anything else is Satanic.

//Police would learn of any networks, just as they do for other "organised" crime, etc.//

Yeah, because that's working so well in the war on drugs.

//As for women taking their own lives, that is the only valid way to abort. It shows your commitment.//

Oh, I don't know. I reckon it takes a lot of commitment to get an abortion from some untrained back-street butcher who smokes ice between seeing patients and thinks that hygiene sounds like a good name for band.

Or indeed any of the quacks we'd see crawling out of the woodwork if your misogynistic fantasy somehow became reality. They're probably not as all bad as Dr. Crackhead - I daresay a lot of conscientiously objecting professionals would pitch in - but nothing beats proper medical care. If it's being done on the sly, standards will slip. There won't be the post-operative care: more women presenting with septic infections, more use of antibiotics, and the superbugs get stronger... and so on, and on, and on

//1). Don't have sex until your ready to have children.//

Why on earth not? Just because you have sex it doesn't mean you have to have kids, Pussy Troll.

Despite it having being pointed out to you numerous times and apparently not sinking in yet, there are ways to engage in the congress of the wombat without producing issue including, but not limited to, French Ticklers, vasectomies, 69's and your mum.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

First I assure you that I don't intend to kill anyone, including myself.

Yes, life and death (and everything else) are both in God's authority. Nothing can happen against God's will.

This doesn't mean that people who make mistakes can retrospectively justify whatever they have done by saying "God wanted it".

Indiscriminately and irresponsibly filling the world with more and more people, is a mistake. OK, the world is broken, but don't break it even further.

Perhaps where we differ, is regarding the place of the world in God's plan:

You seem to believe that God has a plan for this world itself, whereas my faith is that God has a plan for each and every one of us (not just humans, but everything and everyone) to eventually return to Him, thus the world is only the means, not a goal by itself.

The world (inclusive of earth, heaven and hell), is God's school and playground: here we get bodies so we can play, experiment and eventually learn from our mistakes, tire of them and return to God. This world shall eventually pass and new ones created as necessary.

«Both murder and suicide are terrible and tragic events. It should not have to be explained why.»

"Tragic" is from a human perspective and there indeed no explanations are required, but we better transcend it and take a spiritual perspective:

We cannot kill anyone anyway: all we can really do is to destroy their bodies.

Rather than "tragic", murder and suicide are sinful - and for good reasons: most often than not, we do so because we are deceived to believe that our little-self is more important than others and God respectively. This is a lie because in essence we are not separate from God and from others: murdering another (human or animal) or oneself, strengthens that lie and leads us away from God. On the other hand, on those rare occasions when we are able to kill without any selfish motive, we incur no sin.

Yuyutsu, be careful in your reasoning to not redefine what sins are. Killing is largely a sin except under two conditions. In the acts of war, or in the process of justice. If we add a third it could be to defend ourselves also, but that one is also not in the bible. To my knowledge those are the only two reasons to kill. Selfish or not there's no other reason I can find for us to kill. Expecially for a child to die.

As for God's plans, I think He has plans that take in the world as well as take in our actions as indivuals. I don't think it's an either or kind of thing. He's God. If we allow a child into a womb, then we should allow the child to be born. Who knows how that child will fit into Gods plans.

None of us are perfect, but He still uses us. Some live in the best of conditions and turn out arrogant corrupt, and greedy. Ful of sin with a silver spoon in their mouth. Others of the same benefits turn out better. Some with the worst conditions have the biggest hearts. They've seen much of it and are humbled by it all. Still others raised in simular conditions become part of the injustice and crime that makes up their poverty. When a child is born we don't know how they will turn out, but we should still allow them to live and to be born.

Plan for the best conditions to start a family in, but if you start a family even outside of those conditions let the children live anyways.

Shockadelic,

There’s not much I could add to what Toni Lavis has said. In short, your plan wouldn’t work, which is exactly why the law (at least in practice) does not afford special rights to what is sometimes a mere cluster of cells. It’s why we aren’t filling our prisons with women found guilty on murder charges, all for exercising their right to bodily autonomy.

It’s interesting, too, that you never mentioned any preventative measures that tackle the underlying social problems contributing to unwanted pregnancies. Very typical of your average anti-abortionist. ‘Getting tough on crime’ has never really been a very effective method of dealing with it, it’s more just a catchphrase for politicians to rattle off to an ignorant and fearful public when an election is nearing.

--

Not_Now.Soon,

As we have discussed before, the abstinence approach has proven itself time and time again to be an abject failure. One problem for the abstinence approach is the fact that people lust for sex (indeed, males reach their sexual peak) long before their frontal cortex has even finished developing. From an evolutionary perspective, this is advantageous, but it's proving to be a problem now.

As I said earlier: our principles mean little if enforcing them would result in more harm than good. The law needs to be framed for the best possible outcomes. It has long been accepted now that the law should not be there to enforce morality.

<<Change the culture and change the world we live in.>>

That’s a start. It touches on what I noted was lacking in Shockadelic’s approach to prevention. But simply stating that abortion is wrong, m’kay, or that people should abstain from sex before they’re ready for children, won’t change society or its culture. For starters, not everyone is going to accept your premises for that position.

Social and cultural change occur by first tackling any underlying social issues, not by preaching one's subjective moral values.

AJ,

It's not multiple Catholic doctrines at all but merely that on some things Rome and I disagree.

No one has bothered to comment on

"There could also arise the situation where women lose all rights and forced pregnancies become a matter of Government policy."

its easy to see why the regressives murdering doctrine excuses the violence of Islam. They are cousins.

Toni Lavis "And they're definitely not in favour of any of that sort of kinky business"

I gave you *my* opinion.
Don't generalise.
Non-reproductive sex not only prevents pregnancy but also STDs. I'm fine with that.

As for your Dr Crackhead, euthanasia is illegal too, but I don't hear horror stories in the news every day about "backyard" doctors doing that.

The number of doctors in prison would be negligible. Cry me a river.

AJ Philips, please tell us what the underlying social issues are and how they can be addressed.

Oh that's right, they *can't* be addressed, because life isn't fair and society is too complex and imperfect and ALWAYS WILL BE.

Blaming everyone but yourself is the New Black.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

Sin is when we aim in a direction other than God. Nothing more, nothing less. Sins can be gross and sins can be subtle, no amount of words can describe them all.

We are all born in sin as we identify with this human body of ours and to one degree or another aim to fulfil its "interests" rather than God's will.

There are reasons and logic why murder is a sin - it's not arbitrary:
having preference for "my" interests over another's is sinful because it negates our unity in God. Murder is but one expression of this misguided preference.

It is therefore true that if we believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is in another's interest to keep living in their current body, then killing them in one's own interest is sinful.

So what ARE the true interests of another?

Not their whims - their true interest.

I think we can agree that it's their spiritual development.

Yes, we come with inherent qualities, but we also need education.
Education does not start with schooling: it starts in the womb when the foetus listens to Mozart or hears her parents praying and reading scripture. Yes, great souls can overcome material poverty, but great souls are not born to situations of mis-education, such as hearing in the womb the junk that nowadays passes for "music" and their parents screaming at each other [1].

Dying is usually against one's interest because one loses all their good education and will need to re-learn it all to resume their journey towards God.

Education in animals hits a ceiling (~3 years of age in the case of chimpanzees). Still, grown-animals are more educated than unborn-humans. If one habitually kills them for food and also intends to feed their child on those animals, then killing their baby in the womb would be a lesser sin.

---

[1] You might think of Prahlad as an exception, being born to a monstrous father, but Prahlad was educated and learned to worship God by sage Narada himself, even at the womb, rather than by his father.

AJ Phillips. You've mentioned that abstinence doesn't work. I never agreed to this. So when you say "we discussed this," you say it as if I agreed with you, or that your an authority on the matter. To not promote abstinence sounds like to me to give up on the problem entirely. As of now sex is something that is expected of way too early in a relationship. There's no waiting to even see if the relationship is serious. With this approach to quick love being backed by unrealistic stories in both movies and books, the message is to feel love then have sex. You don't see a problem with this message going unchallenged?

Change the culture and change everything. It would not be easy, but it would be so much better

It would be a two part approach. Giving the kids reasons to wait, and if they fail on that element, holding to the importance of life, so that abortion doesn't occure. Teens might not have a fully developed brain, but they are smart enough.

//Don't generalise.//

Do as you say, not as you do, eh Shocka? If I had a dollar for every time I'd seen you generalising about lefties...

//Non-reproductive sex not only prevents pregnancy but also STDs.//

No, you can still get STDs from non-reproductive sex. Anal sex more so than oral, but I learnt a new fact today: you can get the Pox from oral (but it's very unlikely).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexually_transmitted_infection

//As for your Dr Crackhead, euthanasia is illegal too, but I don't hear horror stories in the news every day about "backyard" doctors doing that.//

No, people just cut out the middle man and kill themselves.

I daresay that if your modest proposal ever became reality, there'd be a few women having a crack at DIY abortion. Which would be good news for the manufacturers of wire coat-hangers, and bad news for just about everybody else. Tell me, will the emergency room doctors who have to try and repair the damage caused by these botched attempts be beholden to report them, or will confidentiality still apply?

//The number of doctors in prison would be negligible.//

Would they, though? Because anti-abortionists are always banging on about the 'epidemic' of abortions. How could you only have negligible numbers of doctors being prosecuted if when there are so many women seeking abortions? The maths doesn't work.

But let's assume that you're right, and that only a few doctors would be locked up: it's still a few doctors too many. What practical benefit do you see resulting from this policy? I see less doctors (bad), more prisoners (bad), and a whole lot of wasted taxpayer money (bad). This is typically the problem with the fantasies of anti-abortionists: very heavy on the ideology, couldn't give a toss about the practical. And ignoring practicalities always results in such great policy....

//To not promote abstinence sounds like to me to give up on the problem entirely.//

And speaking of favouring ideology over practicalities...

There's only one wee problem with your charmingly naive idea of canning effective sex education and just telling kids just to wait until their wedding night, Pillow Pants: it doesn't work.

We know it doesn't work because people in other parts of the have already tried it, so we can look at their results... and it didn't work. Every time the experiment is repeated, the results are replicated. What makes you think it would work if we tried? Are you counting on a miracle?

//As of now sex is something that is expected of way too early in a relationship.//

Yeah, I think that might be where you're going wrong, Pillow Pants. You shouldn't 'expect' sex: it's not something you're automatically entitled to just because you want it. You should just be grateful and joyous when it happens.

//With this approach to quick love being backed by unrealistic stories in both movies and books//

Have you considered the possibility that you might just be reading the wrong books and watching the wrong movies? I don't watch a lot of movies - the last one I saw was the new Mad Max movie. Not much in the way of romance there. Do you just only watch romcoms and Bond films or something? I'm really struggling to think of any movies I've seen in the last few years where a romantic sub-plot involved any sex.

And as for books? Well, it's even easier to find books without those sort of sub-plots. I've got a lot of books, and very few of them involve that sort of hanky-panky. Although whatever you do, don't read Phillip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. It will just upset you.

Is Mise,

I’m not sure what to say to that. That would indeed result in reduced societal health.

<<There could also arise the situation where women lose all rights and forced pregnancies become a matter of Government policy.>>

I doubt that will happen any time soon, though, given the direction we’ve been heading in since the Enlightenment. There seems to be a pretty damn strong correlation with increased education, a drop in religiosity, and the respect for womens rights and bodily autonomy.

I suspect it would take some sort of an apocalyptic event to drag us back into another Dark Age like that.

--

Shockadelic,

The underlying social issues largely mirror the social issues which lead to an increased risk of offending:

http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b4254.short
http://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/social-determinants-disparities-teen-pregnancy.htm

I dare say the means of best addressing the problem would look very similar, too. But I’m sure that you, as a right-winger, will be very keen and quick to dismiss any of that, even without any evidence to the contrary. So, why bother asking, really?

--

Not_Now.Soon,

I didn’t mean to make it sound as though we had agreed. However, the evidence is overwhelming stacked against you.

<<… when you say "we discussed this," you say it as if I agreed with you, or that your an authority on the matter.>>

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194801

The evidence is the authority.

<<To not promote abstinence sounds like to me to give up on the problem entirely.>>

No, we could reduce the rate of abortions using methods that have actually been shown to work: lowering poverty rates, improving education, providing better access to contracteption.

<<As of now sex is something that is expected of way too early in a relationship.>>

Actually, this has been changing for a while now. Teenagers and adolescents nowadays are having less sex than ever before:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/22/teens-having-less-sex-and-using-more-protection/419285001

Perhaps it’s related to the lower rates of poverty, lower rates of religiosity, or improved education which I had noted earlier to both yourself and Is Mise?

Toni Lavis "No, you can still get STDs from non-reproductive sex."

There are non-reproductive acts which reduce or eliminate the possibility.
Did I need to explain that in *detail*?

"The maths doesn't work."

Only a small number of doctors perform a large number of abortions.
And there would be fewer abortions if illegal, so even fewer doctors involved than now.
Those few doctors must then be successfully prosecuted.
So very few doctors imprisoned.

Your argument could justify imprisoning no person for *any* crime, since the cost is enormous, while the victims are a minuscule fraction of the population.
Practical!

"very heavy on the ideology, couldn't give a toss about the practical."

Sex education, cheap conception, reduced or no immigration improving work prospects of young people and reducing importation of primitive sexist ethnicities who wouldn't dream of using a condom (or even asking consent).

AJ Philips, see above.

//There are non-reproductive acts which reduce or eliminate the possibility.//

Yeah, sure, but mutual masturbation... I mean really, what is the point?

Look, you can't live your life in fear of the Pox: they can cure it with antibiotics, and the odds of getting it from cunnilingus are zero. Be educated, be aware, but don't be paranoid: with sensible precautions you can avoid the nasty ones.

Although you probably have herpes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU4VcOQzQm0

//Those few doctors must then be successfully prosecuted.//

Yeah, good luck with that..

//Sex education, cheap conception, reduced or no immigration improving work prospects of young people//

Actually, those do sound practical... although I think you meant cheap contraception. You can get conception for free.

//reducing importation of primitive sexist ethnicities who wouldn't dream of using a condom//

Too late, the place is crawling with left-footers already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk

Toni Lavis. God loves you, even in spite of your hate towards Him. I hope He reaches you because I know He does love you. But between you and me I know I have limits to my patience and enduring your immaturity. I hope you are just a young punk who hadn't grown up yet, instead of an adult who still doesn't know how to be mature. But either way I don't have the patience for you. May God find you and clean your heart. Regardless of our differences of views the simple matter is that your actions here show that you need a better, cleaner heart. May God be with you on that task.

AJ Phillips.

[No, we could reduce the rate of abortions using methods that have actually been shown to work: lowering poverty rates, improving education, providing better access to contraception.]

I support those as well. I'm not saying to toss those out. Just to reinforce them with the knowledge of abortion being wrong, and why sex before marriage is usually a bad idea. Yesterday I was reading an article of a court case. About a man who killed his girlfriend a year or two ago. The testimony of the girl's mom showed that the relationship was rough, expecially at the end. And it brings back to mind the issues of many abusive relationships where the one being abused keeps going back. Having moments of tenderness and passion are one of the elements that keeps these relationships alive. It's not just for abortion I say we need to wait till marriage. As a society we need to be better then this.

[Actually, this has been changing for a while now. Teenagers and adolescents nowadays are having less sex than ever before]

That's great news. Thankyou for sharing this. I'll look into it later. :) :)

//God loves you, even in spite of your hate towards Him.//

No, you've got that all backwards. As a pantheist, I love God, but it does not love me. Pantheists don't believe in anthropomorphic deity.

//I hope He reaches you because I know He does love you.//

Oh, it already has. I don't believe that it's possible to not be reached by the pantheist God, even if you don't believe in it.

//But between you and me I know I have limits to my patience and enduring your immaturity.//

In other words: you're a pretentious snowflake who dislikes people that people who speak in a vulgar manner - vulgar in this case being used in archaic sense to mean 'language used by ordinary people' from the Latin 'vulgus' meaning 'common people'.

Just one of those stuck-up twats that think they're better than anybody else because they've been 'born again', and never mind the fact that pride is a sin.

//May God find you//

It never misplaced me to begin with. I'm right where it left me.

//and clean your heart.//

My heart is fine. I had to see a cardiologist a few years back after a GP detected a heart murmur, but it turned out to be benign. The old ticker is in great shape.