//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."