Perhaps Madeleines life has not gone well, & she now glorifies what might have been if she had that baby. Perhaps she suddenly got religion & that changed her attitude. What ever it is unfortunate she is unhappy about past decisions.

On the other hand I knew a number of young ladies/couples who chose abortion. Some found it difficult then, but were later very happy, when they saw other young single mothers struggling.

I also knew a couple of young ladies who planned adoption, had the baby, but then could not let it go. That is probably the most difficult decision of all. It should not happen today, with good contraception, if only youngsters will plan their sex lives.

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As Foxy soberly observed :

« Not surprisingly, opinion polls show public confusion on the issue of abortion »

The Queensland parliament was perfectly aware of this. It took all the time that was necessary to carefully study this highly controversial and delicate issue in-depth before submitting it to the vote.

The question of the legalisation of abortion had been the subject of ongoing debate throughout the State since the 1970’s.

The commission that spearheaded the parliamentary study received 1,445 submissions with divergent views from various medical, scientific, religious, humanitarian, social, legal, etc., organisations, as well as a large number of interested individuals. The committee considered the views expressed in all of the submissions before making it final recommendations.

The law was passed on Wednesday, 17th October 2018 by 50 votes for and 41 against. Three LNP MPs – the former opposition leader Tim Nicholls, Steve Minnikin and Jann Stuckey – broke ranks with their colleagues to support the law.
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To complete Foxy’s excellent round-up of the complexities involved, allow me to make the following remarks :

Babies are not the object of abortions. Only foetuses are the object of abortions.

Babies cannot be aborted because a baby is not a baby until it is born. Before it is born it is a foetus.

The OED defines a foetus as follows :

« An unborn or unhatched offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human more than eight weeks after conception »

The OED defines a baby as follows :

« A very young child »

I consider that legislation authorising abortions of foetuses at no more than 22 weeks pregnancy (as in Queensland) is morally acceptable to society for the following reasons :

1. The foetus cannot survive independently of the woman prior to that limit. It has no life of its own.

2. The stage of development of its biological structure does not allow it to feel pain prior to that limit.

3. It does not acquire consciousness until the third trimester of pregnancy which begins at the 27th or 28th week :

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

Thank You for your kind words.

The great majority of the population would probably support
abortion in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the
mother's health, but support for a mother's right to
abortion on demand fluctuates.

In any event the issue of abortion must be seen in the
context of social changes, premarital, marital and family life -
particularly the climate of sexual permissiveness and the
sense of individualism that leads people to make decisions
primarily in terms of their personal desires rather than of
traditional norms.

To Madeleine Weidemann,

Thank you for sharing, and I'm sorry for your loss.

To everyone else!

What is wrong with you all! Is the issues of abortion so big that any discussion on the finer points gets buried underneath!? Madeleine brought to our attention a choice she was pushed to make. Pressured to give in to.

To those of us who know abortion is wrong, the answer is simple. Don't support abortion. Possibly even to not support a promiscuous life. But to those of you who place abortion as a right, what is your stance of the choice being pushed on people? This is a time sensitive scenario. A woman discovers she is pregnant. And she only has a few weeks after it's discovered to make a decision. Is it right to push her to make the decision to abort? This is what Medeleine reported happened to her. Which I see no reason to doubt her, or think this is uncommon. Is that ok in the fight to support abortion?

How dare you all to ignore the focus of this article because the heart of the matter is about abortion. After all, our views that we support can't be rattled by the reality of how it actually plays out.

(Continued)

(Continued)

Go back to the article and answer these questions:

Is this a common scenario? Are women who are vulnerable after they discover they are pregnant pushed to abort by everyone they are around instead of coming to terms with the situation themselves? And if so, is there anything that can and should be done so it's actually her choice instead of discovering later whether or not they think they made a good choice?

These are part of the situation. How much do you tell a pregnant woman? Do you reassure her? Help her with her choice? Or is the right choice already known regardless what she chooses? (She's young, she'll be a single mother, the father is not a good one, she'll throw her life away...... .......) The reasons why a woman should abort are an added pressure. Not part of her choice but part of the pressure to hurry and choose to abort, it's for your own good.

By the comments of this discussion I don't see the people who say it's a woman's choice stand by that statement by trying to sort through this.