This will not be and end to abortion but simply the end to safe abortion for many.

It also removes any right to personal privacy where medical records or even mobile phone apps can be subpoenaed by the court on the basis of suspicion. In some States people can be sued by complete strangers for a tidy sum if they claim to be personally offended by somebody having an abortion.

The bottom line is that a group of people are willing to sentence complete strangers to a potential life of suffering, poverty or misery just so they can feel good about themselves while having no financial or moral stake in any undesirable outcome.

I remember a case in a religiously devout town in South America where an 11-year old child was found to be pregnant with twins, due to frequent molestation by an uncle. The child was given a life-saving abortion but she, her mother, the doctor and the attending nurse were all excommunicated and publicly humiliated. However, no charges were laid against the rapist uncle. Is that a healthy society?

Biblically God had no trouble allegedly drowning everyone on Earth, causing spontaneous abortions or urging followers to rip babies from the wombs of their mothers on many occasions, just as countries are willing to drop bombs on pregnant women during war time.
The Bible even gives "the recipe" for how a priest may abort a fetus from a woman suspected of adultery.

A US Republican Senator recently boasted that America is now "like the Taliban, but in a good way" but I can't see much difference, especially when they also claim to have other groups in mind for similar repression.

It’s important to turn the pages back in time to where abortion was generally unavailable to young women under stress with unwanted pregnancy.

The stolen generation. Abortion is a balancing act. The lack of truthful dialogue over the years on this subject has hidden the overall damage of unwanted pregnancy from view.

By no means were the stolen generations exclusively aboriginal children.
All colours were subject to the forced removal of their infants at birth; the criteria for forced removal of infants from young mothers was entirely a poverty issue.

Dan

I think it needs to be said, the further outcomes from the stolen generations,(not exclusively Aboriginal in nature at all), was the introduction of the supporting mothers pension by the Whitlam Government in 1973.

Legal abortion was not an option. Young mothers were forced into untenable situations for survival of them and their infant, if not taking the option to adopt the child out.

Poverty is always the unspoken issue with the abortion debate. It needs a higher priority to focus the need of the child, but just as importantly, the Mother.

The whole question is an unsolvable moral conundrum with a constant need for compromise.

Dan.

diver dan,

<<The whole question is an unsolvable moral conundrum with a constant need for compromise.>>

I disagree. The moral issues are: (1) Is the child in the womb a human being? (2) Is it legal to kill/murder a human being?

The Bible answers both questions:

(1) Isaiah 44:24 states, "This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb" (NIV). The individual "you" is formed in the womb.

(2) The Book of Exodus confirms what is in the womb is life, as living as any adult life, " “Now suppose two men are fighting, and in the process they accidentally strike a pregnant woman so she gives birth prematurely. If no further injury results, the man who struck the woman must pay the amount of compensation the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve. But if there is further injury, the punishment must match the injury: a life for a life (Exodus 21:22-23 NLT).

The killing of an unborn human being was confirmed by Jesus Christ as a fulfillment of the Law: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them" (Matthew 5:17 NIV)).

Before God, it's a serious moral issue when unborn and born people are murdered. Australia has blood on its hands.

OzSpen

Yes, but!

If you dwell in the circle of belief of Christian values, then you have a conscious need for a conscience view on abortion, and therefore what you say above is relevant only to that aspect of abortion viewed through the lens of religion.

However, in a secular society, values are pragmatic in nature, not necessarily religious in nature. Your view is correct for yourself and others with similar views. Those views should be considered in the wider debate.

But the broader social ramifications of whether abortion should be legal and to what extent, is an overall societal one to be considered within the confines of the ability of society to absorb the outcomes both negative and positive.

The introduction of a supporting benefit in 1973 was an innovation designed to reduce the need for abortion, (illegal at that time).
There are other options as well. I think those options should be actively supported by Governments with responsibility for social outcomes.

But there will always be a need for abortion to a lesser or greater extent, depending on public pressure.

Dan

diver dan,

<<However, in a secular society, values are pragmatic in nature, not necessarily religious in nature. Your view is correct for yourself and others with similar views. Those views should be considered in the wider debate.>>

If I live in your pragmatic world, I would need to be consistent and make pragmatism the value judgment of all values. If it works for you and doesn't work for me, that leaves me on the low ground of accepting the lowest common denominator. It also means I have to allow any person do do what is right for him or her. However, which "right" will you choose?

You want to chuck out my Christian/religious values because they don't conform with your secular mandate. This promotes snobbery as it wants to abandon religious values for secular morality. God bless you if you want to go down that route. We know where it leads. Take a read of the secular outcomes for the Nazis and the Gulag. They were pragmatic worldviews.