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The Forum > Article Comments > Where did the love go? Violinists are not babies > Comments

Where did the love go? Violinists are not babies : Comments

By Bill Muehlenberg, published 28/2/2005

Bill Muehlenberg analyses Jarvis's "violinst" justification for abortion on demand.

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I agree wholeheartedly with the author.

In her article Pringle tends to portray child rearing as an imposition on the mother, and the father of course is not included in the article. The only male in the article is a violinist, who uses the mothers body against her will. (Ho hum…boring dogma from another era).

Pringle also overlooks the fact that very cheap and reliable contraception is now readily available for women, and with that contraception they can be in complete control of their reproductive self, and much more in control of their destiny.

Modern contraception should have made abortion almost entirely redundant, and those children who are born should be greatly wanted by their parents. However abortion rates have hardly declined in many years.

Why then so much abortion, (or the discarding of unwanted children), when there is now ready access to so much reliable contraception?

We appear to have a very mixed up society, even with so much choice now available. And in the minds of many, love for oneself, has now surpassed love for others. Pringle's article just encourages this type of thinking.
Posted by Timkins, Monday, 28 February 2005 11:59:02 AM
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Why do people insist on misreading Thompson's argument?

It is so simple, that it really seems that it must be deliberate.

If you read the actual article, you will see that Thompson is arguing about making abortion illegal - she argues that there are no other laws which FORCE a person to save another's life, only laws about taking lives. There are no "good samaritan" laws about jumping into a river, or donating a kidney to save someone's life. Making it compulsory for a woman to continue with an unwanted pregnancy is therefore a much greater burden than we would ever place on any other citizen.

No-where does Thompson argue that abortion is either simple, or compulsory. Only that it should not be made a criminal act.
Posted by Amanda, Monday, 28 February 2005 1:45:12 PM
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Amanda
So far as having children, or not having children, there is now much choice because of better quality contraception. This is particularly so for women see…http://www.betterhealthchannel.com.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Contraception_choices_explained?open)

Perhaps you could help answer this question.

“Why then so much abortion, (or the discarding of unwanted children), when there is now ready access to so much reliable contraception?”
Posted by Timkins, Monday, 28 February 2005 1:59:16 PM
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I quote Bill Muehlenberg

"It (the embryo / fetus) is the natural guest of a mother's womb."

Thanks for acknowledging it is "the mother's" womb, Bill

Thanks for acknowledging the embryo / fetus is "a guest".

I will appreciate it when you acknowledge the owner of the "womb" and the "permanent resident" of the body (the mother) has "rights" which prevail over anything the "guest" user of "the mothers womb" can claim (and who is, after all, just "passing through").

I would further suggest, if you knew the circumstances, desires, aspirations and expectations of the mother, you will still lack the "intimate involvement" with and "responsibility for" the pregnancy to presume your opinion counts for anything.
Posted by Col Rouge, Monday, 28 February 2005 3:52:38 PM
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Amanda - we have lots of laws not to kill other people.
Did you miss them all?
Pearl
Posted by Pearl, Monday, 28 February 2005 6:04:10 PM
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Consider this scenario. A ship is wrecked on a deserted island and the only survivors are a man and a one-year-old child. Fortunately there is sufficient suitable food and water available for them both but given the child’s young age it is necessary for the man to care fully for the child’s needs. As well, it is the case that there are many quite poisonous scorpions on the island which could prove fatal to the child if she were bitten. This fact necessitates that the man, who has boots, has to carry the child strapped to his chest much of the time.

At the time of the shipwreck, the man was aware that another ship was due to visit that area in about eight to nine months, but until then it was almost certain that there would be no chance of them being rescued. Sure enough, a ship does come by after nine months and happens to see the man’s signal fire. He is subsequently asked if there were any other survivors of the shipwreck and he tells them of the little girl. When it is enquired as to where she is, he calmly tells them that she is dead. He then goes on to explain that after a month or so, even though she was healthy, he had deliberately killed her because he had become tired of having to carry her around and provide for all her needs.

It is pointed out to him that since he knew he would be rescued after eight or nine months, and the child would then be able to be cared for by others, why didn’t he just look after the baby until then? His reply is that since the child was fully dependent upon him he considered it to be his right to be able to kill the child if he wanted to do so.

Would we accept his argument? I expect that he would be charged with murder. We do not normally accept that being dependent eliminates one’s right to live. Why should a preborn child’s dependency be an exception?
Posted by GP, Monday, 28 February 2005 6:29:34 PM
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Well, sure. Let's have a law that says if you use contraception and it fails, then you can have an abortion. If you don't then too bad. You must live with an unwanted pregnancy as punishment for your lack of judgement.

Come ON! The pill can fail for a variety of reasons to do with illness / forgetfulness, condoms can break. Things go wrong. People need options. Safe, legal options. Doesn't mean you have to take those options just 'cause they're there.
Posted by Amanda, Monday, 28 February 2005 7:21:05 PM
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Amanda, you speak about women having options. I believe at this time women have very few options when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. The vast majority of people would view this type of pregnancy as the woman's problem and expect her to deal with it. ie. "get an abortion and get on with your life."
The women I have spoken with are emotionally torn between their own life desires and the emotion that comes with being an expectant mother. They know that their choices are limited because apart from making the abortion choice there will be no support for them in any other sphere.
To make abortion a crime would be ludicrous but to leave woman in the place they are in at this present time with no real choice, is an even great travesty in our so call enlightened society!
Posted by 2into1, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 8:29:54 AM
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I agree with Bill Muehlenberg.
Recent Medical Technology, like 3D & 4D ultrasounds, has indeed proved that the unborn child is indeed that - an unborn child. The question really at hand is - Are we as a society prepared to suffer the consequences of our actions - if all does not go as planned?
Why must an innocent baby suffer - when the time of choice (to abstain or not to abstain?) took place some months earlier?
Posted by Gayle, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 11:14:01 AM
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One of the missing dimensions here is "when does life begin". If you say "at the moment of conception", then it is pretty straightforward; everything from that point on is transacted on a living being, with all the consequences that proposition entails.

On the other hand, if you believe that some other time is more realistic - say, for example, at a point when survival outside the womb is viable - then you would necessarily have an entirely different slant on the question.

I can't see this argument moving more than an inch or two away from this fundamental question, which ultimately is a question of belief.

What is clear however is that one side of the argument wishes to impose its beliefs on the other side of the argument, using the force of law to do so. The other side of the argument meanwhile says that this is a matter for individual conscience, having weighed up the moral, physical and social consequences.

In situations like this, I'm on the side that treats individuals as intelligent human beings, rather than as simpletons who need to be told every last thing about how to run their life.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 11:15:01 AM
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Amanda,
It is true that the Pill and condoms are not greatly reliable, and pregnancy can occur if only these forms of contraception are being used.

This would be standard practice reason no 1. that is used by pro-choice people and feminists to justify the large rate of abortion in this country (ie over 20% of pregnancies), and they attempt to brainwash people into believing what they are saying. But considering the nature of abortion, then maybe we need more reliable forms of contraception.

But wait ON, there already is. In the list already provided for you at http://www.betterhealthchannel.com.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Contraception_choices_explained?open) you can see that there are many forms of contraception that can be used, and some of it is much more reliable than the Pill or condoms. It is also quite cheap, and subsidised by the taxpayer.

But if you research abortion in Australia, you will find that there are many women who make minimal use of contraception, and will routinely use abortion as a form of contraception. They are often from certain ethnic groups, where abortion has been traditionally used.

So there is a “choice” regards abortion.
A/ Educate people to use more reliable methods of contraception, or
B/ use abortion as a form of contraception.

As a taxpayer (and I hope a person who does try to be somewhat rational and moral), I would much prefer to see my money going towards subsidising more reliable forms of contraception, rather than subsidising those people operating abortion clinics
Posted by Timkins, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 12:13:13 PM
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I agree with Bill,

Pericles is RIGHT & WRONG.

RIGHT: that morality of abortion depends on when life begins. So, since the baby is scientifically fully identifiable as completely human at conception, then killing a baby is killing a baby - just plain WRONG.

Pericles is WRONG in applying selectively myopia to claim "one side of the argument wishes to impose its beliefs on the other side of the argument". What about the defining player, the BABY! There is no doubt that the baby wants to live so why should the abortionist or mother be permitted to impose their beliefs or fears on the innocent baby by killing it?

So if we allow both sides of the argument (abortionist-or-mother v baby) to argue that this is a matter for individual conscience, having weighed up the moral, physical and social consequences, then no way should the law sanction the abortionist or mother to over-ride the rights of the baby. Anything less than protecting the baby is a gross injustice - killing an innocent for convenience.

Rewording Pericles, "I'm on the side that treats [both mother and baby] as intelligent human beings, rather than [denying the intelligence and humanity of the baby]"
Posted by Percy, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 4:25:14 PM
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The discussion over abortion and the arguments used to justify it, in my mind only serve to highlight just how selfish our society has become! How dare anyone have the gall to challenge a woman's right to murder a defenceless child?
Posted by freeman, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 7:23:16 PM
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Percy, you couldn't have provided a more vivid proof of my point if you had tried.

It may surprise you, but there are people out there who don't accept the statement "the baby is scientifically fully identifiable as completely human at conception". They note for example that you deliberately use the emotion-laden term "baby", in preference to other equally scientific terms for an early-term foetus. They frown a little at the cavalier use of the phrase "fully identifiable", which of course would only be possible in a well-equipped laboratory. They wryly smile at the description "completely human" to describe the small clump of cells that comes together at conception.

Having established this tenuous beachhead, you provide the foetus with cognitive processes that don't actually arrive until well after birth - "[T]here is no doubt that the baby wants to live".

I know that this is an emotional topic, but crowding your argument with specious imagery just underlines my point. There is no purely rational solution, only an emotional one. Surely the most compassionate approach is to help the decision process, not with moralising, legal strictures or images of hellfire, but with humanity.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 7:36:41 PM
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Imagine the outcry, if men were given a similar choice – for example, an option to adopt out their share of responsibility for an unborn child up to an equivalent point in time of gestation, that a woman could abort. Late-term pregnancy included.
Posted by Seeker, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 8:58:31 PM
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Pericles – a few points from your posts

1 "when does life begin".

IMHO “Life” begins when the fertilised embryo attaches to the womb lining. At that moment in time, however, the embryo is not an “individual” and should not be afforded the rights or expectations of an individual –
it is absolutely dependent on the mother for its nutrients and oxygen supply and protection from the vagaries of the outside world. It is quite literally inseparable from the mother.
Thus, it cannot and should not be extended the same rights we would afford an individual.
The moment of birth determines the separation from the mother and the creation of the “individual”.

2 "In situations like this, I'm on the side that treats individuals as intelligent human beings, rather than as simpletons who need to be told every last thing about how to run their life.”

I agree. A presumption of a functioning level of cognitive ability is the "norm" – someone for whom the interfering demands of strangers is as unwelcome as it is unnecessary.


Your Subsequent post
“Surely the most compassionate approach is to help the decision process, not with moralising, legal strictures or images of hellfire, but with humanity”

Exactly – leave the individual to make up their own mind and then support them, regardless of their decision.
The woman will face her God when the time comes and the actions of her entire life will be weighed – these choices are her burden.

Pretending that confessing to a priest and getting his absolution matters a hoot is the stuff which appeases simpletons who lack backbone.


Oh and freeman really – grow up –
Abortion is not Murder – look it up in a dictionary if you like – the definition of each makes no reference to the other.

Murder is an act visited on one individual(s) by other separate individual(s).

Abortion is an act which a woman has performed on something which is inseparable to her own body

There - Completely different
Posted by Col Rouge, Wednesday, 2 March 2005 12:59:02 AM
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A baby is defenceless and helpless within a mother's womb so the mother is a natural refuge and defender of the one inside her. Why must people insist that the baby is not human? Isn't it alive? Isn't that the very essence of humanity - to be alive, and have the right to live?

Yes, contraception can fail and people can make mistakes - but what about the humility to face the mistake? We may not like the consequence, and it may be painful but a life is a life is a life. A mother, with the knowledge of the life growing inside, has straight away a unique and mysterious bond with it. Talk to mothers who have aborted a child and ask if they would do so again. Ask them if they could ever forget what they did.
There is something amazing about having a child, even if for only a short while. Does anyone know how abortions are done? I would say to those arguing here to go and find out. Not all are clean and quick as people would like to think. I think i could safely say that no one on this forum would want to witness one, and see the remains of one afterwards.
Children are our future - since when did they become dispensable?
Posted by Deborah, Friday, 4 March 2005 8:14:58 PM
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Well said deborah. Pro-choice apologists lways scream that "a woman can do what she likes with her own body". Cut off her toe? stupid but OK, it's part of hr body and her business.

However, pregnancy and abortion are different. There's another body, another individual involved. Tiny, helpless, human, and programmed to grow into an adult human like those with similar genes.

The pro-abortionists have seen those amazing pictures from the womb, and [possibly] that film of an actual abortion. They've seen those little faces. They know in their hardened hearts that this is a human being, but they are in denial. It suits them to bluff and bluster that this is something else. Lying self-delusion.

A poem by Patricia Hesselgrave: "A Cry Of Help"

I know you can't see me
because I'm so new.
It's so dark in here, deep within you.
Wait. I feel something wrong.
What can it be?
Oh no! I think my Mom
wants to get rid of me.
Doesn't she know
God's already given me my soul
and with her help my body will grow?
I know I'm small
the size of a spoon,
and it would be so easy
to just let me go.
Please don't take my life
just to make yours easier.
I have lots I'll be able to do
and I promise to always love you.
Please let me grow.
Please let me live.
Please let me be born!
Posted by Big Al 30, Sunday, 6 March 2005 12:02:03 PM
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Deborah – children are of course our future – I guess our present has some bearing on this too. Our present will shape that future for our children to inherit.

Do you wish you children to inherit –
1 A world where they are free to exercise sovereignty of choice in matter which materially effect their personal destiny (be those choices good or bad) ?
2 A world where they are driven by edicts and commands and forced, possibly against their will, to obey the dictates of an authoritarian state ?

If you answer 1 - you, like me are pro-choice.
If you answer 2 - please explain why you would wish to condemn your children to a status little better than slavery?

BigAl30 – I would guess you have never had to face the dilemma of making a serious choice – certainly not about abortion – if you had you might realise life is more than a nursery rhyme or poem.

Maybe you could tell us all what special insight you possess which gives you “authority” to make and impose critical choices on people you do not know?
Posted by Col Rouge, Monday, 7 March 2005 1:34:09 PM
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Don't be silly, of course I've had to make serious choices, but I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I had a hand in killing an innocent human being to suit my economic or social circumstances.

You talk about "edicts". Your side of the argument is the one riding roughshod over "Rights" the rights of the child. Playing God by deciding that the tiny human life is to be cruelly killed.

I don't know how people who have a hand in approving an abortion, and the doctors and nurses using the instruments of death [after taking the Hippocratic Oath] can sleep at night.
Posted by Big Al 30, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 1:50:11 PM
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They probably sleep very well knowing that they are enabling women to make safe, legal, informed decisions about their bodies without risking gaol, serious injury or death.
Posted by Amanda, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 4:33:40 PM
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BigAl30
No one is asking you to have a hand in anything –

The pro choice perspective defends your right not to have a hand in anything, without interference or demands from anyone else.

It also supports the sovereign right of women to exercise their right, without interference from you, particularly when we are talking about a process which intimately involves her body and her body alone.

You cannot separate any right which you would attribute to the embryo / fetus from the rights of the pregnant woman - since the embryo / fetus is inseparable from its nutrient and oxygen supply and life support.

That you don’t know something merely illustrates your ignorance – maybe if you researched and found out you would understand more and accept that people do things all the time which you might well disagree with – and you have no right to interfere with them either.


Amanda – yes I think you are right
Posted by Col Rouge, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:58:15 PM
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I agree with Bill Muehlenberg.
The bond between a mother and child does start long before the child is born. This child is not a stranger in the sense mentioned by Thompson in her article but carries the imprint of both the mother and the father.
Posted by Sue, Friday, 11 March 2005 10:40:41 AM
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Don't call me ignorant. The fetus is a new human life, programmed to grow into an adult human if not attacked by abortionists, or subject to some accidental mishap. It's not a tumour, and should not be treated like one.

If it is OK to kill such a new life, because of its dependence on its mother for nourishment and oxygen, it's no wonder that some people are now saying it's OK to kill new-born infants up to 3 months. It's time we had that Inquiry.
Posted by Big Al 30, Friday, 11 March 2005 12:03:29 PM
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There's no such thing as a "safe" abortion for the baby is there Amanda? I'm sure you and your ilk must be haunted by their little faces in the middle of the night.
Posted by Big Al 30, Friday, 11 March 2005 3:27:33 PM
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I guess you would rather be haunted by the faces of bleeding, damaged women in alleys after a rip-off merchant has just performed a botched abortion? Dead, in pain, permanently infertile...

Abortion is not going away. Women will always find someone to help them if they are desperate enough. I for one, believe that women should never become that desperate. Thankfully, it seems 80% of Australians agree with me.
Posted by Amanda, Friday, 11 March 2005 3:36:11 PM
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"FEMINISM TO BLAME FOR 4 MURDERS IN USA"
What has that got to do with this article ? well, this, the abortion issue is usually related to 'womens choices'. One of the claims of feminism is that of 'equal opportunity', this often includes access to jobs in the police and military. REDICULOUS ! Job access should be based on suitability and ability. When a female says "Whyyy shouldn't I be a police woman"? Well, she can, but dont ever think she can have the same job spec as a male policeman, they found this out when a female policeman was allocated to escort this rapist from the holding cells in the USA to the court. He overpowered her, took her gun and murdered 4 people. Neglecting the obvious issue of shackling, or of 2 members escorting him, a male would have had a much better chance of NOT being overpowered. It is ludicrious and ironic, this guy was up for RAPE i.e overpowering a woman and forcing her to have sex with him. Yet the 'feminized/equal opportunity system' then puts a woman in charge of this guy ! crazy, stupid and irresponsible.
Do I sound rabid now ? its because I'm thinking about the families of the slain, due to an equal opportunity system which has gone beyond reason and common sense. If it was a war, and the font line had 50% females, and it came to hand to hand combat a counties fate could be determined by that one battle.
Girls... BE GIRLS, and stop trying to be MEN. Lets work together as we were created, and stop this 'them us' me me me mentality.
As the article says "Where DID the love go"?
Posted by BOAZ_David, Sunday, 13 March 2005 1:21:59 PM
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Amanda, I don't want bleeding damaged women either. I don't want them to have abortions at all. They should he supported in every way so they can have the child. I certaily don't want them to become desperate. If they feel they can't raise him/her, they can give the child the chance at life via adoption.

I question your figure of 80% in favour of abortion. I think it's 50% or a little over.
Posted by Big Al 30, Wednesday, 16 March 2005 12:06:59 PM
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