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?

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.

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.

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

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?

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!