Thanks Anne for reaffirming that women's bodies, and their minds and social choices are central to whether women continue a pregnancy to birth. The myth that contraception is easy and fool-proof, expressed by Cadman and some of the comments, reflects many men's lack of experience with responsibility for preventing an unwanted pregnancy. Women have to choose between dosing their bodies with hormones, inserting devices into their vagina and/or uterus or surgical sterilisation - none are foolproof and all carry health and fertility risks.
Men CAN control their fertility by always using condoms, but many men choose for women to manage any pregnancy risk, and some,like Cadman, then feel free to blame and control women who become pregnant.Erk.

I have no problem endorsing Anne O'Rourke's comments. If anyone tried to threaten my reproductive choices, well, God help them. As far as I'm concerned whether it's abortion, contraception, adoption or carrying to term and looking after a child, it is the woman's rights and responsibilities first and foremost.

The people I see trying to shutdown women's reproductive choices are the same one's threatening gay human rights. They whinge about taxpayer funded abortions. Well, I'm sick of funding religious fundamentalists in state and Federal Parliaments.

Of course there's no harm in an abortion debate. So long as it remains a debate. But I have a discussion topic of my own in the light of publicity around Tony Abbott's private life in recent times: Are Catholics fit to look after children?

Of course, it is only a debate.

Jenn, is it reasonable to conclude from your comments that you are one of those who support the idea of the father of the child not having a say in any choice regarding termination but who thinks the father has a responsibility to pay child support if the child is carried to term.

>> It seems that men whose actions have an eternal effect on women,
>> simply won't take responsibility for those actions, but instead
>> want to enhance their own power and control over those women, by
>> forcing them to have abortions, not to have abortions, or refusing
>> to pay child support or whatever. Governments need to put the
>> responsibility for the initial activity firmly where it belongs.
>> These situations do not happen by immaculate conception.

The situation does not happen by immaculate conception but if the sole right to choose regarding the consequences of the initial action lies with the woman then clearly the sole responsibility for those consequences also lies with the woman.

The right to choose carries with it a responsibility. If you want men to accept responsibility, accept their rights in terms of the life of a child which was not conceived by the mother alone. Responsibility and choice must go hand in hand and cannot reasonably be separated in either direction.

**Note I am deliberately avoiding the whole issue about the rights and wrongs of abortion - the original post commented on the evil of men thinking they should have a say in this issue. Whilst I agree the issue of choice should not be argued in a vacuum I think that sometimes useful to discuss aspects of any issue in a partial vacuum.

'Religious fundamentalists' like myself are not interested in intervening in the affairs of women, and men, when they make private decisions concerning only themselves. What Ann O'Rourke and the ENTIRE pro abortion/anti life movement do is shift the focus entirely onto one party's 'rights'. Indeed, the only debate that really needs to take place over the issue of abortion is: when does life begin?

Once we resolve the issue of when life begins, and science already has, at conception, then abortion ceases to be an 'issue'. You don't kill human life. Even if your wallet will be strained, even if plans go awry, and even if life as you know is going to change: you don't kill a life to preserve a lifestyle. Everything else is secondary, all other questions pale in comparative significance. If a man robs a bank, kills the security guard and explains he did it to buy the family's second car we do not excuse it. We make his act illegal, even before addressing the 'reasons' for his desperation, socioeconomic or otherwise, because life preservation precedes all other debates. So just debate the issue: when does life begin? Forget anyone else exists for a moment. Because a determination of life in the womb precludes any intervention to kill that person, and you can throw all the qualifications and stipulations on it you want. My philosophy is that you shouldn't do to life in the womb what you can't do to the life of an infant/teenager/adult/elderly person.

"...there are so many men who think they can determine what women should and should not do with their bodies and life choices".

I don't think men critical of abortion are so much concerned about women's bodies, but more about the little body inside. Sorry to have to educate you on the facts of life but a foetus is absolutely distinguishable from the mother's. The little body inside the mother is made up from genetic material from a man and a women. So from what you say the father's feelings towards abortion, should count for nought.

The life choices you are talking about concerns the life of a little one. A life is a continuum from conception to death. This is not a religious belief but a biological fact. Ros

Ros is correct in describing the foetus as a life. But so is an embryo, ova and sperm. They are all life forms in themselves but they are also life forms which cannot survive outside the human body for very long. They are qualitatively different life forms to human children who do survive outside their "bodies of origin" and are separate from another body. And in regard to sperm as a life form, should women have a say in what men should do with their sperm? But I digress.

On a different angle, I find it interesting that the more backward and undemocratic a country, the less likely women are to have over their own bodies. I don't just mean the right to abortion. I also mean the right NOT to have an abortion. Here I am referring to China where forced abortion and sterilisation are not uncommon and a one-child policy is in place. China almost systematically violates the rights of women but in a different way to, say, Stalin's Russia or anywhere else where abortion is or was illegal.

And that brings my to the main point in terms of my outlook on this matter: it is a "pro-choice" outlook rather than "pro-abortion". In every situation concerning reproductive rights I focus on what the woman's situation is, what she genuinely whats and respecting that decision - whether it is having an abortion, carrying to term or any other option. That is the pro-choice position.

Everyone else has every right to their views but to make decisions around reproductive issues on behalf of someone else is not only the height of arrogance; it also smacks of the worst authoritarianism.