It always amazes me how the pro-lifers are so easily overcome with emotion and immediately deteriorate into CAPITALS to make their point, as if referring to those in support of Choice as MURDERERS isn't ENOUGH to get their point across. And of course, mention of the Holy Grail!! All I said was that if you don't mind, I'd prefer to consider an hour-old zygote slightly less important than me. That may be deemed selfish to Tammi, but to immediately conclude that I am thereafter amoral! Morality is contextual and I'll respect your version if you respect mine! Odd. And disturbing indeed. And is adoption the solution Ros? I am not an incubator for someone else's desire to have children. That's their issue, their desire and their problem. Why is it that 'choice' suddenly becomes code for un-willingness to be a factory-hen for other "... loving financially stable people who would be more than willing to adopt an unwanted child." Thanks Kenny - I'm reminded of the Python catholic mother who just pops out another child neatly while doing the dishes.

Audrey,
you say "If a zygote with no brain stem, brain, organs,etc has more rights than a fully grown adult woman than we may as well go back to the caves we started out in! "

What a scary world it would be if that kind of logic was applied everwhere - the relevance of the impact of an action must come into the equation. A bit like the old joke about the different impact of eggs and ham on hens and pigs.

"An egg is a days work for a hen, ham is a lifetimes work for a pig."

Now will one of you pro-choice writers please attempt to give me a consistent reason why a mother should have choice and a father not have choice after the initial act which lead to conception. I have yet to see anything which attempts to answer that question. The silence is deafening.

Is carrying a child for nine months (the first few where you might not even be aware you are doing so) really more difficult than either being a parent for the rest of your life and or bearing the impact of current C$A formula's for 18+ years.

Well gee whiz David, you're a deconstructionist as well... I would've thought hermeneutics were more up your alley :) Actually, if you can see past your doctrinal blinkers for a sec, you'll note that what I'm advocating is a democratic process that takes into account views of extremists from both the 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' camps - and rejects them in favour of something reasonable.

Clearly the extremists won't budge, so it's up to the more reasonable majority to enforce a more moderate view, via democratic means.

And really, just because you believe that your bible is divine doesn't mean that it is. I can accept your beliefs, so long as you don't keep on trying to force them on to everybody else. I like the bible - it's right up there with 'The Sacred Bough' and 'The Lord of the Rings' as a collection of texts that demonstrate the extent of the human imagination. But that's the rub: it's just a collection of stories to the vast majority of people.

Lastly, Kenny has done us the service of invoking St Monty of the Python denomination: to paraphrase, the chappy whom you want the rest of us to believe is the son of your god was not the Jewish messiah, nor the 'saviour' of atheists like me - he was just a naughty boy :)

St Morgan the Heretic

Ahhh Audrey, that’s ok, attack the style of my argument rather than the substance. Yes, I put the words ‘much’, ‘life’ and ‘lifestyle’ in capitals- so shoot me. As for my mention of murder, I was merely pointing out that we both agree that infanticide is murder, so why does a few months make such a huge difference in the stakes of moral relativism?

“I am not an incubator for someone else's desire to have children. That's their issue, their desire and their problem.”

Do you realise what you sound like? If you feel so strongly about the issue, then exercise your right of choice in contraception.

You say: “I'd prefer to consider an hour-old zygote slightly less important than me.”
That’s weird- you WERE an hour-old zygote once upon a time. How can you differentiate that life is worth less or more at different stages- I’d really like to hear your justification!

And just a question- why are you trying to depict pregnancy as such a terrible state? A woman who uses the words ‘factory-hen’, ‘incubator’- it would seem that you are encouraging a low self-esteem towards the female body. Feminism takes us forward… only to bring us back to before we began

Try as I might I can’t see how feminism has taken anyone forward. Perhaps feminism is something that has reached new levels of indoctrination, propaganda, and brainwashing, if that is a positive or a step forward.

It is not ironic that nearly all the pro-choice people in the various forums on abortion have never mentioned the word “love”, as this seems to have been replaced by the word “choice”, or “me, me, me”, or "welfare, welfare, welfare.

In 1,169 words, the author did not mention any terms such as love, affection, or caring for another, and I have rarely ever seen such words incorporated into feminist literature.

Many of the pro-choice people also carry out the tired old dogma of portraying the female gender as being victimised, while vilifying all and sundry around them at the same time, (also done by the author).

They also turn a blind eye to the fact that cheap and reliable and quite contraception is now available to women, and any negative side affects of that contraception is normally outweighed by positive effects (eg. Lighter periods, less chances of certain cancers etc)

Similarly, like the author, they have not thought twice about the “other half” who is the father, but seem to regard fathers as being irrelevant, or just as someone who may not pay the mother child support money etc.

I think that these people are now a victim of their own propaganda.

Morgan. "deconstructionist".. me ? no.. I was just referring to a factual event in Singapore which really grabbed me at the time.
But rather than pick the blith out of you, I want to take up Timkins point, and amplify it. The statistical analysis of words used in the article, and the notable absence of care, love, responsibility etc, plus the blatant 'me me me'ism and the 'them/us' ism, and the outright selfishness of it all makes me sick. If our human relations between male and female are reduced to such emotional povity, how will we fare in the long run ?
I think its WELL past the time when we reflected on the real need for a return to pure romance, sweet love, deep affection and on going committment between our selves and the opposite sex. I find that the dilution of all this, thru feminism and the 'choice' crowd, along with the promotion of deviate sexual practices all add up to one very very sick society.
I'm both consoled and worried by an increasing trend I find in 2 anecdotal experiences I encountered just today. The first was that Family First is gaining a VERY serious hearing by the government, I applaude this without reservation. A more worrying trend is found in TRIPLE-M fm today where the dj's were suddenly to my surprise talking about how HUGE is Christian Rock, they then went on to invite callers to ring in and give their 'testimonies' about how they were 'bad' and having been born again, are now 'good'. The worrying bit, was the fact that they noticed how much MONEY can be made through Christian Music, (which in itself tells u about how influential and large 'we' godbotherers are becoming) so now I anticipate 'rice musicians' calling themselves 'Christian' to gain a slice of that spiritual money cake just like some Chinese became 'christians' when some misguided missionaries started to give people rice in the course of their evangelism.
I just hope that as we present Gods values, that issues like that of the article will receive humble re-consideration.