Thank you Helen Pringle for daring to come into this vipers nest again. Thank you Fiona for your level headed debate. I'd love to have a chardonnay or five with you. Timkins and co. and the rest driving the (and i'll use this term loosely) "abortion" debate. Don't you think that discussing wives (ex more than likely), child support, family court issues that you are all no doubt experiencing through this MenRUs forum is a bit of A GATE AFTER THE HORSE HAS BOLTED debate. How much of the energy expended goes back to the abortion debate rather than your own diatribes about loosely related issues. Timkins, I look forward to you posting an article online about family court issues with fathers as it is a forum that I am sympathic to and is heavily biased against the father. But it is such a loose thread in the abortion debate. Reality Check, as i have said before - LOSE THE MONIKER. It is so not you.

Oh Timkins – you still don‘t get it

These are the only one significant “statistics” you need to focus on –

how many people are intimately effected by the abortion – one (the woman)

How many people should have the authority to make a decision – one (the woman)

How many women decided to have an abortion – it just does not matter – because it represents individuals making personal decisions which effect them significantly, the father possibly and the rest of society – not at all.
Collecting statistics translates into a lot of numbers which mean nothing when the exercise of choice is not vested in a single of several centres of authority / bureaucracy who act unilaterally for any “supposed” benefit to society.

And as for male v female – I support the right of everyone to exercise absolute authority over their own body – that I am male merely means I do not have to worry about becoming pregnant against my will – but if I did need to, I would fight and protest to demand the right to have the final say over the disposition of the body in which I reside.

Isabelbirners “Personal liberty and personal privacy are cornerstones of the rule of law, and we disregard them at our peril.”

I agree.

Most of the wars of the 20th Century (including the Cold War) were fought to preserve this notion. I find it hard to comprehend how some would so readily abandon such ideals and the respect for other individuals, which is enshrined – other than to suggest, in the words of the song – some “will never understand what they got ‘til its gone”.

Di - I think we follow similar precepts – the abortion issue and the family law issue are both “skewed” by those who would demand to control or expect their view to prevail because of either gender or emotion, abandoning any ideals which hint at “respect and consideration for the rights of others”

There will always be people that defend the status quo, without taking into account the frequency of incidence, or whether new technological or scientific developments allow for other alternatives or outcomes. That is why people are sometimes concerned by outdated laws that do not sufficiently reflect society’s sense of justice, or in fact violate certain perceived rights. That is why laws change from time to time.

I don’t think anyone here is calling for criminalisation of abortion – perhaps not even arguing for making it harder than it may already be.

I for one support an inquiry into abortion, so that we better understand it. I don’t know what an acceptable incidence rate should be, but believe there is a huge difference between 10% and 90%. In those terms, 20% doesn’t sound like much.

If you look at incidence of murder and specifically that committed in self defence (which is legal), and please don’t think I am comparing abortion to murder, I for one would be concerned if 20% of murders were being committed in the name of self defence. Have a read of a news item in SMH this morning – “An American beauty queen who shot and killed her two-timing boyfriend was acquitted of murder after claiming she acted in self-defence.” http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/03/17/1110913739752.html

“Only, in America”? Where the gun laws allow such thinking?

Di, Your situation wasn't pleasant, you exercised the legal choice to abort. I don't dispute that right. If you had decided to continue with the pregnancy, would it be just to allow the father some choice in the matter IF to keep the baby meant he had to involuntarily pay hundreds of thousands with no rights to choose a relationship with the child? If not, should law be changed so a man could choose not to support a child born against his will and presumed as entitled to see the child?

"The ex's drawer": tone was black humour... I didn't go through her drawers, although she went through mine regularly. Is my ex a "Sick Puppy" for doing so?

mscobina, "everyone should have a choice", that means dads too?

isabelberners, "Personal liberty and... privacy are cornerstones of the rule of law". Yet all the quoted Court rulings removed personal liberty from fathers to determine their own destiny, subjected them to 18 years of financial burden, their private life scrutinized microscopically by the CSA, with no say: specifically because they had no legal say in the consequences of an abortion decision. Do you mean, "Personal liberty and privacy of women..."?

Deuc, I said "A woman can choose to..." Not every woman does. Is my comment untrue? Child Support is NOT legally a "request", the father does NOT have legal choice to refuse.

Most women are both decent and trustworthy. They don't unfairly insist upon child support, do discuss abortions with partners, do let dads see kids, etc. But in choosing not to abort, single mothers must claim child support if they want family benefits.

My issue is the minority of women who do deliberately trap men are legally supported. These men are imperiled because they have no choices either regarding an abortion or the consequences thereof.

Col Rouge, see: http://www.warrenfarrell.com/ . Dr Farrell supports both mainstream Feminism and the role of men. Described by both sides as "groundbreaking".

I would have thought 18 years of legal financial responsibility for a child would be an "intimate" impact on a man's life.

What is with the obsession some of you have with finding out Timkins real name? How about focussing on supporting/rebutting/ignoring his arguments rather than finding out just who he is.

Are all of you who are calling on Timkins to supply his real name likewise identifable (frankly I don't want to know your real names, your comments are what I want to see).

He may be doing the lobbying, writing to Politicians etc under his real name elsewhere.

Please remember that all us involved with C$A and other parts of the Family Law structure are dealing with individuals with fairly wide discressionary power and who often give the appearance of coming at it from a significant personal bias. Who can guarantee that individual C$A staff might not use that discressionary power unfairly against an individual known to be openly critical of C$A. Maybe that is paranoid but then when you have dealt with some of these bodies and heard some of the stories of others there is reason to be cautious. C$A as an organisation certainly do not appear to take criticism well although I doubt that they would be silly enough to keep any kind of formal hit list of payers who have criticised them.

As previously mentioned there are other reasons for keeping a low profile with real names (causing further strife with vindictive ex's etc).

Dear I. Berners,

Thank you for your case law studies to show unborn child not given due civil status as a born human. Please note the age of these cases 1973, 1989, 1987, 1989 and the one you missed was the precedence case on the right of a women to abort in the USA to which I do not have the details but be able to obtain them if you fail to.

At the time medical technology could not show the daily life picture of the living unborn child as we can now and it shows how 'living' the unborn child is including ability to sense, process and respond to stimuli, smile, grasp, sleep patterns etc.

This evidence now dramatically changes the legal landscape to this matter and I state the precedence cases would have had a totally different outcome in 2005. So I hear you ask 'So new precedence needs attention to'.

Answer yes! Picture the following question put to the high court made by Crown itself.

'DOES THE UNBORN CHILD BEHAVE AS A BORN HUMAN BUT IN A SPECIAL ENVIRONMENT AND IF THE ANSWER IS YES THEN DOES THE UNBORN CHILDS CIVIL STATUS NEED URGENT REINSTATEMENT TO THE BORN'

My prediction to the outcome is a argument on pain, being one of the first modalities to function meaning the unborn child feels pain when its life is sucked out with a vacuum probe or broken to pieces with forceps, will achieve success.

Sam