Let's just get over the late abortion freaky stuff, which does not happen on an everyday basis. The fact to me, should be, if this pregnancy is happening to my body, which is going to change my life regardless of Mr/s Perfect in the background, I have the right to choose whether I will be a mother or not. I will weigh it up regardless of whether it was a one night stand, bad relationship, great, gunna happen relationship, this is my choice. When i go to a clinic of my choice, I would like to be able to assess the choices presented to me (however, it's not like shopping for a new winter coat is it). Chances are, I may have already made up my mind. No woman or girl should feel pressured to have a baby by society, her family, et al. Just as no woman should feel pressured to have an abortion. In the same stance, we should have a freedom of choice both ways, whatever we choose. Not Mum and Dad, not the boyfriend/partner, not society. Legislation can only call for this choice. Who's bill would you prefer? Natasha's or Tony Abbott's?

Di,
If a pregnant woman excludes “Mum and Dad” and “boyfriend/partner” and “ society” then she will have to be very strong and independent, because it will be a very small world, with very few people involved. And of course, lets not forget the father or husband, or have those words become criminalized.

But if it does become compulsory to seek counselling, before and/or after an abortion, then the next issue is what type of information should be given to the mother and father.

From what I can understand, there are people who will say that abortion is totally safe for the mother, and it will have no negative physical or emotional affects.

Meanwhile, there are others who believe that abortion can be quite dangerous for the mother, both physically and emotionally, and can have very tragic consequences for the woman latter in life (not to mention the father) see http://www.lifeissues.net/sub_section.php?topic=pa&subsection=par

At least Natasha Stott-Despoja has begun to think about counselling, the next step would be for her to think about what information should be given during that counselling. That is, if she can get over the hurdle of “it’s the woman’s choice, so there ”, which seems to act as a major barrier to finding solutions to 10 abortions per hour which occur in Australia.

Garra,

My statements irrational? You clearly don’t know the meaning of the word.

The “screaming foetus” was fully developed baby (albeit premature) not a “bunch of cells”. A similar case occurred in Darwin. A 21 week old was aborted in 1998 by labour-inducing drug. An experienced midwife, was on her own for delivery of fetus, and placed it in a kidney dish. She then heard the baby cry. She put it in a warm rug and checked it every few minutes. The doctor responsible and her bosses didn’t want to know about it. The baby died 80 minutes later.
You said: “Aslan's attempt to link abortion with our declining birthrate and anti-Islamism, this is an outrageously specious argument”.

The link between abortion and lowering birthrate is pretty obvious. Regarding “anti-Islamism”, I actually applaud Muslims for disallowing abortion.

You said: “I've noticed that Aslan's style of argumentation in these forums is often the expression of a particularly nasty form of Christian fundamentalism. [Deleted for flaming. Poster suspended for one week.]”

And you complain about my “style of argumentation”. The []s say it all…

Deuc,

I used the term “conception failure” equivocally to refer to pregnancy in general, not just to sperm entering ovum. Sorry for confusion.

Di,

You said: Let's just get over the late abortion freaky stuff”

Does it make you uncomfortable? It should.

You said: “if this pregnancy is happening to my body, which is going to change my life…I have the right to choose whether I will be a mother or not.”

If youre consistent, you should also endorse infanticide. This baby relies on your body and your care so it should be your choice whether or not to terminate its life if it becomes too much of a burden. But I suspect you wouldn’t want to go there. Why not? Yes, its against the law but laws can be changed. Let’s drop this “my choice” nonsense. No-one is free to do whatever they want.

BTW, what about the baby’s choice? The father’s choice? You’re being rather selfish don’t you think Di…

Aslan here you are again - as long as the topic is religion, abortion or homosexuals there you go pushing the self serving Christian Identity line. Reason or rational never enters your argument. Such as:

"BTW, what about the baby’s choice? The father’s choice? You’re being rather selfish don’t you think Di… "

And forcing a woman to have a baby is not selfish?

To those men who would force women to have babies against their will - when you men can have babies then you can enter into the debate.

I had an abortion while married - why? Because the SOB used to beat me black and blue. I suppose I was being 'selfish' by not wanting to bring a child into a violent household.

As I have previously stated women will continue to choose and the best that men can do is support their wives, girlfriends, sisters with one of the most heart rending decisions a woman ever has to make. Being judgemental is not helpful and there is no place for it when the ones doing the judging are not the ones who have to go through the pregnancy.

Trinity,
I think that the idea that the father should be excluded from a counselling process, or even from the decision making process, is quite a backward and inhuman approach, as there has been evidence to show that the father can grieve quite considerably over an abortion, particularly if he does not learn about it until after it has occurred. However this in not widely known about, as fathers are not often included into studies into families or child rearing.

Personally I tested this out sometime ago when I became interested in abortion, and I phoned up a local abortion counselling agency, and said that my live-in girlfriend had become pregnant, and she did not know what to do. They asked me if I wanted the child, and I said yes, and I also said that I wanted to marry the mother. The end result was that they said that they could make an appointment for the mother to receive counselling, but I did not receive an invite. I latter found out that this counselling agency was basically a “pro-abortion” type agency, and run predominately by feminists.

Prior to that I had also talked to some pro-life groups and learnt that a woman need not have any referral from a doctor, or have received counselling before the abortion. In some states, this may be illegal, but the authorities simply do not check these agencies. It has now reached the state where abortion clinics openly advertise on the internet, and state that no referral is required etc.

While some pro-choice supporters will now say that the abortion rate is too high, they tend to put forward few suggestions on how to reduce that rate, but also tend to exclude the father, while at the same time saying that the public should subsidise it. Eventually, the abortion rate does not decline, but remains where it has been for many years (ie. the status que remains, and there is no forward progress made in reduceing the abortion rate)

Interesting discussion, but not for the usual reasons.

First, a dig at stott destroyer. Of course she is out of touch. She has never been in touch. From the self serving cloistered sanctuary of student union politics straight into a political party, she has all but bypassed the tedium of a normal, in touch experience. Then again, she is a politician. An entirely ineffectual spin meister employed by the totally menaingless and irrelevant democraps. The poster boy, sorry girl, er l mean person of political pretenders in the iconic institution of political pretenders, the demo-you-know-wots. The only time in recent memory that the democrats had any effect is when one of them sold out to the GST in her personal quest of spotlight relevance. She got her 15 minutes l suppose.

Natasha the Party Smasher, shame on you for wasting time and money introducing bills that are going anywhere and have no chance whatsoever at being enacted. All for your own personal satisfaction of introducing a 'debate.' Nothing more than a personal affectation. Nothing more than a vain effort at self validation for you pointless existence as a politician who effects no substantive change because you actually have never had any real power.