Leslie clearly doesn't consider life too important, especially when she states:

"Indeed, since that termination in 2000, an increasingly defensive medical practice has left many Victorian women stranded at precisely the moment when they most need support: upon learning their foetus is stricken with a serious or lethal disorder."

So in other words, if the unborn child has a serious or lethal disorder (and what exactly defines that anyway?), there should be some automatic right/option to have an abortion.

Leslie also ignores that many post-abortion women have suffered psychological discomfort (guilt, remorse). The post-abortion suffering is incomparable with the temporary and most likely, medically treatable depression that a pregnant mother may face.

Sure it can still be treated, but I would think it would be better to stop the trauma of abortion (by stopping the abortion) and then help the mother with pregnancy support and counselling during and after the birth of the child. Why put mothers at risk of psychological problems and guilt, remorse etc for life by allowing them to have abortions?

Please Leslie, come out from the shadows of the feminism of the 1970s and smell the roses and the value of life!

This doctor involved should be jailed. He has clearly contravened the Crimes Act law on Child Destruction. Leslie Cannold can throw up the red herring of patient confidentiality. What about the other patient, the one inside the mother?

Her article should be titled "A Doctor and his TWO patients", only one of whom left the hospital alive. pro abortionists are so ethically bankrupt that they see no problem with aborting babies that are viable and clost to full term. Leslie cannold won't be satisfied until we live in a society that celebrates all abortions at all stages of pregnancy. She may consider herself a feminist. But her crusade is continuing to hurt women all over the country, by turning them against their own children. Shame on you leslie Cannold. Shame.

Lets us not forget the new frontier in science. Stem cells. This is the new frontier of curing and treating other disease.

Aborted foetus's are a source of supply.

I however find that the woman who had her foetus aborted due to major abnormalities had every right to have her wishes carried out.

It is a mother nightmare that he child should be born with such a disease or any disease for that matter.

Aborting the foetus and on reflection of the lady in question, although sad, the reality of life without a special burden would be of relief.

Knowing that also when you die, the child would have to also exist within systems without you. It is a tough world out there and we do not know what is in stall for our disabled citizens of Australia.

At last account from our Government they were closing down institutions of help and sending all out into the community with an insistance that they start to become productive workers.

What would this childs life be like in 18 years.

That last post was so incoherent, and contained such flawed logic that it bordered on self parody.

Sue justifies abortion because we can advance science by extracting the unborn child from the mother. Well, if you could advance sceince by using teenagers for fully conscious open heart surgery experiments we still wouldn't do it. Killing people to advance science is out of order.

Also, to say that life will be difficult is no reason to justify killing someone. How difficult does a life has to be before it is deemed unworthy of living? Who decides Sue? Death is not a solution for the problems you are talking about. I think it is sad you even entertain the notion that abortion is a solution to shortfalls in other government policies. It's like saying, the government doesn't subsidise enough child care centers so let's kill off some burdensome toddlers. I won't stand for that Sue.

Can we have some posts that are ON topic please?

I believe that Leslie was arguing about the release of confidential medical information about a private citizen for the objective of pursuing a political agenda. If this is true then her conclusion of vexation is correct.

For those who wish to discuss the pros and cons of abortion there is another thread for that discussion.

What an appalling story - is there no depth to which the anti-abortion crew will not stoop in their quest to turn back the clock? Despite the fantasies of a couple of posters here, the doctor in question is responsible for the wellbeing of his actual patient, rather than a potential one. Women are people in law and practice, foetuses are not.

McGauran is clearly riding roughshod over the rights of the woman in question and the professional ethics of the doctor, in order to score a few political points and increase his standing among the right-to-lifers in his constituency. Such political cynicism is shameful. McGauran should be banished to political oblivion at the earliest electoral opportunity.

Garra, to avoid future embarassment, you should speak only when you know the facts instead of making reactionary statements which contain obvious errors.

The law does, at least in wiriting, protect the child killed in this instance. Child Destruction laws under the Crimes Act prohibit late term abortions, despite your protestations to the contrary.

You talk about the child as 'a theory' and a 'potential person'. That is offensive. Who gleefully tells their friends, 'guys my potential human who exists in theory in my womb just kicked?' Who says 'this loose conglomeration of divided cells inside me will be due in two months?' It is a baby, everyone knows it's a baby, and for you to say these people are potential humans is wrong. After all, is not an adolescent merely a 'potential adult'? I suppose that means killing them is less heinous than killing a fully developed adult person.

This case, of a thrity two week abortion, shows how far pro aborts will go to protect their industry. julian mcgauran should fight this until the end, and hopefully abortionists will be put on notice that they are not above the law.

The question, however, is not whether or not the actions in the case (i.e. the abortion) were right or wrong, it is whether uninvolved parties should have the right to complain about a medical proceedure they have had nothing to do with.

The woman in question has not complained, the doctors were cleared of wrong-doing by the coroner... Why does this still have legs? Senator McGauran should butt out, it is not his business, nor his area of ministerial responsibility.

Medical records should not made generally available to anyone who is not connected with the case at hand, that is, immediate family (in the case of a death), the person involved, and perhaps their legal reps.

The black and whiters ride again. I simply can't see the world the way the McGauran's of this world do. For them, it seems, things are right or they are wrong, no shades of grey, nothing ambivalent. Maybe they have been lucky and never faced a really difficult dilemma, like the poor woman being used as a political football here. I sincerely hope that none of the women I know and care about are faced with such a horrible situation, but if they are, I shall stand back and respect their judgement and right to make their own decision without unwanted and unhelpful and insensitive and pompous moralising on my part.
In the end, we must decide, are women mere portals through which other people enter the world, or are they fully human individuals in their own right? If they are the latter, we must trust them to make their own decisions about their bodies, their futures, their lives and, yes, about any potential children they may or may not decide to bear.
If we decide we must make such decisions for them, we are infantilising them, we are telling them they are not quite as human as we, the wiser and more moral ones, are.
As a woman, I believe I am fully as human as Senator McGauran and therefore absolutely able and entitled to make my own decisions in consultation with my doctor.