DFXK,

Your statement below resonates with me - I'd like to hear more comments from other posters please. I know people who really wanted to adopt a child and were told to look overseas as it is too complicated in oz.

>>Also, adoption should be supported, and pregnancy payments would allow women to make that choice. It must also be verbally asserted as favoured over an abortion. Adoptions have dropped over twenty-fold over the last twenty years.<<

Adoption is now a process which costs up to hundreds of thousands of dollars... mostly from Asia and Africa... and there is a booming market in surrogate pregnancies and kidnapping because of it. It is a painful and long process (I know, I have a friend currently attempting to adopt).

As an "honourable", or perhaps "heroic" option, it should be promoted, as it involves the self-sacrifice to complete the process begun by a consentual act, a woman's judgement over whether or not she feels able or willing to raise the child, and then the responsable giving of that child to a couple who feel both willing and able - and are deemed to be so by society. This, though still tough for a woman, can be a thing of deep reassurance that their child will have a chance in life.

If we were to have our adoption figures of 25/30 years back, of about 20,000 a year, then that would knock off 1/4 to 1/5 of our abortion rate, and would also reduce the use of an equally costly, time-consuming and painful process of fertilisation in vitro.

If a woman be allowed the time and money needed to be supported through such a process, and the medicare-covered counselling, and a campaign of public education be launched to encourage it, then it would be a worthwhile thing indeed.

Friederich, no I don't go to lodge meetings. Yes I dislike the Vatican, for good reasons. I was born a catholic, the nuns tried to brainwash me too, so I know a little bit about it all.

Fact is that the Vatican is a religious institution that is highly political worldwide, trying to enforce its religious agenda on others through political means. So they are open for criticism, as is any organisation so heavily involved in politics.

I don't want the pope telling me how to live, just as I don't want Osama bin Laden telling me how to live. I believe in freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion.

To use the term murder when it comes to an embryo is pure emotive
rhetoric. An embryo is an organism, not a person. Yes weeks etc
matter, even if you don't understand the concept. Let me simplify it for you with an analogy. A piece of sheet steel is not a car. It is a potential car, but to describe is as a car is nonsense. A being without a functioning brain is not a person, its an organism.

The author is quite correct. Abortion should be an issue between a woman and her doctor, certainly in the first trimester. It is not the business of govt, nor the business of the godsquad to try and make her feel guilty about her decision.

Yabby,

>>A being without a functioning brain is not a person, its an organism.<<

I don't think we can top this as the best OLO quotation for 2005.

Thanks DFXK,

Very insightful - I can also think about the "parent identity disclosure act" - or whatever what it's called - has scared a lot of potential "donnors". No one would want to live expecting a phone call: are you my real mother...?

That's true, disclosure of the identity of biological parents is a real sticking point.

From what I hear, courts worldwide are moving towards an idea that a child has a right to know their biological parents identity, mainly due to the fact that in some medical emergencies it can be necessary.

I have pondered over this, and think that perhaps it should be given as a choice to a child when they reach an age of maturity (18) to make contact with a biological parent. That would ensure that a parent will know that they will not have to deal with the child as a child, but can deal with adoption as mature (we hope) adults. Personally, I feel that the right should be afforded only to adults, not to children. Otherwise, contact could be made in times deemed to be of a medical emergency.

I don't have the answers. I fear courts are not helping.

A poor choice of words, 'honorable'? Get one thing clear DFXK, There is no shame in a woman deciding to terminate.It is not a dishonorable act but a very difficult and painful decision which is exclusively hers.Heroic ? in giving up her child for adoption ? Yes.
You take a high moral position that only a man who doesnt have to make such a decision could take.
I spent some years in crisis counselling and consistently referred women to their doctors and women's centres.
These women called up crisis counselling for the very reason that they considered themselves in a crisis situation.Every woman chose a course of action which was appropriate for her.
The decisions on abortion are not the business of Government and properly should remain private between woman and her doctor