"The point about abortion is, the embryo / foetus, whilst its exact position on the journey to “personhood” is not a separate “person”.

Col, whilst I always enjoy your posts and appreciate your ability to reason, I'll try to explain why I see things a little differently.

Your arguments go along the lines used in America, to justify partial birth abortion. AFAIK, at say 7 months pregnancy, that developing person could well live separately, if birth was induced.

Where I strongly disagree with the religious, is that they claim such a thing as objective morality, devinely revealed to them by the so called almighty. Its clearly in their interest to make these claims and thus claim power over the lives of others, but to me morality is subjective and open to reason.

For a society to function, we need some compromises on both sides.
We have the religious nuts on one side, claiming that sperms are holy, then we have those accepting partial birth abortions on the other side.

I think that the middle line accepted by most European nations is not a bad one. At 12 weeks or at the end of the first tremester, there is clearly no question of "personhood". Its a fetus, not a baby. If every woman on the planet, as part of family planning measures, had the right to contraception and abortion to this point,
life would be a breeze compared to what most of the planet's women face now. After 12 weeks, some serious reasons would be required, the health of the woman, genetic abnormalities etc.

The real problem is the fantatical view taken by the Catholic Church. Even alot of followers and priests within the Church are against their doctrine, ie virtually no contraception of any kind, no sterilisation either. At the end of the day sex is normal and natural, not evil. You are right, trying to control peoples sex lives gives them control over their believers. Thats fine for those who want to be part of the Catholic flock, but please leave the rest of us out of it.

Crikey Yabby, at it again? You suggest that the baby is a foetus in the first trimester, so not a person. The no brain and no pain bit is rattled off again. Scientific evidence will contradict you there, so I won’t labour the point as you insist on doing.

A child will go through many stages; newborn, infant, toddler, adolescence, etc. all no more or less human than the other.

It is interesting that you find the dismembering or crushing of some unborn more acceptable than others, even though you acknowledge that they can feel pain during the second and third trimester of pregnancy.

So some of us are ‘more equal than others’ in your eyes - George Orwell could have written your script.

Suffice to say that sounds a lot like the “Animal Farm” version of despotism and I’m sure it helps to be able to grey the edges and the rules on these issues until you find another excuse to widen the parameters again.

A tip – if human life is respected…so too will all life. The teachings of Christ include respect of all life – human and animal. You need to find a balance, Yabby that doesn’t involve you shifting ground every time you turn around.

Good Luck

Scout, I am sorry if what I said you might have taken as “unprovoked insult” in the past.

I hope the “entertainment value” here outweighs those past slights.

Disagree with me all you want, we live in a democracy.

History is full of small minded despots sponsored and supported by the power lobby of religious institutions, who used every tool of class, race, an overbearing social hierarchy and other divisive methods to suborn the spirit and rights of the individual.

It might be my fixation but I will endeavour to stand up against that sort of repressive evil. Abortion is a private decisions and should be respected as such. If I were female, I would do everything to ensure I had the final say in how my body would be used. It would be hypocritical of me to want differently simply because I am male.

Meg1 I did not misquote you. More blowing smoke (or blowing something), lay off the baked beans.

Yabby: PBA and late term abortions. It is irreconcilable that a woman would go through most of a pregnancy and then decide, for no good reason to abort at the later stages. I would suggest the reasons for PBA will only be for dire reasons. No reasonable woman would travel and risk 6 -7 - 8 months to bond with a developing foetus only to abort on a whim. Such a decision would only be as a response to some catastrophic disruption in the normal process of pregnancy.

How society functions does not matter. Society does not have a name. it is merely the collective noun for the individuals who do have names and who have to make individual decisions in the course of their individual daily lives including abortion decisions.

The numbers of abortions merely means a lot of women are making similar decisions. The view of pro-life and many Catholics is “one abortion” is a crisis and too many. No amount of tax-payers money will ever eliminate abortion and nor should it try. Private people making private decisions about many things is what makes “society function”

"Scientific evidence will contradict you there, so I won’t labour the point as you insist on doing."

No it won't Meg, do your homework, not just look at pictures in magazines. Do you know the first thing about development of human brains?

"The teachings of Christ include respect of all life – human and animal" Yet the teachings of the Catholic Church are in part responsible for assisting to wipe out species after species.

Sadly you don't understand the first thing about evolution theory.
Biodiversity is part of sustainability for all species. If one species multiplies and mulitiplies, wiping out others, in the end the whole thing becomes unsustainable and that species eventually crashes with a huge thud in a very short time.

Thats the sad part of today's reality. Religious dogma and total homocentric focus means we ignore our role in nature and if what we are doing is not sustainable, eventually the system crashes, everyone loses, especially humanity.

Next thing you have two religions trying to outbreed each other.
Both are at the point of having technology to wipe each other and themselves out. As more people add more pressure to the system,
somebody will be fanatical enough to push a button and cause a chain reaction. The sad thing is that evolution theory will have been shown to be correct once again, as the planet keeps spinning with insects thriving, just a shame about those mammals that once were.

Goodness Yabby, the Catholic Church is responsible for wiping out species after species...is there anything they are not responsible for in your eyes?

It is truely amazing that you can twist any subject to include blame attributable to the Catholic Church and your evolving relatives and their sexual habits. I'm pleased you and Col have got over one or two of your other sexual fantasies...it's a start.

You fellows should try for some original thought. The US abortion industry (yes there are countless billions made for the perveyors of this barbaric act-no act of compassion for women where the moneymakers are concerned, began with the heirachy of the Catholic Church being attacked by anti-lifers. Why? Because they were a minority within the Church and society and easy to isolate because they would not fight to defend themselves. Refer to Bernard Nathanson's history of the US abortion industry, after all he was the instigator of the 'policy' to make abortion legal in the USA.

So Col and Co are merely gullible parrots of the US anti-life movement spewing the well used propaganda forth across the nation as it was in the USA decades ago.

Meg1 it is said emulation is the greatest form of flattery, so suggesting I might be “gullible” comes as no surprise.
I could thank you but the other truth is a lazy mind will merely repeat the words it last heard. In your case I think your post lends more from laziness than from flattery.

Oh and I have held my views for many years, along time before the pro-choice became a significant group in USA and along time before the media of the internet and instant news gave us up to date reporting of trends around the world.

Your stupid suggestion that I am merely using the “well used propaganda” from USA is a complete crock of sh*t (but at least your posts are consistent in that manner).

I could as easily suggest everything you say is merely a fanatics panacea which you throw around as it was published by the Catholic propaganda machine (and lets face it, the Catholic Religious institutions are the “masters” in propaganda and opinion manipulation - to their own corrupt ends).

As for my “sexual fantasies” more trite impudence and suggested with the remorseless criticism of a malevolent spirit. You have no idea what I might fantasise about – not a clue, you are simply looking for metaphoric stick to beat me with (which is just another example of what Catholics call “love” - the guilt trip).

So do all you want to goad. Try whatever it takes to find something to make me feel guilty about and then use that to exercise authority over me.
If I wanted to exist under that style of repression and guilt, I would simply go the local papist cleric and go to confession.
As it is you are going to have to find a better way of getting under my skin because, when it comes to it, you are a complete amateur and no match for any pro-choicer.

You are entitled to your view. But remember, I am entitled to mine and I will exercise my entitlement vigorously and regularly