I have tried to listen to the abortion debate dispationately, knowing that each side sees the issue with what they believe to be passisonately humane eyes.

But one thing has always worried me about the strident anti-abortionists. Their apparent inconsistency.

With this in mind I have gone to the trouble of interviewing a number of right-to-lifers on their attitudes and find that whilst they are very passionate about unborn babies, on average they are very conservative in their attitudes to such issues as the Iraq war.

Few of these folk suffer the same passion about the innocent deaths of thousands of innocent souls over there. Its not even on their radar screens.

As to what this means, I don't really know. Moral righteousness about the preservation of life seems to belong on the Right spectrum of politics when it comes to abortion and on the Left side when it comes to such issues as war and capital punishment.

Abortion is as much a political issue as it is a religious one. I would rather it just be a humanitarian one, in which case I have to morally side with womens rights.

Col and gecko,
I wholeheartedly agree with both your posts, I am a Catholic, so no surprise that I am against abortion, however I do believe in the womans right to decide, I would prefer she adopted, but once pregnant, either way would be "the hard way" for me, had I been born female. Society it seems wants the mother to keep the baby, however when and if she does she becomes "a single mother" which society seems to not want to support...

Gee the sex act is a hard act to follow, in every sense, Kate Mannix has an infamous last name in Catholic history in politics. I am a progressive Catholic who is against abortion, and also against the Iraq War, both acts take human lives, sadly once the "three wise men" or was it "the three wise monkey's" took the Iraqi descion it was destined to become a war that can't now be withdrawn from, however if society could be more supportive of single mothers individualism, and nurture them, we would find we would produce many good citizens from their ranks

There's a certain sensitivity nerve that is touched by pregnancy.

People do seem to think they have some kind of "caretaking" role over pregnant women when it comes to unborn children...

I've often seen / heard pregnant women complain about people who want to touch their pregnant bellies - one of my colleagues tried to keep her second pregnancy a secret at work as long as possible because she was sick of all the unwanted "attention", eg, touching (from men and women), preaching about how pregnant women shouldn't do this, shouldn't do that, etc etc.

Gecko's right, people do care less about killing children in wars, but I think that's because it's not the Iraqis killing their own offspring (which is how abortionists would be perceived by the anti-abortionists).

I think it's a control thing. It bugs the hell out of people that a women (as opposed to a person) is given absolute control over her body - and not only that, she is provided with a safe and lawful mechanism to ensure she maintains control of her life.

The alternative is that she not maintain control over her life, that her life becomes someone else's - her local MP? her priest? her husband? her neighbour? Some OLO posters?

gecko asks:

>>Few of these folk suffer the same passion about the innocent deaths of thousands of innocent souls over there. Its not even on their radar screens. As to what this means, I don't really know.<<

Kate Mannix supplies an answer, I think.

"the not-yet-born are primarily important as a proposition to be defended, an argument in favour of of an ethical position, a precedent to be protected."

It has a distinct ring of expediency about it.

I still marvel at the concept of the wartime chaplain. How does he rationalize the dichotomy of "thou shalt not kill" and the "God guide your trigger-finger" speech before each battle. How can the commandment relied upon for pro-life sermons be so easily set aside?

"Thou shalt not kill" is clearly not meant in an absolute sense, otherwise the Crusades would never have happened.

Are lives taken in battle somehow different? Is the eighteen-year-old blown to pieces at the Somme somehow less important than a bunch of non-sentient cells? Tell that to his mother.

I have to agree with Kate Mannix. Religion without a human face is a depressing concept.

Kate,

Spirit is a part of humane being despite of religion. Kate: …‘’ Spirit like love itself may only be given freely...” You can’t give spirit freely or forcibly. You can give your love but not a spirit itself. Unfortunately you can take it back by killing a person. You can also suppress spirit of individual by corrupting his/her character with false teaching. Advance of our civilization, cultural heritages with science, art and technology is attributed to the great spirits of individuals. Many of them were from poor and broken families. By your love you can try to shape and influence character of a child and lift his or hers spirit, but full development of a person depends mainly of ability of that person itself. We living in society which should take greater responsibility in situations describing by Kate:…” Women too financially stretched; women abused; women whose spirits are weakened by circumstances…Government should do more to prevent this situation to happen in a first place. Abortion is not a solution.

Kate:” If a woman finds herself unable to offer her potential child the gift of spirit then logically, the child will be formed in the womb with a spirit that is diminished..”

Once again: Spirit is inseparable part of human creation and can’t be offer or given. Your argument is logically invalid.

In Australia is more abortion per year than we are taking immigrants. We should try to stop this senseless killing and problem of decreasing population is resolve. We won’t be in desperate need for more immigrants from incompatible cultures.

While I agree that Kate's article doesn't quite hang together it's nevertheless very powerful.

For a person to swing from one position to the other on such an emotive issue she must have come across some very convincing arguments. On top of that, she must have been prepared to consider the merits of the evidence. I admire her for that alone.

Why are people so pro-choice about public/private schooling, yet anti-choice about disadvantaged women choosing not to have disadvantaged babies?