What we have here is an argument reminding me of the question ,"what came first, the chicken or the egg." In the abortion issue, it is fundamentally about an individual having sovereignty over their own body. That there is a potential life growing in that body does not supersede the original owners as long as there is dependence by the fetus for its own existence. It is a parasite until it is capable of surviving on its own. Have you never seen the movie "Alien" with Sigourney Weaver?

As to any man having a right to tell a woman whom he has knocked up, "No you cannot have an abortion." I say he gave up any right to SAY ANYTHING WHEN HE ELECTED TO TAKE OFF HIS PANTS.

That goes for government too! Government does not own its citizens. Government serves its citizens. The quicker we remind our governments of this long forgotten fact the better off we will be.

I'm tired of the attempts to control every aspect of our lives. It doesn't work. You can't control everything or everybody. This continued attitude of control leads to bigger and bigger and less responsive government. It leads to government that sees it's own life as more important than the citizens it serves.

I could say more, but I like to be brief. Thank you for the Forum

You are kidding Mr McConville. "The law and morality are different entities"? I think that you had better rethink that one.

The laws of every society are a reflection of their own particular cultural values. "Morality" is simply the tacitly held values upon which a prevailing culture is based. The concepts of morality, culture, and legal principles, are therefore inextricably intertwined.

The biggest factor in the abortion debate is who's culturally derived moral values dictate to our lawmakers what is legally considered right or wrong. Fortunately, we live in a society which is still predominately Protestant/ agnostic and the moral principles of this demographic group considers abortion to be an individual right. At the moment, this groups moral values are making the laws.

If Australia was a majority Catholic country, then Catholic moral values would be the primary factor in making Australia's laws. Catholicism's culturally derived moral values consider abortion as murder. And murder is against the law.

If Australia was a majority Muslim country then Australia's laws would be based upon Islamic culture, and Islamic moral concepts of what is right and wrong. And those moral values are very different from either the Catholics or the Prots.

The fundamental basis for your opinion is self evidently invalid.

For those of you who wish to know we may well ask where did the law come from?
The source of Australian law is NOT morality but Common law which has been influenced by Roman law. please don't take my word for it. Read it for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law#Anthropology_of_law

Ah you say. But Common law is based on morality. No. Afraid not. Wikipedia defines Common law as "an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, which is based on unwritten laws developed through judicial decisions that create binding precedent." As you can see NO mention of morality.

How about Roman law? That surely was based on morality. Wrong again! Wikipedia defines 3 sources for Roman law The decisions of its magistrates, custom & jurisprudence. No mention of morality here either. Read it for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_law

In fact neither the Roman faith nor the anglo saxon faith [before christianity] had ANY morality which was linked with their religion. To them religion was simply a mercantile agreement with the gods. I'll sacrifice to you & you help me. NO possible source of morality there.

So what is the basis of our law I hear you ask? Simple! Jurisprudence. Which may be defined as the application of reason to the law. Read it for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence

But why can't we have our laws based on morality? Surely some of them already are? That I will deal with in My next post.

As some posters have pointed out, there are indeed moral issues where laws are required, in a functioning democracy. The question
is about how decisions are made to implement laws and which laws.

Religion has long claimed to be the source of objective morality and religions like the Catholic Church have put in huge effort to lobby Govts and politicians, to enforce their so called god given moral code. Mind you, not a scrap of substantiated evidence of them being in touch with any god, but that does not seem to stop them trying.

At the end of the day, what we see as moral is a subjective decision, but at least we can reason about these things. If we take the age of consent, its a line we draw in the sand. I don't have a problem if laws are drawn up and implemented, based on that ability to reason.

Where I have a problem is when people want to force me to live by laws which they claim to believe in, because of their belief in the supernatural, ie usually organised religion.

Just as I will argue that its the Catholic Churches business to preach to its flock, not to tell me what is moral and what isn't unless they have some evidence for their claims, I don't think that people living in a 51% Muslim majority country, should be forced to live under Islamic law either. Thats not my concept of a modern democracy, thats more about religious tyranny by the masses.

There is a very poor man who is barely surviving. He has a very wealthy grandmother whom he dislikes. The poor man however knows that he is to be left a large sum of money in his grandmother’s will. The poor man manages to kill the grandmother without getting caught.

Did the poor man act rationally? Surely the answer is yes. His financial problems are solved and only at the expense of an old woman that he didn’t like.

Did this person act morally? If we believe murder to be wrong then surely the answer is no.

If the law is to be based solely on rationality then this man murdered a woman but committed no crime.

Are advocates of a purely rational approach to law happy with that outcome?

It could easily be argued that the man acted irrationaly and immorally, for good reasons.

For it is rational to ask ourselves what kind of community we want to live in, one where we kill each other and live in terror, in danger of losing our lives, or one in which we cooperate and respect each others lives, rights and property.

As there would always be somebody, who could shoot faster, steal more, rape our wives etc, in a lawless society, clearly a peaceful society is the more pleasant one and one where as a group we make far more progress. As respecting the rights of others is part of that, it would be both irrational and immoral to commit murder.

To me thats a far better reason then fearing burning forever or worrying about judgement day.