The problem is that the people making the choice for personal, economic, environmental or any number of other reasons are white Europeans. The ones who should be making the same choice are not doing so: people of the Third World, largely Muslim, who will happily replace the 90,000 Australian aborted annually as well as all those aborted in Europe and America, and then multiply the numbers many, many times.

Abortion on its current scale would appear to be just another nail in the coffin of Western civilization.

Other questions you might ask in your next survey:

Should women considering abortion be forced to attend pro-life counselling?

Should women who choose to abort have their names and addresses widely published?

Should women entering abortion clinics be verbally abused and pelted with food?

Should women pregnant to aliens be allowed to claim abortions on Medicare?

Do you like my hat?

Another observation on the figures: No stats are kept on what number of abortions are sought for what reasons. If you plan to publish your findings anywhere peer-reviewed I suggest you consider some editing.

As so many others have said, if you don't agree with abortion, don't have one.

I would like to see the need for abortions reduced in Australia.
I believe that every woman considering abortion, for whatever reason, should have access to IMPARTIAL counseling and be given every encouragement to take advantage of this counseling.
And I believe that her wishes should ultimately be the determining factor.

I see anything else as either a deliberate red herring, or an overt attempt to force someone else's opinion on morality onto those who feel differently.

An apt old saying is "The forces of evil never sleep". I'm not suggesting that all right-to-lifers are evil, far from it. But their basic objective to force others to be ruled by their tenets, and some of the methods they use to try and attain this objective, are certainly evil.

Hi all

maracas (post 11:28:53 AM 6/3/06)

I am astounded at how often when people have an anti-abortion stance that it is automatically assumed that that person is a "conservative Christian".

For those who read my posts: I was anti-abortion when I was an Atheist. It's called consistency in my anti-murder beliefs.

As to the starving & oppressed: that ought not to tolerated by the majority of caring, empathetic humans - Christian or not. Christian-based organisations are in fact the majority of those doing aid work in that area - without public recognition.

There is also the assumption that just because GWB is leading "an action against terrorism" that all/most Christians support him. That is simply not true. Moreover, with his background in the Masonic Lodge & by "the fruits" that he shows it could be questioned as to what sort of Christian he is. But that is not the purpose of this post - to debate the war &/or famine.
(6/3/06)

INDOGIRL (post 12:11:57 PM 6/3/06)

Great to hear from a woman with an empathetic ear which comes from her understanding of the situation via her profession as a Doctor of Medicine.

It is indeed a major responsibility for the male. Females ought to be able to say "yes" or "no". But equally, it is the responsibility of the male to ensure that the female is unlikely to be fertile if neither of them wish to create an implanted, fertilised egg. The foetus has no say in the matter, so should not be penalised for the failure of the lovers.
(6/3/06)

Cheers all

Australia appears to be going down a path in which abortion becomes an issue disputed (and disputed hysterically) along secular/sectarian lines, with the “pro-lifers” – perhaps the most ridiculously counter-productive, and simply ridiculous, euphemism ever conceived – seemingly wanting to return to a situation in which pregnancy terminations are not readily available.

I am not going to bother commenting on the phraseology of the survey questions described in the article. Suffice to say, even given the seriousness of the issue, they manage to be quite funny.

On the subject of the RU486 conscience vote, despite the wailing of the article’s author, the issue really was not abortion. It is simply beyond the authority of federal parliament to restrict abortion and, at the very least, it was beyond the scope of the bill in question. By restricting the methods available to patients who, in practically every case would already have decided to terminate, the no voters among our federal MPs were not being anti-abortion: they were, for want of a better description, being anti-women.

A consistend and well defined article. We need to impress the value of a human life and no amount of opposition will change that truth. Life is sacred and is the most valuable thing that exists.