Philo

Pro-Choice is about deciding whether or not to continue with a pregnancy. You appear to have the idea that Pro-choice is only about securing an abortion. It is not. It is about considering ALL the consequences of pregnancy/parenting/adoption and so on. This is about informed CHOICE. This is not dogma. Dogma is imposing a single set of beliefs on another. Forcing women to term, limiting options is self righteous and all about control - nothing about life. The majority of women who have abortions also have children - healthy happy children which is what life is all about.

This topic is about co-operation between opposing view points. All that Philo is doing is pushing his Anti-Choice dogma without any thought or consideration to the topic at hand. He has demonstrated yet again the oxymoronic situation of proposing that NO choice can work with freedom of choice.

Philo it is fine with me that you do not approve of abortion. However, that is your CHOICE. Mine is about finding as many solutions as possible with abortion being a last resort.

You still haven't responded to the plight of pregnant victims of rape and incest. Why not?

Also why not propose ways in which both the Anti and Pro choice can work together? I don't think it is possible. However, maybe you do. If so please enlighten me.

* “Mothers who made the choice to give birth to the child rather than abort have no regrets.”

Not true. There are many ‘mothers’ out there who have many regrets about having a child – some even from relationships that last and are for all counts, normal. The fact is not every one has the same attitude to children that you do and as strange as it seems, there should be nothing wrong with this.

* “In the case of a husband raping his wife to make her pregnant without mutual planning she ought to be responsible by being on the pill. To not be planning children but having sex without methods to avoid pregnancy is irresponsible.”

So you state that the woman should be mindful of a husband who may rape her and take precautions to avoid the pregnancy? And the man? No responsibility? How chauvinistic, dare I say misogynistic. Condoms are a legitimate precaution – so ‘honey, can you hold off the rape while I place this condom on you please…?’ – one word – fool.

* “It's equally self righteous to be imposing upon society what I believe is poor values about life and death.”

No one is imposing their beliefs on you. In fact it is the opposite. The key words here – ‘what I believe’. As always respect your beliefs and respect others. You don’t have to agree with them but you should let them have their own point of view. And that means allowing them to live as they wish – as long as it doesn’t impact on the rest. If you claim that abortion hurts another and takes a life, then we are debating an entirely different subject.

* “The Spirit that designed the life of all species we are answerable to in how we have lived our lives.”

This is a religious point of view and completely outside the topic of debate. Again, feel free to have your own beliefs – but do not use them to decide another person’s beliefs.

Cont....

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* “You might feel it is your right to condemn my attitude as abnormal”

No one has said that your beliefs are abnormal. In fact that they are yours is all they are. I think it safe to say that you beliefs come from your own reasoning and that is a good thing. But that you cannot accept another’s reasoning as different is sad as it just shows the limits of your own self.

As Scout has said, choice is not about right and wrong – it’s about avoiding hypocrisy and giving people the opportunity to have the freedom of beliefs and basic rights we claim this society allows them. No one should impinge on another’s beliefs and no one should force a person to act contrary to those beliefs.

Thank you Reason for tackling Philo over rape. How utterly absurd that he should blame a woman for getting pregnant after being raped. I took the pill - still got pregnant! And this man claims to offer succour and counsel. Philo blames women and excuses men.

He still avoided the question of pregnancy after incest. I suppose our little daughters are to blame for not using contraception when daddy or big brother are feeling "affectionate".

Philo blames women and excuses men.

Anti-choice proponents are simply anti-female and Philo has made this very clear.

Scout,
I can understand your anger towards Philo. He’s not the most logical or level headed when it comes to matters close to his beliefs. But perhaps anti-women is a bit strong (though given his implied background, perhaps not! Amazing what religious indoctrination can do). LOL… I like your take on the incest angle. Philo, a response?

As to anti-choice being anti-women, I won’t agree there. I had the pleasure of debating with an anti-choice person some time ago (on OLO actually) and they were very logical in their arguments. I didn’t agree but they were much more reasonable to discuss the matter with.

I think that there is a basically simple question to ask, when all is reduced (irreducible complexity! oh oh!). When does human life begin? Or – at what point is the fertalised egg/sperm not a child? All very hard and to me but this is the part where choice becomes important.

No one (I believe) would agree that terminating at 8 and a half months is acceptable. However an early termination (say 3 weeks), which for all purposes is a grouping of non-specific cells, can be reasonably seen as not to cause any pain to anyone (excepting what the woman goes through emotionally of course). However, if some choose to believe the nature of these cells is different, I am happy to accept their beliefs – as theirs. Just as they should be happy to accept my beliefs.

Much more could be said but word limit and the lack of the ability to have interactive discourse make it difficult to remain succinct.

Take care and I’m sure I’ll ‘see’ you around the forum Scout.

Cheers all (over to you Philo!)

Thanks for that link, Rex, it saved me having to look for one;) I agree with you also.

I grew up in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) and have experienced A LOT of sex/drug education and contraceptives have been available freely (covered by medicare, even about 35 years ago). It is just so easy for teenagers to get their hands on contraceptives there. Whenever I got my packet of my anti-baby pill, the pharmacist asked: "Do you want condoms with that?" Reminds me of Macca's: "Do you want fries with that?"
There is no reason as why this can't happen in Australia- if we really want the rate of unwanted pregnancies to decline, isn't this the easy option? It'll save heaps on funds for counselling. What good would the counselling do anyway, if there are only up to three sessions available for pregnant women? I mean, if you are being talked into going through with having a baby, I'd say that perhaps a lifetime of counselling would be a better offer.

Also, Countries that have the most liberal abortion laws actually have the lowest incidence of abortion. Making/keeping abortion illegal does not prevent women from having them, just making the abortions more dangerous.
(See http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/09/1/gpr090102.html)