Gadget the definition of when a foetus becomes a human has changed over time.

Until about 100 years ago the catholic church did not consider still born babies to have souls, they were buried outside church graveyards in unconsecrated ground.

Personally I think a foetus is a baby when its capable of living on its own outside the uterus, say from about 30+ weeks. I have seen infants who were born at 24 weeks and its still hit and miss whether they will end up with brain damage etc.

At the height of the Communist era, ideology and ones black-art interpretations about the notion of wimins reproductive rights was viewed, even there, as ‘a protest on the part of women against their traditional role.’

Women were not happy with having children and working at the same time, and viewed X amount of children as burden. In China, women had to work, there was no choice in that. But contraception was endorsed by the Marxist state, not abortion. The pill was introduced in 1964. The Russians published no statistics on abortion, however China did. Russian foeticide appeared at certain times to be quite high. Different from our politicised society however, Marxists in China couldn’t get rid of the traditional family, patriarchy was acceptable, and ‘wives consider themselves just women.’ However, the grandiose notions of the Cultural Revolution saw to it that ‘a “struggle” takes place in which husband and wife confront each other in public, with the wife supported by other like-minded women in her community as well as the Communists. In many cases the husband undergoes a severe beating if he shows unwillingness to mend his ways’.

B W Jancar. ‘Women under Communism’. 1978. USA. Pp 60-73.

In a certain northern territory, there are 96, 100 females. The total indigenous population is around 58,000. It is known that the abortion rate can exceed 1000 per year.

‘The incidence of abortion since the liberalisation of abortion laws in the seventies is important, and in recent times there has been a consistent pattern of around one in five pregnancies resulting in an abortion.’ http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/90a12181d877a6a6ca2568b5007b861c/0b82c2f2654c3694ca2569de002139d9!OpenDocument

And for Darlene, my proposal is a matter of common human sense. Salvation.

Fetoscide is a death cult, and should be apprehended along with the Feminazi movement.

I don't think the rants of modern feminists help women very much, rather they alienate people. Equally the pro-life movement has its rock to sit on, from which it will not be budged.

Along with probably the greater rump of the community I believe that independent advice and professional abortion clinics must be readily accessible. I am also very much in favour of there being no limit on age - a girl below the age of 15 can and should be easily able to get advice and a procedure performed of her own volition and without parent/guardian approval.

There is nothing to be gained from putting hurdles in place because all that does is cause women to seek help from where it can be obtained.

Of course the feminists and pro-lifers only want to rant about abortion, but I suspect that the remainder of the community while accepting that termination is the choice of the woman is appalled by the number of procedures and requires reassurance that they are always 'necessary'. That means simply that there should be more research into the reasons for the apparent failure of contraception and the lack of support for families in the community (where 'family' includes solo parents).

Why is it that by far the greatest bulk of terminations are for women aged 20-25, with those aged 25-30 coming in second? The number of unwanted pregnancies for youth aged 15-20 has dropped and remained stable over the years.

There would appear to be no simple explanations for these statistics and urgent research is required in Australia. There also needs to be robust, open consultation with the community on the way forward, because quite obviously the law is different in jurisdictions and there are anomalies.

Go save yourself, Gadget, and leave women to save themselves.

No point debating the point with you, so I'll just put on my jackboots and walk away. Oh, and calling people feminazis is so 1999. I take it as a compliment if it's coming from someone like you.

If feminists didn't do things that offended people over the years, they wouldn't have got anything done. Leave things to the softly, softly crowd and fundamentalists like Gadget have all the say

Dear Iain,

BWAHAHAHAHA!!

“Frankly I would say that YOU are the sort of woman who HAS claimed as you do here in my first quote, that a fetus of 39 weeks gestation is NOT a human being.”

Abortion debates shouldn’t contain much hilarity, but this really did make me laugh. The blind presumptions of the anti-abortion camp summed up in one stern pronouncement. Dude, maybe you should check my website. I just checked yours – I liked your posts "Why are some people gay?" and "Why Gay Marriage Activists are so Dangerous"

On your blog you wonder if you would “make that change” for you children if they were gay (what change, I'm not clear on), but you still haven’t answered my question about supporting your daughter through an abortion.

I didn’t really understand the contradiction you are pointing out between my statement that the pregnant woman decides when the pregnancy becomes a human life and my reply to StewartGlass’ suggestion that a woman who has recognised the human life growing inside her (ie. decided to go through with the pregnancy) would then go ahead and kill it. This is the anti-abortion camp trying (again) to prove that women are untrustworthy monsters.

“You are undone by a refusal to admit the humanity of an unborn child.”

I’ll go over it AGAIN: Men (in this case, me, you, StewartGlass, everyone) DON’T get to decide a) when a human life begins and b) whether abortion is okay. Women who aren’t carrying the pregnancy in question DON’T get to decide what happens.

Unborn children ARE human. What’s an unborn child? Ask the pregnant lady.

If she says: ‘This zygote is called Steve, he’s my son’ then it’s an unborn child.
If she says: ‘This pregnancy has come at the worst possible time, I don’t want it, I can’t afford it, if I ever have a kid that child will get a mother who wanted it from the moment she was able to have it on her terms, not because she couldn’t access abortion’ then it’s not a human life.

Ask the pregnant lady.

Phew, thanks Franzy. I have struggled all my life with the question of what makes us human, how we should uphold the principles of the sanctity of life, when we should see a child as a distinct entity (both legally and ethically). But you've devised a wonderful way to use relativism to solve the world's moral and ethical dilemmas. If we say it's a baby, it is, but if we say it's not a baby, it isn't. Maybe we can do the same for old people. Once they stop being productive members of society, and only become a drain on the state, we can decide that they are no longer 'human'.

In fact, why don't we apply such logic to all human actions? It would certainly free up the need for all sorts of decision makers, such as judges, parliament, the public service, etc. After all, we don't need to think about the concequences of any actions we take, we just need to correctly label our actions and others around us to suit our own desires at any given time. Sounds like a great way to run a safe, sustainable and just society.

However, getting back to the serious debate, I'd like to pose a question. At what point, legally, should a child become an independent being with individual legal rights? When it leaves the mother's womb? When it turns 18? Leaving moral and ethical discussions aside, how does the law deal with on-demand abortions? If a woman can abort at any time, does this extend to killing a newborn child? Or to a baby born prematurely? If not, why not? On what basis is a decision made as to when a child is 'human' and deserving of protection in the eyes of the law?