'when does a zygote become 'human''...if this question hits the high court I can see the justices forced to graple with this one with all their skill, will and talent... a very hard one at law...particularly due to fact that to date law has not attempted to 'codify' a child in the womb to attribute rights...has to happen...

what is more needed is statistical facts...particularly the prevalent causes and reasons for selecting abortion...is it as most women and feminist argue...or is their reasons apply to the minority...the major reasons will be needed...

on the other extreme is it willful planning then after the fact(getting pregnant) things get too dicy and decide to bale out the easy way and remove all evidence(dna testing on every aborted baby will help here) or just careless eg drunk...or men just blindly leave contraception to women...etc

C'mon Australian Bureau of Statistics...do your thing...a word of warning...ensure the method and data are above all reproach...this one would go through fine analysis by all...

Sam

Aqvarivs, I have no issue with men; I have an issue with people who want to impose their beliefs onto others.
You seem to have a dim view of women as men-haters. I like being a woman, I like feeling feminine, I liked being pregnant and having my babies- but that doesn’t mean that I believe that women should have no choice.
Do you believe that if men were the ones getting pregnant, abortions wouldn’t happen? Men would want the exact same rights.

Daniel,
While you are making a good point in saying that it’s a shame that abortions being performed because of financial reasons, telling women, who live below the poverty line that they have to have a baby because the rest of the country is wealthy is quite cruel and irrelevant to their personal circumstances. Unfortunately, there are many children who are not properly looked after because they live in poverty.

The main reason why abortions are being performed is ONLY because no contraception was used or contraception failed. Therefore, encouraging use proper contraception and providing it freely should have priority, in conjunction with realistic sex education.

I still don’t understand why religious anti-abortionists are not strongly campaigning and lobbying for sex education and free contraception when there is proof (e.g. From Netherlands) that these measures reduce abortion rates significantly.

If (religious) anti-abortionists are serious about significantly reducing abortion rates, then they need to focus on these three main aspects (sex education; free contraceptives; improving services for women and children).

The religious should know by now that banning abortion will only make it unsafe, and that praying doesn’t work.

Peter D,
I agree with Yvonne: check facts. If I had the space and time, I could come up with a true real life drama, an equally emotive story to your abortion story and title it: “The gruesome life of an unwanted child. The conclusion would be that some people simply should not have children.

Now, why do I believe that anti-abortionists don’t “really” believe that “babies” or “persons” are being killed?

continued

Yabby gives a hint: “Yet in reality, we see huge wealth, billions of $ of real estate, held by the most fanatical of the pro lifers.”

If you’d really think that kids are being murdered every day, up to 100,000 each year, why is it that all you do to protect these ‘human beings’ is just hang outside a clinic and peacefully pray, or for the ‘agnostics’, peacefully protest?

Your actions (or rather non-actions) show that you don’t ‘really’ care to stop the cold-blooded, murdering mothers and evil doctors.

Now… whatever you have been doing, your actions have failed, because this is all you are prepared to do to save ‘children’. Big deal!

Imagine that parents took their three-year-olds to ‘child-euthanasia clinics’ where they were lined up by the thousands and shot because parents just didn’t want them.

I am positive that there would be a huge outcry and much action; you would do more than just pray outside those euthanasia clinics or ‘peacefully demonstrate’.

Would you really let these murders go on for thousands of years and just keep hoping and praying that gentle protests would change parents’ minds, just like you're doing to stop abortions?

Reality check: if you really believed that genuine “murders” of “children” happened at abortion clinics, you would be less inactive than you are now.
You might even go as far as lobby for free contraception and realistic sex education; really pressure the government. Barricade or bulldoze killing clinics. Get serious.

That’s why I suspect that the vast majority of anti-abortionists don’t really believe that abortion is murder, or that a zygote or an embryo is a person.
By your lack of actions, you are admitting that zygotes and embryos don’t have the same rights as people.

Actions speak louder than words, and since you do not act proportionally with your so-called beliefs, well, what am I supposed to think?

Celivia, Not women as men haters but feminist who devalue women such as yourself for being feminine and gratified to be a woman. I want you to have every choice medicine can offer that will bring you greater joy, comfort and longevity. I just don't want you to be limited to the pro abortionist rant or the fembots empowerment through abortion. I would much rather you considered an approach of intelligent proactive contraceptive sex education, it's practice and accepting responsibility for your behavior, leaving abortion to a few extreme cases. I say you as women, not you as a specific individual. And certainly not having women accepting or defending 1/4-1/3 of all Australian pregnancies being aborted. And most certainly not the profile offered by www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au with out a little female on female reflection.
Ok I can understand some blind defence, "the girls supporting the girls" thing and I didn't want to come across as leading a frontal assault on women. I don't want to take abortion off the table. I would like to see it reduced to a negligible frequency replaced by intelligent contraceptive education and practiced by both sexes. BUT. As I tell my own daughters. They must be proactive in their choices and not expect that a man will understand or necessarily accept responsibility. Understand your situation and evaluate the risks and be willing to accept responsibility alone for your decision. That way if worse comes to worse your not left alone and angry at someone for not meeting your expectations. In truth I worry less about my daughters becoming pregnant than I do about them becoming irrevocably diseased through reliance on the pill to protect them. Unprotected sex? HIV/AIDS? Think, plan ahead. Times ain't what they used to be.

Pure verbal garbage, Yabby. Shallow, flippant , irrational and, I might add, transparently dishonest.
If a fully-formed unborn baby very similar in appearance to a newborn, though slightly less developed, is merely “a clump of cells”, then in what way are you -with the same number of arms, legs, fingers, toes, eyes, ears, nose,
mouth and non-functioning brain - in what way are you any different?

Just a bigger clump of cells?

Aqvarivs, I agree with you to a large extent. But hey, what a horrible scenario you then describe! Women who support abortion remaining available and legal are not resentful about having a womb. A womb creates particular issues for one half of humanity, like the prostate does for the other half.

And give feminists a break. They are not a homogenous bunch responsible for all ills in society. There's quite a variety in feminist philosophy. From the idiotically banal to the inspiring.

As you tell your daughters, we also tell our sons. Our sons know that we will not be sympathetic to 'I thought she was using contraceptives', 'she tricked me' etc. Contraception is NOT only the responsibility of the one with the womb.

Women, mothers in particular, should play a larger part in educating and empowering not only our daughters, but also our sons. By behaving with responsibility and respect towards themselves and the other. For instance Daniel, we not only say 'keep your legs together' to our girl, but 'keep your pants on and zipper up' to the boys. I noted your omission of the other half of the baby making set.

It is not until society sees unplanned and unwanted pregnancies as an issue not only about irresponsible, selfish women and murdered babies, but also irresponsible, callous men will there be a more honest debate about the number of abortions in this nation.

As Celivia so passionately keeps on restating, if the distress about abortions was indeed for babies, why is there not a loud cry for good education on contraception? A pregnancy prevented is an abortion avoided.

The USA goes mainly for abstinence and has a very high abortion rate. The Netherlands has a very comprehensive sex education (I know! went through it myself 35 years ago.) and has a very low abortion rate.