Excellent points, Danielle.

Aqvarivs, no worries, in debates, we cannot expect everyone to agree. You have made many good points.
With the ‘women are being called murderers’ remark, I was referring to what Brian Holden said in his article. “We cannot afford to have a significant proportion of our society labelling women who have abortions, and the professionals who assist them, as murderers. So - what is the hidden agenda and what drives it?”

I am very interested in finding out exactly what this ‘hidden agenda’ is, if it is not ‘souls’, God, or the Bible.
Some of us including myself, RObert, Yabby, Goodchief, have been looking at the Bible to find the reasons behind religious pro-life reasons. I have found that God and the Bible are not anti-abortion and that many Christan denominations and religious groups are pro-choice.
I therefore cannot accept the justification of pro-life views of the religious anti-abortionists when they refer to God as their reason.
Now I’m asking: So, what are their real reasons for opposing abortion?

Attack on feminism?
There are feminists who are anti-choice, they respect all human life and regard the unborn as people.

Anti left-wing?
There are also pro-life ‘lefties’; they believe that abortion is violence and abortion violates liberation and freedom; that freedom cannot be built on a base of violence. Sounded good until I realised that they regard embryos as human beings.

As someone pointed out, an acorn is not a tree. If I dipose of a few handsful of acorns or gumnuts, am I guilty of forest destruction?

I would like to pose a hypothetical question to pro-lifers, whether they are religious or not:

The doctor tells you that you have a terminal disease and have only 3 months to live, unless you take medication directly derived from embryonic cells.
Would you take the medication, being well aware that embryonic, human cells were destroyed in the creation of your life-saving medicine?

Daniel06

"Seperate human DNA in the form of unfertilised sperm and eggs are not human - no one has ever claimed that so don't be silly and please stop claiming that anyone has."

Well if they are not human then what are they? Would you think differently if they were human? So you believe that human cells with 23 chromasomes are another species? Yes, that's a good dogma for the prolifers as it makes the demarcation simpler. But where does that leave diploid cells with the potential to be cloned?

Your comment also leaves me wondering whether your interest is in protecting human life for its own sake, and not for the potential human being that it might become? You seem unconcerned of the fate other potential human beings. I would have thought the potential for something to become a human being to be the main motivation for concern, as it is for me.

Celivia,
First of all you would have to accept that the rabid pro-lifers, aka masturbation is murder types, "are a significant proportion of our society". I certainly don't. Statistical evidence shows that both pro-abortionist and pro-lifers occupy the minority view. The majority view in the USA, Canada, Europe, Britain, and Australia is decidedly pro-choice. Next you would have to accept that there is a hidden agenda. That is just blatant nonsense. The pro-life agenda is not hidden and is as old as abortion itself. There is no uncompromising pro-life view. The pro-life camp is as diverse as the pro-choice camp. The only camp that is uncompromising is the pro-abortionist crowd.

"In seeking an answer I ask myself - in what essential way do I differ from my dog?" As soon as I read that I knew I was reading the opinion of NOT a intellectual giant and no longer became concerned when reading his gross emotional mensurations.

The author ends with this, "the danger of faith-driven pro-life thinking." AS apposed to what? Unfaithful pro-life thinking? So it really isn't about abortion. It's about him having his day ranting against his misinformed and misconstrued version of religion and pro-life advocates, which he has twisted into his reason d'etre for supporting abortion.

Abortion should never be considered until the 21st year. By then you ought to know if the life will be of any value. Everybody should get a chance. Keeping it should be contestable. The ultimate reality game. Judged by ones peers as to ones validity for continued existence.
Stupid forms a line next to the suicide booth. :-)

Col Rouge, there is nothing I could add to how well you put the case forward.

Celivia, excellent post. Would love to hear some answers to your questions.

Aqvarivs, I’m not so sure of a ‘pro-abortion crowd’. Abortion is a surgical procedure. All surgical procedures always carry risks. If there is such a beast as a pro-abortionist it couldn’t be anyone with a woman’s best interests at heart. It’s pro-choice vs anti-choice. Those who call themselves pro-lifers are not pro-choice, they are anti-choice and anti-abortion. Why else pray and picket clinics where abortions are performed?

I never refer to someone as being pro-life, it insinuates that someone with a pro-choice stance is anti-life, which is patently not true.

I have to agree with your opinion on the article. But then, when have we posters not opinioned that we could write a more coherent argument than the author of an article? It still starts us on an interesting debate, which allows us to examine and re-examine our own beliefs/conclusions.

Danielle, I have to comment on the mother who put her 12 year old on the pill. That’s horrific. Does this mother have sons? Is her father a raging misogynist? She is teaching this girl that men are dangerous and are unable to ‘control’ their urges and she’s a victim. This mother is not caring, she is physically, emotionally and psychologically abusive. She gives the likes of Sheik Hilali strength that woman and girls should veil themselves lest they be seen as uncovered meat in front of cats.

"So far it is the most robust and solid case put forward."

Hehe Daniel, you are free to kid yourself :) If its
unborn, its not yet a child.

"Seperate human DNA in the form of unfertilised sperm and eggs are not human"

Of course they are human, they are human organisms. So is a zygote
and an embryo.

"A fertilised egg is the clear scientifically proven point of the inception of a new human "organism" (as you put it) - and therefore the start of a human life."

Ahh, at last, you'd have to concede that its an organism, not
a person!

" Ending the life of a clearly defined seperate human entity is murder."

Nope Daniel, murder applies to people, not organisms. A human
organism has the potential to become a person, its not yet a person.
So murder does not apply, sorry, go check your dictionary.

Celivia, to understand the pro life lobby and their agenda, you
need to go back into JP2's childhood and his views. He had a huge
effect on Catholic dogma, which is still evident today and is
preached by the extremist end of the Catholic Church, which still
dominates in Rome. If you look at the statistics in say the US,
Catholics have as many abortions as non Catholics, so very few
practising Catholics take huge notice of what the Vatican says
about family planning. Thats why the Catholics for choice movement
etc.

Dan iel06 “Firstly I am an atheist.”

Ah you must be responding to my statement

“All the pro-life/religious meddlers are nothing more than that, meddlers, hindering the progress of other individuals, to assuage their own overdeveloped sense of narcissistic importance.”

Two points to make
1 I was not referring to you.
2 However, that you feel the need to respond, does confirm my tail comment about prolife supporters and an “overdeveloped sense of narcissistic importance”

“Secondly I think that murdering a baby could be considered as meddling with another persons life - don't you?

Again, an embryo is not a baby, birth and separation from the mother has not been achieved, hence we acknowledge different standards / states of being, different expectations between a baby versus an embryo or a fetus and therefore use different words to describe each.

Just like we recognize that “abortion” is not “murder”.
(different terms referring to different things, your sensitivity for similes is obviously skewed or very obtuse).

The great thing with pro-choice: regardless what a pregnant pro-life person decides in terms of going to term or aborting, I not only support her decision but also her right to make it.

Danielle, the Catholic Church is obsessed by sex and mortal sin. Intimidation and sexual oppression are used as control processes to subordinate their congregants and impose what is recognized by non-Catholics as an immoral influence. It is their power and they exploit it cynically and ruthlessly. If I were not so content with my redneck ways, I think I would of change my logon to “the happy heretic”.

Yvonne – thank you for your comments, I have thought long and deep about “abortion” for many years and remain convinced that the real issue is not abortion itself but what it represents, that is - an individuals sovereign right of choice