Goodthief, thank you for your kind words. I'm glad someone gets what I'm trying to bring to the topic.

Yabby, if your not Catholic, and your obviously not, then you can not be coerced into living by any pronouncements handed down by the residing Pope. It's a non issue and a strawman argument that allows you to voice your religious prejudice in the name of being pro-abortion. The Pope does not set the standard for the pro-abortionist who want to limit womens choice to abortion, nor does the Pope influence those of us who are pro-choice and want more available diversity of choices and responsible, safe, sexual practises. We Catholics who are pro-choice understand that the leadership of the worlds Catholic population must be seen to be pro-life. It's his duty as God's Catholic representative. We also have a more current understanding of our Catholicism. We're involved with in our parish and the broader community, take the pill, use condoms and spermicidal, and when worse comes to worse have abortions. We even participate in interfaith marriages with out fear of being excommunicated. But then again we live in the year 2007. Why not join us. So much has changed since 1964 and Vatican II. Primarily that which has avoided "proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogmas carrying the mark of infallibility."
I don't expect you to accept this, or try to understand what it means, or to moderate your disaffection. Your probably dug in pretty deep to ever get out.

Aqvarivs,

I agree with your post to Yabby. Though I generally agree with him, it is pointless to make anyone deny important personal values.
That is what pro-choice is all about. To be able to make the choice most right for your own personally held spiritual and moral values.

But,we must start from the point that the decision to terminate was a considered one with valid reasons for that person.

No abortions are even better than a few. So,let's determine how and if numbers can be reduced.

We can argue ad nauseum about when 'life begins'. This will not reduce abortions.

Celivia has mentioned the experience in the Netherlands. The number of unwanted pregnancies is very small. The exception being amongst new arrivals.

It is because of excellent sex education. The Dutch have often been accused of removing 'the mystery' of sex. There is nothing mysterious about finding yourself pregnant or with an STD. The mystery lies with why you are attracted to, or love a particular person.

Explicit and comprehensive education is paramount. Classes should be mixed. After all it is an activity that takes two! I found it revelatory to hear some of the remarks and questions from the guys. Sex education in Australia is laughable and of negligible benefit.

Equally, there is nothing wrong whatsoever in wanting to follow the teachings of your church. The rhythm method has a lot going for it. Not only to prevent pregnancy, but also to fall pregnant. Besides that, it is fascinating learning the biology of it all. It is empowering to know how a pregnancy occurs. This is a very important part of education. Ditto how and why STD's are transmitted, what it looks like and what the consequences are.

We are so obsessed with HIV, that we forget that the number of common easily transmitted STD's are on the rise. This is shocking.

The issue is that however a person decides to behave as a sexual being, a young person has to know that it comes with specific responsibilities with potentially far reaching consequences, to self and others.

To add a bit of frisson into this debate:

The Department of Health, Britain, introduced a new bill, called the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill in May this year.

The bill covers a number of areas, including research using three types of human-animal embryo:

• Cytoplasmic embryo or cybrid: where a human cell is inserted into an animal's egg that has been stripped of nearly all its nuclear DNA. The embryo would be 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent animal.

• Human-animal chimera: where animal cells are introduced into human embryos.

• True human-animal hybrids: where a human egg is fertilized by animal sperm or vice versa.

The new bill will allow research to use cybrids and chimera, but not the true human-animal hybrids. The law will require all such embryos to be destroyed after 14 days; and under no circumstances would it be legal to implant them into a womb.

However, human embryo (from IVF) storage period will be extended to 10 years from the current 5.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,,2081756,00.html

According to the Journal of Cell Research, scientists in 2003, in China, created the world’s first embryonic chimeras, hybrid embryos that contain human and rabbit DNA.
www.newsmax.com/archives/ articles/2003/8/14/153903.shtml

Regarding my post above:

As I always thought that animal and human species were completely incompatible - in other words, dna from both could not produce a embryo - are we now looking at the fact that at some stage of development - within the first two weeks at least, an embryo can be grown using both species.

Does this mean that what it means to be "human" actually develops at a later stage.

I always assumed that in the case of a human and different species (except perhaps for a primate) a spontaneous abortion would occur if impregnation was attempted. Apparently, not.

I am not a scientist, so would be interested in the scientific explanation.

Aqva, actually when I was a kid, my mother unfortunately decided
that I was to be a Catholic, so the nuns got hold of me and tried
their brainwashing tactics and scare tactics. 5 year olds are still
pretty gullible, but I grew up and learned fast :)

I wish what you said was true, but sadly its not. The Catholic
Church remains highly political around the world. I give them credit
for being masters at lobbying! I remind you, that when the
euthanasia debate in the NT was on, Catholic policiticians came out
of the woodwork from everywhere to can it and we have since been
told by Catholic politicians, that euthanasia won't happen in
Australia.

So we have hundreds of golden oldies from Australia travelling to
Mexico, to buy their stash of drugs, another whole bunch even
spending two years to learn how to make their own, all because they
want to make choices about their lives, when they feel that the time
comes, they want to die with dignity, at their choice. Others stagger
to Switzerland, as best as they are able in their condition, to
make their choices. The Catholic Church uses every influence it can
to stop euthanasia being accepted in Australia, so clearly your
notion that what they say doesen't affect me, is wrong.

What really needs changing is the thinking in Rome. Perhaps it is
finally changing, now that JP2 has fallen off the proverbial perch,
but I am yet to notice it. The Vatican should accept that their
role is preaching to their flocks of believers, not forcing their
dogma on others. In the third world, their political influence is
enormous. It would be inhumane of me to not acknowledge some of that
suffering caused and not to highlight it. Why don't they just stick
to preaching to their flocks and forget the politics?

Ok Danielle, I can but try to help and just hope to be clear.

Most people think that genetics is the sole determinant of life or exactly how an animal develops. It isn't. It's genetics and the protein environment that surrounds them. A skin cell, or any tissue cell cannot develop into a whole organism as it has already passed a type of specialisation threshold that makes it what it is. Even stem cells cannot become whole organisms, even if they can become a number of different tissue types.

A major thing is that embryonic cells, human or animal, contain a specialised protein environment where only certain genes are expressed and then in the right order to make full organisms, something that is lost later in life when tissue specialisation kicks in. Chimera, or cybrids, are embryonic types that can't really be considered human by standard definitions because they don't come from fertilised eggs or sperm (take note Daniel06) but contain the right protein environment necessary for cell division and early organismal development. This is the way that is proposed for cloning "embryonic" stem cells without using actual fertilised eggs. Initially the animal embryonic cell donates the protein environment necessary and the human genes are then injected and turn subsequent cells into human type embryonic cells (because they use human genes which are then turned into human proteins), so scientists can study the very early part of develoment without having to harvest human fertilised eggs (which we have all seen upsets quite a lot of people). However, since this could also be potentially the first step in actually cloning people, it is banned from be implanted into a womb for development. This research also upsets a lot of people because of some human/hybrid value barrier, but as far as I can see does not cross any morality that involves "ensoulment". I hope this has been clear enough, but I know it probably isn't. It is a complicated subject.