"Seems there’s a problem with getting the message across about prevention.
Facts and figures don’t seem to matter much to the anti-abortion groups, which seem concerned only with helping women who have already become pregnant avoid abortion.
Doesn't that make anti-abortionist groups a big part of the problem rather than part of the solution?"

Celivia, I think that you are quite correct here. First class
sex education in schools, is often held up by religious groups,
who claim that just abstinence should be preached. We can see
in the US, compared to say Holland, how effective that is!

So I think its more then that, they want control of peoples lives.
They used to threaten us with burning in hell forever or threats
of judgement day etc. That simply doesent work anymore, so they
need other forms of control. Can't have these young hoodlum
teenagers go screwing around now, fornicating when they are not
even married. Sheesh, shock horror.

So they want the threat of pregnancy as a form of leverage, to keep
those people in line, according to their little worldview.
Contraception, sex education, the morning after pill, RU 486,
abortion etc, threaten all that. People can actually enjoy sex with
partners, without being married, knowing that their are options.
How terrible!

I will believe the pro life mob, ie that they are sincere, when
they start calling for better sex education in schools, easy and
cheap availability of contraception, the snip being availabe even
in Catholic hospitals etc. Somehow I doubt that it will happen.

Why don't they just come out and honestly say what they think?

That was very careless of you, Bugsy, misquoting me like that! I did not use the word "embryo", in fact I deliberately avoided it, because it is a word commonly used in a positive sense by women who are happily pregnant. Not so the terms I actually used - "zygote", "organism" and "clump of cells". Women don't use these terms to describe their unborn baby unless they intend to end the baby's life. And of course they are used by those advocating abortion precisely because they tend, in their context, to demean the human status of the unborn. Surgical abortion (the topic of this discussion)is never performed on a "zygote" (a newly fertilized egg), so why use misleading terminology, except to mislead?
"Organism" suggests something which grows in hot, unhygienic conditions, something nasty and formless which is seen only under a microscope. Again, irrelevant to surgical abortion. And "clump of cells" - once more, a ridiculous and deliberate contortion of the reality of a perfectly-formed (in most cases) and fully recognisable small human being. I'm curious as to why unwanted pregnancy is even a problem for those who resort to this kind of argument, when they couldn't even lie straight in bed.
Clearly, abortion and contortion are identical twins. If ever there was a case for "selective reduction", this is it.

Peter D, your last post spoke volumes on how much you value semantics over real ideas. And I mantain that your argument is teleological, that the present is defined by the future. That zygotes and embryos are defined by what they will become, not by what they are. Taken to its logical end, this philosophy is only valid in a designed universe. You probably don't have a problem with that, but I don't believe in magic.

In biblical times, I wonder at what stage women actually considered themselves pregnant. As every woman knows, a missed period is no confirmation, nor two missed periods, even three. Confirmation in the early stages can only be through a test. For all we know, women in the biblical era may have been resorting to herbs to regulate their periods, herbs which in fact were abortificants. Menstruation can be notoriously irregular, especially in women under stress of environment, food, etc. Trapessing through the desert following Moses must have been extremely stressful, and especially, downright inconvenient at times to be pregnant; - and there has always been "secret women's business".

I mentioned a herb earlier that women, even very devout women, used with complete conscience. Certain herbs are definitely dangerous for pregnant women. They carry warnings not to ingest; sometimes, not to apply to the skin. They are known abortificants.

Perhaps women in the biblical era determined themselves pregnant when they could actually feel the baby move. This would certainly be a sign of confirmation in an era without medical science as we know it.

During the most devout period of Christianity, the Church for many centuries was not loathe the “snip”. Under Paul’s injunction about women’s voices to be silent in church, the Church circumvented this prohibition by using castrati. The castration of 8 and 9 year old boys to sing choral works “ad Gloria Deim”. Whilst at times ambivalent about this practice, the Church did not ban this until 1903 with Pius X “motu proprio, Tra le Sollecitudini” . The last Sistine Chapel castrato was Alessandro Moreschi, who retitred in 1913, dying in 1922. Records of his singing can still be found.

Also at the peak of Christian faith, with the crusades, the chastity belt was introduced; a diaphram “par excellence.”

TurnRightThenLeft, I said pro-abortionist. And the argument isn't unsubstantiated. At one time single women who were known to have sex or got pregnant outside of wedlock were cast out from decent families. And the men if known or caught met with summary justice, being seen to with sword, pistol or whip.

For myself, the teleological argument as you put it, is sufficient. While I am willing to concede that abortion has a medical necessity I am also able to recognise that abortion is about terminating a life and I see no reason to hide that fact with in a promoted prescription for abortion, nor shelter those seeking abortion from that reality.

If you can by societal outcomes draw a line in between stages of life to promote the acceptance of killing then death knows no boundaries and science will not as it does currently strive to prolong life or seek answers to disease. There will be no reason, because it will be socially acceptable to poll the majority and kill whatever you have thought to kill or desire to kill. The only thing holding you back will be the poll count and not moral or ethical principle.

I am not saying life is automatically sacred and can not be terminated. I am saying life IS sacred and IF it is to be terminated, IT should be for a very good reason and not someones discomfort of having to face up to the responsibility of a previous decision/act.

If you can show me with fact that 80,000 plus yearly abortions (or what amounts to more than ¼ of all births each year in Australia) are being performed of medical necessity I would rest at ease and no longer post to these threads. I would even take it a step further and suggest such threads wouldn't even exist. People are concerned. The pro-abortionist want more unrestricted access to abortion and the pro-choice want more choices available for consideration.
For myself that means proactive consistent contraceptive practice and education.