My apologies for having gone missing a few days:

Celivia

I notice you stray into the topic of the Christian religion.

If you wished to do so, you need to understand what you are talking about. No Christian has understood Jesus having proposed that they cut off their hand when they are tempted to steal. I can’t recollect seeing too many people in church minus hands. It is always amusing to those of us that get tarnished with the label “fundamental Christian” and the like to observe our opponents in their approach to the Bible become the strictest of literalists like Celivia in this instance – bit of a larff really.

Contra Celivia I assert that the morality taught by Jesus has never been surpassed. Try his saying: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.'
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” Matthew 5:43,44.

Col Rouge

You say, “just as copulation is a private endeavour, so to any pregnancy is a private endeavour”. This is not quite right is it, when people use the public health system for abortions.

You say, “That you are not one of the copulating participants leaves your opinion and authority right out there in the cold”. This is nonsense where an abortion results and I suggest you know it.

We applauded the lawyer and Dutchman who went to the aid of the woman attacked outside the night club in King St and yet you propose we continue to accept without question (and really I’m doing little more than protesting) the abortion of more than 1 child in 3.

And don’t give me all that claptrap about it only being a foetus like it is a piece of garbage. 21 days after conception there is the beginnings of a heart pumping blood through its own separate closed circulatory system, his or her own blood type, 42 days after conception brain waves can be recorded, the skeleton is complete and by 7 weeks the unborn child can suck its thumb.

It seems to me (and no surprise) that my opponents, apart from their cheap shots on my account of being a professing Christian, focus all their opposition on the rights of the woman caught with an unwanted pregnancy. I accept that as a legitimate concern but want that situation tested by counselling which does not have an abortion as its natural and purposeful destination. There are other options, thus children offered for adoption have no trouble finding a home.

What I would like to see from my opponents is some honest grappling with the issue that from the moment of conception we have the start of a human life, which rather quickly takes on very human shape and characteristics - I mentioned earlier thumb sucking at 7 weeks.

We love to talk about human rights - in this case the right of the woman to "control her own body", but what about the rights of the inborn?

The cultural revolution of the 1960's and those who foisted it upon us have a lot to answer for. Because ultimately it was a death dealing revolution, it will run its course, if only because those who espouse it will have failed to produce sufficient children to guarantee it a future. I repeat my earlier observation that it is the religious who are today producing enough children for the future and that future will increasingly be religious because the non religious, having no hope, have given up on the future.

"by 7 weeks the unborn child can suck its thumb."

David, because you keep repeating things, it does not
make them so! Any chimp baby will suck its thumb, that
does not make it a person. Reflex actions are just that.

Put down your religious books for once and start asking
yourself what constitutes a person. No functioning human
brain and its not a person. It might be a corpse or it
might be an organism with potential to become a person,
but it does not think or feel, or have a developed,
functioning human brain.

You'll have to wait until week 25, until the basics
of what could be called a person, start to emerge.

You are free to draw your little moral line in the sand
wherever you like, but its simply your subjective opinion,
no more. The "holy zygote" is very much a religious
concept. Given that there is no such thing as objective
morality, you have given no good reason as to why your
little line in the sand is the correct one. Others agree
to disagree. Feel free to live by your little line, others
can live by theirs.

As to the human population, the increase from 1.5 billion
to 6.5 billion, has happened on the back of cheap oil. Once
that runs out, we have yet to find a sustainable solution.

So we have yet to show that these kinds of numbers are sustainable.
If you know anything about biology, you would know that if its
not sustainable, eventually it crashes with a fast thud. Food
for thought.

David Palmer: "I repeat my earlier observation that it is the religious who are today producing enough children for the future and that future will increasingly be religious because the non religious, having no hope, have given up on the future."

Scary though this thought might be, the dire prospect rests upon the assumption that children born to "the religious" will invariably ape the delusions of their parents. I'm not aware of any stats about this, but I do know numerous rational people who have grown out of the various fairy stories and imaginary friends that characterised their childhoods.

I'm not religious, but I certainly haven't given up on the future. On the other hand, I've noticed a generalised tendency among many of the religiously deluded to be uninterested in issues like the environment, overpopulation and resource depletion.

Since 1982 I have conducted a special lifeline service under the motto MAY JUSTICE ALWAYS PREVAIL® dealing with people contemplating suicide/murder even mass murder. When then I have a person contacting me that she is pregnant and unmarried and contemplating suicide because she wants to rather die if her baby has to die then to have an abortion, where people around her pursue she has an abortion then such cases always made clear to me that those freaks who are pursuing women’s rights to the extreme are in fact by this causing young women who do not want to have an abortion but pressured to have one to contemplate suicide. Not uncommon young women having become pregnant gave me the understanding that in particularly other women are placing undue pressure upon them to have an abortion because it as all right, as she has the right over her own body and so can have an abortion. This, even so the young women herself want to have the baby. Like religious freaks you have those freaks about women’s rights who in fact cause far more harm to what is right and proper for women then they are pretending to do. Those freaks are becoming a dangerous pest to other women but in their mania do not even realise let alone comprehend this.
Hello you women, if a young women is pregnant then do not bother her about her right to be the boss over her own body and to abort the baby because you women consider this to be the right thing to do, but leave that young woman to have the baby she desires, as she will be the one who will remain emotional scared if she aborts.
Having a young woman committing suicide because of the pressure put on them isn’t benefiting the so called women’s movement.
I am glad that at least I have been able to assist those young women to understand that their child has as much a right to be born as any other person had when they were born. Had-it-not-been-those-young-women-would-have-been-dead-as-much-as-their-(then)-unborn-babies-and-this-is-the-dire-consequences-those-freaks-do-not-realise-can-result-from-all-their-egoistic-conduct.

CJ,
a scary thought indeed, and since the divorce rate of Christians is higher than that of atheists, one can only figure that there will be many more children growing up in broken homes, and single parent families is an issue which Christians are not supposed to be proud of. Better they to do some damage control and get the contraception out of that dusty drawer.

David,
I do realise that abortion is a complex topic to discuss and that both sides have some reasonable arguments, but I am in favour of decriminalization of abortion because the arguments that are used to defend this view far outnumber and outreason the arguments that are in defense of criminalisation of abortion.

Fact is that over 99% of abortions are being performed in the first trimester of pregnancy. Many miscarriages have occurred within the first trimester, and about 15% of miscarriages occur after the 6th week.
Not a word from the anti-abortion brigade about this. They could shine some light on this fact- perhaps encourage more research into this area and focus on prevention of miscarriages that affect women who desperately want a child.

Fact is that an embryo is not an autonomic human being and has no human rights. We can’t give rights to a potential person, only to an actual person. An embryo completely depends on the working of a woman’s womb (and I’m hoping in the future, an artificial womb). An embryo has no consciousness.

Fact is that not until week 12 has the foetus reflex responses to its brain and not even until the last term of pregnancy, the foetus’ neurons start to grow into distinct parts of the brain and this process won’t be finished at birth. Brain connections that determine how we think, who we are etc develop after birth. There is no reason or indication that a foetus will in any way, suffer or know about its existence.
Women who are forced agains their will to give birth, will suffer!