For David Palmer

Yes, it has been plain that the Bible is important for you, and I accept that. But with great respect it is not enough for you simply to point to it as the source of authority for others, as you seem to do. I don't see that sexuality has to be confined to marriage, and indeed marriage is no longer the characteristic form of adult partnership for Australians. Regular churchgoers now constitute about 10 per cent or less of our society. If you want to persuade others you'll have to move away from the Bible and argue.

I think the same is true for locating abortion as a form of killing: you do have to consider whether we should be killing anyone at all (that would be the safest and easiest — totally against any killing of humans or foetuses with human potential). But if you accept that some killings are OK, then you have to locate abortion on some sort of continuum — better than X and worse then Y.

You've ducked my question about the way forward, as I expected. I see no reason why people should not become sexually active as they grow older and feel that they would like to (this is actually what happens now). I also think that sexual experience is a useful precedent to marriage or long-term partnership. I can argue the reasons if you want me to. But if you insist that people should not be sexually active until they are married to someone who will be with them through and through — then you have an awfully hard ask. Those days are gone. Our task is to develop a new ethic, not to reach despiairngly for an old one which doesn't work any more (and only worked within the middle class, I should think).

Don,
You said that the women you know don’t like abortion but accept it and I think that would be the view of the vast majority of pro-choicers. Even though nobody likes abortion, people generally accept that access should be available because the alternative would be horrific. The risk of death from unsafe abortion is 100 to 500 times higher than if the procedure is performed under safe conditions.

David and Gerrit,
Abortion, ideally, should only have to happen rarely, but must be safe and available nevertheless.
Keep in mind that the risk to women of safe, legal abortions is very low; much lower than maternal deaths. Also, countries with liberal abortion laws have the lowest abortion rates.
In contrast, think about countries where abortion is illegal and we see that these countries show high numbers of illegal abortions; e.g. in Brazil, 1 out of 5 deaths of women is caused by illegal abortions.

For you who fight against decriminalising abortion to fit with the perfect picture of the ideal moral world of your mind, it’s time to either upgrade your outdated mental software and take a bigger view of the world, or create a “Stepford Wives” world by using force and see if that pleases you.

David,
On hypocrisy: read the link that Crumpethead provided.

You agreed that before birth, a foetus is not a person “I do think personhood is a post birth thing…”
So I don’t understand why you keep insisting that abortion kills ‘children’? If it’s not a person, it is not a child because children are persons. Abortions kill embryos/foetuses, not children.

You started talking about God’s word?
What about the Vatican with its ban on the use of condoms because of blind acceptance of the words of God? I dare say that the Vatican has been partly responsible for large numbers of AIDS deaths, especially in Africa, and the Vatican ignorantly keeps RESISTING realistic sex education, contributing to the spread of the HIV virus. How many kids died from AIDS? How many became orphans?

Continued…

Benedict XVI is finally, in slo-mo of course, realising that condoms might not be such a bad thing after all, and graciously allows it to prevent AIDS (but not pregnancy!) and...within the marriage only.

And, unless the Bible is wrong, God himself has slayed or ordered to slay many infants- the Egyptian first borns, I vaguely remember.

David, you also said: “your non religious viewpoint can be forced on me, by law if possible”.
I wonder how? Decriminalising abortion is not making it compulsory to have an abortion as Yvonne pointed out.

One reasonable point you made is the one of country doctors who are not willing to perform abortion. I’m sure some creative thinkers will come up with solutions for those little country towns that are stuck with anti-abortion doctors. An abortion pill may come in handy, here, too. I agree that these doctors should not have to perform them if they don't want to. This was an interesting point in the debate but not an argument you can use to justify outlawing abortion.

In short:
Everybody who opposes elaborate sex education and the use of contraception is partly responsible for high numbers of abortions and AIDS deaths.
Everybody who opposes decriminalisation of abortion is partly responsible for female deaths due to unsafe backyard abortions.

Everybody who supports realistic sex education, contraception and legal abortion is helping to prevent many unnecessary deaths, diseases and many unplanned pregnancies. They contribute to a reduction in abortion numbers.

David and Gerrit you claim that you want to see a reduction in abortion numbers: now pick what side you are on.
Exclude God and sex for a moment in making your decision- think only of all the aborted foetuses you claim you care about and make a dicision.

I have all along made clear my stance against “most”, not all, abortions has nothing to do with religion. Here we have people claiming that if a woman loses her sexual partner then somehow this justify the abortion of an unborn child. Does this not itself indicate the absurdity of abortions in that regard?

After I divorced my first wife, (we had three children of the marriage) I had later a woman moving in with me and she had 4 children. Actually, my first wife then was blaming me for having fathered those 4 children because of how the children were towards me. She could not believe that non-biological children could adore me as their father within such short time. The truth is they were not biologically my children at all. I didn’t know the mother of the children until after I divorced my first wife.
The point being that a woman isn’t ending up on a scrap heap, so to say, merely because she ends up with children! While later I did break of with this woman I remained friends with her and her extended family, even more then 25 years on.

My position is that if a man gets involved with a woman then he can only do so provided he accept any child or children the woman has. You cannot separate the woman from her children.

Hence, any woman contemplating an abortion because of the fall out with her sexual partner is a fool, as there is bound to come along (if she desires this) another man who would accept the child as being part of her package.

If a man is not willing to accept a child of the woman then to me the woman does better not to get involved in the first place with such a man.

Women should understand you do not abort a child so the woman might be acceptable in future to some man, as if this is the way a woman is to conduct herself she makes her self to be very cheap and a man will treat her accordingly.

Yesterday, one of my adult daughters phoned me wanting to meet-up for a cup of coffee as she wanted to discuss something but didn’t want her mother (my ex-wife) or siblings to knew about it. I immediately responded that she likely was pregnant. She confirmed this. She didn’t want anyone to harass her about having an abortion, etc. Now, here we have a young woman trusting me as her father more and able to talk to me without any fear that I am thumping upon her about having a child and that she should have waited, etc. She knows that my wife (not her mother) would also give her a hard time and will argue about abortion and so just want to keep it between me and her.
While-Celivia-refers-to-me-as-a-“misogynist” it is rather remarkable that all my daughters are finding it far better to be able to talk to me when they need to talk about being pregnant then their mother or siblings. It is because they know I am open minded and not one, so to say, coming down on them like a ton of brick to give all kinds of moral lectures.
Even my daughter who is about to finish her studies at Universities in psychology sought my assistance as to subjects and asks me to set out my views. In fact, one subject she handed in very much reflected what I had written to her albeit she had done all the back up research to compliment the assignment.
My daughters can talk to me even about any special female health issues as they know their dad id precisely that, their “dad” and seek to support them as much as possible in that regard.
They also know that in principle I am against abortions, other then for extreme medical issues, and they rather find this a strength. Regretfully the women movement is talking to much about abortion being some right then to address the real issue in that regard, that not-having an abortion is a woman’s right, and should not be subjected to undue pressure to have an abortion

Gerrit,

it is admirable that you are taking the time to speak candidly with your daughter about her unplanned pregnancy.

You speak repeatedly about the "womens movement" and their frequent lobbying for right to access abortions. Actually, there is no official "womens movement" but there IS an increasing number of women, their partners, friends and families, who have either had abortions themselves or know a close friend or relative who has had an abortion over the last 30 years since abortion has been lawfully (not legally) available. These are people who may previously have had no opinion about abortion, or even been against it, but having personally known someone who had compelling reasons to have a termination, they now understand that it is a necessary service which needs to be protected.

There is a big difference between being chivalrous and genuinely supporting equal opportunity. Opening car doors for your wife is nice, as is making your wife breakfast in bed, but it goes deeper than that. Before your wife fell pregnant with your first child, did you discuss how childcare would be managed or did you assume that she will be a stay-at-home mother? Did you give her the option of continuing her career while YOU stayed at home?

You said a few posts back;

"Lets make it very clear, if a woman get pregnant then giving up her career has nothing to do with a boyfriend splitting or not as if this is the criteria then this would degrade a woman to using a pregnancy to try to keep a man..."

It’s rarely anything to do with trying to “keeping a man”. If a woman is mid-way through her studies, or her career has just started to take off, unless she can afford childcare, continuing the pregnancy would usually require that she abandon her career hopes and go onto welfare. How would she pay the rent or mortgage? Abortion is often the only option that won't require the woman to surrender her plans and become a single mother on welfare.