Not when the woman can just abort it. Your whole focus on men is monetary, nothing else. Men ought to have the same choice as the woman. To be a parent or not. You claim any man not wanting to be a parent as running from responsibility, yet any women who has an abortion rather than be a parent is exercising her right to maintain her lifestyle and future plans. Your so bound by your politics you can not even see your own two-faced approach to what you profess is human rights. No, that's woman only rights. Yes, men can have vasectomies, and women can have radical hysterectomies. Those are also choices. You never suggest women get a hysterectomy though, so I find the comment closer to your opinion of men than any actual addition to the conversation. I believe men and women can communicate prior to the sexual relationship and be mutually respectful of each others decisions. And I don't think single mothers or single fathers are a bad thing. I would like to see more fathers allowed to have the children they want. Single people should be able to adopt. If the woman doesn't want to be a mother why can't she have the baby for the man if that is his wish. There are many ways things can go. Choice can be more than limited choice of abortion. Women have to step back from the sexual punitive attitudes they carry as part of their sense of empowerment fed to them by feminist man haters. Pro-choice means multiple choices. Not either or. Times are a change'n and so are the ways and means of human relationships. Feminist and the Courts are way behind the curve. People want more diversity than the Church wedding and the missionary position. People are coming together in diverse ways and for diverse means and the old mother/father/baby image is only going to be one of the many. Laws and people have to change to accommodate as single male parents, single female parents, gay parents, lesbian parents, transgendered parents, becomes more the norm.

I honestly don't think you should read this thread independently from the stories by Bernie Matthews.

Bernie Matthews tells the stories of children institutionalised in NSW in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1950s and 1960s effective contraception was not available to single women and abortions were only available to rich women. When girls became pregnant they were yanked out of school and disappeared while they had their baby. The lucky babies were adopted and the unfortunate babies were bought up in institutional care. Now not all children in care would have been brutalised but there is ample evidence that many children were treated far more harshly than their contempories who lived with mum and dad.

Women who had babies adopted out would never recommend adoption ahead of aborting unwanted pregnancies.

Aqvarius complains that women look at a man's ability to provide monetary support for his family. Well there is nothing new in that! Statistically, Australian men with low earning capacity or low status jobs are less likely to be married or be fathers and well educated high paid women are less likely to have children.

Surveys show that children growing up in poverty in Australia have worse health, do worse at school, are more likely to leave school early. People living in poverty are more likely to suffer mental illnesses like depression and schizophenia. The major cause of children growing up in poverty is that they are growing up in sole parent families. The Australian government defines subsistence income in Australia as an income under $13,000 per annum. At the moment I can't remember the number of children growing up in poverty but its at least 25%.

So whilst fertile adults have sex for recreation, to gain approval, to be part of the group as well as to make new humans then unwanted pregnancies will occur. The social cost of forcing women to continue with unwanted pregnancies is too high for the individual women, the baby and the society that grudgingly rears the child.

The old feminist chant used to be "EVERY CHILD A WANTED CHILD"

Some years ago, my wife and I attended to a seminar that was educating people how to invest the net value of your house into buying other properties and make a lot of money in the process. All people attending, other then myself, were quickly in discussions as to how to get involved, even my wife, however I wanted no bar of it. For weeks my wife kept berating me for having wasted this good opportunity of investment, etc. Years later, those who invested lost their homes, because the entire investment scheme was a con. Now my wife realise, I wasn’t a fool to risk our properties. Excuses by others that they didn’t realise the consequences isn’t going to get their homes back!
With sexual intercourse you likewise take a risk, no matter how you may plan everything and whatever protection you may take. If you never the less get involved in it then you simply must face the consequences as you cannot make undone the deed.
By hindsight most people would not have done some conduct if they had known how it ended, but they did and suffered the consequences if it went wrong.
With sexual intercourse it is even worse as it is creating another human being, who was in a sense the unwilling participant, or the victim.
A woman who has a hysterectomy obviously can do as she likes, but if she doesn’t (have a hysterectomy) then she takes the risk and if a child is created then she should accept the consequences and not cowardly have an abortion. Let her then give the child to the father or if he doesn't want the child adopt-out the child to a couple who failed to be able to conceive. Then the child is still wanted!
Women who have abortion after abortion hardly can claim it is an accident. Again, why not have the baby and then decide to keep it, give custody to the father, or to have it adopted out to a couple who so much unsuccessfully tried to conceive.

Billie,
thanks for your info on child poverty; it’s far too sad that, in a country that boasts about surpluses, so many children (and adults) are living in poverty. Yabby is right: focus on people who are suffering.

David, these are some interesting points.

Too many abortions?
I think that there are too many unwanted pregnancies; when these are prevented as much as possible the abortion rate will come down proportionally. How many abortions are “too many”? All I know is that we cannot put a limit on the number but we can try to minimise numbers by utelising the most effective methods we know of to prevent pregnancies, which are, atm, education and free contraception (both partners!).

What am I prepared to do about it?
Persuading people from the anti-abortion side to realise that ignoring contraception and sex-education will do nothing to reduce abortion numbers. I’m prepared to constantly repeat myself ad nauseam: )

Backyard abortions
True, that antibiotics reduce the risk of dangerous infections, but should we expect Australians to undergo operations under inferior conditions?
Imagine that there was some religious group believing that it was against God’s will to have tonsillectomies and not wanting to decriminalise these operations; would we accept to have our tonsils taken out in backyards because antibiotics will fix infections anyway? Why should pregnant women have to accept lower medical standards than anyone else just because of the beliefs of certain groups?
Besides, I can imagine other things going wrong apart from infections- for example women could become infertile from a faulty procedure and won’t be able to start a family when they’re ready later in life.

Requiring pregnant women to view ultrasound images?
Including women who have been victims of rape and incest? Whoever thought of this idea must have no heart.
Is that supposed to be Christian compassion?
As if pregnant women are not going through enough emotions without adding this guilt-trip.
A bit of love, compassion and understanding won’t go astray.
PERHAPS, women could be offered this as an option only if they need it and ask for it.

billie, try a little harder. Use cut and paste to tell what other say rather than have your own thinking on a subject override the original post.

Poverty in Australia is $23,000pa or less and single men make up the greatest proportion, followed by two parent families of three or more children with a household earnings of $426.00/wk

Sole parents remain the group "most at risk" of being in poverty because loss of employment has a greater impact than in two parent families where both parents are employed. As a representation of the general population single parent families are not by virtue living in poverty.

At least 12 methods are used to measure poverty, all of which reach different results.

I suggest people read Poverty edited by Justin Healey (ISBN 1 876811 79 X)

David Palmer “but this cuts both ways, doesn’t it. A woman has “opportunity for personal growth” through choosing not to have an abortion.”

What ProLife would see is all “choice” removed and an intention of a full-term pregnancy imposed on every woman who fell pregnant, regardless of what her individual wishes might be. There is no opportunity for individual growth in the circumstance of an imposed limit of choice to “No choice”.

I wish to see respect for the right of all women to choose, regardless if they choose to abort or continue with the pregnancy.
You are wishing for something which denies them that respect.

“You are tough on women, Col Rouge.”

I have never assumed that the burden of making a decision is either easy or without regret. I merely wish for every individual to make as many of the material decisions in their life as they can, rather than their right of choice and sovereignty being usurped by the state or , worse, usurped by a the demands of a minority lobby groups who focus on pressuring the state to gain disproportionate and unrepresentative influence.

“but there are an awful lot of barbarians and wimps out there, no good at all to any woman.”

Some might say that the “lack of character” of some women qualifies them for nothing better than a barbarian or wimp.
Certainly such women will not develop greater “character” if they are forced to comply with the demands of strangers, rather than learn to shoulder the burden of decision for themselves.

Btw as an individual, I am not responsible for either the barbarians or wimps. I am responsible for my own behaviour and actions.

I believe we are all responsible for speaking up in the face of tyranny.

I would be less than the person I aspire to be if I were not to stand up and challenge the tyranny of ProLife, when they seek to impose “their absolute will” upon others who do not share their beliefs and to inflict an outcome which they do not bear any responsibility for.