Celivia said "Why don't they tell the politicians to improve sex education at schools? "

Well that would fit a common misconception that the young are the ones having abortions.

However the (unplanned) pregnancies in the young flattened out and then dropped years ago. It is still going down I believe.

Women aged 25-35 are responsible for the lions share of unplanned pregnancies and one can only guess at the reasons because there has been no research directed at this anomaly. Discounting those who arrived at post-secondary school age, those women (and their partners) would have received sex education in schools.

Explain that and you will get a large drop in abortions because few women would want to have an abortion in the first place.

If you can honestly say to yourself "my mother, parents and the world would have been better of without me," then you can logically support abortion. Suicide is not sanctioned, but it is difficult to punish successful adherants. However, accessories to a 'suicide' can be punished.

One abortion is one too many for the baby involved, and the failure rate for abortions doesn't see too many live babies around, nor too many prosecutions.

Unsuccessful suicides indicate a need for treatment, not someone to say 'here's X, now go and do it properly this time!' If one's mental capacity is despondent due to circumstances or future prospects, death is a rather direct and conclusive 'treatment' albeit cheaper for society. Terminations also need the persons to be helped.

A retrospective abortion would be referred to as murder, so placental imprisonment and 'abortion death row' are the reasons the Church doesn't support the prison death penalty, regardless of where you are. As to what the baby is guilty of, well, you be the judge...

We must address the desperation involved in any person being unwanted, be they a baby, or the old person next door who many don't want to bother with - it's obviously their decision to live alone and cut off from society. Why should I impose my concern on them.

O-oh. Another holy roller helping to take down the curtain between church and state.

Next time the pill would be outlawed and we'll be going back to the workhouse.

Well, we're an aware and literate crowd here, we're not likely to be sucked in by a bunch of backward fundamentalists.

I must notice the irony that most of the growth of the fundamentalism is in lower socio-economic groups rather than upper SES. I am an atheist, and was prior a long-lapsed catholic.

Religiously inspired twaddle. "unborn child" is begging the question, and David bloody well knows it. I can see no reason why I should respect the moral reasoning of someone who takes their moral instruction from a mythical being.

As a “CONSTITUTIONALIST” I may not like certain provisions in our (Federal) Constitution (such as racial discrimination ) but accept that the Framers of the Constitution in their time.
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Those men who are dead for over one hundred years with perhaps (as some claim) their outmoded views that one should look after the weak, the poor, etc obviously would be deemed to be held to be wrong, and people will now refuse their different kind of social security payments, their hospital funding, and whatever there is available on social services as who cares about the wellbeing and rights of others!
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Or, is it just that those screaming the loudest about their right of Abortion are trampling over themselves to get first in line for social handouts because after all it is the plight of society to look after the vulnerable, the ill, the aged, etc?
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I do not practice any religion and hence no one can accuse me of religious bias. When one of my daughters, many years ago asked me to abort her baby or not I gave her the fatherly advise that I could not make the decision for her but that I would respect her if she was to keep the baby. Years later, my daughter made known to me that because of what I had stated she holds her life is the better of it and so of the child. Yes, she decided not to abort, despite that most people were putting pressure on her to abort the child. Then again, I had previously had to visit another daughter in hospital when she was given less then 24 hours to live because (as I then discovered) an abortion had gone wrong. She survived but she regrets the day having had the abortion.
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All those people supporting abortion just should keep in mind that they would not be alive today if it was done to them! As such their hypocritical conduct is that what was not good for them is good for others.
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I-do-not-call "unwanted pregnancy" something-that-spontaneous-was-happening. I-would-accept-that-a-FEMALE-being-raped-may-in-certain-circumstances-have-no-option-to-abort-and-so-likewise-with-where-the-life-of-the-mother-is-in-serious-danger. Those-ought-to-be-the-exceptions-rather-then-the-rule. Any-other-time-I-view-ABORTION-is-no-less-then-MURDER!

Seether,
exactly: countries with the most liberal abortion laws have the lowest abortion rates and that’s why I don’t understand that fundies are so ‘factophobic’. Why are they ignoring this? I suspect their real agenda is oppression of women.

Aqvarivs,
I agree, however, no contraception is 100% reliable so abortion should always be free, safe and easily accessible.

Runner,
Yeah let’s all do what the morally gifted do, like...lemme see… Catholic Priests perhaps?

Cornflower,
yes you are correct that the figures appear to have moved. I’m not sure if these figures are reliable though; how can they get their figures if no proper data has been kept? I just doubt that where records are not kept one can come up with reliable statistics. I am taking any Australian abortion statistics with a grain of salt. Anyway, it doesn’t make a huge difference- education is still important in preventing pregnancies.

Reality check,
last time I checked babies do not get aborted- embryos and foetuses do- and more than 99% of abortions in the Western world happen during the early term of pregnancy.

Inner-city based transsexual,
good to see another atheist on this forum.

Bushbasher,
now that was funny and I totally agree with the use of the emotive term ‘unborn child’. Anti-choicers always use this term. An embryo is as much an unborn child as David Palmer is an undead corpse.

Mr. Gerrit,
thanks for sharing your experiences although I do not agree with you. Are you calling your daughter a murderer because she had an abortion?
Also, if my mother had chosen to abort a being without a brain or consciousness, (potentially me) it would’ve been her prerogative right as a woman.
I have two children and never had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy but I respect women who have had to make this very hard choice that they didn’t want to make.