"Both men and women securely bundled in plastic, swimming in spermicidal and her on the pill and they should never have to face abortion."

Wow Aqva, this all sounds more and more fanatical to me! No
wonder that people don't practise it.

Next we have Gerritt, seemlingly not understanding the difference
between having sex and driving a car. They are quite different!

Society of course is far more reasonable and rational then
both of you.

So far none of you has given a good reason, why abortion
in the first trimester, whether by ru 486 or the slurpy method,
should be considered such a bad thing.

Thats why its become pretty standard in more and more countries,
is considered a health issue rather then a criminal issue and
is condidered a basic human right in more and more countries.

In Australia in practise, thats pretty well much the case too,
although some states have yet to change their laws accordingly.
If they haven't done so, its as usual the religious lobby
who is making a racket. Nobody is forcing them to have an
abortion.

They make male condoms and they make female condoms and they make spermicidals. To not educate and encourage their use but rather depend on abortion is about the stunnedist comment you have ever made. Your not even trying now. Your just kneejerking and using emotionalism to attack language. Do at least try to understand an opposing view and when called for fake a sense of humour. I really shouldn't have to spell this out for another adult.

Gerrit, even if everyone would drive well-maintained cars and the roads were perfect, car accidents still happen. You gave an example of that yourself: “… while I was driving in traffic, my wife suddenly flipped out she was pregnancy. I was so shocked that I hit the brakes and a bus run in the back of me.”

We could argue that your wife ‘shouldn’t’ have told you the news while driving, or that you ‘shouldn’t’ have hit the breaks, or that the bus driver ‘should have’ paid attention, but it would a useless comment because we all know that people are not robots and do have to deal with emotions, feelings, distractions, impulses, urges, etc at any given time, convenient or not, as well.

I'm sure that you or the busdriver were not banned from driving even though you all 'should have' reacted differently. I am confident that people even showed compassion for you, your wife, and the bus driver.

I know the analogy doesn’t apply 100% to unplanned pregnancy, but I hope it’s sufficient enough to illustrate that people do make the wrong decisions because they are not robots without emotions, so in fact 'being human' IS an acceptable excuse for making mistakes.

We are imperfect beings in an imperfect world and all we can do is show a bit of compassion for other imperfect people. We are so eager to criticise others while we’re not perfect ourselves. I'm guilty of that as well.
Marge Simpson: “Hmmmmm Homer, criticising is so easy.”
Homer: ”Yeah, and a lot of fun, too!”

I would even argue with theists that God isn’t perfect, neither was Jesus. Doctrines therefore cannot be perfect either.

I wonder what a (hypothetical) perfect person would do: would s/he criticise and judge others or not? I wouldn’t know the answer to this question myself. It’s complicated, like everything else.

Continued

Technically, aqvarivs, you are correct about supersizing contraception.
But people have emotions, feelings of lust, act on impulses etc. because this is naturally ingrained into our brain, so spontaneity feels damn good.

Sex: everybody likes it- and if we don’t then there’s almost a myriad of remedies to ‘cure’ our disinterest in sex or to simply improve our sex life, from Viagra to penis enlargements. There is so much focus on sex because we are programmed (whether by evolution or God) to crave sex.

Especially, teenagers and young adults have a big interest in sex- after all, lust is something new for them, and frankly, they don’t really know what to do with all those new hormones rushing through their body.

There was a documentary on TV last week, unfortunately I caught only part of it, but it was about the fact that teenagers can’t help taking risks.
Their brain hasn’t matured enough to fully understand risk and anticipate risk. That’s why they take part in extreme sports other dangerous things, have mood-swings etc.
Their brain is confused about compassion as well, because new hormones get flushed through their system, sometimes in the wrong ‘doses’ etc. This all still has to settle down.

I figure we can apply that knowledge to teen-sex as well. We can’t expect teenagers and young adults to behave in the same responsible way as adults- it’s biologically or physically impossible for them.

Thanks Don, it is indeed all very complicated, I’m struggling with the topic as much as anyone else. I haven’t adopted a certain ‘stance’ or a particular philosophy or outlook on this- not out of principle but simply because I find everything so complicated that I don’t fully understand anything at all.

That’s why I have a problem with doctrines or absolute philosophies because they stop necessary changes and claim they're correct. Time changes and so do morals and ethics. Call it the zeitgeist. But I’m positive that over time, morals have changed for the better and that socially, we are progressing. But we still have a long way to go.

Yabby the expert:
If a zygote has the DNA of *both* parents, why is only the mother, and not the father, consulted regarding abortion?
His DNA is in there too. It's "his body" as much as it is hers.

Zygotes exist for 2 weeks before becoming embryos.
By the time a woman *knows* she's pregnant, there would be no zygote.
There would be an embryo. With its own DNA.

"Murder" is just another name for "deliberate non-defensive killing".
Just because something isn't a "person" or "conscious" doesn't mean you can't "murder" it?
You're debating semantics, not science.

If I kill a fungus or a bacterium, I have "murdered" it (unless it was self-defence), as I have deliberately killed it.

Bacteria don't have rights because they're not *human*.
Zygotes, embryos and foetuses are human.

Human cultures have permitted the killing of *other* species (even "intelligent" ones like whales) for food, clothing, sanitation.

Only *primitive* societies have approved the deliberate non-defensive killing of our *own* species (cannibalism, human sacrifices).
Are doctors in modern hospitals primitives?

Celivia, my comments about immigrants related to the numerical statistics, not economic costs.

But what of the "costs" of migrants?
The language barriers causing unemployment?
NESB students' learning difficulties?
The fact that *half* of them leave Australia anyway, so why have these problems in the first place!

What of the "cost" of the loss of thousands of children who could have contributed to our political, economic, artistic, spiritual, philosophical, technological and scientific spheres?

There was only *one* Einstein (unique DNA).
Only *one* Michelangelo (unique DNA).
What if the world had missed their contributions?
At least migrants have had a chance to contribute to the world.

Crumpethead, abortion isn't 100% safe and also has side effects like depression.
Abortion can kill the mother! Pretty nasty side effect!

Contraceptives only "fail" if a penis is ejaculating into your vagina, not in your mouth, anus, skin, hands, headboard.

Failure rate of 1.35% for combined pill/condom use would cause 27,000 pregnancies?
Are miscarriages deducted from this figure?
27,000 failed condoms/pills is less than *half* the abortions.
What's causing the other half?

Shocka, I remind you that billions of his dna cells go down the
sewers on a regular basis, so his investment is virtually nil,
but a moment of pleasure. She invests in 9 months of discomfort
and the risk of losing her life. Therefore its only fair enough
that she has more of a say.

An embryo still only has the dna it inherited from its parents.
New dna would require a mutation to happen.

Murder is what we apply to killing people. An embryo is not
a person. Now you are free to talk about "murdering" bacteria,
flies, carrots or whatever, but thats not how the word is normally
used, except by a few pro lifers trying to use semantics to
make their argument.

Since when do human cells have rights? Every cell in your
body contains the dna to build another body. If you graze your
leg, you kill millions of them. Do those cells have rights?

"Smart" human societies ensure that they live sustainably,
or in the end their whole society is wiped out, as history
shows.

If you want more Einsteins etc, then we can show that good
education is the key. Better perhaps to educate and reduce
suffering amongst those already billions of people then
simply create unlimited new billions just for the hang
of it and land up with even more suffering and collapse
of societies.

Abortion is something like 8 times safer then giving birth.
We went through all that stuff ages ago on OLO.