Yabby, I'm all too aware *you* have a one track mind.

Unfortunately for you, your mechanistic materialism has been discarded by almost everybody except you, because of its inadequacies to explain the "little fantasy trip" of a universe we live in.
You're a dying breed.

As a pro-multiculturalist, you should also know your clockwork universe is incompatible with Islam, Hinduism, some schools of Buddhism, almost all forms of Christianity, and many non-religious philosophies.

I personally take any expressions about the "truth" or "morality" of anything with a grain of salt.

All we know for sure is:
1. The unborn are *alive*.
2. They're *human*.
3. They'll *inevitably* become fully formed humans if left alone.

So I think we should err on the side of *caution*.
We should give the *benefit of the doubt* to the unborn, rather than making grand unprovable claims about "consciouness" or "rights".

If you allow abortion, on grounds that turn out to be *false*, you have the blood of innocents on your hands.

Can you live with that?
Good for you, I can't.

" I'm all too aware *you* have a one track mind."

Shocka, I do exactly what more and more people are doing,
i.e. I require some evidence for people to substantiate
their various claims. There is a growing mountain of
evidence! Remember when people were convinced that the
earth was flat? Remember when people thought that the
heart was where all the thinking happened, the brain
was just the cooling mechanism? Substaniated evidence
changed all that. For things that we don't yet know
or understand, it perhaps makes sense to know that
we don't know and wait until we do have some evidence.

"you should also know your clockwork universe is incompatible with Islam, Hinduism, some schools of Buddhism, almost all forms of Christianity"

Umm so what? Where is their evidence that they are correct?
Clearly nearly all of them are wrong! More interesting is
why people invent religions in the first place. Neuroscience
can provide some plausible explanations to that question.

"If you allow abortion, on grounds that turn out to be *false*, you have the blood of innocents on your hands."

Ahem, so rather force women to have children they don't want and
then stick em into orphanages. No thank you! As a humanist
I prefer to see less suffering in the world, not more.

Shocka, you put a lot of effort into this post, and I think most people realise that there are different ways of looking at any issue.
But why should women who are faced with an unwanted pregnancy have to look at abortion a different way?
You may be right that abortion is perhaps a cause of high immigration, but so what? If that’s true, then contraception may also be a cause; then you should oppose contraception as well.
I am glad that there is a place for immigrants in Australia- why should people not have the opportunity to move to a different country if they’re not happy with the regime of their own? If you had been born in a poor or oppressive country, or a theocracy, you might have wanted to come to Australia also.

Why did your ancestors migrate?

Australia is a wealthy country today because of immigration.
To say that people should keep breeding to stop immigration is oppressive and dictating. Perhaps you can migrate to a more oppressive country.

Even though Islam might not be compatible with democracy without undergoing some basic reform, the fact is that the vast majority of Muslims in the world don’t support hate crime or terrorism and are good citizens.
Anyway, the Bible has also been used as an excuse to commit crimes.

Mr Gerrit H Schorel-Hlavka “We still have this nonsense about women rights over their own bodies, where this simply is misguided as an argument. … . However, if a woman gives up that right by engaging in sexual intercourse”

So they should be powerless in the face or pregnancy?

I do not like to bring this up but rape victims are powerless victims in their circumstance of their situation.

We are autonomous individuals, our bodies are sovereign.

Hitler demands on Aryan women was to impose the death penalty on any who attempted abortion. That type of society is not the one I want to belong to.

As for “Why indeed should a woman be entitled to have IVF if somehow she still can claim she has every right to abort the unborn child because it is her body?”

Different women choose different things.

“Simply,-don't-make-decisions-to-give-up-your-sole-right-or-face-the-possible-consequences! It is that simple!”

No it is not, that is “simplistic”.

Just as some folk rage against mans management of the earth and demand wilderness be left as wilderness, the truth is men and women, by nature manage their environment. Abortion is merely an extension of that management process, just like broadacre farming and economic division of labour are other ways of “managing the environment”.

Dear Sir

This is *not* a moral issue.
Please leave religion out of it.

I only accept the findings of science.
And there's no *scientific* reason why I can't own slaves.

Slavery primarily affects cotton farmers.
If you don't grow cotton, you are *not entitled* to an opinion on the subject.
Mind your own business.

If you don't want to own slaves, you don't have to!
Nobody's forcing you to own slaves.
Each person should make their own decision, based on their personal needs, beliefs and circumstances.

As humans, slaves may have *some* rights, but the rights of their *owner* precede and prevail over them.

Suggesting slaves and their owners have *equal* rights is preposterous!
I've never heard anything so laughable in my entire God-fearing life!

Rather than criminalising slavery, the government should in fact provide a free, on demand, slave procurement service.

Criminalisation would only encourage an unscrupulous black market, where slaves may arrive in substandard condition or not at all.

At least with a government agency, slaveholders would be guaranteed the service they pay for.

Slavery has existed for thousands of years.
I don't see why it should stop now.

President Lincoln
Keep your laws off my property!

Yours sincerely
Reginald P. Wimpleton
Curb Religion Under Democracy (CRUD)
18th February 1863

Ah Shocka, thats where you are your friend Reginald
are wrong.

Slavery, like abortion, is a moral issue. But as
there is no such thing as objective morality, its
a question of where the subjective line in the
sand is. As I explained to you with the law of
consent being 12,14, 16, 18 whatever.

Morality is actually grounded in biology, not
as the religious claim, only due to them.

As we have all stated here, we respect the rights
of people. So we are against slavery, which includes
trying to turn women into broodmares for those with
a social agenda, against the wishes of those women.

Based on that, the morality of Celivia, Col and myself
is superior to yours :)