Well thank you Amanda for confusing what in reality is simple issue at least from your perspective. Philosophy is obviously not your forte so give up the aspirations to a PhD.
1 or starters abortion is a right not a privilege.
2 what bout the children born to rape victims or incest.
3 why complicate your argument with issues (FGM) that exist in other countries when Australia isn’t a signatory to the human bill of rights.
5 don’t confuse knowledge with intelligence as so many of our prime minister has done.
I too am a right to lifer but not for the religious bunkum these abortion clinic bombers claim
I simply refuse to allow any government the right to decide on who should live or die.
Perhaps a little more life experience will set you on the right path if right is indeed what you seek?
We can all live in hope.

Excellent point Shadow Minister- sadly I think the people you were asking will casually pretend they never read it.

Anyway, I would also like to ask them the following;
What happens AFTER birth- and nobody wants to, or is available to adopt?
Simply suggesting a slim possibility that a loving family is there to collect them or the parents who were willing to abort will always suddenly become super-capable upbringers is about as lazy as logic gets.

Foetuses have been known to survive from 21 weeks onwards.

The 24 week cutoff in VIC is only the point at which a woman needs the "permission" of 2 doctors to say she is physically fit.

In effect we have abortion on demand at any point for any reason in VIC.

Re: personhood of foetus, have you read the author's other article on abortion?

"Pro-choicers have argued that for a living organism to be qualified as a human being, it must provide evidence of mental activity, associated with thought and the mind (i.e., a “soul”). This raises important facts: the foetus’s brain is formed within the second month of pregnancy, and brain waves can be detected on an EEG (electroencephalograph) from 43 days onwards. Some people, however, such as Miriam Clare in The Abortion Issue: Personal Views on a Public Issue, take a perhaps more subjective stance that the synapses of the foetus’s brain must have formed connections for it to be considered its own person. This does not occur for seven months into the pregnancy and thus validates the procedure up until that time.

Pro-lifers, however, argue that because the zygote or foetus always has different DNA to the "mother”, it should be treated as a separate person from conception. Within five weeks, the foetus’s sex might be different from the “mother’s” and within seven weeks the foetus has developed its own blood type. Within 13 weeks, the foetus has everything that will be present in a full-term baby; the next two trimesters involve only a development in its size and strength. Therefore, they argue, the child is not simply an extension of the mother, but, by the time most abortions occur, human enough to warrant the right to life."

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=153

Netjunkie,

Did you even bother to read my post completely?

The issue has almost nothing to do with the status of the fetus. It has simply to do with whether the state has the right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body, or whether she becomes a parent or not.

The guideline of 24 weeks is based on the probable survival of the child. (which at 21 weeks is possible but improbable, and certainly not without serious problems)

Considering that less than 50% of unwanted pregnancies are terminated, most women do so because of the huge social and economic hardship incurred in having a child, and for the pro lifers that glibly suggest adoption, this occurs in about 1% of cases.

Banning abortion is making women slaves to the state and their reproductive systems, and would be similar to banning divorce because it is against god's will.

Abortion is a right not easily exercised.

The coma case is only analogous to a woman who has been raped.

In every other case, the woman has made a decision where one of the possible outcomes is the Creation of a human life.

With rights come responsibilities.

Re: adoption, did you not read where I wrote 6 children were adopted in QLD last yr and less in VIC?

People are on the waiting list for 15 years to adopt and are then still lucky if they manage to.

So many people put their bodies (and tax-payer money) through IVF because they want to be parents but are having difficulty realising that dream.

And you still think it would be difficult to find a loving family for a child born out of an unsupported pregnancy?

Do you realise we allow immigration at about the same rate as we have abortions each year because of an ageing population and failing birth rate?

In Russia they have "national conception day" which is a public holiday where people are encouraged to go home and procreate (I'm shocked Aussies haven't latched onto this holiday yet). The thing is, abortions rates in Russia are really high. It's not lack of conception that's the problem.

Get better sex ed into schools. Do massive campaigns about how the body works and how contraception works. Then enable people to make their own choices. But if one of those choices contains the risk to create life, and that life is created, the choice to end that life because of inconvenience should not exist.

Net junkie,

"6 children were adopted in QLD last yr and less in VIC"

That kind of proves the point that giving a child up for adoption hardly ever occurs because of the emotional trauma to the mother.

"the choice to end that life because of inconvenience should not exist"

Other "inconveniences" include paralysis from the neck down, cancer, and coma.