What a delight to read the enlightened words of King Hazza and his Shadow Minister:

"abortion is a very difficult choice, adoption is impossible"?
Impossible? It follows that no child was ever given up for adoption.

"an agenda based on pettiness"?
So everybody who disagrees with you on this life and death issue is doing so out of "pettiness"?

Thank you so much for your words of wisdom.

Methinks it is reason and respect for life "which (un)fortunately carries little weight today".

Very well Herman- let's put it to the test- please share your thoughts on the following situations:
-if a woman was raped, should she be required to carry the pregnancy?
-If there was a person who was a siamese twin- the other twin a gigantic tumor connected to his/her bloodstream- but very much a living breathing human (in every sense that a fetus is), is the healthy twin required to carry the tumorous twin around for their whole life knowing that the other will die without him/her connected?
-If a woman finds out her child, during pregnancy has a massively debilitating birth defect which will prevent it from ever being autonomous, is she required to still carry it?

This will probably be near the last time I bother trying to make a hypothesis for you people to address- me, Shadow and many others have given you opportunities to try to justify your positions and so far have had our questions avoided. Feel free to worm your way out of these ones too and I will happily assume you have no argument and that I am in fact completely correct in my assumptions about you and your 'ethical stance'- and the amount of thought you actually put into your viewpoint.

Sorry for the confusion.

People keep talking about pregnancies being “inflicted on women” by evil, religious men in government, as if women are walking down the street and then BAMN they’re suddenly pregnant.

In 99.993% of cases that is simply not the fact!

The pregnancy is a result of a volitional choice.

Reproductive rights include reproductive responsibilities.

Surely even somebody who DOESN’T value life in the womb can understand this.

Re: rape case and other “difficult” issues: I think abortion should be legal if there is an extreme threat to the mother’s physical or psychiatric health. Why? Because of this, and only this, reason: Truly desperate women do go to truly desperate measures (evident overseas with botched abortions). I’d rather one person dead than two.

Of course I’d rather none. And I’d hope that in the course of good clinical care a woman would be encouraged not to abort. A woman who has been raped has undergone a major psychiatric risk factor. However, a woman who undergoes abortion is at a massive risk for moderate-severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidality (1 in 3 within 5 yrs). Even in Sweden, whether abortion has been legal, readily available, and widely without stigma for many years, 1 in 4 women feel excessive guilt over their abortion.

When a woman is rape, no matter what happens, it is a hard decision. Why? Because she’s been raped. Whether she’s raped + raises the kid, raped + aborts or raped + adopts out, it is going to be hard. There’s no getting around that.

Now I believe that it is that a woman who is suicidal needs a psychiatric intervention not an abortion. But if abortion is entirely unavailable to someone in such an extreme situation, she won’t be available for either.

However, do you think a woman mildly disconcerted re: being pregnant for the rest of the 9 months is really going to risk her life with a backyard abortion?

There’s a rapper, conceived by rape, who wrote a song thanking his mum for not killing him. He said “I’m not trying to mak

a political statement, I just want to thank my mum for life.”

Now this whole thing about “promiscuous women” getting their “just desserts”… I think you might just have a chip on your shoulder because you’ve unfortunately met too many judgmental people in your life.

I make no such distinction. But I think most reasonable people should keep in mind that pregnancy is so incredibly rarely something that happens to women without a choice and so acting like a victim who has had something forced just isn’t applicable for the majority of women.

OK for majority of women seeking abortions to avoid impact on their work and studies: I agree it wouldn’t be ideal for a lot of these women to raise their children… therefore… ADOPTION… the pregnancy is only 9 months… you can take a semester off university… you can take time out of work… you can get government/charity support.

Some families are strong enough to handle another (planned or unplanned) kid, some aren’t. Abortion isn’t the answer when there is a 15 yr waiting list of people wanting to adopt.

BTW yes adoption can be a really difficult choice. But so is abortion. Have you read “Giving Sorrow Words” by Melinda Tankhard-Reist?

Re: specific cases:
Rape --> psychiatric assessment --> possibility of legal abortion but discouraged by health care workers.
Siamese twin --> attempt operation to remove knowing there’s a significantly high chance the twin will die. However, if you know there is absolutely NO chance the twin will survive, I would say no. But let me think about that a bit more.
Birth defect--> if we kill disabled foetuses because we don’t think they’re worthy of life, what does that say about disabled people in our midst?

Honestly, between the word limit, 24 hr rule, and the fact that your questions don’t really engage with what I and others have been saying a lot of the time, some of your questions just haven’t been worth answering. But tell me if I’ve missed anything.

(Oh, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t mentioned religion in this discussion.)

King Hazza,
I do not dispute the complexity of the issues you raise.
However, you are being disingenuous in raising them.
The hypotheticals you cite represent less than one percent of abortions,
yet you would use them to justify the other ninety-nine percent.
If I responded yes to abortion in those rare cases you would see that as justification for all abortions.
If I responded no to abortion in those rare cases you would see that as justification for calling me a fanatic.
Ergo, anybody who opposes any abortion is a fanatic.
I fully support every woman's right to do what she wants with her body.
It's just that it isn't her body that she's doing it to.
To say that it is, is logically and biologically untenable.

Without delving into the rights and wrongs of abortion, the question of individual rights is interesting.
I think a point that needs to be made, vis a vis rights, is that a Bill of Rights is pointless without the basic right to trial by jury.
As Peter Hume points out, currently our parliamentarians are the sole arbiters of what's right and what's wrong. They mostly don't want a bill of rights, as (they say) it takes power away from democratically elected representatives, and gives it to 'the Judges'; who aren't, under our system, directly democratically elected.
No politician ever wants to diminish his/her own power.
The advantage of a jury is that a well chosen jury can and should have members from all walks of life; rich, poor, male, female... Also, jury members cannot derive any immediate personal benefit from their deliberations.
Parliamentarians are by definition, all from just one sector of the population. They are all in the top 10% (or is it 5%?) highest wage earners in the country (largely through their own deliberations). Personally, I don't believe this makes parliament the best venue for decisions on morality and ethics, particularly considering many if not most of them call themselves Christian, and further considering Christ's admonitions against wealth.
In the particular case mentioned, I believe the doctor's exalted position only gives her the right to make medical decisions; not the right to dictate moral ones.