Sancho, I need a more specific pamphlet. I'm getting confused.

Maybe I'm an earth worshipper, but I don't recall worshipping soil lately.
A god hater? If there is a god, he, she, it or Version 2.11 evidently has bigger problems than worrying about whether I believe in it. I certainly don't hate it, it's just been lax about returning unsent mail.
Maybe I'm a secularist, though I dunno if that fits given that I'm a 'live and let live' kinda guy, which means I'm fine with religions practicing their beliefs provided they don't foist themselves on others, like this idiotic DLP party which seems to be a front for Catholic preachers rather than a party who will listen.

Evidently somebody's sounded their bugle and the rest have come-a-runnin' to save the crying cell-bundles.

Well the latest poll in The Australian, a decidedly conservative paper, has approval of Rudd's decision to supply foreign aid for groups that perform abortions running at 62% approval to 34% opposed (the remainder being apathetic).

I guess Australia is a secular country, as opposed to a theocracy. Given that without exception throughout history, theocracies everywhere have been dictatorial incompetent corrupt bugger-ups, that's a relief.

Guys, given that both the baby and the nine-year-old will die in this recent furore, how can you justify letting both die when you have the power to save one via an abortion?

For all your sanctimonious babbling, can you answer me that simple question?

Although Otokonoko comes from a pro-life position, I am sympathetic to his stance. I respect those stances when they have the courage to consider the deeper aspects of this issue and understand that things are never so black and white as the hysterical 'murder' arguments presented here.

I've no respect however, for those who just sign their principles on a dotted line and are too cowardly to consider that in the simplest terms, even if they do regard abortion as murder, they're still choosing two murders over one.
I suppose such reflection might reveal the shaky foundation upon which they have based such simplistic principles anyway.

Sancho,
I suggest you talk to any pregnant mother and ask are you carrying a baby or a call growth (not clusters of cells).
The ancients had no skills in abortion that would not also damage the mother (They sacrificed children).

(The "influence of Green politics"? Two-thirds of Australians don't vote green.) Green politics is not the domain of one party as you seem to imagine.

Fractelle,

(you asked, "I ask what would you have done for a pregnant, sexually abused nine year old?") Such a decision is not mine, it would be up to her doctors and counsel. I know several women who have fallen pregnant from rape who have happy and healthy children, and they would not have it any other way. As foe me. Certainly not "Forced her to term or to abort". As it seems you have made up your mind to have her abort since you raise a specific case; otherwise you would not have posed the question you have answered in your own mind.

Dear Philo,

We find an adult guilty of rape if the adult has sex with a nine year old since we assume that a nine year is not capable of giving informed consent to sexual relations. I think it is reasonable to assume a pregnant nine year old is not capable of understanding the implications of giving birth and motherhood. There may be women who have carried the product of rape to term and had joy in their child. However, a nine year old girl is not a woman.

Oh, you mean "green", Philo, without the capital "G". Same thing. Well, it's not, actually, but the link between fundamentalism and poor education is legendary, so I won't press the point.

Fundies have been railing against abortion for three decades, but population control as a political issue has only emerged in the last couple of years. If it wasn't environmentalism, you'd be blaming feminism, secularism, homosexuals, immigration, atheism, Jews, blacks, rock & roll, or Harry Potter.

Your argument regarding child sacrifice is nonsensical, and the rest is just the predictable cookie-cutter religious argument we've had since the Enlightenment: "Society is crumbling because of [insert thing I disapprove of]. It's all the fault of [insert thing I disapprove of]".

Philo

"(you asked, "I ask what would you have done for a pregnant, sexually abused nine year old?") Such a decision is not mine, it would be up to her doctors and counsel."

Nice try at not answering a straight forward question. I did not ask what doctors and counsellors would decide, I asked YOU.

How very cowardly of you that you would try to evade this question.

Do you approve of women seeking abortions after rape? Or (as in the case of the nine year old) if her life is endangered by continuing a pregnancy? I do not want a lecture on how some women manage to bring to term children of rapists. I want to know if you can possibly understand that a woman is the final decision maker on how her body is used - not you, not doctors, not counsellors. That a living breathing female has veto over a bunch of cells in her body.

The very idea of personal autonomy in decision making overriding the right of a child who exists to be born, even in situations as tragic as rape, still can never override the right to exist for the baby; the baby is the innocent party. The women are also innocent; the rapist is guilty and deserves the death penalty.
The baby can be adopted by the many Aussies married couples who currently are having to go overseas due to dopey Australian governments who have not got their act together and have made local adoptions nearly impossible.