Well said, Chainsmoker.

Runner, countries with the most liberal abortion laws have the lowest abortion rates.
Making abortion more difficult to obtain is the most ineffective strategy a government can possibly opt for.

If Abbott et al are serious about lowering the abortion rate in Australia, they have to look at statistics and facts.

In The Netherlands, contraception is free for all women and effective and realistic sex education is a compulsory part of the curriculum in all schools.
These measures are the most effective way of lowering abortion rates- only about 6 in every 1000 women have an abortion (lowest in the world).

There is much to learn from the results other countries have achieved. If we blindly follow the pope’s advice (or the USA's!) about not promoting contraception and little or no sex education, we’ll be increasing our abortion rates.

The government spends much money on pregnancy counseling- why not spend this on free contraception instead. Problem solved!
The religious right could never top these results.

Abbott is not the only politician tainted by fundamentalist Christian “morals”.
Christopher Pyne denies our suffering elderly people the right to die with dignity. The book titled The Peaceful Pill was recently taken off the bookshelves in Australia, which just shows how much the religious “morals” mess with the freedom of Australians. How moral is it to force people to die slowly and painfully?

In the meantime, they're not bothered about the plight of our animals in live exports and intensive farming. Animal laws haven't been updated for over 100 years.

According to the new Vision for Europe, good values are not those of a single culture or religion, but are universal.

From the Brussels Declaration https://www.iheu.org/v4e/html/the_declaration.html

“We affirm the right of everyone to adopt and follow a religion or belief of their choosing. But the beliefs of any group may not be used to limit the rights of others.”

“We hold that the state must remain neutral in matters of religion and belief, favouring none and discriminating against none.”

Celivia, "Abbott is not the only politician tainted by fundamentalist Christian “morals”." - true but I think that this particular issue is different. Whatever politicians we have they will in the view of those who think differently be tainted (fundy christian values, liberal christain values, islamic values, budist values, secular humanist, feminist, paternalist etc). That's just part of the political process.

In this particular case it appears to me that we have a case of someone making a clear cut threat against politicians who don't tow the line. We have a situation where the health ministers expressed beliefs would appear to place him in a compromised position. For those who believe in the authority of the pope just how serious is a threat of excommunication? We don't allow pollies to be involved in decisions where they have a personal interest (we try not to anyway), the threat made by the pope would seem to make it a very personal issue for the health minister.

I'm assuming that excommunication is a fairly big deal for a catholic.

R0bert

Celivia

I am in agreement that you legislating for morality has limited benefits. The nature of man is that as soon as you produce forbidden fruit you can be sure that he or she will then crave for it whether it is good or bad for him. It does not take long for people to demand legalising something even if they know it will kill them.

The vision of Europe that you mention is noble but totally impractical. The rights of one group always affects others. It fails to understand that the heart of man has a bias towards evil. To assume all cultures and religions are worthy of acceptance might make people feel good but just displays ignorance. I would imagine that Marxism on paper is a noble goal also.

Like Europes new vision, Marxism failed to reconise whether a person is religous or not they are corruptible. We see this clearly today in the UN, Religous organisations, among scientist and every other organisation on earth.

The most important aspect of this issue is to do with separating the personal views of the individuals from their political responsibilities to the community at large. This also means that if a person is in a position of power over other people's lives that to the best of their own knowledge, they refrain from using their professional authority to impose their own personal moral priorities over others. This is not always easy to do in the health field because cultural and religious beliefs hold varying definitions of notions such as health life and death. There are however, established definitions associated with established groups in society. It would be wrong to expect that the way in which a catholic views life should be imposed on an atheist. The laws should be open enough to ensure that everyone's beliefs are accommodated and that the professionals in the health field put aside their own personal views by consulting the most appropriate social group when determining the most applicable definition in each individual case.

RObert,
I mentioned Christopher Pyne because like Abbott he is a Catholic also.
Even though he is the Minister for Ageing and won’t have much to do with the abortion issue, he is a strong euthanasia opponent. He would be in a just as compromised position as Abbott is in.

While the Pope has just warned politicians about the abortion issue, we could expect him to ‘warn’ or threaten politicians with excommunication about any other life issue including euthanasia, also.

I am not sure about the seriousness of this ‘warning’ or threat for our Australian Catholic ministers.
I could understand that a pope would warn Catholic priests not to support abortion or euthanasia, but popes should have no place to make these threats to politicians especially not in countries that are secular or not primarily Catholic.

It’s distressing to think that an ultra conservative Pope could indirectly influence our policies.

Why would the Pope have threatened politicians in the first place? There must have been some Catholic politicians in governments who have been supported a pro-choice abortion bill or the Pope wouldn’t have needed to make this threat.

His threat is discriminative because there are Catholic non politicians who openly don’t have an objection against abortion. These people haven’t been threatened with excommunication; the pope just targets one group: politicians.

My view *at this stage* is that a Catholic politician should change their power base or portfolio if their current one has to do anything with life issues for they don’t even have the right to consider all POV’s- they have one POV: the pope’s.

It is important that all fundamental politicians before an election wear stickers with their religion on their forehead.
Knowing that a candidate will vote, under any circumstance, pro-life and not pro-choice is important to be aware of.

Runner,
I see your point, but I am not sure that I agree that the nature of humans is basically evil. I do, however, think that imposing the view of one particular group on other groups is not right. We can only try to minimise the incidence with which some groups interfere with the freedom of other groups. It’s a good aspiration.

Vivy,
I agree, politicians should be able to separate their personal views from their political responsibilities and it looks like the pope has made this impossible for Catholic ministers.
I wonder if Catholic ministers should have a place in the government if they have to deal with life issues.