Excellent thread Connie.
The unborn person has no voice, no vote, no say.

They have no "Lorax". No one to speak for those who cannot speak.
They have no rights. Not even the right of life.

What if there were someone will to care/finance that person till they were 18 years old ?

That's the word I was searching for - advocate.
The unborn child has no advocate.  Aside from the church and pressure groups ?

What ever happened to orphanages?

There are not currently enough babies born to meet the demand to adopt.

Longing for a return to the good ol days?

So how many unwanted children have you adopted Pender?

How many others in your church have adopted, and I'm not talking about just the young'uns. What about the 5-15 year olds?

I'd prefer supply didn't exceed demand

i know of 4 families.

2 of which adopted intelectually disabled children and there is probably more that i dont know.

you talk of supply and demand like children are goods to be traded. this is human life.

as far as i am concerned i would rather have no parents than be deadm and thats the point who takes into consideration the baby's point of view, who is speaking for those who cannot dfend themselves.

or are you perhaps a social darwinist?

i draw the line where something that was not human life becomes so, at conception.

What about when the mothers life is at risk?

What about severe deformities.

What sort of punishment would you like to see for those women who spontaneously abort?

I think the mother's interests should definitely be spoken for too in the decision. My comment is that there does not seem to be a defined representative in the abortion decision process to speak for the unborn child- they have no advocate. And I think there should be an advocate for the child involved in the decision.

I don't think a woman should have to die to carry a child to term - apart froma  self-defence issue there are also her rights involved and the needs of her other children and people around  her.

Severe deformities may mean that the child dies anyway, or they may mean that no prospective adoptive parent would advocate for them.

orphanages may be miserable but your not dead.

we are in australia, be realistic.

but from a childs perspective would they prefer an orphanage to death?

from the childs point of veiw there is no other way to put it.

freediver wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2007 at 12:17pm:



I agree with this. A mother is a perfectly good advocate for her own child. To suggest an unborn child has no advocate trivialises the relationship between mother and child.


This is very  true Freediver..the mother should be trusted to know what is best.

It is very strange to say that a mother who wants to kill her child is its best advocate. Be reasonable. It is NOT only the mother's interests which should be represented. Perhaps a woman should have to apply to a court for an abortion and the decision be made by a judge when all those who have a stake in the decision and those who have related expert knowledge have been heard.

Or perhaps guidelines could be established under which an abortion is a reasonable outcome. Such as the two cases suggested above.

In my view there are abortions done for comparatively good and bad reasons. A bad reason in my view would be inconvenience. You can't kill someone because their presence is inconvenient, and I think that should include unborn children. Particularly if the child is a result of consensual sex and more particularly if so and no contraceptive has been used and yet was readily available.

You can think of reasons for abortion being a good decision. Can you think of any reasons for it being a bad one?

Classic Liberal wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2007 at 9:20pm:



Pender and connie,

I do not advocate a case for or against abortion, I am merely saying we cannot force women/girls to have babies if they feel it(the unborn child) cannot be borne by them.The reasons are theyre own.Not my veiw just balancing out the debate a bit.

Noone likes abortion- a human life is precious, but we cannot force women to have babies. Too many lonely neglected children already living that noone wants.


Education in schools for young women to prevent unwanted preganacies is the best answer I think. Education is the best answer to most problems in society.

. However many women have abortions when they simply feel they are not financially or emotionally ready to look after a child, or the father tells them get rid of it. Those kind of abortions in my view are not fair to the child



if they are not emtionally ready to look after a child, they just arent, same rule applies. Things happen in life connie that sicken and disgust us..this is one many pple struggle with, including me, but the answer is still the same..it is a womans right to choose - it is her body and her life.

The child has no right in this world until it is born, just the way it is. These reasons may sound frivelous to you ie: not ready-not enough money etc. but every decision is made with the coping abilities of that family in mind. If a couple were to be forced to have a child against theyre wishes, it would be the child who suffers in the end, believe me- too many babies battered to within an inch of its life/dies because a family was just not ready for the tremendous burden an unwanted pregnanacy that place huge strains on families who cant cope mentally and financially.

The problems surrounding abortion have been going on for a long time.


I think you will find connie it is a very small number of women who go into abortion lightly. I dont think that a woman who has an abortion is a bad woman.

I would never presume to force my values onto another.

Sometimes things happen in life we cannot control..we have to learn to accept that and focus that energy perhaps  in saving the children already in hellish orphanages, the ones already here who need our help desperately. They are the result of women having babies against theyre better judgement in most cases.


And when it comes to the needless ending of lives, what about all the pple dying in Iraq right now, a huge number small children..a life is a life..living or unborn. And life is seldom fair.

cautious connie wrote on Jun 24^th, 2007 at 10:26am:

 and many adoptive families are no better than institutions.

In most situations a child better off with its natural parents..adoption..a  shortage of babies? There are thousands of little Indigenous babies who desperately need placing..suffering from the worst kind of human rights abuses.

maybe we should be working on these issues rather than foccussing on difficult issues such as this? We cant tell pple what to do with theyre own bodies..none of our business.And pple dont want to carry a life to term and then wonder for the rest of theyre lives about the baby they gave away..the heartbreak is too much,.

Save the babies that are already here and lobby for easier access to adoption for couples who are screened and deemed beyond reproach in their parenting abilities. These are the babies and children who need our help NOW and suffering. They are not 'what ifs' they are real!!

I think I cannot add much more than that connie.
Its the way I see it.


Education is the key to contraception and what to do when faced with these issues.

Its the only way
Education. Education. Eduaction.

Dont you agree connie? That education is the key to unwanted babaies and the avoidance of getting pregnant.

Please answer that question for me ????

You seem to be dodging the issues and questions I put forward.

think education certainly has a role to play. I think as an answer it is not enough. Certainly it is not enough reason to kill a child that the person who would otherwise have been its mother will be worried about its welfare if she places it with someone else. If so we could kill a child every time we had to take it to school or put it in childcare.


"everytime we put them in childcare??? " give me a break...thats not a rational statement.


This has now become a nonsensical arguement..I hope you find your peace with this issue OK?

I do agree that a woman should not be disapproved of or have to carry a social stigma for having made this decision. In our society women do have that right. I started the thread looking for a solution in which our social structure could better support both the child and the woman in the decision.

The decision in my view should not just be about the woman.

The last thing we want is a bureacracy interfering with each and every decision. A maximum gestational age with allowances for the more extreme circumstances is sufficient.

and life is priceles.

In theory yes, in practice no.

Many couples eagerly wait to adopt babies.

Another couple's desire to adopt is completely irrelevant to this issue. You say you want an advicate for the child, which is understandable, but trying to bring in the interests of other people like this is just wrong.

---

Abortion - should it be legal?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1172285897

ABORTION: 'strings attached' to foreign aid

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1179301606/0#0

there is an easier way.

blanket no abortion except when the baby is forming outside the whomb where it would have no chance of survival.

when we opperate on syamese twins we dont value one life over the other, we try to save both.

if there are complications for the mother her life should be saved if possible but not at the expense of the mother, and visa versa, no human life is worth more than another.

anyway my point is this, abortion is murder, there is no other way of seeing it. There are babies who have been born at 22 weeks and survived as humans, yet other babies even older and "more human" than this are aborted every day.

every baby killed in an abortion has hands and feet, every baby has a beating heart, these are human beings, dependent on their mother but they are not physically their mother. When a mother chooses to kill her baby she is killing, why is this different to any other type of killing?

Classic Liberal wrote on Jun 24^th, 2007 at 4:17pm:



pender,

You fortunately will never have to test your convictions and opinions because you are male. Its hard for you to appreciate the complexities of this arguement for that reason. You do not have a womb. You will never be subject to rape. The mans part in a pregnancy is but a fleeting inseminatory process last 10 pleasurable minutes. Its the women whos left with mess of an unwanted pregnancy.

I find it offensive that you and connie are calling women who choose this path  cold blooded killers....

sorry every baby after 7 weeks

every baby?

I think women are taught that abortion is acceptable, and the law makes it a woman's right to choose.

There is no institution I know of that teaches women that abortion is 'acceptable'. There are a few that teach that it isn't. The law doesn't make it a woman's right to choose. This right always existed.

The only meaningful way to give the child a voice (other than it's mother's) would be to create another barrier to a woman's freedom to control her own body. That is why Connie is always so vague about what she means by giving the child a voice, because it sounds like a benign concept, up until you attach some real meaning to it.

freediver wrote on Jun 24^th, 2007 at 4:59pm:


incorrect.

as it is legal, the government as an instution makes it ok, further more it fosters the idea that wanting to stop a woman from having and abortion is wrong as you are impeding on her legal right, therefore implying that abortion is good and a ban on it is bad.

we are taught at school about femenism and womens rights, and how women have the right to coose what job etc they want. the pro choice movement just adds the next sentence to what the institution of school teaches.

women have the right to choose what they do wit their own body... which means they can terminate a baby's life because thats part of their body.

I am agnostic. Never been anything else. I am nto tryign to tell other women what to do. I am trying to discuss what we as a society can do to overcome what I see as a problem and injustice- convenience abortions.

I don't have statistics. But there are an enormous number of abortions performed every year in both the US and Australia- I have seen the stats on that.  They cannot all be out of dire necessity. Child birth is not that dangerous.

I have talked about the abortion issue with a woman doctor in a women's clinic where abortions are performed  (I was having an IUD fitted) who was upset about women who returned for their fourth and fifth abortions, using abortion as a means of contraception.

I don't see a need to limit population growth in Australia. Infact I think there is a need to increase the rate of growth in order to compensate for our aging population.  AIDS is playing a strong role in reducing population of breeding age in "developing countries" such as Africa. I don't know that it needs any help from abortions.  I deplore "partial birth" abortions such as practiced I am told in China, as i think do most pro -abortion folk.

In "Western" countries at any rate the solution to not wanting to contribute to a growing population there is surely a more civilised path than to kill unborn children- for instance, using contraception or abstaining.

'' The childs voice'' = very annoying.

me too pender

I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty or bad, just to discuss an issue that matters to me but i will not do so any longer if you wish.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jun 25^th, 2007 at 8:30am:



yes she has sprint I agree and a very important topic.

I would maybe put this scenario forward..I watched a movie yrs ago called "Sophies Choice" played by Meryl Streep..the german army made her choose between her 2 children which one would live and which would die. She had to make a choice right there on the spot. It was heartwrenching to watch and I thought 'how could I ever make that choice between my kids'? I would just want to go with them.
I imagine most women who go thru abortion have such a connection to their unborn and I dont believe they just irrisponsibly use it as contraception, I just dont..except maybe the very young., and in the case of the very young it comes down to eduacation.

IQSRLOW wrote on Jun 24^th, 2007 at 10:24pm:



IQ, for once I agree with you.

Not forced sterilation though.

Nearly every political issue involves some kind of guilt trip. What do you think the anti whaling mob are doing?

No, but people kill them, and other people try to make them feel guilty for doing so. It's even done to recreational fishermen.

---

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Prenatal-abuse-monitoring-for-babies/2007/06/25/1182623772961.html

Victoria's Department of Human Services is monitoring the condition of 100 unborn babies whose mothers are exposed to violence, drugs or alcohol.

The revelation follows legal changes since April that allow at-risk unborn babies to be referred to the Department of Human Services (DHS) for the first time, News Limited newspapers reported.

If a high-risk pregnant mother refuses assistance provided by DHS, her baby will be assessed in the maternity ward and could be taken from her.

Until the laws were changed, DHS officials had to wait for the unborn baby to be abused or neglected before it could act through the Children's Court.

Since then, 12 babies a week have been referred to DHS for assistance by families, hospitals, schools and welfare workers because of their mothers' situation, the report said.

Thirty more mothers have been reported to the Child First dob-in phone line.

oceanz wrote on Jun 25^th, 2007 at 11:53am:


something going on with this thread FD.