Every Monday morning during my radio show on community radio 4ZzZ FM, I chat with Peter Black, a constitutional lawyer, follower of social and political issues and obsessive user of social media. I don’t normally put links to those chats on this blog, but given that our talk this morning was all about the federal election, I thought it was worth putting a link to it on this occasion.
You can have a listen to it by clicking on this link.
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Given I am now running as a Greens candidate, I suppose it is no surprise that I am indicating my agreement with a comment that Bob Brown made today. But I would also say that it isn’t any secret that I haven’t agreed with every public comment that Bob has made, and I would agree with the following comment about the schoolyard level nonsense regarding another possible leaders debate even if it had been made by Steve Fielding:
“What we’re seeing now between the two leaders is an absolute farce and people everywhere are rolling their eyes at Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard not having the maturity to get together to agree to the series of debates which would have enlightened the electorate,“
It is a joke and a sad reflection on the optic and image driven nature of political media coverage in Australia. A couple of weeks ago, there was a three way debate at the National Press Club on important ICT issues such as internet filtering, broadband and wider communications policy. More... ()
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post about mountaintop mining in the USA. All mining has some impact, but the sheer destructiveness of this type of mining is astonishing – and that’s before you take into account the greenhouse impact of the coal.
This article in the New York Times details the potential impact of a similar project in West Virginia. The significance of this proposal is that there is the possibility it may be stopped, or seriously curtailed, by the Obama administration, which would be a signal of a positive shift on this issue.
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Following are links to a couple of recent radio interviews I’ve done, plus an online one
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As I noted in my previous post, this week’s Newspoll saw the Greens register 16% support – the highest that party has ever achieved, comparable to the Democrats best Newspoll result of 17% back in 1990. History suggests it is unlikely that this peak will be maintained right through to election day (or even the next Newspoll) but it is part of a continuing trend of solid Greens results. I’ve written a piece expanding on this, and how the party might approach the challenges ahead, at The Drum/Unleashed on the ABC’s site – which you can read by clicking on this link.
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Contention over Queensland’s Wild Rivers legislation has been bubbling along for quite a while now. Unfortunately, as with many issues which become polarised, each “side” is focused on defending their position, which has meant that some important underlying issues are not getting the attention they deserve.
I’ve just had a piece on this topic published at The Drum on the ABC’s website. It’s fairly long, so they published it in two parts – the first part is at this link and the second part is at this one. I should emphasise that the article reflects my personal views, and is not a formal view of the Greens, nor of ANTaR Queensland, who I am also involved with.
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Hip hop fans in Brisbane might be interested in tuning in to my radio show on 4ZZZ FM this Monday morning around 7:30am. I’ll be talking with the Gold Coast based duo Choose Mics, who are launching their debut full length album Beggars Can’t Be Choosers at the Step Inn in the Valley this coming Friday night as part of what will be a big night for fans of hip-hop/rap/urban sounds, with Brisbane’s The Optimen also launching their second album “The Out of Money Experience” as part of the same event.
Even though there is a steady stream of musical offerings in Brisbane, a double album launch of this magnitude doesn’t come along every day of the week, so I’ll dedicate a half hour or so to exploring not just the words and sounds of Choose Mics, but getting a broader overview from them of the hip hop related scenes locally and nationally.
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176 Comments, Comment or Ping
John Passant
This ‘technical’ amendment was a sop to the anti-abortionists like Deputy Premier Paul Lucas. It doesn’t address the real issue – the criminalisation of abortion in Queensland. I assume that the ongoing case against Tegan Leach and her partner will mean that doctors in Queensland will continue to refuse to perform abortions. No bill the prosecution, Anna Bligh. And tell me again why you joined the ALP, Anna? Was it to change the world or in the end (even if not by choice), to end up reinforcing reaction? Decriminalise abortion in Queensland.
Sep 6th, 2009
paul walter
Firstly, a better understanding now as to things like misopristol and RU486, which I had thought were much the same thing, and also explanations of therapeutic applications.
Claire Moore’s position is basically mine.
I guess an elephant in the room for me also, is the coopting of political parties by outside single issue influences, including even at the expense of internal party systems previously in place that advanced policy formation with “openness” as mechanisim driven by access for scrutiny by the public.
Labor has been afflicted of this and the end result becomes something along the lines of NSW, where the party has become defacto Tory, eg a values/ideas-free zone in that the personal agendas of uninformed faction hacks and the ideological, religious or commercial imperatives of outside influences operating these pragmatist or opportunist hacks, finally surplants the primary role of informed policy making, for a political party.
In other words, the major parties all have become shopfronts for cranks and gangsters, at the expense of thinking people inspired by a community representation/service motive.
The Democrats, then Greens, provided refuge and an mechanism for participation for many thinking people, but more and more over recent times, the big political parties, as mouthpeices for vested interests, have actively colluded to impose antisocial policies at public expense.
The obvious example, to me, is Tasmania over the last twenty years, but I think Tasmania is a paradigm for a national and global phenomena and process.
Sep 6th, 2009
togret
Paul – well said, and thank you for that clear exposition of something that I’ve been vaguely worried about for some time. I think Tampa was when it crystallised tha something was wrong … but now what can be done?
Sep 7th, 2009
paul walter
Togret, I’ll wager you are one of these odd people who watch shows like 4 Corners and Media Watch.
If so, little more to say after watching Liz Jackson’s skilled presentation of the carbon sequestration scam, including full frontal Mar’n, or the usual pathologically anti social antics of mass media, as exposed by MW.
Put another way, am glad am past fifty rather than a youngster having to grow into the shambolic brave new world populated by, as Miranda from Shakespeare’s Tempest might exclaim,
“creatures such as these”
for I am no longer,
“new to ‘t”
and like less what I see with every new passing day.
Sep 7th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
Isn’t the main aspect of this the fact, that the Federal govt can legislate for RU486 to be ‘licenced’ to be used for medical terminations(nationally), but Qld’s law only relates to surgical terminations. This is the reason why this couple are facing criminal charge/s? What’s the point of Federal legislation if it can’t be legal in the whole of the country. The second is the basic position of what and when abortion is ‘allowed’. The solution would be to decriminalize it.
For those who are against terminations, nobody is forcing you to have one, or to take the necessary safeguards to protect against unwanted pregnancies – this applies to men and women – responsible ones that is. I’d like to hear some more comments about the irresponsible males who don’t give a hoot what the outcomes of their irresponsible sexual practices have on other people – women?Whatever decision a woman makes, she will have to live with it always. A lot of men can and do – run!
As for the governments and the reason/s they won’t decriminalize abortion is hypocritical. ‘They’ rave on about democracy, the peoples’ choice, the selection of the peoples’ representatives blah blah, but as our representatives they refuse to vote according to the overwhelming wishes of the electorate – around the whole country! They’re in the clutches of the church lobbies.
Sep 8th, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
My understanding is that the young couple procured the drugs illegally and that someone brought them here from the Ukraine.
I don’t think the government is in the clutches of the church lobbies. Abortion should remain a criminal offence no matter what method is used, except in rare circumstances outlined in the previous discussion.
I see no reason for the government to necessarily legalise anything that is detrimental to the society as a whole. Who knows what some idiots will be pushing next? As it is, a blind eye is turned to abortion laws, instead of them being enforced.
“If you don’t want it – kill it!” is not a good rule for people to live by.
Pardon me for being cynical, but I think the main reason this matter is before the courts is because the couple procured an abortion without any doctors being paid!
If that continues, and even fewer babies are born, doctors will have to switch to a Euthanasia specialty because disruption of the Age Pyramid will become even worse.
We used to have the Shotgun Wedding for irresponsible males. One of my grandfathers got one of those.
We need to make men and women live up to their responsibilities. If they don’t want their baby, someone else can have it.
Sep 8th, 2009
Tony
Naomi
Naomi says: As for the governments and the reason/s they won’t decriminalize abortion is hypocritical. ‘They’ rave on about democracy, the peoples’ choice, the selection of the peoples’ representatives blah blah, but as our representatives they refuse to vote according to the overwhelming wishes of the electorate
Is that right Naomi. Abortion is legal in all states where it threatens the mothers life.
Can you think of another incidence where it is okay to kill one to save another.
What we are witnessing, is the abuse of these laws and hence the babies being killed (As supported by yourself) for as little as a cleft patate or club foot.
While you may applaud the killing of these children for minor defects (or financial gain, or lifestyle) it is pleasing that 85% of women believe that abortion is too easy in this country.
Tony
Sep 9th, 2009
Lorikeet
Tony:
to your question:
“Can you think of another incidence where it is okay to kill one to save another?”
My aunt had to have her baby taken by caesarian section at about 30 weeks because her kidneys were shutting down. The baby died, since this was 36 years ago, and there were no surfactants back then to keep his lungs flexible and moist.
My aunt survived, but if the baby had not been taken, both mother and baby would have died. Is that your preferred option?
Are you saying that the mother should die along with her baby? What if the mother has other children to care for? What about her husband?
Here’s another example. It isn’t deliberate killing, but one of those choices no doctor ever wants to make, but sometimes has to.
When the emergency department or ICU in a hospital is overrun with patients and there is a shortage of respirators or other lifesaving equipment, sometimes doctors have to make choices as to who to save. This could be based on the age of the patient and/or the likelihood of his/her survival.
Will Super Tony come to the rescue with the required equipment on time?
We cannot cut and dry everything, as if it is fruit for the Xmas Pudding.
As for a child with club feet or cleft palate, abortion should not be allowed at all. I’m sure some childless couple would be willing to raise him or her as their own.
But since most abortions occur for no good reason at all, the current law is merely a farce. Most women don’t even care to find out if their babies are healthy or not, since it doesn’t suit their current agendas.
Sep 9th, 2009
Tony
Lorikeet;
Lorikeet Says: My aunt survived, but if the baby had not been taken, both mother and baby would have died. Is that your preferred option?
No that is not my preferred option. The current laws are adequate in this state but the abuse of these laws or the term mental health being added is where the loophole exists and the couples exploit this.
Excuses like.
I have just been promoted. Not Ready yet. The child has a cleft palate. I want a new car/swimming pool, the child is a boy and I wanted a girl or visa versa, the child has a club foot and the biggest reason of all. My boyfriend/husband or parent dont want me to have it, are the ones I object to.
Killing for lifestyle or I dont want the responsibility or he doesnt want me to or they dont want me to have it, its a girl when I really wanted a boy or I have just been promoted and this child will be a nuisance are the nothing more than killing for lifestlyle or convenience.
Perhaps the mother or partner should be given the knife to drive into the heart of the child when late term abortions occur, this way they can see and acknowldge what they are doing to our fellow citizens and to their child.
Education at school and the films of some of the horrific pain the child feels suffers during partial birth abortions etc may eventually get these couples to acknowledge and accept thier Pro-Death stance.
1 million children have been killed over the last 12 years and all in the name of what they call choice.
Abortionists are no different to serial killers and far outway anything that Jack the Ripper, the Anita Coby murderers or any other serial killer has achieved. They make a heap money doing it as well. Killing for profit. Killing our future.
Tony
Sep 11th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
TONY May I say that I’m really getting so sick of pontificating moralising males, who’ll never have to be concerned about an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy for many reasons, and not the base selfish ones articulated by youreself and Lorikeet. How dare either of you, unless you’re in the ’skins’ of those concerned deem to judge from on high as to the sanctity of life. I don’t believe that a 12, 14 or even 20 odd week foetus is an independent life, but that is my opinion. You think differently, fine, but nobody is forcing you to act outside your beliefs? What you insist on doing, is deciding for other people, of whom you don’t know, and probably don’t give a hoot about. If you insist on women being baby machines, why don’t you advocate a better and more christiain attitude to those kids who are born with severe and horrific disabilities. I hear the lives the parents live, and I don’t have the right to insist that they do my bidding – if I commit to a lifetime of caring for that child, I still don’t and nor do you!
I don’t advocate killing anybody, but I don’t advocate on killing mothers either. I get very passionate about that due to my experience, of which I don’t mind repeating here.I had a tubal ligation at almost 25-I had to fight to get a doctor who didn’t have sexist and religious attitudes to my having it – to get pregnant again would’ve at best caused me severe bladder damage(again) and could have endangered my life – I had 3 kids who I wished to raise. My catholic mother, who I loved dearly was not impressed, and told me of the ‘glory if I died in childbirth’? This is the clap trap that I’ve had to encounter all my life – this nonsense and domination over women, and the lack of concern about our health. Men should check their own actions re responsibility re fertility, and speak out against those men who aren’t – and there’s heaps of them. Leave women and their doctors to make the decisions, and go fix the world up for those kids who are suffe
Sep 11th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
I’d walked around with a prolapsed bladder, that was extremely painful and caused me to get frequent infections, of which my kids(the eldest 5-7)would do my walking for me, while I sat on a bench near the pharmacy. The urologist(a good catholic, who proceeded to ask me didn’t I like kids, while I was nursing my 2 yr old blonde gorgeous little boy – I said ‘yes, I like mercedes cars, but I don’t want a fleet of them’? He wouldn’t perform the operation, as he said it would interfere with my husband’s sexual pleasure. This is the sexist and misogynist, religious dogmatic selfish ‘person’ some of us women have had to contend with. I remained like that for exactly 2 years. It changed because I took the initiative and shopped for a gynaecologist who cared about MY health!
Strictly speaking, I was not living in accordance with the catholic church, that doesn’t care for women or their desire to raise the children they have. My husband, while eventually supporting my decision was as useful as a crack in a glass eye! He didn’t show concern or compassion either, until after I had the surgery.
I could’ve gone on and conceived again, and died in the doing. I’m sure there’d be plenty of ‘handy’ men around who’d have come to my aid. You can’t become pregnant, you have not a hint of an idea what it’s like, or how concerned(frantic) you can become re worrying about being pregnant. Life is not as you paint it, and there’s too many women around the country who are living lives of which you’re obviously ignorant of. I’m not forcing you to change your values, but you insist on being dogmatic about mine. Every woman has some history, some difficulties, of which you don’t know and probably don’t care.
I think abortion should be decriminalized, and allow women to use THEIR CONSCIENCE not act via yours or Lorikeet’s. Women are raped in marriage; women end up with work boot imprints on their pregnant bellies(midwives on Conversation Hour ABC) – these are just some of the horrors!
Sep 11th, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
I’m sure I would never want to deny you the operation you needed to have. I am not a Catholic for starters.
No matter how much you want to argue about it, abortion is murder.
I think it would be better if you didn’t allow past abuses inflicted on you by men to skew your judgement.
There is no doubt that some women have terrible experiences inflicted upon them, but I think you will find that most of Queensland’s 14,000 annual abortions are the result of little more than selfish attitudes.
Sep 11th, 2009
Lorikeet
Tony:
Then can you please explain this statement:
“Abortion is legal in all states where it threatens the mother’s life. Can you think of another incidence where it is okay to kill one to save the other?”
That sounds as if you would prefer the mother to die along with her child. It would certainly fit in with your sexist, anti-feminist attitudes, for which I have chastised you on several occasions.
Do you acknowledge that when you were a submariner, you might have left numerous pregnant women behind you all over the world, who didn’t even know your last name or where to find you?
Here’s something else to think about. You previously said you married at age 30 and had only one child at age 35. Do you acknowledge that you and your wife have kicked several bricks out of the bottom of the Age Pyramid, from which another equally horrible practice could eventuate, with you vehemently opposed?
Sep 12th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
LORIKEET – “I’m sure I would never want to deny you the operation you needed to have. I am not a Catholic for starters.” You weren’t the ingrained bigots who I came in contact with-highly qualified urologists, gynae specialists,GP’s; asking stupid questions like’what happens if one of your chn dies’?As though they’re pet cats!
“I think it would be better if you didn’t allow past abuses inflicted on you by men to skew your judgement”. There! There! Gee, you can’t help yourself can you?I’m 64-My present view has been shaped by many collections of life events, not just mine!How many of the alleged 14,000 women have you spoken to?How can you make that judgement? You can’t-you don’t know – you ASSUME!
These experiences of mine weren’t unique – that’s my point! I omitted to add, that the reason why my body was wrecked after my 3rd child was because he was born in five minutes-from the time I entered the hospital and went to the 6th floor. I had pre-ecclampsi and only realized in later years just how seriously ill I was, and how endangered we both were. I was also told, that I really shouldn’t have had my husband’s kids, because there was too much difference in our body size-I’m quite short with small bones; he was a foot taller and at least 25? kilos heavier-they don’t tell you that when you apply to get married do they?
The whole reason for my story is to illustrate, that there are many facets to women and their fertility-I had no idea that I’d have morning sickness for 9 months with the first 2(almost needed hospitalisation) and a life threatening situation with my last. Women had no choice re their pregnancies – if they resulted in babies with serious defects/deformities.Parents today are told by revolting people that they should’ve aborted their disabled child; that they shouldn’t come out during the day and upset them and their kids etc.I hear the heartache from these people! How would you cope?How do you know? You can’t and don’t! Nor does Tony!
Sep 13th, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
I think it is wrong for you to assume that you know everything and others are completely naive.
One of my social worker friends has a child with cerebral palsy who is partially blind. She is also an advocate for the disabled and helps adults to find work through the CRS. Her own little boy is my youngest son’s best friend, and we are well aware of his situation.
Another friend (who has a disability himself) is Chaplain to 4 adult women with cerebral palsy. I am currently in the process of making each of them a pair of socks for Christmas.
Like you, I had a husband of significant size difference to myself. When I was pregnant with my first child, the doctor was always having a cow about the size of the growing foetus, more so because my husband weighed 10.5 pounds at birth, with a brother who was 11 pounds.
Also like you, I had pre-eclamptic toxaemia and suffered a lot from morning sickness.
My husband had a vasectomy when he was only 26 years old, but not without all of the questions and warnings regarding future fertility that you were given.
I think the questions of urologists and gynaecologists are quite valid. They have to keep people in touch with the consequences of their decisions. Now it is even more so because of the high rate of divorce.
“What happens if one of your children dies?” has nothing to do with a pet cat at all, but is meant to help keep you in touch with a broad perspective regarding the future.
This brings to mind another issue which hasn’t been mentioned. If a woman has an abortion, there is some chance she may never be able to have another child. Then how will she feel?
There’s a politician named Fiona Simpson who says she is currently looking into the reasons behind the 14,000 abortions which take place each year. I will be very interested to see what her findings are, and what initiatives she suggests to support these women.
Sep 13th, 2009
Tony
Lorikeet
Lorikeet Says: Do you acknowledge that when you were a submariner, you might have left numerous pregnant women behind you all over the world, who didn’t even know your last name or where to find you?
I never hid who I was and experenced the hurt men felt when being separated from the female friends they had met.
Lorikeet says:Here’s something else to think about. You previously said you married at age 30 and had only one child at age 35. Do you acknowledge that you and your wife have kicked several bricks out of the bottom of the Age Pyramid, from which another equally horrible practice could eventuate, with you vehemently opposed?
What makes you think that men have all the say. If was up to me I would have preffered at least one more child but its not always the mans choice and certainly not in these days. I can assure you though that had she fallen pregnant again, an abortion was not an issue and this had been discussed on many occasions.
Naomi Says: I was also told, that I really shouldn’t have had my husband’s kids, because there was too much difference in our body size-I’m quite short with small bones; he was a foot taller and at least 25? kilos heavier-they don’t tell you that when you apply to get married do they?
In our family the mother warned us of just those things. Surely this would have been passed down through the families in your family as well.
Tony
Sep 13th, 2009
togret
Tony – you are perfectly free to make your own choices … why won’t you leave other people to do the same .. choose according to their conscience? Whether or not you like it, the medical guidelines for when “life” begins are going to be a matter of determinations, conventions, rather than exact sciences – that’s how it works with biology. This topic was about resolving the uncertainty we now face when working with an Act that was passed, as I understand it, before pennicillin was invented.
Babies can, due to ‘advances’ in medicine, survive at an earlier gestational age than used to be the case … sometimes to endure a lifetime of suffering or major operation after major operation. Who weighs up what is best for them? The parents sometimes have tha difficult job, sometimes doctors decide for them … but surely everyone would agree that the law needs to be codified to define “life” ? And, as Lorikeet said, take into account the wishes of the parents … and the sad duty of some doctors is the end the gestational period of a foetus that will never have a ‘life’ as far as we can tell … but which the mohter has to carry about intil it dies, seomtimes for months. What would you say if your daughter were in such a position?
Sep 13th, 2009
Tony
TOGRET:
Togret Says: Tony – you are perfectly free to make your own choices … why won’t you leave other people to do the same .. choose according to their conscience
The choice has already been made. We are not talking about choosing a colour or car model. The child has no choice of who its parents are.
Togret Says: What would you say if your daughter were in such a position? We certainly would not be running down to the local abortion clinic to prop up people who profit by this crime.
We would would have no problem in raising our grandchild. As its always been done.
I would not like my grandchild to be a victime of the “its all about me syndrome”
Tony
Sep 13th, 2009
Lorikeet
Togret:
Life begins at conception. I don’t think this needs to be redefined.
Yes, I think doctors should take into account the wishes of BOTH parents, but they should not succumb to frivolous reasons in performing an abortion.
Here is another view put to me by a woman who had 3 children of her own, and then adopted a severely disabled child who was one week old, the product of incest.
She doesn’t believe in abortion under any circumstances at all. That child is now 36 years of age. She says he has had a pretty good life, but now he has gone blind!
Sep 13th, 2009
Lorikeet
Tony:
I think if you raised your grandchild yourself instead of expecting your daughter and the father of the child to do it themselves, you would be absolving them of responsibility and supporting “Me Syndrome”.
If they’re young adults, why would you want to treat them as if they’re still children?
Sep 17th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
The usual approach to the question of when “life” begins is to look at its beginning and ask: at what stage does the embryo acquire enough of the features of an undisputed human being to count as a human being. You can’t settle the abortion question that way. It is too subjective and impressionistic. You end up with Nazi Germany, where, if you don’t look enough like the ideal type (as defined by current prejudice), you have no rights.
But if you start at the other end there is no difficulty. Start with something you know for sure is a human being. Take a full grown human being, Kevin Rudd say, and work your way back in time. Ask: when did he come into existence? Modern biology says it was at conception:
“Human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell – a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” (Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 5th edition)
According to science, Kevin Rudd came into being at conception, as a zygote, a unicellular-human being. To have killed that single-celled creature would therefore have been to kill a human being, namely HIM.
I know that many people today feel the idea of a single-celled human being to be “simply ridiculous”. Their reaction is pure prejudice. It is the reaction of those who laughed at Galileo when he proposed the “simply ridiculous” idea that the earth goes around the sun. It is the reaction of the anti-Semites who looked at Nazi pictures of Jews and only saw “apes”.
Sep 17th, 2009
togret
Kevin, as I understand it, at that one-celled stage, young ‘kevin rudd’ wasn’t even specialised enough in development to be described with accuracy as “kevin” or “kevina”.
My original point, long ago on this thread, was about the use of RU486 as a post-coital pre-emptive contraceptive. That was scoffed at by those who don’t understand that there is often a period of time between ejaculation and the moment of union between sperm and egg. The fertilised agg then has to implant, which doesn’t always happen.
Until then, there is no life to abort .. the pill prevents conception happening. For this purpose, it is referred to as the morning after pill.
Once life begins, the law has to wrestle with the weighty issue of when ethics and law coincide or collide, in respect to particular cases. Once you say you will allow abortion for any purpose whatsoever, you open a slippery pathway that has to be hedged about with if, buts and wherefores.
Buddhism looks mostly at the intent behind the actions of all concerned. If those who say there are too many abortions are correct, then they need to work on a way of divining the intent of hte actors.
After that, the pill may be used as an abortifacient, which is what the case in cairns is about …
Sep 18th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
To TOGRET,
Regarding your reply to my post: Uni-cellular Kevin had the X chromosome. He was already genetically male. The important point, is not what your prejudice has zeroed in on, (ie. how could it be Kevin, it looks nothing like him!) but that the uni-cellular creature was Kevin. Not Kevin Rudd’s precursor, but Kevin himself. It was a person because Kevin Rudd is necessarily a person and Kevin was once it
Regarding your post: biologically there no doubt that there is a “life” between fertilisation implantation. If the fertilised ovum were not alive it could never grow into a baby. Furthermore since growth never turns one organism into another, the baby and the fertilised ovum are one and the same entity. The zygote grew into the baby, just as the baby grew into the adult. Not two organisms. The same one all the time.
Sep 18th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin Nacht:
Yes, that’s right. On a movie I saw recently, Jews about to be gassed were spoken of as “items” – non-human, non-living “things”.
What I’d like to know is how Kevin Rudd managed to become Chinese. And in doing so, how did he manage to remain our Prime Minister?
Togret:
Just because Kevin Rudd was only a zygote does not mean his gender had not already been selected. But trying to fathom his true agenda is sometimes more difficult.
Sep 18th, 2009
togret
Kevin Nacht – my prejudice? My own view is that we don’t actually know for sure most of this stuff, but that the potential Kevin Rudd is already in existence in the various potential combinations existing in the body of his Dad and his mum, long before they met. Some of those combinations would have resulted in a Kevina, or a tall dark haired Kevin perhaps. ( And in fact as I understand it, the Y chromosome is the maleness-endowing one .. as far as we understand it, since gender is a spectrum, not bipolar opposites) But my view is not likely to ever be codified in law, mostly because it is partly too metaphysical for either science or law to corral into a ‘one size fits all’ law.
My point is that the law has to be one that tempers the protection of life with mercy and compasson … despite the either/or pronouncements heard here, there are many permutantions of circumstances that lead people to consider abortions. Why not try to do something about those, instead of howling accusations of greed and callousness .. while at the same time accepting that those characteristics also exist in humankind now, as they ever have? There will always be people whose motives are not what we would like … snuffing out the feebly flickering life of a foetus is not my idea of a good thing, but allowing people to suffer by being locked up on Christmas Island, Nauru and Manus, or in Baxter or Woomera camps isn’t either. I try to be consistent, though I often fail.
Sep 19th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
RE: TOGRET,
(1) Prejudice? Yes, the prejudice, that nothing uni-cellular could really be a human being, because no uni-cellular being LOOKS anything like the creatures one is accustomed to ascribing humanity to.
(2) Doubts are one thing, reasonable doubts are another. Doubts based on ignorance of the distinction between mitosis, meiosis and syngamy are unreasonable. Going on past experience with abortion defenders, I bet TOGRET neither knows nor wants to know what they are.
(3) TOGRETS doubts are not binding on anyone else. They create no obligation on the rest of society to wait for TOGRET’S doubts to disappear before enforcing laws designed to protect what the normal canons for identifying organisms across time imply must be pre-born people.
(4) TOGRET’S putting of ‘the potential Kevin Rudd [who] is already in existence” on a par with uni-cellular Kevin, is an exercise in obscurantism. Firstly, the former is a self-contradictory concept. Secondly, it obscures the distinction between the things that Kevin once was and the things that Kevin never was but which had the potential to produce Kevin.
Sep 21st, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
TONY & LORIKEET
Just imagine that you had your way. Doctors were arrested, charged and if found guilty sent to jail. Just imagine the women who sought an abortion were forced to go through with the pregnancy, what’s your solution for after? Adopt the child out? Force the mother to sign the baby away; or do it legally prior to the birth?
Then, backyard abortionists would ‘pop up’ again. How would you solve the problem of the police blackmailing them for ’shut up money’ as what happened/happens with prostitution and drugs for example? How would you deal with that? What about the medical resources required for those women who were forced into ‘breeders’ – the psychological problems later. What would happen to the babies born with severe genetic problems that meant they weren’t wanted for adoption? They’d have to be cared for, by whom? Not the churches surely – Premier Rees in NSW has just apologised to the people who were horrificly abused years ago. With catholic priests/brothers history of abuse, who would care for the kids?
Are you against the morning after pill too? With one in 4 women being sexually/physically/psychologically abused, and the high numbers of pregnant women being abused; 36% of them say they were abused for the first time while pregnant – who’d want to continue with that pregnancy? DV brings about miscarriage, abortion, difficult pregnancies, long and more difficult labours, small babies, post-natal depression, abuse of drugs and/or alcohol and other medical ramifications.
What about the woman in Vic.who’d been sexually assaulted by her father and had 4 children who all have genetic defects? If you knew about her, would you force her to continue with the pregnancies, even though she’d been raped as a young child? Her mother lived in the same house and said she didn’t know? How could that happen – a little girl was raped in her house, one assumes?.Let’s make life safe for women and kids, instead of judging them.
Sep 22nd, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
I think you have an extreme view and also have not thoroughly read my posts or Tony’s.
I think you know what the options are for a mother after giving birth. She either keeps the baby or adopts it out. There are literally thousands of willing adoptive parents.
In the case of incest, I would certainly want the government to allow an abortion for genetic reasons. In your example, the mother said she didn’t know, because she didn’t WANT to know, and is one of those gutless women that I truly abhor.
I think Tony and I have both stated that we think abortion of children with severe genetic abnormalities should be allowed, but should not be left to suffer if they are born alive.
I think women being seriously abused during pregnancy are a minority group. I don’t think most women would have an abortion in those circumstances – just get rid of THAT particular man!
In the past, most women who sought backyard abortions did so for fear of aspersions being cast on them by family and society. These days it is far more acceptable to be a single parent.
I think the “morning after pill” is okay if it is used the morning after, as originally intended – but not as an abortion pill weeks or months down the track.
Sep 23rd, 2009
Tony
Naomi Cartledge
Naomi Says: Are you against the morning after pill too? With one in 4 women being sexually/physically/psychologically abused, and the high numbers of pregnant women being abused; 36% of them say they were abused for the first time while pregnant – who’d want to continue with that pregnancy? DV brings about miscarriage, abortion, difficult pregnancies, long and more difficult labours, small babies, post-natal depression, abuse of drugs and/or alcohol and other medical ramifications
Rape, abuse, threat of medical life all add up to about 1.7%(certainly always under 2%) of all abortions.
Despite having this knowledge you continue to flog the same argument. That it that the act of killing a child is fine and should be at the whim of the mother/parents. (Pro choice/Death syndrome)
Young people are brought up to believe that killing is better than adopting their child out to parents that would care and bring up the child with all the love care of the maternal parent.
Many adoptive parents would gladly have adopted those children spoken about with a club foot or cleft palate and other aliments. The trouble is that we have rammed killing (or designer babies) down the throat of our youth.
Where’s you argument for the other 98%
Tony
Sep 24th, 2009
togret
Kevin YOu said Doubts based on ignorance of the distinction between mitosis, meiosis and syngamy are unreasonable. Going on past experience with abortion defenders, I bet TOGRET neither knows nor wants to know what they are.
Firstly, I am not actually an abortion defender. I am opposed to the ending of any life … while recognising that sometimes there are no easy choices. I oppose it in all circumstances, such as wars, pregnancies, killing of animals for meat, etc. Sometimes, though, as I said, there are two choices that are not as clear-cut as people would like to think. We can speak ill of people who make choices we would not make as long as we like, but why not try to do something about WHY they make those choices? Nobody has spoken about that.
Secondly, I’m not sure why you assume that others whose views you don’t agree with are ignorant of the processes of cell division, etc. You really cut your own credibility when you assert that someone who disagrees with you must be ignorant. In an attempt to avoid seeming conceited, let me just say that I passed Year 12 science long ago, and have done some biology study since. That does not mean that metaphysical explanations for when “life” can be said to have begun are invalid .. there are many things that science cannot pin down with exactitude.
Sep 24th, 2009
Lorikeet
Togret:
I think the reasons for people making decisions to abort HAVE been discussed quite fully.
It is very often a “Me Syndrome” decision, made by couples who only want to suit their own convenience.
Sometimes pressure is brought to bear by the father or the grandparents.
As I mentioned previously, Fiona Simpson said she is looking into the reasons for $14,000 abortions annually.
I think she should start looking at the huge amount of alcohol consumption for starters. Then she could look at the demise of societal values and resultant rampant promiscuity – also at the parents who can’t be bothered supervising their own young teenagers.
If a person only has sex with someone they know and love, and there was some actual value placed on intimate relationships, I think the abortion rate might drop like a lead balloon.
Sep 25th, 2009
togret
Lorikeet – you are not following me .. if people are having abortions willy-nilly, as you say, then why not address the mindset that leads to that? If people are under financial pressure, why not address that? It all boils down to what we value as a society, and in my mind that is largely addressed by education. I know you are against open and honest sex education, and yet that, in my opinon, is one very valuable tool in the arena of values education about relationships. Clearly, given the rates of domestic violence and divorce/dissolution of relationships, the current generation are not going to pass on values that will lead to respectful and safe relationships, so we need to make an effort in the schools, whether you like it or not.
Sep 25th, 2009
Lorikeet
Togret:
I am not opposed to sex education, but you need to look at what is being taught.
NOTHING is being taught about respectful relationships, and NOTHING is being taught in relation to morals.
If you had read what I previously said, you would know that I went straight to the horse’s mouth and asked Family Planning educators myself, at their Parent Night. When I asked them what kind of morality THEY were teaching, they said they taught NONE. That would have to come from the parents.
Teachers I knew well at that school were opposed to what Family Planning was teaching. As far as they could see, they were largely encouraging primary school students to have sex. Teachers work with the kids. They should know the nett effects.
Dealing with financial pressures isn’t only about education. It’s about the government ceasing to give out Middle Class Welfare, while kicking the poor in the guts.
I know a lovely woman who works as a nurse. She is the mother of 3 children. All of them have become victims of Howard’s decision to send sole parents out to work. She has to go to work so early that she cannot even send her own kids off to school. More recently, she has had Centrelink threatening to fine her if one of her kids doesn’t show up for WorkLinks. How is she to do anything about it?
In our society, children are not valued in appropriate ways. While “Me Syndrome” continues to prevail, especially on the part of the middle class, high rates of abortion will probably continue.
Sep 26th, 2009
togret
Further to the above: from Sunday’s Melbourne Age: TWO in every three Australian women are having unprotected sex, while more than half do not know when their next period is due, research has found.
Sexual health experts are alarmed by the findings, which indicate many women are at risk of unplanned pregnancies and catching sexually transmitted diseases because of a lack of understanding of sex.
Dr Christine Read, a spokeswoman for Sexual Health and Family Planning Australia, said the findings of an online survey of more than 500 women aged 20 to 34 confirmed there was widespread ignorance about sex.
Dr Read said inconsistent sex education had led to a generation of Australian women not knowing the basics of their own sexual health.
“It’s worrying that young women continue to engage in unprotected sex, but it is equally concerning that many women don’t have a basic knowledge of their menstrual cycle,” she said.
”Many women don’t realise they can get pregnant even if they have unprotected sex outside the time they’re ovulating.”
Sep 27th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
LORIKEET – You accuse me of having extreme views, yet, for many years now, the people of Australia have said, that they believe in the woman’s right to choose. People in many other countries have stated the same, even in countries like Italy and Ireland???
Neither you nor Tony have any idea of the numbers of abortions as a result of rape, incest, genetic deformities or other issues, medical, psychological or otherwise. But you both, through your own bigotry and high handedness presume to know these ‘facts’. You don’t? Unless there’s something neither of you are owning up to – having many GP’s, counsellors, surgeons, obstetricians etc divulging details of patients, or you’ve been hacking into their computers. Please stop quoting these things as ‘gospel’ because YOU DON’T KNOW! I don’t know! How come you know? I only know the circumstances of women who’ve confided in me, and I certainly wouldn’t divulge those confidences.
Haven’t either of you learnt anything by history? The trauma of women in the 60’s, 70’s etc, who were forced to give up their babies. With your attitudes, we’d see a visitation to that era, and the trauma for all. There’s been a Senate Inquiry, and all of them ended up in tears. Neitiher of you have the right to decide, that a woman gives up her baby, and neither of you spend any time on the responsibility of the male/s involved.
“I think women being seriously abused during pregnancy are a minority group. I don’t think most women would have an abortion in those circumstances – just get rid of THAT particular man!”
The numbers of pregnant women bashed during pregnancy used to be 1 in 10 – 36% of those women stated, that their first experience of DV was during pregnancy- a bit more than a “minority” group. The women just want the violence to cease, and your glib response only reaffirms my assertion, that you make glib presumptios statements, without any attention to what the realities are. Do some more reading!
Sep 27th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
LORIKEET –
“A particular concern is the exposure of children to domestic violence. The Personal SafetySurvey found that around half of the men and women who experienced violence by a current partner had children in their care at some point in the relationship with more than
one-quarter stating that children had witnessed the violence. 36% of women who had experienced violence from a previous partner, and who had been pregnant at some stage in that relationship,said that violence occurred during the pregnancy and 17% experienced violence for the first time whilst pregnant.”NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service – Domestic Violence in NSW – by Talina Drabsch 2007
Now, if you use that quote in the context of the fact, that at least 1 in 4 women are experiencing DV at this time, and 1 in 3 will experience it in their lifetime, and couple this with the number of young people being raped or coerced into sex, and it points to many possibilities. One of the problems, frustrations women like me has had to put up with, is other people disempowering us by asserting the ‘facts’ when they’re only guessing. You have no reason to know that most women choose an abortion because they’re too selfish to be a parent? How do you know that?I have not found one person who felt, and these women deserve more than your glib protestations, that lie about their reality.
Neither you nor TONY have come up with the scenario of what you’d do if you had your way, and outlawed terminations, full stop! I’m also in favour of sex education in schools, but the catholic church would be against it, too bad! Fact is, as TOGRET pointed out, obviously their parents aren’t educating them. When I got my 1st period at 10 and 8 months I thought I was dying, or pregnant.I couldn’t have been pregnant as I hadn’t kissed any one???I was terrified. I certainly was very differnt with my sons, about men and women’s bodies. In fact, they were very caring when I had a painful time?
Sep 27th, 2009
Tony
Naomi
Neither you nor TONY have come up with the scenario of what you’d do if you had your way, and outlawed terminations, full stop! I’m also in favour of sex education in schools,
You’ve obviously not been reading. We are not against terminations where a mothers life is threatened, where a rape has occurred and in most incest cases this is the case. Its the other 98%.
We are not against sex education per say in schools. Perhaps classes should be held for both sexes in say a parenting knowledge, homecraft or something of this nature. Full photographs of infants through their growth period and all the options that are available to young woman who ever found themselves in this position would be presented. This would relieve the heavy pressure they face from family, partners, and sadly today government agencies.
This would show the teanagers that it is a child they are terminating, may teach them, or attempt to teach them of their responsibilites. This would be good for both sexes not necessarily taught in the same room at the same time.
Naomi Says: 500 women aged 20 to 34 confirmed there was widespread ignorance about sex.
These sorts of things could also be brought into the homecraft or parenting courses.
Tony
Sep 28th, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
I think you need to read the entire thread again. Then you may understand better that some of the claims you are making about Tony and me are inaccurate.
I could easily quote instances of young girls being sent for abortions by their parents.
I have a son who has just finished high school, so I think I’m in a much better position to know what these kids have been taught in sex education classes.
As far as I’m concerned, the main things taught by today’s society are the following:
1. Go out and get laid as early as possible.
2. If you become pregnant, get rid of it.
I don’t think politicians should pass legislation for “open slather” abortion simply because most of the people have been indoctrinated with “Me Syndrome” and have no moral fibre.
I think it was Andrew who once argued that politicians couldn’t put people’s wishes into practice if they were seriously detrimental to the society. I only know one person who is pro-abortion.
Togret:
As for women not knowing when their period is due, this has to be an exercise in irresponsibility. Alternatively, if the women take the contraceptive pill, the pill packet will also show them when their period is due, without marking a calendar i.e. when they are taking the smaller or different-coloured sugar pills (placebo).
People in the 20 to 34 age group have had access to lots of education about sexual matters in the schools, and also constantly in the media. The government advertises about issues such as STIs and condom use in buses and public toilets.
If young women aren’t insisting on and using condoms, yet again this has to have something to do with irresponsibility, not lack of education. It may also be a consequence of excessive alcohol consumption – another practice which is heavily encouraged by society.
Sep 28th, 2009
Lorikeet
I think Tony raises another excellent point in relation to sex education.
When my son (now 17) had Family Planning lessons in the primary school, a teacher told me the kids were afraid to ask questions, because they were too embarrassed to do this in a co-educational group (both boys and girls).
One day when I turned up at lunch time to get a bucket of tennis balls for my 2 teams of girls to do their training, Year 7 kids piled out of the classroom looking shell-shocked.
When I asked the teacher what was wrong with his students, he said in a semi-angry voice: “They’ve just had their Family Planning lesson.”
On another occasion, a mother (psychologist) had to come to collect her daughter from school because what had been taught had made her sick. That was on the same day that my son shouted to me from the balcony of his classroom block: “Hey, Mum, today she (the educator) had this massive condom 30 cm long!!!”
This might have frightened the girls and made the boys feel inferior.
At the parents’ night, I found that the Family Planning Association was not very forthcoming about what they were going to teach. The outline they gave was very broad.
Although parents from Years 5, 6 and 7 were invited, only 13 people turned up, including a couple of teachers who were also parents, and a very young woman with tiny tots.
The young woman berated them for overstating the “virtual infallibility” of the contraceptive pill when she was in school.
When my older sons (now 34 and 35) were in Years 8 and 9, we took them to a Personal Development Course in the high school. This was run over a number of weeks. It covered Interpersonal Skills as well as Sex Education.
The sessions were designed to be inclusive of parents. My husband went with one son to his class and I went with the other.
These days the government likes to exclude parents from a lot of the decision making and information concerned with the education and activities of their children in school.
Sep 29th, 2009
ken
The irony of two sets of people with views about two standard deviations away from the norm squabbling about who has or hasn’t extreme views is a hoot.
Sep 29th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
TONY – “Naomi Says: 500 women aged 20 to 34 confirmed there was widespread ignorance about sex.” That’s not my quote!When did I say that?
The facts are Tony, how do you know, that only 98% of abortions are for the reasons you assert? Have you been hacking into hospital/doctor’s computers; eavesdropping on consultations, relationships? How the hell do you know? You bloody well don’t! That’s my point. And you and Lorikeet make concesssions – aren’t the foetus’s of rapes, incest etc the same as others? There’s no consistency in your argument. My point of leaving the decision to those involved doesn’t pre-judge anyone, yours does, and on assumptions that neither you or anyone else can substantiate. Where did you get your figures from, what are their credentials, and who organized the poll or ???
As I already stated, and these stats can be looked up. Only 10% of sexual assaults are reported; there’s the incidence of rape in marriage, relationships; domestic violence and a myriad of other reasons. Many men take off when they hear of a pregnancy, and then move on to the next woman.
LORIKEET – The pill packet doesn’t tell women when their period is due, not the first one anyway. Some pills don’t have placebos – mine didn’t! There’s a heap of different ones/types.Women still need to know how their body works-the fact they don’t know is their parents’ fault. It’s their responsiblity to prepare these young girls for being a woman, the same applies to boys – I did – I told my sons about women too!
I’ve read, that a lot of young men refuse to use a condom, as it diminishes their enjoyment. I’ve also read, that many young girls are ‘forced/coerced’ into their first and often following sexual encounters. We need to give young girls ‘permission’ to say no, without them being ‘punished’ for it or raped. If young girls aren’t willing, and the males keep on, that’s sexual assault, TONY – maybe not as you believe it, but it is as far as I’m concerned.
Sep 29th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
TOGRET says
(1) “I am opposed to the ending of any life … while recognising that sometimes there are no easy choices”. REPLY1: In other words “I oppose killing … except when I don’t”. How illuminating!. REPLY2: Hitler’s choice of eliminating the Jews was not “easy” either. Is that any basis for defending it?
(2) “Sometimes … there are two choices that are not as clear-cut as people would like to think”. REPLY: Why is abortion one of them?
(3) “why not try to do something about WHY they make those choices”. REPLY: One reason women have abortions is that no legal penalty effectively attaches. I am trying to remove that reason.
(4) “I’m not sure why you assume that others whose views you don’t agree with are ignorant of the processes of cell division, etc.” REPLY: (i) it was a “bet”, not an iron-clad “assumption”. (ii) a reason for it is the one I gave: “past experience”. (iii) another reason for it is the intrinsic unlikelihood that anyone who knows the different kinds of cell-division and identifies the canons for identifying organisms across time would think the fetus and the born child are not one and the same organism, or that that organism could be traced back beyond syngamy.
Oct 1st, 2009
Kevin Nacht
TONY says “We are not against terminations … where a rape has occurred …”.
If the fetus is not a human being, what business of yours is it whether it is aborted?
If the fetus is a human being, how you can approve its being killed before birth but not after?
Oct 2nd, 2009
Tony
KEVIN NACHT
Kevin Says: If the foetus is not a human being, what business of yours is it whether it is aborted?
If the foetus is a human being, how you can approve its being killed before birth but not after?
Life does begin at conception so that answers your first question.
If you continue to argue in the under 2% portion of abortions in this country, than what hope have we got to curtailing this infanticide.
Most churches hold this position. One wonders how a mother who conceived a child in this manner would have the ability to provide the love and nurturing required.
Many would argue that having to hold this child (conceived in an act of violence not love) could have irreparable psychiatric damage to the mother.
Ectopic pregnancies where the child has no hope of survival and could well rupture and kill the mother are areas as well that come in that under 2% bracket.
If we continue to debate in this tiny field nothing will be achieved and the 98% of the abortions that shouldnt occur will gain some sort of credibility.
Tony
Oct 2nd, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Dear Tony,
If you say rape justifies abortion, it is difficult for people to believe that your real objection to abortion is that it is almost always unjustifiable homicide. That in turns convinces them that your real motivation is meddlesome prudery. Once they believe that, they are certain to ignore you.
Oct 2nd, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin Nacht:
I think there are people here expressing extreme views at either end of the scale. This includes you.
When a woman has been raped, she has been emotionally assaulted as well. I think she should be given a choice. According to one of my Chaplain friends, a lot of women keep their babies.
In my view, there are varying degrees of rape, ranging from some young guy not exercising any self-control to a serial rapist and basher. I would also consider the fact that a psychopathic sex fiend might pass on a rapist gene to his offspring.
At risk of being criticised further by extremists from either end of the scale, I would also like to point out that incest can result in serious genetic defects, to say nothing of the humiliation of being sexually abused by your own family.
To my knowledge, in Australia you can marry your first cousin, but you cannot marry your brother, sister, father or mother for genetic reasons. In some countries, you cannot marry your first cousin either.
Naomi:
Tony and I both have teenage children. I think we should know what they have or haven’t been taught – at home or at school.
In this day and age, only an irresponsible young woman would not know when her period is due. The level of education is huge.
As for the use of condoms or being forced to have sex, women should be assertive. These days the kids are raised and educated in a unisex fashion (equal rights) and any form of sexual assault is seriously dealt with in our schools.
In primary schools, kissing is outlawed for even the smallest children.
I think it is more the case now that girls are coming onto the boys for sex. You cannot blame males for everything.
From the age of 13, I dealt with males quite successfully myself, whether they were sleazy relatives, high school boys, men in the workplace, or excessively eager beavers threatening to leave me by the roadside if they didn’t get sex.
Many of your assertions and beliefs are decades out of date.
Oct 2nd, 2009
JJ
“A persons a person no matter how small” “Horton”
Every individual conceived is unique.Their DNA is unique. The mother simply provides the growing space and nutrients, without which the new individual would die.
This applies to newborn babies and children, without care -food, shelter etc they also would die.
Women with unexpected Pregnancies should be ALLOWED TO EXPERIENCE UNEXPECTED JOY, without everyone around them telling them they should get an abortion.
A mother who is encouraged to have an abortion, even if it is not against her wishes, will still grieve for that lost child. An abortion is a traumatic event for any mother – they do not forget and though they may try to bury it, the memory of what they did, and what could have been often comes back and causes great anguish. This is often particularly noticeable when they have a hysterectomy/reach menopause and they are hit with the reality of no more children.
Oct 3rd, 2009
Kevin Nacht
LORIKEET: My “extreme” views put me in good company.
In Royal College of Nursing v Department of Health and Social Security (1981) ALL ER 545 at 554, Lord Denning said: “Throughout the discussion I am going to speak of the unborn child. The old common lawyers spoke of a child en ventre sa mere. Doctors speak of it as THE FOETUS. In simple English it IS AN UNBORN CHILD INSIDE THE MOTHER’S WOMB.”
So Lorikeet, now is the time to apply you self-proclaimed knowledge of biology. Why is it “extreme” to think that the normal canons for identifying organisms as the same across time mean that people come into existence as zygotes? Why is it “extreme” to think that organisms cannot be traced back beyond syngamy?
And what gives you the right to call the common law view “extremist”? Have there been new discoveries in biology that refute it? The sort of thing you find at http://www.humanfoetalrightsmovement.com?
Oct 4th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Abortion enablers take note: as of May 2009 more Americans consider themselves to be pro-life (51 percent) than pro-choice (42 percent).
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/02/support-abortion-rights-declines-obama/
Oct 4th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin Nacht:
You need to go back and read all of my comments on this issue and also look at the other thread on abortion.
I am not one of the people who thinks a baby is a mere “collection of cells” which can have “retrospective contraception” applied to it, simply because it does not suit the parents’ convenience.
Now let me put you into these scenarios.
If your wife was found to be carrying a baby with 2 heads and 3 sets of limbs, or if it had numerous disabilities and anomalies, would you want that child to have to experience a terrible life in our increasingly uncaring society?
One of my social worker friends said that the rate of divorce among people with moderately to severely handicapped children is very high.
Would you be willing to raise a severely handicapped child on your own, with little support available from government or community, and living on a Carer’s Payment?
As an employer, would you be willing to take one of these people on as an employee?
JJ:
What you say is true, but I fear our society has been increasingly desensitised in numerous ways in recent decades.
This is why pro-abortionists describe unwanted children as “collections of cells”.
If you can reduce an unborn child to the status of a tiny piece of straggly meat you have cut off the Sunday roast, I suppose it is quite easy to throw it into the rubbish without a qualm.
For decades, the government has encouraged “Me Syndrome” and the extremely selfish attitudes which go with it.
People may think this is good, but if you can divide the people, you can conquer them. This is why we have also seen the demise of union power.
Abortion or “retrospective contraception” is also another way of controlling Population Growth and destroying Age Pyramids, leading to even worse ideas than abortion.
Oct 4th, 2009
togret
Kevin: my point about difficult choices referred to the kinds of ethical dilemmas referred to by Tony, when the ongoing pregnancy would threaten the life of the mother, e.g. ectopic or other abnormal pregnancies. As soon as you have such dilemmas and the level of medical skill current, you have an ethical problem which the law and medical practice must address. I have no idea why you’d refer to Hitler’s genocide plan as not being easy .. this is irrelevant to this discussion and makes no sense in any case. Many Germans and their allies seem to have had no dificulty with killing Jews, gypsies, gays and others of whom they didn’t approve. Those were people, though, and we are not talking about what are visibly independent entities, are we? That’s the whole point about the uncertainty of when life begins. There will always be times when difficult choices are made for medical reasons, or should we just wait and see which dies first, possibly both in those difficult cases? In other cases, such as rape and incest, I’d agree that the foetus is possibly indistinguishable from any conceived in love or at least affection … except for the (sometimes very real) possibility of inherited disability. More ethical dilemmas!
I think the person who said that we don’t value babies and children is quite right – if we really did care about all children and their welfare there would be none going hungry, neglected or unsupported either when conceived or conceiving too young themselves. That was my point about education .. and I find myself in agreement with Tony. It could be done as part of preparation for citizenship, all through school. Lorikeet’s extreme examples could be avoided through a sensitive, humanist approach to the subject. Because something is not done well now or in the past has only instructive value for the future.
Oct 4th, 2009
togret
Keven, you said this also: ““Togret said: why not try to do something about WHY they make those choices”. REPLY: One reason women have abortions is that no legal penalty effectively attaches. I am trying to remove that reason.” Kevin, you appear not to be aware that there have been very harsh laws against abortion in the past, over many centuries, up to the 1970s. They did not stop abortion, merely sending it underground and presnting mere difficulties to the rich, while poor women died. To avoid infections and deaths was the original reason for liberalising laws. Unless you go past prohibition to prevention in many different ways (education, provision of contraceptive information, support for reluctantly pregnant women to deliver and relinquish) you’ll only repeat the tragic cycle of backyard abortionists. Or can you say why I am wrong?
Your point about people who don’t share your assumptions about biological processes being the only ones concerned with conception works for you, clearly. Please permit others to have other beliefs without scornign them simply because you don’t happen to agree. Given that mine would tend to support your position, I don’t know why you denigrate them. “Past experience” is hardly a position of strength when arguing with individuals, who, you must have noticed, do not conform to categorisation into fixed groups when it comes to ethical or spiritual beliefs. It seems to lead you into sweeping assertions. Speaking of which, Lorikeet, if you think that all young women, in particular, have cycles as regular as those in the textbooks, I invite you to consult some experts on the matter. Having sons, you may not have learned that many women have irregular cycles until their 20s or 30s. Once again, it appears, your own experience has not equipped you to understand the experiences of the broader population.
Oct 4th, 2009
Andrew Bartlett
I don’t think this is the sort of issue which should be determined solely by opinion polls, although obviously public opinion should be taken into account.
However, in light of Kevin Nacht’s last comment about opinion in the USA, I thought I should provide some info on the viewsof people locally.
According to a survey done as part of the widely respected Australian Electoral Study
Oct 5th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Lorikeet:
You write “You need to go back and read all of …”. REPLY: You need to tell me why.
You then pose 5 questions without saying whether they are to be answered on the basis that life begins at syngamy or not — as though it makes no difference. Well, if it makes no difference I am free to answer on the basis that it begins at syngamy.
(1) Do I want siamese twins to have miserable lives? For example those at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiSuyuOOBR8
Er … no. Why should I? Nor do I think that my failure to desire their misery means I must approve their homicide. Why do you ask? Are you seriously suggesting its OK to kill people just because they are siamese twins? Or all people who have miserable lives?
(2) Do I think its OK to kill anyone whose continued existence drives up the divorce rate? I don’t. Do you?
(3) Do I think its OK to kill anyone I am not prepared to keep alive at my own expense? No. Do you?
(4) Am I willing to raise a severely handicapped child on a carer’s payment? Truth be told, I would if it were mine and there was no other way. But let’s suppose I weren’t willing. What do you say follows? That its OK to let anyone who wants to kill a severely handicapped child do so?
(5) Am I willing to employ severely handicapped people? I would be if I had no choice. But again,what follows? Your question really amounts to the proposal that there should be open slather on the long term unemployed.
In fact all your questions are at root one question: Should the lives of people that negatively impact on “our” own be protected by law? Apart from selfishness, I can’t see anything attractive in the proposal that they shouldn’t.
In fact I see an attraction in the idea that they should. Firstly because of my moral instincts. Secondly because the concept of “our” lives depends on others accepting me into the group. If I allow inconvenience to “our” lives as a reason for open slather, what will happen to me if the group no longer includes me?
Oct 5th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
TOGRET wrote: “… there have been very harsh laws against abortion in the past … They did not stop abortion, merely sending it underground … poor women died.”.
REPLY:
(1) So what? There have been harsh laws against armed robbery in the past. They did not stop it. They merely sent it “underground”. Armed robbers died while trying to rob people (sob, sob!). Your argument works for armed robbery just as well as for abortion.
(2) According to page of 45 of http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/0/4B0EC8DB3B4A730DCA2570610021AA58/$File/Abortion%20&%20index.pdf about 25% of all detected pregnancies in NSW, Canada or the USA end in abortion. But in 1970 when abortion first became legal in Canada the rate was only 2.9% (see http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-canada.html), at least an 8 fold increase in percentage terms. So clearly the law was effective in reducing abortions.
Oct 5th, 2009
Lorikeet
Togret:
I find your comment as to what I might know about the female reproductive cycle to be extremely offensive. I grew up with a mother and 3 sisters. I have read nearly all of the information provided by a fertility group here in Brisbane and I am also a parent of a modern teenager.
I have also worked in medical research. My knowledge of women’s reproductive issues would be at the very least well above the average.
Kevin Nacht:
I am guessing you must be very young, and therefore have little experience of the real world.
I am not a supporter of “open slather” abortion, but I find your extreme attitude to be almost as frightening.
Do you belong to the extreme religious fringe?
Oct 6th, 2009
togret
Kevin: your assumption in (2) above is that all pregnancies that were aborted while it was a crime would be recorded in statistics. I see no basis for this justification. We don’t know how many were aborted by one means or another … we do have some stats on how many women died as a result of abortions that were performed incompetently / in unhygienic conditions / in circumstances where complications were not able to be readily addressed. Many women were left in ill-health for the rest of thier lives, if they survived, and lots more children left motherless.
Yes, if their mothers had not chosen to commit a crime this wouldn’t have happened .. you draw an interesting parallel between bank robbing and abortion. Both might be impelled by similar reasons: poverty, disinclination to commit to a long period of hard work, lack of any other viable options as the ‘criminal’ saw the situation and that goes back to my original point that education might go a long way toward preventing the circumstances leading to the decision to commit the crime. I suppose I’d warm to your point of view more if it were phrased more compassionately and with an eye to the real world … I wonder if you generally find that *sob, sob* -type remarks persuade people ?
Oct 6th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
LORIKEET – Do you ever read anything that’s going on in the media? Listened to any interviews about young people? I thought your boys were men not teenagers as are mine? They were teenagers once, and I now have grand kids. I listen to the ABC radio all day, read papers on line, listen to heaps of discussions etc so I’m not immune to what’s going on. I also listen to women!
“In my view, there are varying degrees of rape, ranging from some young guy not exercising any self-control to a serial rapist and basher.”
Let me educate you as to what rape is under the relevant crimes act in NSW. Rape means the absence of clear and concise consent to sexual activity, including sexual intercourse. For the purpose of the usual crimes of sexual assault, that are also relevant to this topic, I’ll assume that it’s sexual activity between a male and female. The Act is very clear. If a male does not ensure that he has permission to continue with sexual activity, then he does not have consent. If he proceeds(at any stage) without consent it’s a criminal offence. When a woman is drunk, drugged or unconscious, it should not be assumed that there is consent. I don’t buy the BS, that he might ‘lose control’? He is only entitled to “lose control” if he’s ascertained consent. Anything else is sexual assault of varying degree/s! OK! Let’s stop this apologising for mens violent and revolting behaviour/s? Look it up on the NSW govt web site or the police site or whatever. The Law was strengthened to counter the nonsense grey area that you alluded to, and after some horrific cases of violent rape. There’s no grey area now! No consent means no go! Simple! With or without other forms of violence/coercion/thuggery?He leaves her alone! OK?That’s the Law!
KEVIN – Like Tony, when you’re pregnant for the first time we’ll have a chat, but I’d prefer to leave it until after you’ve given birth. What would you do? Lock up a pregnant woman who was considering abortion?How would you know? Then what?
Oct 6th, 2009
CJM
I’m six weeks pregnant – an unplanned pregnancy. We used condoms, but they broke. I’m planning to keep it – I’m 27yrs old, have a supportive family, a well established career, 12wks maternity leave & pregnancy is covered in my health fund (despite $5k out of pocket expenses). I’m in a good position & would regret abortion for the rest of my life – like my mother has regretted hers. This has been the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.
The father knew I was not on the pill & would not have an abortion prior to us being together. At first he was supportive, but when he spoke with his family & friends he changed his mind. He has since left me & has been demanding I have an abortion (includ. threats of suicide & having nothing to do with the child). He blames me for everything that is going wrong in his life, despite the fact that he was having significant issues prior to even meeting me. After some of the things he has said to me, I would not want to be with him now anyway.
I’ve heard that the social stigma that sticks to single mothers is gone… I beg to differ, particular in small rural areas where I come from. My decision to have this child is putting both of us in a position to be criticised. While I can handle this criticism… can the child when it attends school or mixes with its friends?
I think people should be given the choice whether they have a child or not. If well considered, abortion can be the best option. However, people also need to learn to face their responsibilities – particularly my own generation. Today, people can get out of things too easily. “You make your bed, lie in it”.
In my case, I want to keep this child, even if it means doing it alone. However, I dont want the father to come back in 6 years after not paying a cent of child support & try & take custody of the child I raised – which is currently happening to someone I know. There is a definite need to revise abortion & family law – but I dont know the best solution.
Oct 7th, 2009
Lorikeet
CJM:
Good on you. Clearly the father of your child is just trying to manipulate his way out of paying child support. You are certainly better off without a pig like that.
I raised one of my children for 10-1/2 years on my own. I didn’t suffer too much discrimination from other people, but I found that other men didn’t want my child. Well, buggar them!
If anyone criticises you, I suggest you tell them YOU were willing to do the right thing, and if they want to pick on someone, it should be the father. Say it loudly, so others can hear.
Naomi:
I’m sure I’ve told you several times now that I have sons aged 35, 34 and 17. I also have grandsons aged 5 and 2.
Yes, I pay a great deal of attention to what goes on in the media, but I am not fixated on some man-hating agenda which I then allow to cloud my view of the world.
Nothing is ever as simple as we might like it to be.
At the age of 16, I once became a little bit tipsy. Although nothing bad happened, I could see the potential. After that, I only had one drink whenever there were males around. I also stayed right away from big bunches of drunken idiots.
At some point in time, women have to take a share of the responsibility for some of the things that happen, but I am not condoning deliberate acts of rape or assault on the part of anyone.
You listen to women. How often do you listen to men?
Oct 7th, 2009
Andrew Bartlett
If anyone else is still reading this thread other than the protagonists who’ve been at each other for a month now, you might be interested in reading this recent piece by Eva Cox, which goes to the issue I raised of why it might be that even politicians who support reforming abortion laws are still reluctant to do it.
Oct 7th, 2009
Lorikeet
Andrew:
Well the answer to that is easy. Abortion is murder – child killing.
I’m sure you’re well aware that various interest groups, government and media push various recidivist ideas onto the populace over many years before they gain public acceptance. The the government legalises them.
Ideas such as abortion and euthanasia are part of the “Me Syndrome” mentality that the society has been taught over the last few decades.
Those who truly value a sense of community would never support open slather on activities and legislation that would destroy it.
Oct 8th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
TOGRET:
You wrote: “your assumption in (2) above is that all pregnancies that were aborted while it was a crime would be recorded in statistics.”
No, the assumption was merely that the statistics would not be wildly inaccurate.
Do you seriously think that imposing legal penalties for an activity does nothing to reduce its incidence?
If abortion was legalised in 1970, your objection couldn’t hold for the 1971 stats. Why didn’t you look at the 1971 stats which said that 7.9% of preganancies were ended by abortions? In 2000 it was 24%. I could also point out that abortion was legal in Canada throughout 1970, having been legalised in 1969.
I could also point out that, if you think the abortion stats are wildly unreliable, why not use the death-from-abortion stats? You can hide an abortion much more easily than a death. You assert “we do have some stats on how many women died as a result of [illegal] abortions”. Why no figures? Why leave it in airy-fairy land? There were only 11 such deaths in Canada in 1969. If tens of thousands of woman had died from illegal abortion, as your camp usually claims, how come so few died? Either the illegal abortions weren’t as dangerous as alleged or the number of them was much smaller than alleged.
You also wrote: “you draw an interesting parallel between bank robbing and abortion … I’d warm to your point of view more if it were phrased more compassionately”
Does your compassion for the armed robber extend to people who bomb abortion clinics? Do you propose to remove the reason for their actions, ie. the de facto legality of abortion? Or is your “compassion” just an example of favouritism?
If you think an argument needs to be “phrased” compassionately to be sound, you must find mathematics entirely unconvincing. I look forward to your treatise refuting Euclid on the grounds that his writings were totally lacking in “compassion”.
Oct 8th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
LORIKEET:
You wrote: ‘I am not a supporter of “open slather” abortion’.
If the fetus is not a human being, why not?
If the fetus is a human being, why at all? [other than for reasons that would justify any homicide, ie. self-defence]
Oct 8th, 2009
Tony
Namoi
Naomi Says: KEVIN – Like Tony, when you’re pregnant for the first time we’ll have a chat, but I’d prefer to leave it until after you’ve given birth. What would you do? Lock up a pregnant woman who was considering abortion?How would you know? Then what?
Yes we’ve all heard that tired old argument before Naomi. Its always been clear where you stand. Kill the child first (The mother should have rights over life and death at what any term of the pregnancy)
CJM Says: The father knew I was not on the pill & would not have an abortion prior to us being together. At first he was supportive, but when he spoke with his family & friends he changed his mind. He has since left me & has been demanding I have an abortion (includ. threats of suicide & having nothing to do with the child). He blames me for everything that is going wrong in his life, despite the fact that he was having significant issues prior to even meeting me.
Good on you CJM. The bulk of women are pressured by either their partner or family and this is what needs to be addressed. More support services for the mother.
Kevin Nacht says: If the fetus is a human being, why at all?
I think that question has been answered. The stance you seem to make, only adds support to the Pro-Choice community.
There is a small portion of abortions that for medical reasons as previously listed should not be condemmed. (You may not support them) but in ectopic pregnancies the child is certain to die and medical staff should do all they can to make sure the mother is safe.
Violent rape victims dont always choose to abort but this should be a decision for either the violated mother or doctor on her medical and mental state.
Tony
Oct 8th, 2009
Tony
Andrew:
Andrew says: Andrew Bartlett
If anyone else is still reading this thread other than the protagonists who’ve been at each other for a month now, you might be interested in reading this recent piece by Eva Cox, which goes to the issue I raised of why it might be that even politicians who support reforming abortion laws are still reluctant to do it.
I dont know who this Eva Cox is but her logic is flawed.
If in the 1800s a electorate thought it was okay to kill Aboriginals is or was that okay and should have been legislated ?
If a one or other strain say Sunny Moslems thought it okay to kill off the Shi ite moslems that would be okay.
Her sexist statements about male politicians is not only inaccurate but insulting to all the many Pro-life female members of parliament that are against abortion. In fact the minority and extreme groups like emilys list are well known for the militant attitude towards male members to force these legislations through.
Not a good reference link at all.
Tony
Oct 8th, 2009
togret
Kevin – if you think that maths and human ethics are the same thing then no wonder your posts sound so robotic. I’d go through the rest of your points but there is not much use in that .. you clearly don’t want to listen to anyone else, your opinions are made in black and white on a page.
But I will say that yes, I do have compassion for someone who would bomb an abortion clinic … they are clearly misguided enough to think that they are entitled to judge others according to their own view of what is “right” and then to carry out the sentence they have imposed. What pain they must be suffering, what delusions, to decide that they alone are the one who understands how the world should be run. In a similar way, once I put the anger aside, I feel compassion for people such as the man who killed his little girl because of a dispute with her mother, just as I do for themother, the brothers and all others involved.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think they should be stopped, but it does mean that I don’t see them as some kind of straw man, or cardboard cutout labelled “male”, “female”, “different religion from me” or whatever convenient label we place on people to stop ourselves from realising that they are not much different from me … and if there is a problem, maybe I could be looking for ways to help, not sitting back and condemning them.
Oct 8th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
TONY – What I said in reference to men taking the high moral ground, and carrying on with views, assumptions, presumtions, moralizing, lying about the incidents(of which you still haven’t produced any proof of your assumptions, nor what you’d do if you arrested women thinking of having an abortion) and reasons for women having an abortion; your high handed patriachal attitude to women is offensive. Like LORIKEET you have obviously not been in that position, and you have no proof to support your dogmatic and misogynist views. Show me the website that can prove your statistics?
LORIKEET – Yes, I recall now that you have a teenager. By your attitude, it stands to reason, that as you project your biased views about women and their decision to have an abortion, it could be safely assumed, that women aren’t drawn to you for an opinion that is not judgemental or open to understanding, nor have many felt drawn to you to engage in conversation about their dilemma – if I knew your opinion over 40 yrs ago, be assured, that I would not have confided in you. Therefore, it’s not unrealistic for me to say, that over a period of about 30 yrs, I’ve been trusted with the realities of many women. I’ve not been judgemental, but did my best to ensure, that they had every piece of information to assist them, and when they made their decision, I gave 100% support – even if it was after the fact.
It’s really not important what I think, as I’ll never be in that position again – I’m obviously past child bearing years. But as a woman who’s experienced many of the negatives in our society, I believe I can do more to make our world so bloody fantastic and egalitarian, that women won’t be put in this position. What the hell do you do! On a daily basis? When did you volunteer to be there for those in our community who are in terrible stress? When did you speak out about the misogynist world in which we live? If you don’t recognise this reality, why not? What do you read?
Oct 8th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin Nacht:
I think I have made pretty clear, a few very select circumstances under which I think an abortion should be allowed.
BTW I was not previously speaking of siamese twins, but of a much more grotesque foetus. Very often, siamese twins can be successfully separated, with at least one baby living.
When I was very young, I wouldn’t have aborted a Down Syndrome baby. Now that I am decades older, I’m not sure what I would do.
I don’t like abortion, but I would encourage you to give further thought to some of the scenarios that Tony and I have suggested before condemning our more moderate stance.
If you argue in the extreme, all you will end up doing is make pro-choice and pro-abortion debaters more vehement in their assertions that blanket baby-killing is right.
Oct 9th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
TOGRET, I too feel sorry for women who have abortions, but to borrow your phrase “That doesn’t mean I don’t think they should be stopped”.
You have yet to seriously turn your mind to my initial argument. Going by my “past experience” of people like you, that’s the last thing you want to do.
Oct 9th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
TONY wrote:
“Kevin Nacht says: If the fetus is a human being, why at all?
I think that question has been answered. “:
What was the answer? That its OK to kill people if you can’t prevent the government from allowing them to be killed?
You say its OK for a rape victim to kill her unborn child even if it is a human being. In cases of rape why not allow her to kill the child after birth too? She was just as much a rape victim before as after giving birth, and the child was just as much a human being before and after birth.
As for ectopic pregnancies I have no problem with abortion if they are life threatening and there is no alternative. That’s just applying the principle of self-defence. My point is, the laws protecting the lives of human beings must be the same for all human beings.
Oct 9th, 2009
Tony
Kevin Nacht
I said: Violent rape victims dont always choose to abort but this should be a decision for either the violated mother or doctor on her medical and mental state.
Kevin Says: What was the answer? That its OK to kill people if you can’t prevent the government from allowing them to be killed?
You say its OK for a rape victim to kill her unborn child even if it is a human being. In cases of rape why not allow her to kill the child after birth too?
If it’s taken you this long to accept the medical reason to terminate an ectopic pregnancy (that will die anyway and also threaten the mothers life) then it would a waste of many hours to explain the mental condition of a women that has just be violated in the most horrific way.
Whilst I am a very strong Pro-life advocate I think you position is somewhat extreme, and damaging to the cause that I and others on this site are fighting for.
Tony
Oct 9th, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
Yet again, I am finding your attitude to be extremely offensive.
At one time, I counselled people out of destructive cults, with a track record of success that was second to none. None of my counsellees went back to their former abusers and some even took others out with them, giving me an overall track record of 150% success.
I ran a cub scout pack in one of Brisbane’s lowest socio-economic areas containing many dirt-poor sole parents and their children. I gave support to those children and their mothers, and yes, sometimes they came to me for advice and practical help.
One woman’s husband had come back to the family for only one night, and then she found herself pregnant again. However, that was before I knew her. Those women were poor, but despite their desperate situation, I know they would never have aborted one of their children.
I have also worked with children in schools over many years, and as I’ve told you before, for 18 years, I supported 2 little boys through World Vision.
I believe in support (emotional, financial, legal) for women in dire circumstances, not some easy solution or “quick fix’ which may affect them for the rest of their lives.
Now I have a question for you. Has any of your children agreed to the abortion of YOUR grandchild?
A few months ago, I found out that my eldest son and his Japanese girlfriend took the easy way out, and aborted my grandchild, when a solution to their dilemma could have easily been found.
My son told me it was something he would have to live with for the rest of his life. He could have gone to his father and stepmother (whom he lived with and from whom he would certainly have received support) or he could have come to me.
I’m sure I could have helped with what seemed to him at the time to be an insurmountable set of obstacles.
Oct 11th, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
I am currently engaged in a battle with a dance studio where women (including myself) are having their rights abused by greedy enablers of ill-behaved men.
I stick up for women when they are being abused, and when the boot is on the other foot, I stick up for men.
It is my belief that this country has become more misogynistic in recent years, with lack of enforcement of laws and the denigration of women through the Child Support Agency, Family Court and Welfare to Work.
One of the best ways to get through to politicians and the general public is via blogs.
As you would be aware, I have a mother in a nursing home. I go there to support the needs of both my mother and others.
Please think twice before denigrating other women. It does nothing to support your extreme side of the abortion debate, which is still about baby-killing.
Oct 11th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
The practitioners of group-think have labelled my views on abortion “extreme”. But those views follow from just two propositions: (1) Every human being’s life should receive equal legal protection. (2) A human being comes into existence the moment syngamy is complete.
Which of those is “extreme”? The Nazis notoriously denied the first. The second is found in medical text books as the following quotes illustrate:
“At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun….” [Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]
“The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history … of the individual.” [Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]
“Human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell – a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” (Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 5th edition, 2003, p.16. This is confirmed by William J. Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology (1998), Scott F. Gilbert Developmental Biology, 7th edition (2003), and Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Muller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition (2001)).
“It is the penetration of the ovum by the spermatozoon and the resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.” Bradley Patten, Human Embryology (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1968), p. 43a. 3)
Oct 12th, 2009
Tony
Kevin Nacht:
Kevin Says: At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun
I agree totally.
The question you have to ask yourself is……….If you daughter was violently raped would you be the one to cast the first stone, if she could not mentally go through the torment of many months carrying the perpetrators child. Or if a doctor informed you that she was incaple of carry this child to birth. Would you overide the doctor and your daughter.
I think not.
But while you continue to argue the tiny 1.7% of all abortions, it just makes it harder for everyone trying to stop the censeless slaughter of the other 98% making up some 90,000 abortions a year.
Tony
Oct 12th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin Nacht:
I think it would help if you pulled your head back out of a science textbook and thought about people as human beings.
You could also spare us the boring science lesson, which I know I took 40 years ago, probably before you were even born.
What is extreme? Your complete lack of ability in applying the science to everyday life and its opportunities (or lack thereof, for the severely disabled).
Oct 12th, 2009
ken
Tony, there you are applying a political value system to what our non-extreme friend Kevin is applying a moral and scientific value system to. In other words no room for compromise, almost mathematical certainty.
Where as you are prepared to sacrifice the 1.7% to “achieve’ saving of the other 98%, in other words a political dimension to what you however claim as a moral even religious position.
I guess you can’t have it both ways, although I assume as with the Sudanese we only have sympathy with the Christian cells!!
To me the issue is one of legality as it stands as the first criteria and then it becomes a question of ones own personal values. In our case a fourth child came along unexpectedly and initially it was a serious consideration as to whether to abort or not – the impacts on the other three, the longer term viability of the family, and many others, at the end of the day the decision was to keep the child, it just simply boiled down to both of us just not able to go through with that course, too many what if’s?
I would never however disparage and put down anyone who made the other decision, like some on this blog are so happy to do.
Oct 12th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Tony,
You are totally ignoring my first proposition. Every human being’s life deserves equal legal protection.
Rape is not unique in producing “torment”. Abortion is not the only way to shorten one’s torment. If my neighbour torments me, can I kill him to stop it? Clearly not. Why then does the pregnant female’s torment mean she can kill someone?
And why should the fact that she is MY daughter make her feelings more important than the life of MY granddaughter or grandson who she is carrying?
Also, the rapist doesn’t deserve death for rape, so how come the innocent child he spawned loses its right to life?
———-
Tony earlier wrote “If it’s taken you this long to accept the medical reason to terminate an ectopic pregnancy (that will die anyway and also threaten the mothers life) then”
REPLY: I did not take “this long” to accept it. It has always been my position that killing in self-defence is fine. So if the pregnancy would kill the mother and there is no other way to save her life, the child can be killed. But the mere fact that the child is going to “die anyway” does not justify killing it, nor does it add any weight to the argument in favour of its being OK to kill the child when necessary to save the mother’s life. We are all going to “die anyway”. It’s just a question of when.
——-
Ken writes: “To me the issue is one of legality”.
(1) No, the issue is what the law should be, not what it already is.
(2) By sarcastically describing me as a “non-extreme friend” possessed of “almost mathematical certainty”, you insinuate that I am dogmatic when all I claim is that we are sufficiently certain from science that life begins at conception to frame laws on that basis. Has it ever occurred to you that doubt can be as dogmatic and unreasonable as certainty? And when it is, it deserves contempt, not respect, especially when it is the result of ignorance, prejudice, self-interest, lack of independent thought, and mental laziness.
Oct 12th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
KEVIN NACHT – What a load of tripe you go on with. Look at your own behaviours, including your sexual behaviour. You have a damned cheek calling women ‘murderers’ while you don’t castigate the behaviour of males. Have you ever been pregnant? Do you know of the dangers of pregnancy? Do you know or spoken to a woman who’s been raped, including rape by her husband? How many women have confided in your re domestic violence? How many support groups have you spoken to or been asked to speak on pregnancy and related conditions. Truly, you’re just a pontificating poop, safe in the knowledge that you don’t have to make any decisions about pregnancy. As I said in an earlier post, I lost a baby at 14 weeks – it was agony, traumatic and I grieved for some time, but it in no way resembled a viable child. In short, you’re talking BS! Give it a rest!
I bet you, that with your attitude, nobody, male or female are likely to seek you out as a confident in their bad times! You walk around with a ‘don’t confuse me with your sad stories’ persona! Shock, horror, that you’d be asked to show one shred of humanity????
Oct 12th, 2009
Tony
Now I dont know if anyone on this site (excluding Naomi) would support the horrific legislation passed in Victoria, but this link is well worth reading.
Another Link on how a doctors views his position.
As cold as the Nazi Doctors
Frightening isn’t it. Where is this world heading.
This statement by the doctor was the most worrying.
Referrals that leave you uncomfortable are par for the course in clinical practice. I see the occasional patient referred with infertility whom I would consider far from an ideal parent, but I still refer her to a subspecialist. Good doctors don’t moralise, they leave that to the clergy.”
Tony
Tony
Oct 13th, 2009
Lorikeet
I ran the new abortion laws in Victoria past the local doctor. He said the Victorian government must be run by communists, if a doctor has no choice where his personal ethics and values are concerned.
Naomi Cartledge:
How do you know what Kevin’ s sexual behaviour is like? I doubt if he has ever been pregnant but, these days, who knows? I am yet to see one shred of humanity there either.
I also think Kevin is a pontificating poop, but you must be aware that your own posts are heavily punctuated with misandry.
Oct 13th, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
A couple of times now, you have tried to compare the loss of your pregnancy by miscarriage of a non-viable foetus with the matter being discussed here.
A miscarriage is a miscarriage. In most cases, an abortion is the deliberate removal and killing of a growing baby, regardless of its viability.
But if Kevin wants to continue to vehemently defend babies that are found to be severely deformed, I think he should be forced to start up his own clinic and do the childraising himself.
Oct 14th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
NAOMI CARTLEDGE wrote: “What a load of tripe you go on with”.
REPLY: I had written:” (1) Every human being’s life should receive equal legal protection. (2) A human being comes into existence the moment syngamy is complete”. Which of those two propositions is the “tripe”?
—
LORIKEET wrote: “Kevin is a pontificating poop”.
REPLY: For which of those two propositions do you call me a “pontificating poop”?
—
NAOMI CARTLEDGE wrote: “I don’t believe that a 12, 14 or even 20 odd week foetus is an independent life, but that is my opinion. You think differently, fine, but nobody is forcing you to act outside your beliefs”
REPLY: (1) There is no such thing as “an independent life”. Every life depends on a suitable habitat. That habitat varies from one organism to the next and from one stage of its development to the next. (2) The Victorian laws compel doctors practising there to act outside their beliefs. How does that square with your freedom of choice posturing?
—
To NAOMI CARTLEDGE who wrote: “I lost a baby at 14 weeks – it was agony, traumatic and I grieved for some time, but it in no way resembled a viable child”
REPLY: That sentence contains a lot of double think. It starts by calling what you “lost” (a euphemism for aborted?) a baby. That would explain why you “grieved” — you felt sorry for the baby. But it ends by saying “it in no way resembled a viable child”, by which you may have meant that it was not a child — in which case there was no baby to feel sorry for — or you may have meant that children who are not viable are somehow not really human beings at all
—
TOGRET wrote: “Your posts sound so robotic”
REPLY: Thank you, but so what?
—
TOGRET wrote: “… you think that maths and human ethics are the same thing”
REPLY: No, but as every man knows: the feeling with which an argument is expressed has nothing to do with whether it should be accepted
Oct 14th, 2009
Andrew Bartlett
Seeing some people are still going at this topic, here’s another piece of information.
Just some extra global context.
Oct 14th, 2009
Tony
Andrew
Andrew says: Unsafe abortions kill about 70,000 women a year, says a report by the U.S.- based Guttmacher Institute. An additional five million women are treated annually for complications arising from unsafe abortion
That figure doesnt even equal the number of infants killed in Abortions each year in Australia. Perhaps they should be looking at the reasons and not funding the result.
The fact that some extreme members of our society still refer to abortions as some form of sexual health is the real problem here.
The perpertrators are protected and the killing of the victim is supported and funded.
This just goes to show our far down the drain our society has fallen and supports the previous link I posted.
Tony
.
Tony
Oct 15th, 2009
Lorikeet
Tony:
There really is no need for most women to have abortions, let alone to have complications or die from them.
Kevin:
It was actually Naomi who said you were a pontificating poop. I was just agreeing with her.
I’d say proposition (1) where “every human life receives equal legal protection” is relevant to such a description.
You clearly don’t mind having your attitude described as robotic. Do you have some kind of Autism Spectrum Disorder?
In my opinion, the soul of a severely disabled child has a right to be at rest, not trapped in a useless body for decades.
Believers in reincarnation might think the soul should be returned to the guff as quickly as possible, in the hope it will quickly be assigned a better body.
I have a degree of disability myself. Even that is hard to live with, especially when I am being abused by other people because of it, or in spite of it, and am being expected to do things they couldn’t be bothered with.
I know a Chaplain who is semi-quadriplegic. Even though he sells goods for a charity and counsels 4 women with cerebral palsy, some people are really nasty towards him because he does not work at a paid job.
Perhaps you could try to moderate your pontification with a bit of a reality check.
Oct 16th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
ANDREW BARTLETT
(1) Most places have laws designed to make homicide more difficult and therefore more dangerous for its would-be perpetrators. Now if “unsafe homicides” resulted in the deaths of 70,000 killers and 5 million killers were treated annually from complications arising from “unsafe homicides”, would that be any argument for removing those restrictions? And would you regard homicide as “safe” if the restrictions were removed? Plainly not. Ergo, the argument you suggest has no force except on the supposition that abortion is not homicide. But on that supposition your statistics are pointless. Abortion would be no more contentious than plastic surgery. The statistics do nothing but divert attention from the real issue.
(2) After Bernard Nathanson’s admission about lies told in the cause of “choice”, I take anything said by a pro-abortion organisation like the Gutmacher Institute with a huge grain of salt.
(3) And here is a thought for those whose hearts perpetually bleed for women who “need” abortion: “The highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero from 20 to 30 weeks gestation. During this period, the epidermis is still very thin, leaving nerve fibers closer to the surface of the skin than in older neonates and adult…Thus, a fetus at 20-32 weeks of gestation would experience a much more intense pain than older infants or children or adults…” [expert testimony provided to the Northern District of the US District Court in CA [15Apr04], Dr. Sunny Anand [Dir, Pain Neurobiology Lab, Arkansas Children's Hospital Research]
Oct 17th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Some more context
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2537287282468590136&ei=F-bYSunkJpr8qAPymdD9CQ&hl=en#docid=8154832365718431524
Oct 17th, 2009
Andrew Bartlett
Kevin
I fully understand the argument you are making, and I have some admiration for someone who follows the inherent logic of their beliefs all the way through, even when that leads to views which most people would find very unpalatable.
However, the point you seem to be missing is that the vast majority of people do not agree with your blunt equating of abortion with homicide. Your complete absence of concern for the fact that 70 000 women (and zero men) die from unsafe abortions each year is a clear demonstration that , while your view has its own internal logical consistency, it is lacking in connection to reality or humanity.
Your argument appears to suggest that 70 000 women dieing each year is an acceptable consequence of the deterrent effect from making abortions completely illegal. Saying the deaths of 70 000 women each year is a “pointless statistic” is a strange view coming from someone who purports to uphold the sanctity of life.
Oct 17th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
ANDREW BARTLETT
(1) You said “I don’t think this is the sort of issue which should be determined solely by opinion polls”, but you seem to be deciding the abortion issue solely on that basis. Mind you, had you used polls taken in 1960, you would have to have decided the opposite way — I would think that should trouble you.
(2) I think that 70,000 deaths IS an acceptable “consequence” of a law IF (other things being equal) it prevents more than 70,000 other deaths. And if the fetus is a human being, it does. Every law has its downside. 70,000 deaths is just a strikingly large downside. But the principle in all cases is the same: You have to balance the cons against the pros. Thus the statistic supports no pro-choice argument independently of how one answers the question of whether abortion kills an unborn human being.
(3) I do not think abortion should be “completely illegal”. It should be legal in exactly the same circumstances in which homicide is legal — and I have previously said so.
(4) To say I called the 70000 deaths a “pointless statistic” is a crude distortion. I said the statistic was pointless FOR THE PURPOSE OF SHOWING THAT ABORTION SHOULD ALWAYS BE LEGAL.
(5) As for my sympathy for the dead women, it is outweighed by my concern for the unborn children whose lives, on my view, those restrictive abortions saved.
(6) You reduced my propositions to “beliefs”, thereby suggesting that they had no sufficient rational basis. I did in fact present arguments for both of my key propositions: (1) Every human being’s life should receive equal legal protection. (2) A human being comes into existence the moment syngamy is complete. No one here has yet challenged them – except perhaps for Lorikeet who on Oct 12th, 2009, in a blaze of logic, rejected the scientific support for my second proposition on the basis that she already knew it to be true.
Oct 20th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin:
I’m not sure what you are on about here, but I do not thank you for attempting to abort my side of the argument (pro-life with a few reasonable concessions) with your petri dish and scalpel.
Oct 20th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
To Lorikeet:
I withdraw what I said in relation to you in my last post. From your defence of abortion in incest cases I took it that you denied that abortion was murder. I hadn’t noticed that in your post of Sep 11th, 2009 you wrote: “abortion is murder”.
Your position is that it is OK to “murder” anyone whose life is “not worth living”? or only if the human being in the foetal stage of their life?
As regards your 40 years knowledge of the biological facts surrounding abortion: you and I have known them for years, but time and time again I find that those who are pro-”choice” don’t know them. The “science lesson” was for their benefit.
Oct 21st, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin:
I wouldn’t go quite as far as to say that it is OK to “murder” anyone whose life is “not worth living”.
As I have pointed out before, people are not allowed to marry first degree relatives for good genetic reasons. In the case of incest, we also need to consider that a girl has probably been sexually abused by her father or brother. So we could be looking at a combination of genetic abnormalities, statutory rape and incest combined.
Let’s imagine that girl is your sister and your father has raped her. Would you want to make a girl who is clearly distressed bear her own father’s baby? If I had “murder” in my heart, I know who would be getting it first.
Responsible adults have to make the choices where the unborn are concerned, based on whatever criteria are relevant.
I think the “pro-choice” people know the biological facts quite well, but they deliberately reduce the growing embryo/foetus to a “collection of cells” to which “retrospective contraception” can be applied, mainly to fit in with Me Syndrome indoctrination:
“If you don’t want it, kill it.”
Believe me, one of the worst evils the world has produced in the last 2 to 3 decades is Me Syndrome. It is well on the way to destroying the very fabric of our society, alienating people from one another and their responsibilities.
This puts the government and employers in a perfect position to exploit workers and take their rights away.
Oct 21st, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Lorikeet asked me: “Would you want to make a girl who is clearly distressed bear her own father’s baby?”
(1) Yes, if the only alternative meant killing the baby. Why punish the baby for what the father did? What has “it” done wrong?
(2) To see how silly your question is, consider this one: would you want someone who is clearly distressed by a noisy neighbours to have to bear it? (Assume the only way to stop the noise is to kill the neighbours)
(3) You speak of this baby as though it were a “thing”. It is as much a human being as anyone. It’s as much her child as his. It’s as much her child as any she will ever bear.
(4) If it’s OK to kill such a child before birth, why not after birth too?
(5) You say you “wouldn’t go quite as far as to say that it is OK to “murder” anyone whose life is “not worth living”. But isn’t the fact that you think it’s life is not worth living, the reason you think it’s OK to kill it? And if that reason works for this case it works for every case.
Oct 21st, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin:
Gee, I’m really glad we don’t have you representing us in the parliament. You have completely failed to consider the mother at all.
It would not surprise me if you have been so heavily indoctrinated with religion that you think women have no value, or are here to be ordered about, controlled, manipulated or possibly even stalked.
I’ve had exactly those problems with some of the church men in my dance class, with other religious people sticking up for THEIR rights instead of mine. If any men who are dancers are reading this, please take note of the following:
If a woman doesn’t want to dance with you … go out with you … be your friend … or even bloody marry you … leave her alone! Just because you think she is “the chosen one” doesn’t mean she thinks the same about you.
If a woman invites you to her dance class and then she decides she doesn’t want to see you any more, instead of telling her to get out herself, please have the good manners to sod off!
Kevin, since we are living in the 21st Century, I think you (along with plenty of others) should take note of the fact that women have equal rights.
A woman doesn’t have to give birth to her father’s child after he has raped or sexually abused her. She also doesn’t have to risk bringing into the world, a child who is highly likely to be genetically defective.
For goodness sake! Please put your petri dish away and learn to have a heart!
Oct 22nd, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Naomi Cartledge presented the classic pro-choice freedom of “conscience” argument:
“For those who are against terminations, nobody is forcing you to have one”
“I don’t believe that a 12, 14 or even 20 odd week foetus is an independent life, but that is my opinion. You think differently, fine, but nobody is forcing you to act outside your beliefs?”
“I think abortion should be decriminalized, and allow women to use THEIR CONSCIENCE”
To see how ridiculous that argument is, consider the fact that you could construct an essentially identical one to justify the Holocaust:
For those against Jew-killing, nobody is forcing you to kill one.
I believe that Jews should be wiped-out in the interests of the German Nation. That is my opinion. You think differently, fine, but nobody is forcing you to act outside your beliefs?
I think Jew-killing should be decriminalized, and allow Nazis to use THEIR CONSCIENCE.
Oct 23rd, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin:
I think you made a bit of a hash of the second paragraph of paraphrasing Naomi’s comment.
It should say:
“I don’t believe that a Jew is a real person ……”
Even then it isn’t really comparable with a 20 week foetus.
Oct 24th, 2009
Terry
There is a lot of psychopathology in the community of anti-abortionists.
Oct 26th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
LORIKEET:
Regarding your 24 October post: I wasn’t paraphrasing Naomi. I was quoting Naomi.
Regarding your 23 October post:
(1) Your attempt to play the religious-guilt card (“…you have been so heavily indoctrinated with religion”) won’t work on me. I have no religion.
(2) You wrote: “you think women have no value”. Not true. I think your post has no value since all it contains is insult ["sod off"], unsubstantiated accusation [1 above], irrelevancies [eg. 4 below], superciliosness [eg. "you ... should take note"], an entreaty to throw reason to the wind ["have a heart"] and an unreasoned dogmatic re-assertion of your position on the very point at issue [6 below]. It suggests your intellect has little or no value, but as you are clearly more than an intellect, it does not follow that you are of no value.
(3) The fact that the features in (2) above constantly recur in the “arguments” of abortion defenders, strongly suggests that it is they (and I include you in them) who are the indoctrinated ones.
(4) Your 3 paragraph treatise on women and dance may satisfy your need to talk about yourself, but it has no relevance to the subject under debate.
(5) You say women have “equal rights”, but what you mean is that their rights are superior to those of human beings in utero.
(6) You say : “A woman doesn’t have to give birth to her father’s child after he has raped or sexually abused her.” I disagree. I think she has no choice since the alternative would be unjustified homicide. As I previously said: if she can kill it in utero, why not ex utero?, ie infanticide.
(7) You wrote: “She also doesn’t have to risk bringing into the world, a child who is highly likely to be genetically defective.” You seem to think that the interior of the womb is no part of the world, for if it is, and if there is a human being inside it, then the child has already been “brought into the world”. It happened at syngamy.
Oct 27th, 2009
ken
Kevin you really are a hoot, I love your point 3. However, Lorikeet is going to take great delight in pointing out that she made no post on the 23rd.
Although i don’t personally apprvoe of abortion, your posts would appear to give some meaning and reason to continue trying for for those that do.
Oct 27th, 2009
Tony
Terry Says:
There is a lot of psychopathology in the community of anti-abortionists.
But the Pro-Death movement is worse, and they’ll think and say anything to support the removal of the sanctity of life.
Even the term Pro-choice is psychopathology.
Oct 27th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
TO KEN: It is obvious which post I meant – but just in case: it was the 22 October one.
You wrote:”your posts would appear to give some meaning and reason to continue trying for for those that do”. Some reason for those that do approve abortion to continue trying what?
When someone says they don’t “personally” approve of abortion, it’s usually only one half of a thought, the other half-being, “but if someone wants one that’s their decision”. Do I read you correctly?
TO TERRY: So advocating equal rights for all human beings is what abortion defenders call “psychopathology”? What a bizarre linguistic landscape you inhabit. But you people call foetal homicide a mere “choice”, foetal implantation “conception”, and the pill a “contraceptive”, so with that much newspeak around, why should I be surprised!
Oct 27th, 2009
ken
par 1 Really Kevvie! I would have never guessed you meant the 22nd.
par 2 – you work it out, you know everything else to a numbing degree of clinical precision – surely you couldn’t have missed the synecdochic parable.
par 3 – you not on a roll today – “if it is legal then its their decision” is my acceptacne of reality. Like it or not that is a relevant criteria although you have rejected it in the past. Your view and my view are simply that and completely irrelevant on their own.
Society has developed and is regualted in a way that determiens how these views prevail into behaviours, then laws which are subsequently enacetd, enforced and eventually reviewed.
it is in fact largely this and the development of higher order intelligence processess that has seen mannkind emerge and develop into how we are today.
If there are things you don’t approve of or like or agree with so there are many I don’t approve, like or agree with. Unfortunatley my friend that means sweet fanny adams in the big picture.
Oct 27th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin:
I have an IQ in the top 2% of the population. I fear it is you who has been left behind, possibly because your brain is stuck in a tight corner.
Ken:
Thank you, you can deal with Kevin now. Phew!
Oct 27th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
LORIKEET:
Your statement: “I fear it is you who has been left behind”, indicates that you are firmly in group-think mode when it comes to abortion. You have not presented a single serious argument to support your position, yet you declare victory and go home.
KEN:
If you’ve got something worth saying, say it, but don’t pretend that supercilious obscurantism = intelligence.
Oct 29th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin Nacht:
Thank you for declaring me the victor. I’m sure Ken will be pleased.
If you actually read what I said across both threads, you would know that I have presented quite a number of serious arguments.
I can assure you I am not locked into any kind of group thinking … or a tight corner either.
Oct 29th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
LORIKEET wrote: “Thank you for declaring me the victor”
I didn’t.
LORIKEET wrote: “If you actually read what I said across both threads, you would know that I have presented quite a number of serious arguments”
You will have to be more specific.
LORIKEET wrote: “I can assure you I am not locked into any kind of group thinking … or a tight corner either”
I am not assured.
Oct 31st, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
KEVIN – It might be a novel thought for you, but have you ever defended the rights of the woman to make her own choices? They may not be your choices, but as you’ll never have to make this type of decision, your arrogance and scathing remarks just show how shallow your perceptions and compassionate views are. If abortions are carried out at the ‘best time’ that is at 7 weeks or so, it’s a simple procedure and I don’t believe it’s killing a child. That’s just a nonsense! You sound like a misogynist to me, with a grandiose sense of your own intellectual argument, which is really only rubbish.
When you’re pregnant for the first time, then you’ll have increased your perceptions. !
Nov 1st, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
Aborting the embryo at 7 weeks certainly is killing a child. It isn’t like throwing out an unwanted old handbag that’s past its prime, or a piece of rotting fruit.
I am yet to find a compassionate view among Kevin’s purely clinical diatribes, shallow or otherwise.
Nov 1st, 2009
Jessica
With respect, the entire Pro-Abortion argument boils down to one BIG FAT LIE: that what is growing inside the womb is not a human being.
If it IS a HUMAN BEING, then the CIVIL RIGHTS to which all Australians are entitled MUST EXTEND TO THEM. They have the RIGHT to LIVE, to keep have their bodies protected from being VACUUMED and CHOPPED into a soup.
Moreover, these CIVIL RIGHTS must extend to unborn children WHETHER OR NOT they suffer from any deformity or disability, just as those in our society who suffer deformity and disability are rightly protected from extermination. Few people realise that Hitler executed over 350,000 deformed and disabled people in his ‘camps’, labelling them as “Life unworthy of life”. The Pro-Abortion movement in Australia advocates a similar vision to Hitler’s when they freely use the term “unviable” pregnancy to pretend that they are NOT advocating the execution of INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS.
Society, and the laws enacted by it, exist for a simple purpose: to protect the WEAK against injustice perpetrated by the STRONG. NO ONE in our society is more weak, and requires more MERCY, than voiceless, defenceless UNBORN CHILDREN. Every CIVIL RIGHT in Australia is predicated on the fundamental RIGHT to LIVE: to BE BORN IN THE FIRST PLACE to enjoy their protection. MAny Pro-Abortion Australians would burn with anger at Capital Punishment, or the crimes of paedophiles, of child pornography, mass murderers, etc and yet IN THE VERY SAME BREATH will passionately argue for the PREMEDITATED EXECUTION of CHILDREN IN THE WOMB who are INNOCENT and who can’t even WHIMPER to BEG for MERCY. What HYPOCRISY!
Pro-Abortionists have accepted the LIE that what is growing inside the womb is NOT an INNOCENT CHILD. ALL human beings are “viable” – are ‘Life WORTHY of Life’. I support Pro-Choice: Women have the right to choose what to do with their bodies. THE BABY growing inside their womb is NOT THEIR BODY. They have no right to MURDER it in COLD BLOOD: PERIOD.
Nov 1st, 2009
Kevin Nacht
The Australian contains a splendid example of the bizzaro-world logic that inhabits pro-choice minds.
The mother is sad at having had an abortion. Why? Because she thinks she killed her child. She says: “He had these perfect hands … Out of everything that was wrong with him, I will never forget those. They were just so beautiful — his hands and his little face. Perfect, you know.”
The article continues: “Shay, 25, had no idea her BABY was in trouble until she presented for a routine ultrasound at week 19 of pregnancy. … in the unlikely event he survived to full term, he would have died during delivery. On that basis, they decided to terminate the pregnancy … the trauma of losing TJ was made more harrowing by Queensland’s abortion law impasse”
In other words: if you think the foetus IS a child, you should support legalising abortion (so that it will be emotionally easier for women to kill it). You couldn’t make this stuff up!
To Naomi of Nov 1, 2009:
(1) You can’t turn a human being into a non-human being by simply refusing to believe it is a human being. Disinterested science says the foetus is a human being. Interested you say otherwise. Who should be believed?
(2) There is no evidence that pregnancy adds to IQ or knowledge. Anecdotal evidence is that it makes a person more irrational.
(3) Suppose, for argument’s sake that I am “a misogynist” with “a grandiose sense of [my] own intellectual argument”. So what? Exactly which part of what I said would that invalidate?
(4) Why should I defend a non-existing right (to “choose”)? The right to choose stops where the choice is to unjustifiably kill someone else. You seem to be suggesting that if one argues a proposition one ought also to argue its opposite. There’s that bizarro-world logic again!
To Jessica: Well said.
Nov 2nd, 2009
Lorikeet
Jessica:
Can you please tell us who got vacuumed and chopped into a soup?! (Who ate that???)
Unfortunately, like Kevin, you are locked into a dangerous extremist position of anti-abortion, just like those who are locked into a dangerous extremist position of pro-abortion/pro-choice.
If a baby is going to suffer pain and die during the delivery, surely it is better for both him and the mother to get him out as soon as possible to minimise grief, pain and suffering.
Kevin:
Pregnant women who become irrational would be a minority group – possibly those suffering from mental health problems such as Bipolar Disorder, whose medication cannot be properly maintained.
I’m not sure what the discussion of IQ in relation to pregnancy is about.
Nov 2nd, 2009
ken
Kevin – What is the difference between cells that divide and grow inot a human life form and celles that divide and grow into another animal.
Nov 3rd, 2009
Kevin Nacht
To Lorikeet:
(1) You wrote: “I’m not sure what the discussion of IQ in relation to pregnancy is about.”
It was about your claim: “When you’re pregnant for the first time, then you’ll have increased your perceptions.”
(2) You rejected Jessica’s position on the grounds that it was “extremist”. You can’t know that a position is “extremist” in an objectionable way, unless you already know that it is false. Consequently you can’t use the premise that a proposition is “extremist” to prove it is false.
(3) In reality your talk of “dangerous extremist” viewpoints isn’t an argument. It is name-calling and demonisation. You have resolved upon that strategy in the hope that your opponent will be cowed into silence or at least not be given a hearing by others. A poorly disguised attempt to enforce group-think from somebody who has recently “assured” me that she is “not locked into any kind of group thinking”.
(4) I think you accurately stated the premise of the piece in the Australian when you said; “If a baby is going to suffer pain and die during the delivery, surely it is better for both him and the mother to get him out as soon as possible to minimise grief, pain and suffering.” Until now the ultimate “foundation” of pro-choice “philosophy” has been a closing of the eyes to the humanity of the foetus. It is getting increasingly difficult to do so – what with 4-d ultrasound. So this article offered a new justification – euthanasia.
It would be too much to expect of someone whose “philosophy” is essentially a self-interested closing of the eyes to clearly say “kill him as soon as possible”. Instead you wrote: “get HIM out as soon as possible”
Have a look at the 4-d ultrasound and tell me again about how compassionate the pro-choice position is.
Nov 3rd, 2009
Kevin Nacht
To Lorikeet
(1) Point (1) of my last post should have said:
It was about Naomi’s claim: “When you’re pregnant for the first time, then you’ll have increased your perceptions”
(2) You employed an oxymoron when you referred to my writings as “purely clinical diatribes”.
To Ken
You asked: “What is the difference between cells that divide and grow inot a human life form and celles that divide and grow into another animal.”
REPLY:
(3) There are no such cells. Human beings come into existence from cell unification (“syngamy”), not cell division. Once in existence they grow and develop through cell division until they acquire the features of the human beings we encounter in everyday life. The born child and the unicellular product of syngamy are the same biological entity. You did not come FROM a zygote. You WERE that zygote. Hence killing it would have been killing you.
(4) If you don’t have a problem with that, ie. with being killed merely to enhance/protect someone else’s quality of life, then your real position must be more general than just supporting abortion rights. You must favour euthanasia as well — euthanasia in the (recently) extended sense advocated by Lorikeet in her Nov 2 posting, namely: killing not just to spare the person killed from “pain and suffering”, but also to spare others from the “pain and suffering” that would result if the former were not killed. You probably think its OK to kill barely developed human beings because you think they feel nothing.
(5) That’s probably also the thinking behind Naomi’s post of Nov 1 where she wrote: “If abortions are carried out at the ‘best time’ that is at 7 weeks or so, it’s a simple procedure and I don’t believe it’s killing a child”
(6) You both probably think: The foetus may “technically” be a human being, but as it isn’t developed enough to feel anything, its humanity can be discounted (“I don’t believe it’s killing a child”), and a painless death that reduces future suffering is a good thing.
Nov 3rd, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin:
I know what a dangerous extremist is because I have counselled people out of destructive cults. I’ve also studied Social Psychology and Group Dynamics – also Mind Control & Manipulation.
I have no interest in extremists at either end of the argument.
I looked at some of your video links. I don’t think Mother Theresa would have left my aunt to die from renal failure along with her unborn baby.
Doctors left the baby inside her for as long as they could, but they had to get him out at about 28 weeks, or lose both of them. Since it was more than 35 years ago, and there were no surfactants to keep his lungs pliable, her little boy died and she was told it was too dangerous for her to conceive again.
Now you want to browbeat my childless aunt with your ridiculous bulldust and ill-conceived ideas of who should feel guilt.
I think an oxymoron is quite applicable in this instance, for those who don’t understand the connection.
I don’t think you’re in a position to accuse anyone else of group thinking.
For goodness sake! Get a reality check!
Nov 3rd, 2009
Julie
I am 6 weeks pregnant. I am a woman of integrity, compassion, independant thought and strong sense of my own morals. I was utterley devastated after an accident of a broken condom, then the failure of the morning after pill, resulted in me getting pregnant. My partner of one year felt the same way as me – devastated, scared, and totally gutted at the thought of being a parent right now. I love children and perhaps one day down the track will make the decision that I have found someone who I feel I want to start a family with…but honestly, to do it now would mean sacrificing all of his and my dreams for our career, travel, and personal growth. We are just not ready.
Some of you on this thread may call me a murderer, call me selfish, in fact you can call me whatever you like – I have already lost any respect for you and your ridiculous ranting.
I’m a decent person.
And it’s my life, so it’s my choice.
Go outside and find something worthwhile to do rather than niggle and argue with some stranger online when it’s clear neither side of the debate is going to succeed in changing the opinion of the other. Go hug your wife, call your children, bake a cake or climb a tree, whatever…as for me, I’ll go back to throwing up 24-7 and awaiting my termination date when this pregnancy hell will be over.
Nov 4th, 2009
Tony
Julie Says: I love children and perhaps one day down the track will make the decision that I have found someone who I feel I want to start a family with…but honestly, to do it now would mean sacrificing all of his and my dreams for our career, travel, and personal growth. We are just not ready.
Make sure its not his dreams that you are worried about. I think you should get councilling and make an informed decision. The me sydnrome is very strong in your statement and supports many of the statements by Lorikeet and others.
Julie says:
I’m a decent person.
And it’s my life, so it’s my choice.
I have never had to make the choice of one lilfe over another. The ending of your childs life for your lifestyle needs or wants will not doubt stay with you for the rest of your life.
I’ll say a prayer for your child, that was given no choice of his or her own and was terminated by his/her mother for material wants and the removal of choice.
Lifestyle killing of the unborn is the one thing that most on this site have complained and agrued against. Your statements will no doubt re-affirm the stand they are making for the unborn that fall victims of such disregard for the sanctity of life
Tony
Nov 4th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Lorikeet:
From your description of it, your aunt’s case counts as self-defence. I approve of homicide when necessary for self-defence. I said that before.
“Applicable oxymoron” is an oxymoron too.
You keep saying you are not a group-thinker, but you use “extremism” as proof of error. That means you are using what “most people” think as your criterion of truth. That means you are locked into group-think.
You talk vaguely of a “reality check”. Be specific. Which of my two fundamental propositions do you deny? — ” (1) Every human being’s life should receive equal legal protection. (2) A human being comes into existence the moment syngamy is complete”
Nov 4th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
JULIE:
You already HAVE a child. It is too late to stop it coming into existence. It is inside you right now. See here for what it looks like at 10 weeks (after being aborted).
If you kill it, you can kiss your self-image as a person of compassion and integrity goodbye. Part of you will always know what you did. You will tell yourself “I am a decent person. I love children.”, and your subconscious will reply: “then how come you killed one for your own convenience?” You will enter the fun-filled world of Post Abortion Syndrome.
Here is what some women who had abortions said about their abortions.
Nov 4th, 2009
Lorikeet
Julie:
I cannot see any compassion or morality in your decision to terminate your pregnancy. If you don’t want your child, you could let some childless couple have him/her.
It is still possible to get safe treatment for morning sickness from a doctor or naturopath.
If you do not love this man and value his child and yours, why are you having sex with him?
I think there is a great deal of personal growth attached to becoming a parent.
I agree with both Tony and Kevin’s comments to you.
Please also bear in mind that if you have an abortion, you may not be able to have any children at a later date. Some women cannot even have a pap smear without getting a gynaecological infection.
Kevin:
What I don’t agree with is the completely clinical application of your principles to nearly every situation, without looking at it from a broad perspective.
I notice you have also lumped me in with Naomi, who is absolutely pro-abortion, while I am anti-abortion, with a few provisos which cover women and babies in situations grossly outside the norm.
Your views are at one extreme. Naomi’s appear to be at the other.
Nov 5th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Lorikeet
The rape exception you make for abortion makes no sense.
If it’s a child, you can’t kill it just because you wish you hadn’t been raped. Abortion won’t prevent the child arising. It is already there. You want to expunge the rape incident from your past. You can’t. You want to expunge the memory, but you can’t do it at the expense of doing something worse to another human being than the rapist did to you. You can’t kill it just because you are hurt and upset — no matter how hurt and upset you are. That would be convenience killing. You may as well say I can kill a noisy neighbour because his constant noise has been making life unbearable — REALLY unbearable.
Ditto for the genetically defective child. It already exists. You can’t kill it just because it’s defective — unless you are arguing euthanasia for defectives? That path was tried in the 1930s by certain famously unpopular German (well, Austrian actually).
Equal protection under the law for all human beings. That’s all I am arguing for. Why is that “extremist”? No special exceptions for: the unborn, or the deformed, or the mentally handicapped, or the jews or negros or gypsies or people going by the name of Lorikeet or Naomi or whatever.
Nov 6th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
This article illustrates what can happen once you see what abortion really is. Excerpts follow:
——————–
The director of a Planned Parenthood abortion center in Texas has resigned and embraced the pro-life movement after witnessing an abortion through an ultrasound.
Abby Johnson had worked at the clinic in Bryan/College Station, Texas, for eight years before departing from the facility after her change of heart.
“ I … really reached my breaking point after witnessing a particular kind of abortion on an ultrasound.”
According to reports, Johnson had never seen an abortion take place on an ultrasound but happened to be present during one procedure, in which she saw a 13-weeks-old fetus trying to move away from the doctor’s probe
“I just thought, ‘What am I doing?’” she told ABC News. “And then I thought, ‘Never again.’”
——————–
There are more examples
So Naomi et al.: you’d better keep your heads firmly buried in the sand. Just keep repeating your mantra: “Kevin’s just an extremist, just an extremist, just an extremist, just an extremist …” and hope reality goes away.
Nov 8th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin:
There will never be any excuse for you having a completely heartless attitude towards rape and incest victims.
There are women involved in the reality, and fathers of the children as well.
Nov 8th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
You have a completely heartless attitude towards the people the women kill. They are as real as the women.
You can add “Kevin’s heartless, heartless, heartless…” to your mantra.
Nov 9th, 2009
Lorikeet
That is really childish, Kevin.
It seems that you are incapable of looking at this issue from a broad, humane perspective.
If I had a mantra (which I don’t), I can assure you your name would not be mentioned in it. In fact I feel completely ashamed to have you on my side of the argument.
Nov 10th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Lorikeet
You are very one-eyed. If my accusation is childish why isn’t yours? We accused each other of the same thing.
I take both sides into account, mother and child. Life outweighs life-style. Therefore child normally wins.
You only take one side into account. That is the way a child thinks.
Your “argument” boils down to a campaign to conceal the wrong done to the child behind tears of pity for the woman who wrongfully kills it and then insult, denigrate, and marginalise anyone with the intellectual spine not to be blinded by your tearful display. Rather like a child trying to manipulate its parents. Also rather like the traditional stereotype male “chauvinists” have of women. It’s the kind of behaviour that has attracted the ironic label “the fair sex” and historically caused men to compare women’s minds to those of children.
You have accused me of being cold and clinical. I know full well, had I not been, you would have accused me of “ranting”.
So spare me your assurances and your shame.
Nov 13th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin:
I’m sure my argument looks at both the mother and the child, not to mention the father. Yours doesn’t give a stuff about any adult.
You have jumped to many incorrect conclusions. I know plenty of highly educated men. I can assure you that none of them treat me as if I am a child, and if they did, I wouldn’t want to know them.
It seems to me that you are displaying a high degree of misogyny, while cleaving to a black versus white cult-like dogma. This may be why you leap to ridiculous conclusions about other people’s perspectives.
You have certainly regaled us with lots of cold, clinical, insensitive ranting.
Please read both of the threads again. Then try to do some of your own thinking about what has been said by various people, instead of lumping us all into the black, with you at the “far white”.
Nov 13th, 2009
togret
Kevin Nacht: just wondering about your views on human stem cell research? That is, research that uses human embryos for medical research that causes the death of the embryos.
Nov 17th, 2009
paul walter
Methinks someone else was watching 730 Report tonight.
The sheer releif of a raft of top researchers and the excitement at unexpectedly speedy progress in medical research since Obamas intervention of six (?) months ago, was heartening to see, as was the renewed hope of people with severe illness.
Nov 17th, 2009
paul walter
The odd thing with the denialism thing was, the contrast involving Gillard’s slavish advocacy of school “league tables” against the advice of education professionals, on the same program.
Nov 17th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
TOGRET – Some exciting news about stem cell research on the 7.30 Report tonight. Perhaps, in the next 4-5 years they just might have ‘got it’ re Parkinson’s Disease, Diabetes and spinal injuries. I look forward to the research results – not too far away hopefully!
KEVIN – I hate to burst your bubble mate, but I don’t give you a thought! I’ve met and listened to your type of person for a long time. I just tune out now. You really aren’t that important – nor are your views – to me anyway!
Nov 17th, 2009
togret
Paul .. I’m just interested in the connection with the death of a fertilised embryo, or “baby” as people would call it who oppose any abortions in any circumstances. It seems inconsistent to me to oppose abortion even to save the mother’s life, or to spare the child a grim and painfully short life, as some do, yet to support that kind of stem cell research. I’d be interested to hear what the reasoning would be.
Nov 18th, 2009
Tony
togret
Kevin Nacht: just wondering about your views on human stem cell research? That is, research that uses human embryos for medical research that causes the death of the embryos
The creation of emryos for the purpose of experimentation and death is adhorrant to most. People who support that would not doubt have supported Doctors like Doctor Josef Mengele.
Josef
If there is support then it shows are far the scale we’ve fallen.
As far as I know nothing good has come from the experiments and adult stem cells have led to the medical breakthroughs that have been achieved.
Tony
Nov 18th, 2009
Lorikeet
Yes, I think more people support using a person’s own stem cells, where possible.
Since I have been on an IVF program in the past, I know that some people have leftover frozen embryos, once they have completed their family. Some may donate them to other couples.
I think any that are completely unwanted should be used for stem cell research, rather than wasting them by flushing them down the gurgler.
During IVF treatment, some eggs are identified as being smaller (less useful) than others. I see no reason why they shouldn’t be put to good use in the laboratory if possible, instead of being discarded. The laboratory scientist can easily fertilise them himself.
I am less happy with the idea of deliberately creating embryos from perfectly good eggs, which could instead be used by infertile couples whose own eggs are defective, or if the woman is carrying a terrible genetic disease.
Scientists can easily get stem cells out of umbilical cords after babies are born. I think they’ve been doing it for at least 20 years.
Nov 19th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
TONY – MAY I SUGGEST YOU WATCH The 7.30 Report on the 17th inst. It was very exciting and promises really great things in maybe just a couple of years time. Those who may receive positive and amazing assistance are those suffering from diabetes, Parkinsons Disease(which both my parents had, although, thankfully they didn’t die from that?)and maybe spinal chord injuries. The changes that could take place in these peoples’ lives is immeasureable! I heartily support the research and await the results. I just hope for those who are suffering, that it’s not too long! Imagine being in a wheelchair, and not even able to scratch your nose if it’s itchy, or shoo a fly away, let alone speak and take care of your personal needs – to have to depend on someone to wipe your bottom, or wear nappies as you have no control over your bladder or bowel? To deny these people the positive results of research is immoral and cruel in my view! Those who don’t agree don’t need to take advantage of the research. Those who are paralysed etc should have the right to decide for themselves. I’m excited for them. It was strange that Ronald Reagan didn’t believe in embyonic stem cell research, but after his death his wife was a passionate advocate. Experience is a good teacher?
The so-called ‘death’ of embryos is a nonsense – it’s a collection of cells in a small phial – smaller than one that holds blood for a test? I take it you don’t object to them being ‘poured down the sink’ so what is your problem? Nobody will convince me that it’s a death. I’ve seen death – I’ve watched a person die – my Mother! I’ve watched others who are dying, usually in a hideous condition from cancer or strokes or??
This is not a death. This is not a human being, or even a potential human being – it’s cells! That’s emotional clap trap!
Nov 19th, 2009
Lorikeet
Naomi:
Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, an embryo is the beginning of life. Castigating Tony over it won’t make the truth change.
From what I’ve seen on TV, sufferers of Parkinson’s Disease (in my family also) are not likely to be helped much in the short term by stem cell research, but help for the sufferers of diabetes and spinal cord injuries is considered to be “imminent”.
We must also bear in mind that we were told a cure for diabetes was “imminent” about 20 years ago. Scientists’ ideas of what is “imminent” may not be the same as ours.
Nov 20th, 2009
Tony
Naomi:
I said The creation of emryos for the purpose of experimentation and death is adhorrant to most
I dont thing anyone would disagree with that statement.
The second statement
As far as I know nothing good has come from the experiments and adult stem cells have led to the medical breakthroughs that have been achieved
That statement would have to be accepted even by yourself.
If you agee with the creation of human life for the sole purpose of killing it then you have the problem, not anyone else.
There’s no emotional clap trap in that at all.
As for your statement.
This is not a death. This is not a human being, or even a potential human being – it’s cells! That’s emotional clap trap!
It think thats somes you up very well
Nov 20th, 2009
Naomi Cartledge
LORIKEET and TONY – Did either of you watch the 7.30 Report that I mentioned in an earlier post? The exciting research does hold out hope for people suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.
My interpretation of a human viable life of a child, is he or she who can survive without depending on the mother for nourishment. I think there’s many who agree with me. You don’t!Fine! we’ll agree to disagree!
I was reading an article that I’ve had since 2004 – 05 that stated, at the time of the invasion of Iraq, it was estimated, that 1 MILLION women were either pregnant or breast feeding. How many of the pregnant were bombed to bits? How many went into premature labour and lost their baby, and how many had unnusual and horrific labours due to the trauma of watching their children and/or extended family members slaughtered?
What about the 500,000 kids who died from the sanctions in Iraq from after the first gulf war? When asked about this, Madeline Albright responded, ‘I think the gain was worth it’?
Nov 25th, 2009
GZG
Have just had a cursory look at this thread (first time here for ages) and read some fascinating stuff.
I see a few hard nosed advocates on either side hammering away, but I am compelled to read the thread more thoroughly in the light of day.
My apologies if I unintentionally ignore some of the preceding comments with the following comments.
I stumbled across our host’s remark though (& I hope I can recall the syntax for editing):
However, the point you seem to be missing is that the vast majority of people do not agree with your blunt equating of abortion with homicide. Your complete absence of concern for the fact that 70 000 women (and zero men) die from unsafe abortions each year is a clear demonstration that , while your view has its own internal logical consistency, it is lacking in connection to reality or humanity.
Andrew, your defence of the apparent victims of unsafe abortions could be compared to the unexpected casualties of attempts to assassinate someone, or to create an IED (Improvised Explosive Device).
OK, perhaps a stretch, but who is the most innocent party in the abortion equation?
Oh and by the way, some of those “zero men” who die from an abortion (unsafe or otherwise), still suffer nevertheless.
Nov 26th, 2009
paul walter
Naomi. wasn’t Albright alleged to have commented when questioned on Iraq, “better half a million Iraqis than one American”, or something very similar?
Nov 28th, 2009
Tony
Naomi says: was reading an article that I’ve had since 2004 – 05 that stated, at the time of the invasion of Iraq, it was estimated, that 1 MILLION women were either pregnant or breast feeding. How many of the pregnant were bombed to bits?
That is terrible but has nothing to do with this discussion.
Naomi says: What about the 500,000 kids who died from the sanctions in Iraq from after the first gulf war? When asked about this, Madeline Albright responded, ‘I think the gain was worth it’?
I didn’t know that there were any Madeline Albright supporters on this site. I certainly never was and I cant recall anyone every praising the woman on this site or any other I can think of.
Your right the sanctions on Iraq only hurt the innocent and never stopped the government from trading their oil.
These acts show af total disregard for human life and its good that you are finally starting to compare this acts of inhumanity to abortions.
Nov 30th, 2009
togret
It was reported a month ago that a young woman was sent from Qld to Darwin for an abortion because of the doubts of Qld doctors about performing any abortion. Although I have no hope of any politician taking this up as a cause, we need uniform national laws on this issue, as on so many others.
QUEENSLAND Health is paying for a woman to be sent to Darwin for an abortion because doctors fear they will be jailed if they perform the operation here.
It is understood Queensland Health will foot the bill – tipped to be in the thousands – for the Cairns woman’s trip to Darwin, where she will have her abnormal fetus aborted.
A source told The Cairns Post the fetus to be aborted was so “significantly abnormal that it would not survive” if it were born.
And it emerges the woman is not an isolated case.
Queensland doctors have stopped performing medical and surgical abortions out of fear of prosecution stemming from recent charges brought against a young Cairns couple.
The arrests of Mt Sheridan mechanic Sergie Brennan, 21, and his girlfriend, Tegan Leach, 19, after they allegedly smuggled abortion drugs into Cairns from the Ukraine and used them to cause a miscarriage have sparked national debate on the need to decriminalise abortion in Queensland.
Nov 30th, 2009
Lorikeet
All I can say is that it’s about time Queensland abortion laws were enforced for embryos and foetuses which have not proven to be grossly abnormal or defective.
I think a lot of the media hype about sending people elsewhere for abortions comes from some new place known as East Bumcrack. In Queensland, it is much too easy to get an abortion.
Blind Eye Legislation seems to have been applied for the last 30 years.
I thought there was already provision in Queensland law for the abortion of seriously defective babies.
The main aim of some doctors is to procure legislation on Open Slather Abortion. Hence the media beatup.
Dec 1st, 2009
Mary Smith
Most abortions occur during the first trimester, long before the fetus is developed enough to feel pain.
Let’s not forget that the pro life lobby is also opposed to contraception, sex education and condoms for the prevention of AIDS!
Dec 1st, 2009
Lorikeet
Mary Smith:
I don’t think the issue is only about pain. It’s about killing a human being.
I don’t belong to the pro-life lobby. They annoy me.
But I wouldn’t want to belong to the “If you don’t want it, kill it” lobby either, which I find to be completely amoral.
Dec 1st, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Some news from the Sydney Morning Herald:
“Mr Abbott, a conservative Catholic, said his election as federal Opposition Leader was a fresh start for him and if he was elected prime minister he would not introduce legislation to restrict abortion, divorce, contraception access or IVF treatment.”
Dec 2nd, 2009
Diane O'Day
wow this thread is still unwinding, from September! I went a bit crosseyed on the last kilometre or so,but I was looking for the scientific proof of when life begins. It was asserted, and I agree, that life begins at conception. Scientifically 1) the fertilized ovum starts to divide and grow and the growing cells have different dna from that of the parents. 2) prior to implanting, the newlife produces a substance which placates the mothers protective T-cells, so allowing the pregnancy to plug into the prepared womb while it creates it own growth capsule. viz:” In a landmark 1998 paper, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia, in Augusta, USA, found that the mammalian embryo (they worked with mice) produces a special enzyme, called indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, or ‘IDO’, which suppresses the mother’s T cell reaction and allows pregnancy to proceed. Follow-up work in humans revealed the same effect, and it was also demonstrated that the IDO was produced on the embryo side of the placental membrane (which separates mother from child) and not on the mother’s side. Further work in mice showed that IDO production peaked during the formation of the placenta—the most crucial time for establishing that vital link between mother and child. And the most recent work in humans has established beyond doubt that IDO is a specific mechanism at the mother–child interface for preventing the mother’s immune system from rejecting her child.”
Studies are being done on this IDO hoping to use it as an anti-rejection drug for transplants. So this new life is much more than a hapless lump of cells until it gets to breathe air!
The debate used to be about disgrace to the mother’s family. Then it was to give the mother equal opportunity with the father to just walk away. The rape reason can be grouped with the imperfects. What other crime demands legislation mandating the death of the prime witness? I choke reading drivel about ’sacred children’ in a society that worships sex. Grow up
Dec 2nd, 2009
Diane O'Day
Following the scientific reasons, that life begins at conception:
Therefore it is completely wicked and savage to legislate that health professionals must be party to abortion. They should be allowed to opt out on the basis of the oath, ‘to do no harm’.
Some people can work in abortion suites, but only while they do not think deeply about what they are doing.
We are so’ civilized’ that we no longer have a death penalty for wicked criminals, yet we demand that penalty from the innocent unborn?!
Life is varied, but for most females, this is the only time that we can assist God with a miracle.
Dec 2nd, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Diane O’Day wrote: “this new life is much more than a hapless lump of cells until it gets to breathe air”.
One ought to go further and say: It is the same entity as the one that will be born unless something goes wrong. That means, for example, that Kevin Rudd came into existence at syngamy. That means, to have killed the zygote/embryo he was in utero would have been to kill Kevin Rudd.
Why that isn’t morally equivalent to murdering him now I don’t know. You will have to ask the abortion defenders like Naomi or Lorikeet about that. I can’t get a sensible answer out of them — just a plea for one-sided compassion plus:
(A) total avoidance of the question: if compassion means you can kill humans in utero, why doesn’t it mean you can kill them ex utero?
OR
(B) a total denial of the biological fact that the zygote/embryo is alive — as per Naomi Cartledge’s idiotic utterance of Nov 19th, 2009: “This is not death”.
NOTE: I use the word “syngamy” rather than “conception” because the language-hijacking abortion defenders have redefined the word “conception” to mean implantation — that way if anyone discovers that the so-called “contraceptive” pill is really an abortifacient in the sense that it causes a already formed embryo to be expelled from the uterus (by thinning the lining of the uterus so a fertilised egg has difficulty implanting), they can reply: “No, it’s not abortifacient — because pregnancy doesn’t start until implantation, and we define abortion as the termination of pregnancy”. Such word games are the abortion brigade’s stock-in-trade.
Dec 3rd, 2009
Lorikeet
Diane O’Day:
I agree with you that we live in an increasingly mad world, which seems to get madder by the day.
Yes, it’s sad that we live in a world that worships money and sex, and people’s rights more than their responsibility.
It is therefore no surprise that we have 30% of adults on anti-depressants, and problems with children increasing as well.
In the near future, our society will pay a high price for its stupidity and lack of personal and financial discipline.
Question: When does the perpetrator become the victim?
Answer: When there is money in it for a third party.
Dec 4th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
From the imbedded video at http://www.smh.com.au/national/bring-back-work-contracts-abbott-20091202-k6fu.html
Interviewer (Neil Mitchell): Abortion, should it be illegal?
Tony Abbott: I don’t think it should, but I don’t want to change the current law.
Interviewer: Do you believe it should be illegal?
Tony Abbott: No, but I’d like to see fewer abortions.
Dec 4th, 2009
Lorikeet
I think the new lady premier of NSW will try to place greater limitations on abortion.
If she is true to her word on this and other social policies, I could come to like her quite a bit. Only time will tell though.
Maybe Tony Abbott thinks like I do. He might want abortion legalised only in very limited circumstances.
Someone sent me a survey a few weeks ago, asking me to put Liberals in order of preference for party leader.
Here’s what I put:
Abbott
Bishop
Hockey – failed
Turnbull – sacked
Costello – gone
Perhaps others thought the same, since that’s what we now have.
Dec 5th, 2009
ken
No they were just wating for your reply Lorikket
Dec 7th, 2009
togret
Abbot’s answer to a rather broad question ought to have been : “Legal in what circumstances?” I gather that the Catholic Church (which is where he would be guided from in this, I’m guessing) says that abortion is permitted in a very small set of circumstances. The whole problem with this is that most people, apart from Kevin Nacht, (and where he gets his philosophy I don’t know, but I suspect there is a crucifix in there somewhere) say that in some circumstances abortion ought to be permitted … the question ought to be about those circumstances.
The question also needs to be followed up with a question about the various tactics needed to avoid the issue arising in the first place. Abortion numbers can be reduced markedly by accurate and humane counselling about sexual health, including contraception and empowering of young women – one strategy is support for young women to relinquish unwanted babies to properly sourced adoptive homes and we would do well to consider cutting out Costello’s wicked baby bonus, which does seem to have led to an increase in babies wose home lives are destructive to their optimum development – a direct cost on the rest of us.
Condemning anyone at all who seeks an abortion as a murderer helps nobody unless the whole set of surrounding circumstances are looked at, and lessons drawn for public policy.
Dec 7th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Would TOGRET also agree with this statement: “Condemning anyone who seeks to force himself sexually on someone as a rapist helps nobody unless the whole set of surrounding circumstances are looked at, and lessons drawn for public policy.”? Why not?
PS: As anyone who has read my posts knows, I did not deny that in some circumstances abortion ought to be permitted. See my post of Oct 9th, 2009 for example. I can best explain her misrepresentation of my position as the result of her psychological defence mechanisms. She needs to reject my position. She finds that difficult, so her mind distorts it to make the rejection easier.
Dec 8th, 2009
Lorikeet
Ken:
I’m glad someone pays attention then.
Togret:
I largely agree with you, but for the last 30 years, our legislators/police/courts have turned a blind eye to what amounts to open slather on abortion.
Law enforcement in this country needs to be upgraded and upheld at every level. That should make a nice start on the improvement of society and its beliefs and values.
Dec 8th, 2009
paul walter
Ganging up on Togret again, are we?
You lot know FULL well where Togret is coming from.
You would earn a lot more respect, some of you, if you answered Togret’s points on their terms, without constantly calling her a murderer and such like, for demonstrating her concerns for traumatised rape victims and others actually ( rather than merely potentially ) living.
Dec 8th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Re: PAUL WALTER of De 8th, 2009
(1) The zygote/embryo/foetus is actually living. If it weren’t, the woman would have nothing to worry would she? The zygote would never grow..
(2) To characterise my posts as name-calling is as desperate and dishonest as the earlier accusation levelled against me of being cold and unemotional.
(3) Concern for one party (the woman) in a zero-sum game (abortion) is despicable without concern for the other party (the human being in utero). Lorikeet’s compassion for women sounds saintly until you contrast it with her indifference to those the women kill.
(4) Lorikeet invented a special rule that goes like this: For all X, “Condemning X helps nobody unless the whole set of surrounding circumstances are looked at, and lessons drawn for public policy.”. But then she only lets you put abortion-seekers in place of X. Stated in its full generality the rule is obviously laughable. She should not be allowed to disguise that fact by only stating an emotionally appealing application of it.
Dec 9th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin Nacht:
I would find what you’ve said about me rather insulting, if you weren’t some kind of mind-controlled zombie without a heart.
To state that I am indifferent to aborted babies is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
If all politicians were like you and couldn’t think interactively at all, the country would be in an even worse mess.
If you became Prime Minister, the country would probably be renamed “Nachtia”, and we would feel as if we were being governed by a Creature of the Night.
Dec 9th, 2009
paul walter
Lorikeet, come Xmass we would all probably have to sit around singing “Silent Nacht”, in honour of “beloved leader”.
Like yourself, most of us on the other side of the debate recognise that the termination of a pregnancy is a second best solution.
As a bloke, would not like to be in the position that some couples and particularly pregnant girls and women, find themselves in real life, where situations occur for which the text books seem to have no answer.
Yet you tend to echo the worst of KN in your own comment;
“Law enforcement… needs to be upgraded and upheld at every level”. Isn’t the Laura Norder approach just going to drive people and events back underground to the era of knitting needles and blood poisoning; of guilt, fear and ignorance?
Dec 11th, 2009
togret
Nacht – you are attributing to Lorikeet my words. How she feels about it I don’t know, but in the interest of truth I thought I’d put the record straight.
In point of fact, yes, I do agree that, e.g. the circumstances that lead someone to become a rapist need to be looked at as well as condeming the criminal act itself. As with any other crime .. in other words, to recognise that human behaviour is sometimes composed of a series of compromises and accommodations between two or more not-good choices, for all of which there are consequences.
Sadly, in the real world, people often don’t have the luxury of a clinical choice between pure good and pure evil, which seems to be your view. I wonder where you think compassion comes into it, if at all.
Dec 11th, 2009
Lorikeet
Paul Walter:
I think the current abortion laws have a consideration for special circumstances, such as a grossly deformed foetus. I didn’t think that needed upgrading, but enforcement of abortion not being available “on demand” does.
As for the knitting needles, I am currently using mine to make jumpers for homeless men. Blood poisoning? I nearly died from that when I was 17 years old.
Please do not lump me in with KN for expecting the general public to uphold a good set of values.
Togret:
Kevin Nacht doesn’t have any compassion, except if the woman and baby are both going to die as a result of the pregnancy, and even then he is in no particular rush to save the mother.
Dec 12th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Paul Walter asked: “Isn’t the Laura Norder approach just going to drive people and events back underground to the era of knitting needles and blood poisoning; of guilt, fear and ignorance?”
Reply: No, it will also save the lives of human beings in utero. Duh!.
You people argue in such a one-sided way. What about the guilt and fear suffered by men who “have to” kill their nagging wives in secret? Of of rapists who can’t just grab any woman on the street and rape her then and there, but have to do it “underground”? Of shoplifters who can’t openly take whatever they want from a shop without paying for it? Of bullies who can’t just bash anyone they feel like without fearing retribution? OOh! All that guilt and fear. How dreadful! What heartless monster could want that!
You people are just ludicrous.
TOGRET asked: “I wonder where you think compassion comes into it, if at all?”
Reply: It comes in everywhere but must be applied fairly, i.e. all have an equal right to it. Why do you think it should only be applied to the mother? Why no compassion for the human being in utero?
Dec 12th, 2009
Kevin Nacht
Lorikeet wrote: “To state that I am indifferent to aborted babies is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.”
Reply: Well, you think there should be no legal penalty for women who abort babies that result from rape. If you cared as much about the babies as the women, you couldn’t possibly hold that position. The gap between your concern for the women and your concern for those babies is what I referred to as your indifference. It may not be an absolute indifference (ie. you may internally wish they weren’t going to be killed), but relatively speaking it is indifference. And for all the good it does those babies, you may as well not give a damn about them.
Dec 12th, 2009
Andrew Bartlett
My finely tuned sensibilities detect the the faint possibility that this comment thread has pretty covered all the ground it’s going to – in fact it probably did that about 100 comments ago. So, just in case anyone think there’s something to say they haven’t already said, I thought I’d mention that I’ll close comments in a couple of days.
Dec 13th, 2009
Lorikeet
Kevin Nacht:
You really are one sick puppy, with a grossly unbalanced world view.
Dec 13th, 2009
togret
IMHO Andrew you are right. People are circling their own campfires and seem unable to entice others to change camps.Maybe we need to agree to disagree.
Dec 13th, 2009
Tony
Andrew Bartlett
My finely tuned sensibilities detect the the faint possibility that this comment thread has pretty covered all the ground it’s going to – in fact it probably did that about 100 comments ago. So, just in case anyone think there’s something to say they haven’t already said, I thought I’d mention that I’ll close comments in a couple of days.
Thanks once again Andrew for having the guts to tackle this very tough issue. This issue continues to divide the community and more needs to be spoken out about it.
The Victorian legislation was horrific, and removed the right of a doctor to consciously object or refuse to take a life or refer to someone who will.
With re-education courses being pushed onto doctors and the threat of loseing their jobs, this is something we all should be aware of in Australia.
Lets just hope we have learnt our lesson and the future governments in Victoria attempt to clear up this inhumane legislation.
What next forced euthanasia ?
Tony
Dec 13th, 2009
togret
Just as my last word on the subject, it is worth having a look at this 5 years old article in the Medical Journal of Australia that lays out the case for uniformity in each jurisdiction, and points out that in some states the law rests on an 1861 law from England, one that no longer applies in the UK. Whether opponents like it or not, it seems that the majority of the electorate favour allowing some abortions … we need to have a clear debate on exactly what is entailed and on what bases the decision should be made. The worst part of it is the anxiety caused by uncertainty about what the law actually says .. vague law is no law at all. Not sure I’ll live to see change, not with those two sanctimonious clowns on either side of the benches in Canberra.
Dec 13th, 2009
togret
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/181_04_160804/dec10242_fm.html
Dec 14th, 2009
Lorikeet
Togret:
I think it’s time abortion was not subject to Blind Eye Legislation. That would make a nice start.
Tony:
All of the parties which support Middle Class Welfare, but are also opposed to Euthanasia, need to come to an awareness that the more money that goes to the well-heeled, the less money there is available for pensions.
Dec 14th, 2009
paul walter
I understand that Andrew feels the conversation has run its race, but Togret’s Medical Jounal of Australia link actually adds something new in this, for me, at any rate.
I refer to an argument developed through the article that relates to reasons for late trimester abortion that some may have otherwise overlooked; specifically the necessity of carrying pregnancy into a late stage for reasons that may involved a health issue with a woman, or more likely, for confirmation of suspected profound damage to a foetus.
Apart from that, the descriptions of clumsily worded various state laws make for depressing reading; no wonder women feel baffled incontemplation of thelaw, when working out what to do next if confronted by unexpected and often complicated situations.
Dec 14th, 2009
Lorikeet
Togret:
I read your link. I don’t think doctors should have aborted a foetus because of dwarfism.
In my teenage years, I worked with a dwarf in his 20s. He was a lovely person and all of the other workers accepted him well. He went down to the pub with others at lunchtime.
Yes, he had short arms and legs, but they gave him a special stool to stand on so he could do the photocopying, and made other adaptations where needed.
One day some young guys picked him up and tossed him head first into a large basket. I’m not sure if they should have done that, but he seemed to think it was just as funny as they did.
It took him longer to walk to the bus stop, and I guess finding a partner would have been more difficult for him than others, but there was really not a lot of difference between him and the rest of us.
Dec 15th, 2009
ken
Anderw – please abort this thread as indicated. Plenty of time to give it anohter run next year
Dec 15th, 2009