“Abortion laws make abortion safer, or less safe.”
Slavery has been abolished in law for centuries, and still happens around the world, as does rape and murder. Should we legalise them and provide government funding to make sure they are “safe”? This pathetic argument is that laws against killing preborn children won’t stop it happening, but can make it safer. Safer for whom? A living human is killed every single time an abortion procedure is performed. Pregnancy is temporary, death is permanent.
“They put even more stress on women who are already out of their minds with anxiety.”
It’s great that Jenna Price acknowledges the trauma women suffer as a result of abortion. There’s a great deal of denial amongst many pro-abortion feminists that there are any adverse outcomes for post-abortive women, yet concern for women is one of the major focuses of anti-abortion activists.
The 2019 movie “Unplanned” tells an insider’s true story of one woman who not only had an abortion, but became the youngest ever director of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. It reveals a corporation focused on profit first, and portrays the real suffering and anguish of women who genuinely feel they have no other viable option. According to NotBornYet.com, “The majority of women and girls who have abortions do so because of a lack of support from partners, parents and friends. 70% of women say they felt they had no alternative to abortion.“
“Survey after survey, study after study, reveal Australians support access to abortion.”
Jenna Price relies on facile surveys to make the one-dimensional claim that “Australians support access to abortion“. Let’s examine this claim closely, as it’s designed to let you think there’s nothing to see here (in Labor’s extreme abortion laws) so move along. Price’s source actually says, “Eighty-seven per cent of respondents indicated that abortion should be lawful in at least some circumstances in the first trimester; 69% indicated this for the second trimester and 48% for the third.” That’s a lot of qualifiers diluting her claim.
Firstly, taking the maximum support recorded, it’s conditional upon it being only in the first 12 weeks, and is not a blanket endorsement even then, being limited to only “some circumstances“. That’s not reflected in Labor’s ‘any reason’ laws. Support drops dramatically after 12 weeks, and is actually a minority of Australians in the final trimester which is the context Price established with her opening anecdotes. This survey reveals the opposite to the whole point of Price’s article. A majority of Australians in fact do not support late term abortion.
If we compare this study with the more nuanced questions asked in the May 2016 Galaxy opinion poll we see a very different picture. This research better explains the surprise of some Labor MPs as to how concerned their electorates are about Labor’s abortion campaign (despite Ms Price’s arrogant assertion that “the views of self-aggrandising anti-abortionists are in a tiny minority“).
- Two-thirds of voters believe that at 20 weeks old the preborn human is a person with rights.
- 72% are opposed to abortions after 13 weeks, rising to 85% after 20 weeks.
- Only 38% support abortion for non-medical reasons.
It is pure propaganda to make a blanket claim like, “Australians support access to abortion“; yet Price did, and then called her article, “Miserable, purposeful lies should not be part of our politics.”
In Australia, it’s unlikely we will see the same push to restrict abortion as in the US but we’ve already observed those desperate to introduce fetal personhood, a law which would be a gateway to further police women’s right to bodily autonomy.
“Further police women’s right to bodily autonomy”
This is the most credible argument of pro abortion supporters, and garners emotional support from feminists and unthinking Christians alike. It is a valid premise with a flawed conclusion. I completely support every citizen’s right to personal autonomy, self determination, and liberty from government dictates. However, there are well known and reasonable limits to personal liberty in a civil society. For example, “Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.” The most pertinent question then is, is it only the woman’s body and health which are in question? Is another living human harmed by the mother exercising her ‘rights’?
The most common kind of surgical abortion is typically performed during five and thirteen weeks after the first day day of the woman’s last menstrual period. According to the World Health Organisation, a suction, or aspiration, D&C abortion is performed in-clinic. Prior to the abortion, the woman should receive an exam that includes an ultrasound in order to confirm that she is pregnant and diagnose any complicating factors, such as a tubal, or ectopic, pregnancy. An abortionist uses metal rods or medication to dilate the woman’s cervix and gain access to the uterus, where the baby resides. The abortionist then inserts a suction catheter to vacuum the child from the womb. The suction machine has a force approximately 10 to 20 times the force of a household vacuum cleaner. The procedure is completed as the abortionist uses a sharp metal device called a curette to empty the remains of the child from the mother’s uterus.
I challenge any reasonable person to watch the medically accurate explanation of this procedure by an Ob/Gyn who has performed over 1,200 abortions and conclude that only the woman’s body is the subject of an abortion. If not, your right to swing your arms ends just where the other person’s nose, arms, legs, brain and heart are violently destroyed.
This should not be a partisan issue yet it’s been made one. In response, Jenny Ejlak, the president of Reproductive Choice Australia, says we should all be in correspondence with our local MPs. She recommends telling your local member this: “I’m pro choice, like the majority of Australians; and I expect you to reflect the views of the majority of Australians in both the law and in public policy.”
We should all be in correspondence with our local MPs
I completely agree. I recommend telling your local member this instead: “I’m concerned about abortion, like the majority of Australians; and I expect you to reflect the views of the majority of Australians in both the law and in public policy.” More than that, I recommend you become a genuinely undecided voter and ask every candidate at every election if they will vote against further liberalising abortion, then offer your pro-active support to make sure pro abortion candidates are as rare as pro slavery candidates. Our generation must end this injustice.
Reliably, Labor women will defend reproductive rights. If there are any glimmers of light for women in this new government, it is the appointment of Marise Payne as minister for women after a series of unsuitable and inappropriate choices. Last year, Payne put George Christensen in his place (sadly, not the Philippines but far north Queensland). He claimed it was disgraceful that Australia would continue to fund international planned parenthood agencies. Payne told the Senate in March 2018: “These services are vital . . . we support, through the aid program, the same range of programs available in Australia, subject to the laws of those countries.”
Payne put George Christensen in his place
There’s that sneaky euphemism again – “reproductive rights”. But here’s the way misandristic female chauvinists shut down debate. They claim men have no place in the debate about abortion. Their premise is it’s about a woman’s body and no one else is affected, willfully ignorant of the recently living human violently removed from the usual safety of her mother’s womb and left dead in the stainless steel bucket. Real men like George Christensen are not intimidated by nasty feminists, but are moved by compassion to end the injustice of intentionally killing innocent living humans and the consequential harms to women.
Marise Payne supports funding Planned Parenthood International
Does she now? It beggers belief that a woman would be so paternalistic as to suppose helping women in developing nations to kill their own preborn children would be the top priority for taxpayer money spent on foreign aid, instead of more practical and less ethically debatable solutions like clean birthing kits. The ‘progressive’ fascination with suicide and abortion is a self-harming indulgence of wealthy nations so blessed that we have to invent struggles that do not exist to our actual detriment. Most citizens of developing nations fight for their survival, and do not think that poverty or suffering is a reason to murder themselves or someone else. Perhaps the NSW Liberal Party members need to preselect a different candidate for her Senate spot at the next opportunity.
If you have ever had a baby, you will know that during the pregnancy, you hope and you wonder. Your waking hours are filled with a gentle anxiety. And anyone who thinks the decision to have a late-term abortion is made in a cavalier fashion, or because a political party supports a woman’s right to choose, is deluded at best, a miserable, purposeful liar at worst.
That late term abortions are not easy decisions does not justify a wrong decision. Killing someone should never be an easy decision. Triage situations are not easy decisions, but abortions are never medically necessary in a medical emergency. An emergency cesarean is the necessary response to save the immediate danger to the life of a mother because a later term abortion takes days. When your intention is to save both lives if possible by delivering the child early but the child dies despite the doctors’ best efforts, that is an unavoidable tragedy. When your intention is to kill the child, that is abortion, and is always ethically and morally wrong.
Deluded at best, a miserable, purposeful liar at worst.
Well, Jenna Price would know all about that. The cold hard facts of the reasons given for abortion are well documented and are listed above. Pro abortion extremists can choose for themselves which of the above best describes them.
Not one of the women I know would have chosen that route. One is still devastated years after this happened. But the debate over abortion is not really about the act of abortion itself, it’s really about ensuring that one small group of people has control over another group of people, women. It is only women’s lives which are policed in this way. Instead, some believe we should be treated as if we are incubators of the property of the state. It’s time to remind the state and those who run it that we are more than breeders. We are voters.
Not one of the women I know would have chosen that route. One is still devastated years after this happened.
If you’ve had an abortion, you have my deepest sympathy. As much as I will fight against propaganda promoting injustice such as The Sydney Morning Herald blithely publishes, my heart breaks for the trauma you have endured. I care, and other people care. There are some extremely well qualified, completely non-judgemental people who you can seek support and healing from and I encourage you to begin that journey.
The debate over abortion is not really about the act of abortion itself
Yes — it is.
It’s really about ensuring that one small group of people has control over another group of people, women.
That’s the way the laws of a civil society work. Government’s primary role is to defend its citizens, the lives in its care, from the harms caused intentionally or inadvertently from within and from without the nation. That’s why we have laws against murder. It’s dishonest to the extreme to colour this as a perverse desire to “control” people. It’s a simple desire to prevent people from doing harm to others.
It is only women’s lives which are policed in this way.
No, it’s not. Laws against harming others apply equally to everyone. If the mischievously misleading Price means to say only women are prevented from killing their preborn babies, my first response is that biology has a large degree of responsibility for this in not providing biological men with a womb. My second response is that even men are guilty of murder if they intentionally kill their preborn children, and so they should be.
After opening the article by misleading readers to believe a fantasy of the reasons for most abortions, this journalism lecturer closes by painting a picture of heartless fascists greedily demanding state control of women as dehumanised agricultural assets. She maliciously puts words in the mouths of anti-abortionists which have never been argued like “incubators” and “breeders”.
At the last we see that the argument for increasing access to abortion has no logical merits to it, and instead relies almost entirely on euphemisms, misrepresentation of science and statistics, and good old-fashioned character assassination to end uncomfortable debate.
Surely these and miserable, purposeful lies should not be part of our politics.
