Our PM: “pro-choice”, not pro-abortion. A founder of Emily’s List.

 
Filed on 28 July 2010 in Food For Thought category. Print This Page

Our PM: “pro-choice”, not pro-abortion. A founder of Emily’s List.

PM Julia Gillard has declared herself, in response to the accusation that she is pro-abortion, to be “pro-choice”. But what does that mean?  Is it not really – for the majority of pro-choice activists – pro-abortion?

Imaginary conversation with a pro-choice activist:

So what about the baby?

Yes, it’s a hard choice – no one takes it lightly.

So the baby has no choice?

As I said, it’s a hard choice. It must be the woman’s choice over the embryo.

You’re not actively pushing for abortion?

No. But it needs to be made freely available throughout Australia.

Aren’t you a little concerned that the majority of abortions, probably 95% or more of the 90-100,000 per year – but for the sake of argument let’s just say the majority – are performed almost as a secondary means of contraception?

Yes, that is a concern and underlies the necessity for good sex education.

Yes, education and information at the appropriate times is essential, but you want abortion to be even more readily available in Australia?

Well, there should not be any interference with availability wherever you live.

It seems that the pro-choice lobby is all too ready to encourage – some would say persuade – the pregnant woman to go for abortion.

I don’t agree that that is true.

Then why does the so-called pro-choice lobby object so much to cooling-off periods to allow reflection?

Well, the woman with the unwanted pregnancy is already distressed and will become more distressed if made to wait. She may even change her mind.

She may indeed and that seems to upset the pro-abortion lobby.

It’s not pro-abortion, it’s pro-choice and I am pro-choice.

Then why do the pro-choice people get upset when a pregnant woman, exercising that choice, changes her mind after a cooling-off period?

Because the poor girl may now be saddled with a pregnancy that she didn’t want.

And a baby that is alive. So why do they insist that the ultrasound machine be turned away so that the woman cannot see the screen?

For the same reason. It might distress her.

So she won’t see that it is a real baby that she is going to kill? Isn’t this about informed consent?

Oh, they already know – but it’s not really a life.

Try telling that to the girl watching the video screen. And if it’s not a life then what about the second trimester abortion that goes wrong and a live 22 week baby is born and left to die as in Victoria where 54 babies were left to die according to 2007 government figures?

Well, that is incompetence and it shouldn’t happen.

Well maybe it’s better than being torn apart limb from limb at 18 weeks without anaesthetic. But if the 22 week baby is patently a live human baby what about the 33 week baby killed because it is thought to be abnormal in some way? Are you pro-choice with that?

I think each case has to be decided on its merits.

And if the baby is 36 weeks and killed by a sharp stab in the upper neck so the sucker can be inserted to suck the brain out and collapse the head so it can be delivered easily, are you pro-choice then?

As I said before I think each case has to be decided on its merits.

But the baby has no choice in this brutal execution without anaesthetic – how do you resolve this conflict of rights?

I think you have to be careful of your language in using such emotive terms but yes, it must be the pregnant woman’s choice.

You mean women are going to get upset by being told the truth?

There might be women who have had no choice but to get an abortion who would be upset by that language.

“Women who have had no choice”? You mean some who felt they had no choice and yet exercised that choice you are promoting but would have chosen otherwise had they been told the truth in a context of informed consent? What about all the women in later life who count off the birthdays of their aborted children with tears and regret?

I think they’re only made to feel that when pro-lifers like you make them feel that way.

Wow! That’s a pretty damning statement against the independent female that she can only be made to feel guilty by people who are pro-life. I prefer to think more highly of women than that and that she has become more and more aware of what she did so quickly so many years earlier and was encouraged in the quickness of that decision by pro-abortion – sorry, pro-choice – people who simply want them to get their abortion over before an opportunity for fully informed consent.

That’s just your view. Mine is different. I am pro-choice.

So you’ve said. And we’ve had this conversation without even considering the vexed issues of medical complications, subsequent infertility, premature labour with its increased frequency of cerebral palsy, and last but not least a possible 30% increase in breast cancer as shown by the latest survey.

Now you’re really loopy. There is no evidence for any of that. I’m finishing this conversation.

But all of these issues should at least be discussed in fully informed medical consent even if they are in dispute. You have shown your colours very clearly, that in fact by suppressing informed consent of these issues, by turning the ultrasound away and taking away any chance of the woman changing her mind by refusing any cooling-off time in legislation, you are clearly pro-abortion.

I haven’t refused cooling-off time in legislation.

Maybe you haven’t but Emily’s List was instrumental in that notorious Victorian legislation in which all amendments were defeated and which was touted as a great victory for women “free of harassment” by the clearly pro-abortion Emily’s List that now boasts 139 women in parliaments across Australia.

Well it was a great victory for women’s choice.

And it eliminated any choice the doctor might have as it compels doctors against their conscience to participate in this process.

Yes and rightly so. We must not have any obstructions put in our way.

Even though this is the first time in history since Nazi Germany that a Western country has compelled doctors to participate in a medical process that some of them regard as evil – even a 32 week baby that will be killed by its mother for something as simple as an easily repairable cleft lip?

Yes, I believe in women’s choice.

I can see we are poles apart. I have no further questions. I feel heaviness for our society and for our world when it has come to this. And PM Julia Gillard* is described as a founder of Emily’s List.

A great day for women!

*http://history.law.unimelb.edu.au/go/people/politicians/julia-gillard/index.cfm

Lachlan Dunjey. July 2010.

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2 Responses to “Our PM: “pro-choice”, not pro-abortion. A founder of Emily’s List.”

  1. Mary Collier 19 August 2010 at 7:47 pm Permalink

    This is fantastic. Gives good ideas for arguing the case against abortion. Ive just started in prolife movement and this is excellent Lachlan


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