Bruce Atkinson is speaking at the moment. He very strongly says that Parliament is shirking its responsibility if it did not totally reassess the Menhennitt ruling of 39 years ago. He isn’t necessarily speaking against abortion as such (as he does believe that 24 weeks is far too late), but surely he is right to suggest that Parliament can not simply say “Abortion is legal; we’re only adjusting the law to reflect that” (which is the way some of the pro-bill speakers expressed their position before the tea break), when Parliament (not the courts) is the institution which determines what is legal and what is not in our system of goverment.
He also speaks strongly against this being seen as a “women’s right” issue. He speaks of the male partner’s rights, and above all of the child’s rights.
I will be interested to re-read the whole speach in Hansard in the morning.
Of to watch Packed to the Rafters now. Don’t worry, I am not mixing up my priorities – I am setting the debate on record…
Control of language is so much a part of this whole thing, there as much as here it seems.
You’re quite right — legal, as distinct from moral or right, is whatever a country’s legislative authority says is legal.
That’s the whole issue: are there things that are legal but not moral or right, and are there things that are moral or right that are not relfected in what is legal.
Let us be frank from the clinical perspective-there are greater risks to the mother,as the risk of haemorrhage intra operatively becomes greater,and if it cannot be controlled,then there is the alternative of a hysterectomy,which becomes tragic in a woman who wanted to have children at a future time.
Colleen Hartland Greens(pagan) MP has qualifications in community development,and that field is hevaily,heavily,indoctrinated with the feminist paradigm,one which will fail many women even more now.