RECENTLY a letter appeared in the press entitled “Abortion is a women’s issue”.
The implication in the letter was that abortion is merely a form of contraception “strictly for use by women”.
If that is the prevailing view in this country, then we have become an uncaring, desensitised society where love has grown cold.
If the unborn child is to be merely seen as a “blob”, “uterine contents”, “birth matter” or “product of conception”, then the womb has become a dangerous place for the “pre-born”.
The cry that every woman has the right to control her own body ignores the medical fact that the child is not her body but that of the “little woman/little man” she is carrying, and that the child may have a different blood type and factor to that of the mother.
The pre-born child responds to pain, sucks its thumb, kicks its legs, makes a face, and has hands with individual and unique fingerprints.
The body of the unborn is not rejected by the womb as foreign tissue. The baby can be treated, transfused, examined and X-rayed.
The foetal child has fundamental rights, including the right to collect damages for injury suffered before birth, the right to a blood transfusion whilst in the womb, and the right to inherit property or be the beneficiary of a trust.
The baby who develops in the womb is genetically different from the mother, and from every other human being who has ever lived.
During the pregnancy there is a dependent relationship of the child on the mother.
It is not a parasite invading from the outside. It is genetically and biologically human. It is a human being with potential, not a potential human being.
The pre-born suffers from the disadvantage of being small, naked, nameless, voiceless and defenceless, whilst the strong adult woman can choose to terminate the life of the little person she carries.
It is a tragic day indeed when abortion is simply viewed as a form of contraception.
GAVIN LAWRIE
Murwillumbah, NSW
