On deaths through malaria….there needs to be a lot more education regarding the use of drugs in its treatment. Having lived in Zambia and having had malaria along with my whole family, I know first hand that some of the medication needs to be taken precisely on the hour. Unfortunately some of the Africans don’t know that and give medication say, whenever in the morning and whenever in the evening. One of the African mums I met shared that a certain medication was not working on her little girl and she was about to be put on quinine as a last resort to save her life. It only took a little bit of instruction to get the medication to ‘work’. I do wonder how many people have died from malaria simply because weren’t informed of these basic instructions.

Annette Nestor, Perth

I agree with you on a certain level, there should not be anything forcing people to abort or to not have children (such as China’s one child policy).

However, pro-choice stance is exactly about that, allowing a pregnant woman to make an informed choice about whether or not she wants to raise a child in difficult circumstances. I am refering here to extreme circumstances such as the child being conceived because of rape, by a mother who has drug and/ or alcohol problems, or where there is a medical risk to the mother in carrying the child to term. In these cases there are issues of trauma to mother and child.

Allowing the mother to abort the pregnancy in these cases would lower the number of children being produced, yes. Overpopulation is a correlation, that should not, and would not, factor into a rational mother’s decision not to have a child.

The issue of contraception is a completely different topic, and should not be tied into the issue of abortion. Use of condoms within high HIV/AIDS areas (ie. developing countries) is there to control the spread of the virus, not for any evil eugenics agenda.

Martine Hatfield (Brisbane).

He is a murderer, who would advocate, and sign into law policies for such wanton murder. And don’t let anyone euphemise it into “pro-choice” or something similar.
I don’t know whether he ever stops to think whether he would be around now so as to propound such views if his own parents had held the same position. Probably not.

Murray Adamthwaite

I can’t believe how many people are buying into the myth of overpopulation. This is yet another symptom of humanity’s falling away from God: we begin to believe that there is nothing special that separates humans from other animals, thus they are treated as commodities to be disposed of at the whim of those in power when it suits them, thus we get people like Hitler and Stalin. Amazing how many people are blind to their own self-destructive worldviews’ implications.
James Swanson

Even if we were to concede that overpopulation was a problem (which it isn’t and which I don’t), open access to abortion is hardly the answer. It’s too random, too unpredictable and cannot be controlled.

That is, unless we were to consider a ‘one-child policy, as is the case in China. Here we find now a disturbing imbalance in the sexes to the point where Korean brides have been ‘imported’ regulalry to ‘meet the need’ and where couples routinely voluntarily abort a girl child and are often forced to abort a second or subsequent children.

Even if one might be tempted to see this as some sort of ‘final solution’ – think again. Of necessity it requires a political system that is totalitarian, that controls the freedoms of people far beyond what we would accept under any circumstances.

Keep up the good work!

Paul Russell

Allow me to chime in as well: Actually just a couple of weeks ago I found myself engaged in an argument with an individual who tried to use overpopulation as his ‘silver bullet’ argument. He started spurting out stats about how many extra people there if the pregnancies that were aborted went full term instead and there would be many more mouths to feed, people to find jobs for, houses to build, etc. And then he said something like, “This country will go bankrupt in no time!”

I told him he needed to consider that people don’t just consume, they produce as well. And invent things, cure things, love things… and infrastructure is pointless without people to use it. Raising children is an investment in the future.

Says a lot about last week’s decision.

Mark Rabich

Sadly, all that your comment reveals is how uninformed you are about this, and that you are not very widely read. There are more pleas for abortion because of concerns about ‘overpopulation’ than I care to think about. And they can be heard both in Australia and the rest of the world.

For example, all the major pro-abortion groups list overpopulation as a chief reason for pushing abortion. Have a look at their websites Matt. Start with Marie Stopes International, or the International Planned Parenthood Federation, in case you don’t know where to look.

And consider the numerous pro-abortion websites. Thousands of quotes can be found there. I offer just one quote from a pro-abort site. This one comes under the heading, “Why I am pro-choice”:

The planet is overpopulated. The population keeps growing. Overpopulation is our biggest threat to this planet and will be the issue of the 21st century. The number 1 environmental issue facing mankind is overpopulation. There’s no point in talking about global warming, endangered species, the rainforests, acid rain, or other environmental problems without dealing with overpopulation first. And it seems logical to me that in looking for solutions to global population problems, the place to start is to terminate unwanted pregnancies. I am therefore for making it possible for anyone who wants an abortion to be able to get one.

And governments also use population concerns to justify abortion. In the US, for example, the Population Council endorsed abortion as a means of population control as far back as 1975. Or consider another example, just in the news: “ the ruling National Democratic Party [of Egypt] is currently considering certain controls for curbing overpopulation such as abortion pills and punishing any family that has more than two children.”

So I afraid I need to call your bluff Matt. There is no straw man here, only someone who is not at all up on the issue.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

I think this is a “straw man” argument.

Matt Burgess