In Queensland it’s not the heat it’s the stupidity
In Queensland, abortion laws were recently amended to try and reassure doctors that they could not be criminally prosecuted for performing abortions. So why does this woman have to travel to Darwin to terminate her pregnancy? An online petition closed last month that asked for abortion to be decriminalised in Queensland. It was supported by 1853 people. Another online petition that closes this month asks the Legislative Assembly to uphold current abortion laws that “protect the family – mother, father, grandparents – as well as the unborn child”. This petition is currently supported by 5914 people. It is difficult to see how the current abortion laws protect the mother, father or grandparents from being aborted but if there was ever cause to consider retrospective abortion could this be it?
In a separate act of stupidity, a child in the care of Jumping Beans Children’s Community Child Care has been sunburnt so badly that the child has been diagnosed as having second degree burns. The Courier Mail reports that:
Centre owner and manager Bevan Pearson said all sun safety procedures had been followed on the 29C day. He said it had been a special playground fun day to farewell two youngsters as well as a business partner.
Mr Pearson said Ozzy had played in the sun for 90 minutes in the morning, having morning tea in the shade and then coming inside for a rest between 10am and 3pm. He said when it was noticed Ozzy’s arms were red after the midday break, sunscreen was reapplied before he went back outside.
So it was observed that the child was sunburnt and the solution was to apply more sunscreen and then take the child outside. The mother is interested in another remedy now.
Unbelievable. A state stuffed with halfwits.
so what is your point Ileum?
As I read it you are disappointed that there are more people that are willing to support the law on abortion as it now stands than there are people who want change.
The reality here in Queensland is that if a woman really wants an abortion she can get one. Personally i think that there should never be a situation where abortion is too easy. We are after all talking about killing human beings here and that should never be taken lightly.
On the second part of your post I agree that protecting kids from the sun is vital as even on episode of bad sunburn can have a terrible result later in life.
Iain, my point is:
- Qld abortion laws are archaic
- it is pathetic that a woman who can legally have an abortion has to travel to another state to have the procedure
- people who are anti-abortion are more proactive than than those who are not
- the petition states that the current laws protect the family. I was unaware that when a woman chose to have an abortion the whole family was at risk.
The reality is that if a woman really wants to have an abortion she can be charged with a criminal offence. Check with Family Planning Qld, it seems it can be quite difficult to have an abortion.
Iluem
Not every thing that is old is by definition bad.
Ignoring your confused sentence the reality is that abortions are available in Queensland if a woman can convince two doctors that continuing the pregnancy would be harmful to her physical or mental health. That is not such a hurdle thatgetting an abortion becomes impossible.
This is a good thing in my book because it shows that there are more people willing to protect the lives of the unborn than those who would ,in the first instance, deny their humanity and then so flippantly end their lives.
well I read it differently. By my reading the petition is saying that the law (in general) protects the lives of adults from summary execution and that protection should extend to the unborn.
Wanting anything is no criminal offence here in Queensland and as I have said before getting a pregnancy terminated here in Queensland is not only possible but it happens all of the time. What makes you think that making abortion easier would actaully be of any social benefit?
As I have said before I do accept that abortion should be safe, available, affordable and most importantly rare.
In this day and age there is very little excuse for failing to use contraceptives or modifying sexual behaviour to avoid unwanted pregnancy or even (gasp) abstaining from recreational sex.
As well as a pro-life/pro-choice issue (mind you, the zygote never really got a choice either way, did it?), the debate above shows another divide between written law offering protection and allowing the law to exist primarily “in principle” (allowing some cases to slip through the net).
Iain does raise a point in appearing to delineate between what is written in law and what happens in practice. I imagine it may not be too hard to find two doctors to sign off on a case, but then I have never tried. Perhaps Iain knows better than I do.
But Iain, I am just wondering whether you had a definite time in mind when two separate cells become a person requiring protection from summary execution?
Doctors are protected in qld re medical & surgical abortion I think.
The couple who procured their own medicine for abortion are unprotected by law it seems.
This is unfair.
From the outset, Iain, I would like to remind you that here we believe in the importance of informed free speech. If you read the article I linked to, the sentence should not have been confusing.
You can repeat what you believe the ‘reality’ is as often as you wish but that will not make it so. The reality in this post is that a woman is unable to terminate her pregnancy in Qld – even though she really wants to.
The reality in this link http://www.fpq.com.au/pdf/AbortionFinalReport.pdf states that:
There is no clear policy or guidelines around the provision of, and access to, abortion services within public health services in Queensland. In particular, access to early abortion in the first trimester is not readily available.
The current petition is for the “The protection of unborn children by upholding current abortion laws.” The current abortion laws do nothing to protect the family from summary execution. Those laws can be found in a separate chapter of the Criminal Code.
fairgo, if you read the article it appears that the doctors are still concerned with criminal prosecution.
This paper is a little outdated but worth a read.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/journals/UNSWLawJl/1999/41.html?query=cc189994%20s224#Footnote0