Two instalments of $500 for a bub

After reading of Abbott's anti-abortion plan and seeing Sarah's post, I had to add a few comments publicly because it is such a simplistic, knee-jerk and irresponsible idea. In his quest to ease his 'Christian' conscience over Australia's "90,000 abortions per year" (a figure which misleadingly includes all involuntary medical procedures too), Abbott has suggested:

One option could be to pay $500 of the [$3079 maternity] allowance when a pregnancy reaches 14 weeks, $500 at 32 weeks and the rest after the birth.

Women should be encouraged to think carefully about such a decision, not be pressured with the lure of immediate payment of some arbitrary sum of money! Offering a token sum like $500 at such a time would likely only change a woman's mind on her choice to terminate a pregnancy if she was smallminded enough to prefer enough cash for a couple of week's rent in the short term instead of carefully considering the longterm future of herself and her possible child-to-be plus its father.

A human life isn't something you can buy or sell for two installments of $500! As a child I would be depressed/infuriated (depending on my personality) if I knew my mother had only carried me because of Abbot's $500 cash "incentives". As a child I would want to know my mother brought me into the world because it's what she wanted.

In the end, maximum support should be offered to women to make the most responsible decision, taking into consideration their own welfare as well as that of their potential child and its father. If Abbott finds the current abortion rate a "tradgedy" then I would be happy to see him suggest government-funded independent, objective counselling services for women considering abortion instead of the current situation, where abortion clinics are compelled to offer "token and pressured" counselling according to anti-abortionist Melinda Tankard Reist in her book. (I do take Reist's point that the abortion clinics would have a vested interest in the woman deciding to abort.)

I don't think I could comprehend how difficult yet important a decision on whether abort a foetus would be if the pregnancy was unplanned or potentially unsafe for the woman. Obviously Abbott has even less idea. What a pity it wasn't Abbott who became pregnant when he was a teenager instead of his girlfriend, Kathy Donnelly.

Image courtesy of Peter Kuper
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