Ms Spicer on abortion

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24455465-5001030,00.html

A disappointing opinion piece by Ms Tracey Spicer appeared in yesterday’s Sydney Daily Telegraph. Ms Spicer wrote about her conversion from having no problems with having an abortion herself to refusing to have one regardless of the circumstances. She writes that

If I became pregnant now, there is no way I would consider an abortion.

The catalyst for this was the near-miscarriage of her now-healthy young son at about the same time as he would have been permitted to be killed in utero under proposed Victorian laws. But the basis for this conversion is unclear, since she seems to favour legalisation of abortion in some circumstances, provided the baby is young enough. It appears that her objections are purely emotional and subjective, rather than being based on the objective humanity of the fœtus. She says in the very next paragraph that

Equally, my heart goes out to women who have been raped and abused, or are simply too emotionally fraught to take on the onerous task of parenting.

Obviously only the hardest heart can fail to sympathise with a rape victim, but if the baby conceived is a human being, then how can it possibly be licit to impose what amounts to a death penalty for rape to be served vicariously by the innocent baby? And the notion of a pregnancy being ‘emotionally fraught’ is simply feeble; an unwanted pregnancy does not necessarily mean an unwanted child, and even in a case where it might, there is always adoption.

The article is also weak even when evaluated on its merits as a journalistic essay. She describes some of the recent happenings in connection with Victoria’s impending abortion law changes, but she leaves it till the final paragraph to assert that

you only need to look at a six months' pregnant woman to know that 24 weeks is too late.

So when does abortion cease to be ‘too late’, Ms Spicer? You oppose it at twenty-four weeks, but what about twenty-three, or twenty-two, or twenty-one? Or three, or two or one? What a sad evasion.

Reginaldvs Cantvar