Laws sway moral base

THE outburst from the Member for Cairns regarding the likely consignment to the scrap heap of his bill advocating the decriminalisation of abortion is somewhat unfortunate and deeply saddening.

Apart from the obvious arguments in support of the unborn, I would like to tender for your readers consideration, two additional observations.

Firstly, the idea of this bill is not primarily to affect any legality to which the government attaches itself to, but primarily an attempt to change the community’s wider view of normality, and ultimately morality.

The majority of people on issues such as this, when confronted with legal changes such as what MP Pyne is trying to effect, come to believe that a practice once illegal and which now has been legalised subsequently becomes acceptable. So in the passage of time, what is legal and acceptable becomes as moral.

Secondly, around 50 years ago, the medical profession regarded abortion generally as an unthinkable crime, which was only practised by the outcasts.

Those of us who attended the parliamentary committee’s Cairns visit, were astounded to witness the frontline troops for the pro-choice lobby, were none other than three doctors. Bernie O’Shea, Cairns