The abortion debate is still raging, and I see the different interest groups are squaring off: one side flexing its muscles to wage war against the Government if it legalises abortion, and the other sharpening its scalpels and suction curettes to get into those wombs.

For many, 'A woman should have the right to choose what to do with her own body' is an argument stopper. Not to give the woman the right to choose is to keep women in shackles, to deny them freedom and women's liberation. And we can't have all these men (especially celibate Roman Catholic priests) taking decisions for women; after all, men don't have to carry the child around for nine months, and then look after the son or daughter for the next two decades or so!

This is pure emotive posturing and, if you pardon the bad pun, ad hominem argument. Let us break the reasoning into its three parts: (1) women must have the right to choose; (2) men must stay out of the argument since they have no wombs; and (3) the argument is about women's bodies.

Let us take the last first: is the foetus in the woman's womb part of the woman's body? Obviously the little human is IN her body, but is he or she PART OF her body? The little one is completely dependent on his or her mother for nutrition and oxygen, and therefore for life itself, and removed from the womb in the early stages would not be able to survive.

Almost inseparable

The foetus is quite distinct from the mother, with a different blood supply which may even be of a different blood type. In these early months the lives of these two individuals are completely wrapped up and entangled with one another as to be almost inseparable; but the foetus is NOT part of the woman's body, and stating that the woman should have the right to choose what she does with her own body is a statement irrelevant to the abortion issue.

The foetus actually is the product of the life of both father and mother, which brings us to the second question. The woman may carry the child inside her, but it is his work and his genetic material no less than hers. It is a tragic fact that many men do not appreciate this, or act upon it;

but to deny men a voice in the abortion debate is to deny the very role of men in procreation itself. If men must shut their mouths about abortion because they have no wombs, this justifies the actions of every irresponsible man who abandons his child, and every irresponsible father who leaves the woman totally to care for the infant (presumably because he has no breasts to give suck).

Women bear more

No! The abortion issue involves men as well as women it is true that human biology determines that women bear the consequences more than men. Rather than keep men out of the argument, the approach must be to include men more in reproductive matters, since it does take two.

This leaves the first question: Does not a woman have the right to choose? This is a political issue, and a very philosophical one. In other words, are women free? Is anyone free? One thing we know is that our right to choose is constrained by law and ethics. I cannot choose to drive on whichever side of the road I wish whenever I wish. I cannot choose to remove the cellphone from the shop window without paying for it. I cannot choose to box anybody on their face without facing the consequences. I cannot choose to write or say anything I wish which might impugn someone else's good name. I cannot choose to kill another human being because their continued existence is inconvenient for me. To base the argument for abortion on the logic that, 'Surely a woman has the right to choose' is the feeblest of reasoning.

But why focus on the choice to abort or not to abort. Both the man and the woman made the earlier choice to have sexual intercourse. When they made that choice, they would have known the consequences. We are skirting the real issue: all this talk of abortion is about trying to avoid the consequences of irresponsible sexual intercourse.