By 2050 we will probably have a population of 35 million, but with far fewer people of working age to support the retired and needy, from a ratio of 5:1 retired today, to 2.7:1 retired then.

Migration alone, with its difficulties, can never solve this problem, which is mainly due to our birth rate - much lower than needed for natural growth and replacement.

We badly need a national debate on this matter, but the politicians and media evidently will not face it.

Is it because they fear the screams of the feminists and libertarians claiming a woman’s “right” to kill her unborn child?

No one has the “right” or “full choice” to do an evil contrary to natural law (to lie, to steal, to kill, etc).

This is self-evident to all decent peoples.

The unborn child has all the genes at conception that it will ever need for full development, and its right to life is prior to any other claims of “rights” to choice or convenience.

The pressure of politically active feminists (Emily’s List) and other secular humanists to legalise the killing of the unborn (even to near-birth as in Victoria) is a bad law.

It is one of the worst in the world and the beginning of the end of respect for the prime dignity of human life.

Shame, shame!

Instead of a culture of life based on the rights and duties of all in a civilisation of justice and love, the secularists want a “society” based on greed, lust, free choice, and the power of the dominant social group.

Feminists want a new type of totalitarianism.

Eighty-seven per cent of all Australians believe we should reduce the number of abortions, and 98 per cent think women should, at least, be advised of the health risks (physical, emotional and mental) involved with abortions.

This is all well documented, and we badly need to debate the matter in a collapsing civilisation so well described by Pastor Bruce Claridge The Advertiser, February 1 and February 20, 2010).

Fr BERNARD McGRATH,

Bendigo