Nice letter Mietta but I’d like to ask you a question. 

Did you have a father with you when you were growing up? 

Did you value your dad? Did he help to nurture you, provide for you, love you? 

I’ll assume he did because it is pretty normal right?

Do you know that there are now, of necessity, increasingly more services extended to grieving and frustrated husbands and boyfriends shattered because their traditional “right” or perhaps obligation to nurture and protect their unborn child was stripped from them in 2008, depending, of course, on the women’s choice? 

Do you have ears and a heart to hear the grief of many men helpless to save the lives of their unborn children? 

Did you know, do you care or do you dismiss them with unfounded and dismissive assumptions such as you made regarding Ron McMillan (the author of a recent letter to the Bendigo Advertiser)? 

Do you value and remember it was and still is predominantly men who provide for and willingly lay down their lives working to provide for and protect their children and are right now fighting fires and fighting wars to protect us all?

This is not to dismiss women’s contributions, however, all babies have fathers; where are their rights – both the babies and the fathers?

Do you have the ears and a heart to hear the brokenness of the many women who regret an ill informed “choice”?

Did you know the Victorian parliament voted against laws which would have required information and counselling on the health risks of abortion be given to women in 2008 (VicHansard 3536-3550 and 3629-3621).

Did you know Victorian women can now choose an abortion because a child would impinge on their social life or financially disadvantage them? 

And please Mietta, you cannot reasonably compare Victoria with the situations in India.

According to The Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity 2008 annual report 178 women choose to “terminate” the life of “their” perfect, healthy and viable baby in the last trimester prior to birth; yes, that is correct, terminated a baby with no defects in the last trimester. 

Sixty-five of these women were under 20 years of age.

Have you heard of the serious complications associated with abortion; there are many and they are not uncommon? 

Don’t get lost amongst all the euphemisms bandied about today.

We all love choice Mietta but while you can choose your breakfast cereal you can’t choose to cheat on your income tax. “Choice” is not always feasible. 

No one wants to take away a woman’s right to make choices concerning her body but many are concerned not only for the woman, but for the father and the other body she carries within.

Surely the time for choice is prior to conception (remember this is not India)and failing that should responsibility and accountability be considered a woman’s choice? 

?Sandra Caddy

?Castlemaine