Abortion is complex

IT is certainly sad that Peta Credlin was not able to have children as she apparently wanted, but using some contraception can be fraught with problems (“The discussion is terminated”, Opinion, Aug 4).

With 80,000 abortions a year in Australia, Credlin is spot-on that this is not about “missed pills or broken condoms”; rather perhaps that the pill can engender a range of deleterious side-effects in some women and thereby avoided.

Abortion may be controversial, even complex, and something Credlin “can’t fathom”, but for whatever reasons, safe and legal terminations are needed in NSW as elsewhere in this country.

In The Sunday Herald Sun on August 18, there was a response to this letter:

“P. POGORELSKE (opinion, 11/8), states that “for whatever reasons terminations are needed…” Unfortunately, this is where we have reached as a society where the unborn and innocent are aborted for “whatever reason.” Jim Crotty, Mernda.

My comment: He did omit “safe and legal” terminations and it seems disappointing, though not unexpected, that he has seemingly no understanding of what’s involved in having a child. Without wanting to seem anti-religious per se, I can only ponder whether maybe he is a Catholic who follows the dictates of that religion, particularly the Pope, who is anti-abortion in all circumstances. But at least some people do read my letters.