Abortion
Tony Abbott apparently wants "late-term" abortions banned. Why? He probably believes it is a terrible wrong to (intentionally) kill any (innocent) human being and really wants an end to (virtually) all abortions. However, if it is seriously wrong to kill a foetus it must also be seriously wrong to kill many animals for meat. Simply because a being belongs to a particular species does not give it a privileged moral status. But Abbott is not lobbying against the meat industry.
What matters is the interests that beings have. Roughly, the degree to which a being has an interest in ongoing life depends on the extent to which it has had desires about its future. Foetuses have had few, if any, such desires. By contrast, most women pregnant with an undesired foetus, have a strong and rational wish not be legally compelled to carry the foetus to term, give birth, and then either surrender or raise the child.
The law reform we need is to make abortion available on informed request.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere, NSW
Pine Gap
Bush, Blair and Howard repeatedly tell us how mad and bad Saddam is now but he must have been just as bad in 1988 when he used cluster bombs and chemical weapons against Halabja, killing 5000 Kurds. Britain, the US and, no doubt Australia, turned a blind eye to this.
The BBC's John Simpson said that US satellite and radar intelligence about Iranian troop movements and weapons were passed on to Iraq in "considerable quantities" around the beginning of 1987. The USS Stark and the USS Coontz radioed the target co-ordinates to the Iraqi military and were accidentally hit by Iraqi Exocet missiles which locked onto the radio beams. So good was the US-Iraq relationship that the whole event was hushed up even though 37 US sailors were killed and dozens injured.
I am sure most Australians will be outraged when they realise the US spy base at Pine Gap was used to aid and abet a bloody dictator presumably with the knowledge and permission of the Australian government.
Gareth Smith
Byron Bay, NSW [Abridged]
Latham 'spooked'?
The Socialist Alliance Our Common Cause column (GLW #589) correctly demolishes the racist scapegoating of refugees and Muslim people, and places the blame where it lies - with governments and the destructive corporate system they defend.
However, the column was slightly misleading when it stated that, "Howard has certainly spooked the ALP. Latham thinks Australia needs a new $500 million-a-year coast guard. He thinks 'illegal' workers are the main threat to our jobs and conditions."
Latham is not "spooked" by Howard. He doesn't "think" Australia needs a multi-million dollar coast guard nor that "illegals" are the main threats to jobs.
Latham wants to win an election, and he knows the interests he seeks to represent — the corporate rich, not the vast majority. That's why he puts forward essentially the same non-solutions as Howard — not because he doesn't know better, but because he, and the ALP, have the goal of maintaining the corporate-rule status quo.
Any notion that Latham is fooled, spooked, or simply swallowing the hype, runs the risk of people believing all that needs to be done is to convince Latham of the truth.
But trying to convince Latham is a waste of time — he knows very well what he is doing, and has armies of staff and millions of corporate donation dollars to help him do it. Our job as Socialist Alliance members, supporters, activists in campaigns, GLW readers — is to convince the millions that our interests are opposed to those of Howard and Latham, Packer and Murdoch.
As we turf out Howard, we need to be clear that Latham is a pale imitation, and the real struggle is to turf out the entire system.
Paul Benedek
Stanmore, NSW
Palestine, Iraq
The Iraqi resistance is fighting to free their country from US domination. The Palestinian resistance is fighting to free their country from Israeli domination. Australians must ignore their government's implacable servitude to the US and get behind the resistance movements in each of these countries. Justice demands that we fight for the righteous, not for the mighty.
The International Court of Justice has handed down a 14:1 decision demanding that the Israeli concentration wall around the Palestinians be dismantled. The one dissenting judge was from the US — how predictable. The US administration has already dismissed the decision without considering it. The Israeli government dismissed it before it was even handed down.
In the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli military forces are trying to wipe out Palestinian freedom fighters. The Israeli government claims, on the one hand, to support the principle of a Palestinian homeland, but at the same time it steals their land and builds a concentration wall to imprison them.
The plight of the Iraqi and the Palestinian are the same. They are both being humiliated and imprisoned by states that call themselves civilised. Australia's allegiance to the US and Israel must not be allowed to blind us to the just cause represented by the Iraqi and Palestinian movements for freedom.
Adam Bonner
Meroo Meadow, NSW [Abriged]
From Green Left Weekly, July 21, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.