Can someone please explain....

why we have abortion laws in this country that cause a child in one part of a hospital to be kept alive with every medical technology and medical expert available bent on giving the child a life and a future and another child, in another part of the same hospital, at the same gestational age, killed as "foetal matter" because two doctors agreed that it was best for the mother's mental health?

Can you explain to me why a mother of a prematurely born child who removed life support systems and smothered the child would be tried as a murderer yet if she had sought to abort the child while it was still in utero, she would be protected as a "victim" and even applauded by some members of society?

Can you explain why in two years if I choose to have my healthy baby, product of a healthy, normal pregnancy, outside a hospital setting, attended by my highly trained, highly experienced midwife with an impeccable record and a commitment to ongoing training and education and an EXCELLENT record in postpartum care, I will be breaking the law and labeled a radical who puts my baby at risk?

HOWEVER if I choose to have my baby attended by poorly trained, overworked staff (who have little ongoing education requirements) at a public hospital, a place where life threatening mistakes are OFTEN made due to clerical error, exhaustion of staff, mis-communications during shift changes and sheer carelessness, a place where unnecessary interventions (some of which are routine)make postpartum complications and even postpartum infection and/or DEATH for both mother and baby more likely and where BASIC ongoing postpartum care of mother and baby, support of breast feeding etc. is WELL below the standards of the World Health Organisation (according to our own statistics which are on public record) and the rights, wishes and preferences of parents are often ignored and/or belittled for the convenience of staff members - I will be making the "responsible choice"?

Can someone please explain to me why NONE of the data from developed countries where home births are common place (for example, the Netherlands) is "relevant" however examples of infant mortality in third world countries where medical care and decent nutrition is unavailable are FINE to use to "proove" just how "irresponsible" I am?

And can someone PLEASE explain to me WHY I find myself politically aligned with rabid feminists who helped push through the current abortion laws in Victoria and who are working to legalise chemical abortion in Queensland, in order to defend my right to make a healthy, informed, responsible choice for the birth of my child and maintain access to some of the best trained birth attendants in the country?

Is it just me, or has the world gone mad?

No, this hasn't turned into a political blog. I am just mad as heck right now and needed to vent!