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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37, No. 7. April, 17 1974

4) "Legal abortions will lead to permissiveness"

4) "Legal abortions will lead to permissiveness"

Here we get a little closer to the real motivation behind the anti-abortionists' campaign; the desire to enforce one morality (their own) for all.

Moral persuasion against extramarital sex being something of a lost cause, the self-appointed guardians of public morals try to discourage it with punishment. "Women must pay for their sins", it is said, on the assumption that all unwanted pregnancies occur outside marriage. But even married women are not to be spared: "Women must pay for their irresponsibility".

There are many reasons why women become pregnant unintentionally, not the least of them being ignorance of, or lack of access to effective contraception, for which we have these very moralists to blame.

It is barbaric to punish these women by insisting on unwanted births. And what effect does this have on the children who are born as a punishment?

We find such punitive attitudes abhorrent.