If Bill Tilley has decided to vote against the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria, I say good on him.

If he is in the minority, as Dr Mourik states, then I say that’s all the better.

If Bill Tilley is going against the so-called majority in a critical conscience vote, then he’s showing courage and that he can think for himself.

It can also show Dr Mourik that there’s not necessarily safety in numbers and not everyone can be forced to bow the knee by this measure.

I’d say there’s everything right about that, so what’s wrong with this, Dr Mourik?

Abortion, like suicide, is definitely an individual act and both have been happening since time immemorial, but there’s an important difference between the two.

Whereas suicide is an own life taken by own hand act, abortion is not, because there’s a third party.

A woman choosing an abortion is choosing also for her unborn child.

This is twofold and between her and her conscience.

Whereas it is of her own will that a life apart from her own be ended, it is still not by the act of her own hand that the innocent life is ultimately terminated.

In a medically assisted abortion, someone else is agreeing and willing to enact this for and on her behalf.

— J. SCHMIDT,

Lavington