Bugger!

Armchair Critic, I'm not in favour of people being required to pay for the results of others choices especially choices that are strongly disagreed with however I suspect that many who make a lot of noise in that direction will be quite selective on which issues get included.

The broader discussion is one I'd like to see happen but not thrilled when it's basically limited to a single issue.

R0bert

Armchair Critic

I agree with R0bert. That's a highly selective and over-worn argument.

Opinion polls in virtually all Western countries, including the US, show majority support for legal abortion, between 55% and 80%. If the majority approve of legal abortion, then there is no democratic deficit in publicly funding abortion services. Even so, governments can get around it by applying a means test, so that women on low incomes are not locked out of exercising their reproductive rights. Those with the means can fund their own abortions. As it is, Medicare does not fund abortions (as far as I know); neither do any health funds.

To use the same argument, why should my taxes pay for sports funding, parliamentary pensions, corporate incentives, free university tuition for military personnel, and social welfare policing – all of which I strongly oppose?

I also notice that these arguments are never applied to, say, Australia's mandatory contribution to the cost of each bomb dropped in US wars (low-grade missiles $10,000 to $70,000 each; high-grade missiles $70,000 to $600,000 each; ultra high-grade $600,000 to $1.4 million each). The US dropped 26,000 bombs in 2016 alone - do we know the taxpayer bill for that?

War, sport and business? Great. Spare no public expense in maintaining our macho values. Rewarding the rich? Sure, no problem.

Women’s reproductive health? Women’s right to choose how she spends the next 20 years of her life? No way. Just keep piling shovelfulls of moral panic onto truckloads of controversy.

phanto

The election of Trump was only the catalyst not the cause of the march. Its main purpose was to hold Trump to account for his policies on and attitudes to women, not to prevent him from being elected. It’s a way of holding his feet to the fire.

Many feminists, including myself, did not want Clinton to win. You can find lots of this opinion on feminist blogsites. Even those who felt sympathy for Clinton were more focused on misogynist attacks against her, not any defence of her history or policies.

Also, your claim that 'Had this march taken place before the election men would have had no right to be derisive of it' completely overlooks the slipperiness of anti-feminist misogyny. Had it been held before the election, the march would have been just as heartily condemned and trivialised. The only difference would have been to cry havoc at women interfering with the democratic process of an election to ensure 'their' female candidate won. All the teeth-gnashing and cries of democratic emasculation would have been deafening.

JKJ

Writing posts about how women/feminists want to take, take, take everything and leave men with nothing goes beyond opinion or fact – it’s bigotry. Shooting off a litany of bigotries to another commenter and then demanding that they explain themselves to your satisfaction is bullying. Refusing to play your game is not ‘evading the issue’ – it’s common sense

Killarney:

“The election of Trump was only the catalyst not the cause of the march. Its main purpose was to hold Trump to account for his policies on and attitudes to women, not to prevent him from being elected.”

That is one interpretation that could be put on it. It also has all the trademarks of bitterness, denial, embarrassment and an attempt to shift the blame away from their own decision to embrace democracy.

Even if this was not their reason then they look rather stupid and incompetent as a political force when they put themselves in a position that is open to two interpretations. Who would accept them as partners in any political team when they are so clumsy and insensitive to the perceptions of anyone else but themselves?

There are many other women’s groups who are concerned about these issues but would not be as stupid as these women in the way they go about dealing with them.

The lack of restraint and tactics point quite definitely to the assumption that it was more about these women than it was about women’s issues.

Hey everyone,
Firstly I want to say that I think in Australia we have a reasonably fair system in regards to abortion.
As Killarney mentioned, there's a fee associated with abortion, which satisfies my belief in some measure of 'personal responsibility' and that the cost doesn't fall unfairly upon the average taxpayer; as well as acting as a deterrent against overuse of abortion as a form of birth control.

Whether or not the government contributes further towards the cost of abortions and that clients payments are only a co-payment I'm personally not aware.

I've come to the conclusion that even if the government did pay towards the cost of abortion, it would be unfair to remove that funding on the basis that the government does cover the health expenses of citizens who require health services for events that have occurred due to some level of negligence of personal responsibility; and that it would be unfair to single women and abortion out.

You only win this argument on the basis of a 'technicality'.

In truth, it's not fair to make someone else pay for another persons failure to provide protection against an unwanted pregnancy any more than its fair to pay to expect someone to pay for the health treatments of someone who ate themselves into obesity.

The idea that we all should all essentially be responsible for each others choices is a slippery slope with no clearly defined boundaries.
Should this only be restricted to health issues, or do we continue that trend?
When someone murders another?
- Should we all chip in a couple of weeks in jail towards his life sentence?
What about if I lose money on pokies, should everyone else make a personal donation to cover my loss?
- I'm not trying to be smart but I don't know how else to put it in realistic terms.

I still question whether Australians should pay the cost of foreign abortions when we have our own people in hospitals and nursing homes to take care of, and I still support Trump in attempting to put American taxpayers first.