This article is interesting. It seems a bit contorted in places but to put it into more perspective the author was on ABC radio on 31 March talking about her new book on parenting, and happened to mention that she only interviewed women when writing this book on parenting. This was a Freudian Slip perhaps, but it highlights her anti-male or anti-father bias.

So now we have an article on parenting, adoption, children who don’t know who their father is, males who don’t know if their children are theirs, women who don’t tell the male that they might not be the father etc, and in this article the author attempts to put words into Tony Abbott’s mouth. (IE “Or will his rigid views about nice girls and sluts live to see”)

Now I can’t remember Tony Abbott ever calling someone a “Slut”, so I think the author is trying to misinterpret and distort the situation, (see http://www.iwf.org/issues/issues_detail.asp?ArticleID=68 for a female’s view of this type of activity)

However better use of modern contraception would stop many unwanted pregnancies from occurring, and routine DNA testing at the birth of each child, would eliminate a lot of potential grief and emotional shock latter on, and perhaps it would make women more open, less secretive, and less manipulative towards males.

Dear Timkins,

just to clarify. My book is on women's experience of circumstantial childlessness and is based on original research I did for my PhD just on women. It was not a "slip" to reveal this, but rather something that is made clear in the book and on the back cover.

However, if you had read my book or come to any of the discussions around it, you would be aware that it is not anti-male at all, and contains citations of much research about men's experience showing, I think, men experiencing similar constraints to women on their freedom to choose fatherhood at all, and to be active fathers.

My point is discussing the Abbott issue is not to be "anti-male" - which again, as my work makes clear, I am not - but to discuss what seems to me to be obvious hypocrisy from a health minister who once the government gains control over the sentate, will exercise inordinate power over women's health and fertility.

Of course, you and any other reader are free to disagree with this thesis but I feel it's important in such debates to engage with the actual arguments - and provide counter evidence and argument to refute them - rather than attempt to discredit the intellectual integrity of the person making them.

In other words Timkins and with all due respect, please pay me and other readers and writers on this site the courtesy of playing the ball, not the (wo)man.

Hope tony is not a hypocrite now, though he is still foul-mouthed - at question time in Parliament- and mean spirited in my book, and neither of those traits are Christian or catholic. When he was a hot-blooded youth thinking of joining the priesthood he was committing fornication - a sin. (still better to live in sin before becoming a priest than after I suppose)Yet whilst committing fornication, a sin, he "obeyed?" the catholic teaching re using condoms. Yes he was a hypocrite of monumental proportions. Has he changed? Can he judge others- well I do not think so really.At the same time didn't he use this "lost son" business for all it was worth and didn't he have himself look good - eh? numbat

Sorry, Leslie. I'm going to play the man. I found Tony Abbott's discomforture over the last few weeks very gratifying. Here's a senior government minister trying to impose his moral(?) views on women and anyone else who doesn't fit into his bigotted mindset and now it turns out he was sleeping around and all the while he was even contemplating the priesthood. Abbott revolted me before these revelations (mainly brought on by himself because he wanted to milk media publicity around his long lost son). Now it turns out there was no long lost son. So it has backfired - and I can't wipe the smile off my face. Hopefully (and I don't hold much hope) Abbott will mind his own business when it comes to other people's reproductive choices.

Great article, as usual, Leslie. I was fascinated by Allanson's comments about women who campaign against abortion yet have abortions themselves. Her later analysis that it relieves anxiety to want to impose rigid controls on other's behaviour also rang true.
I have been trying to reconcile the Terry Schiavo case, the anti-choice view on abortion and pro- capital punishment (152, I believe, executed under apparent right-to-lifer Governor G.W Bush's watch), pro- war beliefs, and finally decided that it was not about what was being decided, but who decides. There are those who object to individuals deciding what they will do if they become pregnant, find life insupportable, or become totally incapacitated, but are perfectly okay with institutions, with authority, making similar decisions; the church, the state, the armed forces. Save me from the authoritarians, those who see their own life in shades of grey, but everyone else's in black and white.

Timkins, buddy I don't know the authors background or world view but taking the article on it's own merits it stands fairly well in a lot of ways. There is stuff here we should celebrate, I think you have to be fairly determined to see the article as anti-male based on the content in it. Perhaps the author would care to back up the nice girl/slut views attributed to Abbott, I have not heard that from him either (but I don't follow his comments very closely either).

Three cheers for anybody standing up against double standards, and those demanding that others live in a way they cannot live themselves. I am concerned that Abbott's role will contribute to others making some of the same choices he made (single mum roulete). Which is the greater sin against christian belief, the sex act outside marriage or the use of contraception?

I doubt that Abbott will learn from this and support the kind of reforms you and I are seeking (better access to paternity testing, sane rules and formula's for child support etc). I would also like to see him recognise that other people's sexual morals are not his business, ensuring that the government has not placed hurdles in the way of people managing the consequences of those morals is his business (reasonable access to contraception, education etc)