Botanywhig
Disregarding all the propaganda and emotional type terms, then abortion is presently a surgical procedure, and like any other surgical procedure, it has to be properly managed (or situations develop similar to those in Bunderberg).

The laws pertaining to abortion in Australia are totally confused, and many doctors don’t even understand those laws, and Australia would be keeping some of the worst statistics of any country in the world on abortion. Even New Zealand keeps much better statistics than Australia, but combining highly confused legislation with minimal statistics being kept, then there is minimal management of abortion.

Incorporating abortion drugs such as mifepristone into all this, and there would be even less management of abortion. Those drugs aren’t like disprin. They kill the foetus, but if they aren’t administrated properly, they can readily kill or hospitalise the mother as well.

So it would appear highly necessary to properly define and then police legislation regarding abortion, and to keep better statistics, such that abortion can be properly reviewed and managed.

If Australia is like the US, then about 40% of abortions are repeat abortions, and that becomes a serious issue, as it means that insufficient or no contraception is being used.The MJA journal estimates that up to 100,000 abortions are being performed in Australia each year, but only about 250,000 children are being born. One therefore has to ask, how much abortion is too much?

The author has written a number of articles on abortion, and they typically use much emotive type language, have minimal verifiable facts, leave out the father, don’t mentioning alternatives to abortion such as adoption, don’t mention contraception or abstinence etc, but the author has never stated if our abortion rate is too high or not.

But it is now a highly important issue. We have a fertility rate only 1.75, with serious signs that it could follow other countries and decline even further. However we also have high tax rates, so increased taxes may not increase the birth rate. Other things will have to be done, at both state and federal level.

Why are we so worried about people having less children and population decline? I was under the impression there was a touch too many people in the world, not the other way round.

If your concern is the decline in just Australia, how about letting a few of those people from over-populated countries set up camp for a bit? Helps their country, which has too many, and our country, which has too few - and no need for more babies! It's win-win-win!

Oh, and Philo: an 'equivalent' to contraception?! Joke, right? ...I'm gonna assume that it was, and that actually you understand that abortion is an unfortunate but necessary procedure in our society. Phew, good joke, Philo, had me going there for a second!

Timkins your objection to mifepristone is that it stops embryos embedding on the lining of the uterus if taken within a few days after sexual intercourse.

Your repeated concern for father’s rights is tedious – if you are in a committed viable long term relationship with a woman – then she can consider your views.

Should a woman who had unprotected casual sexual intercourse be forced to have the baby when she doesn’t know the sperm donor’s name, dad looks like shaping up to be a dud provider, or he is controlling and abusive, or in the cold light of day she just plain hates him. Or do you have a problem with sex as a recreational activity?

Your objection to RU486 makes women wait 6 weeks until the foetus is large enough to scrape out, leading to unnecessary exposure to the health risks of pregnancy including potential growth of tumours. Of course now we know that a teaspoon of lemon juice used shortly after intercourse kills sperm also.

There are serious arguments that Australia’s population is large enough already.

Adoption: Why should infertile couples take other people's leftovers. Why can't infertile couples order a baby from the mother of their choice impregnated with the sperm of their choice. After all when hetrosexuals select their partners they are selecting their sperm/egg donor.

And your objection to mifepristone stops patients battling with breast cancer, prostate cancer, inoperable meningiomas and Cushing’s Syndrome having access to proven effective treatment, all because you want to reduce abortion rates.

Shame on you, have you no empathy for the horrible plight of patients faced with life threatening disease whose alternate treatment options may include such massive disfigurement that they must re-evaluate their self-image? All cancer patients look mortality in the eye and must review their life and they don’t need people like you meddling in their very personal battles.

People with views like yours limited the treatment options for my partner who adored me. The treatment options offered were much more expensive and invasive and ultimately ineffective.

sand between my toes,

You are tedious
You don’t consider other’s views.
You have a problem with sex as a recreational activity.
You are shameful.
You have no empathy
Cancer patients don’t need people like you meddling in their very personal battles.
You have limited the treatment options.

There are now questions being raised that many cancer treatments may not be greatly reducing the cancer in the patient, as those treatments can be spreading that cancer elsewhere throughout the body, and the patient’s overall comfort and even life expectancy is not being greatly improved.

“You want to reduce abortion rates.” Does anyone?

The present surgical procedures for abortion are inhumane.
See http://www.abortiontv.com/Movies/silentscream.htm for a video of an actual abortion.
(NB. The doctor who performed the abortion in that video never carried out another abortion after watching the video, when previously he had carried out 10,000)

To control population through surgical abortion is inhumane and quite barbaric. To use abortion type drugs is not much better, particularly when there is so much cheap and highly reliable contraception available to women. Reliance upon abortion and not contraception to control population would be a backward step for society one would think.

Some people call abortion drugs “safe”. They will say that about surgical abortions too, but from memory, articles by this author on abortion have never mentioned ways to reduce unwanted pregnancy in the first place, and typically such articles will rarely say is if the present abortion rate, (or even the rate of unwanted pregnancy) is too high or not.

But regardless of whether it is a surgical abortion or a drug abortion, that abortion still has to abide by abortion legislation.

You may also think it fine to tell a childless couple wanting to adopt a child that they are going to receive “other people's leftovers”, but I think not.

Timkins, viewing any type of surgery will make the average non medical person's stomache turn over, and even worse, imagine viewing the types of surgical abortions that were used before medical abortions were legally introduced, let alone imagining the ones that were born and left to die after birth. If you ban abortions they will go underground and the sort of medical research towards less harmful, more safe methods such as this latest drug will be halted. We are trying to go forward, Timkins, not backwards.

As to the argument of adoption, it seems that in Australia it is actually harder to have your child adopted out than it is to have an abortion. You can keep abortion a secret but with adoption, you are scrutinized and judged by the entire community, your family, your friends, everyone. You'll never be able to escape the judgement that you abandoned your own child.

Minuet,
The idea that if abortion industry is policed it will lead to “underground abortions”, could very well be a myth. People are very easily swayed by propaganda.

The narrator of the video on abortion mentioned previously (NB. You don’t have to watch the video, but can read about it at http://www.abortiontv.com/Movies/silentscream.htm) was a Dr. Bernard Nathanson. He managed one of the largest abortion clinics in the US, before he became highly anti-abortion.

In “CONFESSION OF AN EX-ABORTIONIST” he recounts some of the propaganda methods used by the abortion industry.

“We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000”
http://www.aboutabortions.com/Confess.html

From accounts by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, “money”, not morality or ethics, is the principle factor driving the abortion industry.

But even if abortion drugs are used, will morality and ethics be the main factor in abortion? Doubtful, but if those abortion drugs are not properly administered, there will be many causalities, as they are powerful drugs.

The present state of adoption in this country should not be a reason for continuing the abortion industry. Maybe the state of the adoption should be fixed before continuing or extending the abortion industry.

The IVF industry could also collapse in the future due to lack of donors, and it would be a tragic that so many babies are being disposed of by abortion clinics, or being flushed down the toilet after the woman has taken abortion drugs, when so many childless couples want to be parents.

Overall, I have not known the author to advocate less abortion, (either surgical abortion or drug abortion), and I would think that even more abortions would be backward step for society, because in many ways abortion leads to a devaluing of life.