Some more articles pertinent to this interesting issue:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17562237%255E2702,00.html
http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,17578435-5001022,00.html

Scares one right off one’s Viagra that ;-)

Maximus is correct girls & boys, he hasn’t been saying he is against RU486 he has been saying that because taxpayers’ money pays for medical procedures then they are a political issue which the public and politicians have a right to debate. Maracas the patient can still get a partial Medicare refund for a private doctor’s appointment.

Billie both surgical termination and drug-induced termination are medical terminations. If drug-induced is not safer for women than surgical is it a good idea even though it might be cheaper? (Now I do understand the pro-choice viewpoint “having a baby to term is more dangerous for the woman than an abortion” and the pro-life viewpoint “neither option is safe for the baby”.)

What about men (or anyone) surreptitiously giving the drug to women to force an abortion (to avoid child support or other reasons). Gives a new edge to drink spiking! In Qld laws were introduced to make deliberately killing an unborn baby against the mother’s wishes (eg. by kicking her in the stomach) a more serious crime. What will the crime of giving RU486 to a pregnant woman without her knowledge be?

Are a woman’s rights more important than an unborn baby’s rights? Society has done a reasonable job in the last 100 years to getting to a point where men’s rights are not more important than women’s rights…. A sonographer (working in the UK) told me that she can’t tell parents the sex of unborn babies until 24 weeks (when abortion becomes illegal) because of “sex-selection” abortions. That seemed illogical to me because if a woman wanted an abortion for any reason at all except sex selection up to 24 weeks it was legal so why not allow it for sex selection (since the unborn baby’s life didn’t seem to be a factor)? However, apparently often (but of course not always) it is a man forcing a woman to abort an unborn female child because the man wants a male child.

Despite pedantic obfuscation the issue of availability of RU 486 will most likely be determined by the TGA although the anti-abortion lobbyists are trying to revive the abortion debate in the Senate inquiry.
Howard talks of a conscience vote next year and I have no doubt that there has been moves by the lobbyists to put as many obstacles in the way of womens Choices. Hopefully ordinary common sense will prevail ignoring such absurd hypothetical as 'drink spiking' and concerns about visits to the doctor costing a partial rebate.
Perhaps the debate might revive interest in Vasectomies.

Oooh can’t argue with someone who has “ordinary common sense” on his or her side ;-)

Maracas, Maximus and I are factually correct in saying that the taxpayer pays and will pay for abortions (either surgical abortion or the proposed drug induced abortion) through Medicare rebates.

Why is my question an “absurd” hypothetical? The situation described above (where a man deliberately kicked his de-facto in the stomach to kill the unborn baby to avoid paying child support) actually happened in Qld some years ago, that’s why the law was changed. Take a quick squiz through the comments on OLO - there are certainly some strong views regarding payment of child support.

I’m particularly against men forcing women to have abortions – and especially by literally kicking them in the stomach or spiking their drinks - doesn’t sound like much of a woman’s “choice” there!

I do partly agree with the, “Perhaps the debate might revive interest in Vasectomies”, I would be pleased if the debate led to better awareness and use of contraception generally by both men and women.

I agree with Leslie, keep the politics out of women’s health issues. Yes the public pay for medical procedures through their taxes but women contribute via their taxes too and should not be denied RU486 if abortion is legal – which it is. Not everything that the taxpayers funded is necessarily ‘political’ in the same sense. There are thousands of other medications and surgical procedures that the taxpayers fund (and that Maximus is the norm), however, you don’t see politicians jumping up and down because men have vasectomies and Pro-Life groups want the procedures banned.

Women will continue to have abortions even if surgical abortions remain their only option so the Anti-Abortion politicians are not stopping abortions from taking place they are only denying women a viable alternative to surgical abortion which is less intrusive and may be preferred by some women. To add to that overturning the ban and allowing the use of the drug instead would also save the taxpayers money because this alternative also costs less than surgical procedures and can also be done sooner rather than later.

The issues about the drugs other uses are legitimate ones and Maximus must be fooling himself into thinking these are not important issues for women as well and using terms like just “femmo-babble” thinking that dismisses the validity of that argument is just plain ignorant as well as offensive. Just because someone is Pro-Choice it does not negate the arguments about the other uses for the drug and the fact is that it would also benefit people with a wide range of serious and debilitating medical conditions. It’s also interesting to note that it may also be viable in the treatment of prostate cancer – I suppose that would make all the difference? If it would help men Maximus would you like to see it imported and would that make all the difference to you? Naturally, the medication would not give men an abortion, unless of course they happened to be pregnant at the time.