"RU486 is messy and unpredictable."

Messy and unpredictable? Sounds like a pro-abortionist.

kaspa,

"that is what feminism was supposed to be about in the first place."

I'm convinced kaspa. You have changed my mind. It's all very clear now.

kaspa I admire you. You are my hero. I like your big brain.

Reason, I agree with you.

So long as the matter of when a embryo becomes a human being is unclear, and the subject of debate and religious belief, an individual's right to choose, with appropriate advice, remains paramount. Personally, I don't like abortion, nobody does, but when people are faced with that situation, I have no right to impose my view upon them, and if they choose RU486, then that's a matter for them.

I think it's scary that The Australian, ordinarily a respectable publication, allows people like Renate to scaremonger wantonly and mislead a tragically gullible populace with fudged statistics and half-arguments.

And as for you Friedrich, well, I just don't know what you're on about.
:)

I have been trying to research Renate Klein's background to determine her agenda with RU486. All I could find was that she is a biologist and academic on the more radical side of feminism.

Further exploration confirms what many others have stated; that RU486 carries similar risks to other gynaecological procedures but is not of any greater risk.

Below are extracts from Australian doctors, Professor of Obstetrics Caroline de Costa,Cairns Base Hospital Campus and from Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, the National President of the Australian Medical Association.

DR DE COSTA: "an obstetrician who has studied international evidence that she says shows it to be a safe and acceptable alternative to surgical abortion.

Further, Professor De Costa said Dr Klein's views were "very selective and impassioned". And that "prostaglandins were used "very frequently" in obstetrics without problems.

Caroline de Costa argues that the availability of mifepristone in Australia might largely overcome many of the inequities of access to abortion, and is critical for many women in rural areas and women in some ethnic groups whose access to surgical abortion is limited."

DR HAIKERWAL: The position of the AMA is that, where it’s legal, this drug should be made available as a substitute for current surgical abortions which are carried out…as an alternative. What this is is a safer method for some women. It has with it very many less side effects and problems than surgical abortion, because surgical abortions have problems not only of the procedure itself, but also of anaesthetic.

....the cases that’ve been reported around people dying from infections really are the same sort of complications you get from any sort of gynaecological procedure or obstetric procedure.

... always do these sorts of things under medical supervision where there is the option to go surgery to do a curette, you know, should the tablets not be successful in expelling the contents of the womb in the case of an early pregnancy.

...there is a very robust process called the Therapeutic Goods Administration, and that process needs to be used. And they will analyse this in a cold headed, scientific way."

"bleeding,nausea,vomiting and painful contractions." That's a bit of bad luck.

I'd just like to remind the god squad that this debate is not about the rights or wrongs about abortion (get over it most of us want it). It's about the use of Mifepristone as a alterative to surgical abortion. The evidence suggest that it is safe so lets make it available.