The essay claimed to have the topic of 'semantics', apropos of which, 'the morning after pill' was the original claimed purpose of the drug's developers ... for loose but canny females who may have got drunk last night and foolishly had sex with the wrong person. Their option the next day whether pregnancy is diagnosed or not (and of course it cannot be diagnosed within 24 hours of the sex act) being get one of these pills and make sure another fatherless child is not created.
On the topic of semantics, as soon as I got to para 2 of the essay -
'Further, RU486 causes malformation in 23 per cent of continuing pregnancies (where the drug fails to kill the child)' ...
I knew I would find the word Catholic in the writer's CV. KILLING A CHILD. If it's in my uterus and it has Legos or an Xbox, then I would want to kill it.
Thank you Col Rouge comment 69 for being the first to remind us all of the Spanish Inquisition, during which NO Catholics killed anybody at all - you know, on account of sanctity of life an all. That's why there are no catholic soldiers killing Iraquis.

When is it going to end? If abortions including the abortion pill are widely allowed then 12 year olds can easily get an abortion without their parents knowing. It is happening. The oral contraceptive pill is abortifacient: and notice how harmful that is both physically and emotionally to women. Links to cancers, heart disease, suicide and depression and so forth are high risk with OCP's which shouldn't even have been allowed in our marketplace (in the trials women in the OCP group kept dying, so those in the control group were put in the active OCP group!). Oh,I forgot, the drug companies get so much money from this drug and abortions that we wouldn't dare ban it, would we?
Emotionally, it is harmful for women .Kids easily go on this pill without their parents knowing. She can sleep around with any guy she wants without pregnancy.
The same thing is likely to happen with the abortion pill being legalised. Women can sleep around whenever they want, knowing they can easily get an abortion if they have an "accident".
Laypeople are complaining they want RU486 legalised without even knowing the consequences of this drug. Do we really know it's side effects, is it really safe, or again are drug companies duping the clinical trials.
Abortions and abortion drugs, apart from potential harm caused, cost a lot of money. It is a lot safer and cheaper with homoeopathic abortions, and is also 100% effective when from a trained homoeopathic physician and allows a completed abortion. Oh, I forgot though, drug companies don't get their multi million dollar benefits from a natural medicine induced abortion.
And again back to the lowering of morality in society. " if I sleep around, if I have an "accident" I can easily and readily have a termination." This attitude that I know a lot of women have doesn't encourage responsibility and allowing RIU486 readily available is going to make it worse.
I am not a male, or a prolifer and am not a Catholic. I am a health practitioner concerned about the health of women.

The debate is not weather abortion is right or wrong…..It is about weather RU486 is safe or not.
I wanted to know some facts about abortion. To see if this pill is safer then other methods. Here are some statistics I found

• Abortion accounted for 23 deaths in America between 1992 and 1993

• There were 399 deaths in pregnancy and childbirth in America in 2001. This means that 1.5% of pregnancies prove fatal!

• Only 6% of abortions in Britain used RU486

• Approximately 91-93% of women who take RU-486 abort their pregnancies.

• In the cases of women who have died from using the drug RU486, they did not receive adequate medical care after taking the drug. One girl went to the doctor (after taking the drug the day b4) with severe abdominal pains, and was just given a couple of pain killers and sent home.

• More women die every year from conventional methods of abortion

• 1.3 million woman have an abortion every year

• Medical abortions using RU486 have an equivalent safety record to surgical abortions; less than one in every 100,000 women dies as a result of the procedure

• Medical and surgical abortions are 10 times safer than carrying a pregnancy to term

There will always be some woman who fall pregnant and don’t want to have the baby. These women should not be forced to carry the baby to term. They should be able to choose between a surgical and a non surgical (RU486) abortion.

I think the only issue here is that the Australian Government need to assure that these woman, who choose to have an abortion, are provided with adequate medical care and counseling .

I don’t think that giving the baby up for adoption is fair on either the mother or the child; it is very traumatic for both the mother who gave away here baby and the child who grows up feeling that their mother didn’t want them. This only adds the Australia’s mental health crisis.

Col Rouge, your following paragraphs betray where you’re really coming from:

“I think the best thing with any society is to respect the individuals, which it is there to serve, to know best for themselves, decide for themselves and be themselves, rather than the repressed objects of authoritarian socio / religious doctrine.”

”Respecting people to make their own choice, despite that the choices they may make offend you, is a good thing. It is the best thing and a massive improvement over the repressive excesses of the authoritarian theocracies which used tools like the inquisition to keep individuals in line and under the papal jackboot.”

If you were honest you’d say your argument’s really about being anti-Church. (Reading between the lines, you’re saying that anything to do with the Church is bad. I’d reject that and say that the Church is only as good as the people and influences that make it up. It’s wrong to say that there are no good people or influences in it.)

As to your reasoning, I find it hard to question it because I have to say I don’t understand it. All I know for sure is that it’s a fundamentally different point of view to mine.

My point that the child is separate from its mother was obviously not meant in a physical sense, as it’s still completely dependent on its mother physically. However, the fact that it moves independently shows that it’s already got a personality of its own. This is what I’m getting at when I use the words “separate” and "spiritual" – ie, the child is becoming a spiritual person in its own right. And that’s why abortion at a late stage is unequivocally a bad thing.

You say the child exists “by the grace” of its mother, as if it’s OK for the mother to terminate at will. In keeping with my earlier comments on the subject, I disagree with that point of view – strongly.

RobP how presumptious of you to assume that people who want the TGA to regulate drugs in Australia are anti-church. Last time I looked the Uniting Church did not have a position on this debate. The Roman Catholic church does. According to the 2001 census Roman Catholics are 26% of the population. Why is national policy being set by a minority group?

Meg1 I am still waiting for your argument, all you have delivered is some cheap shots and asides but no substance.

Try to debate why people should not have responsibility for the functions of their own body if you want a debate. Otherwise your posts are mere bravado before you sink back into obscurity.

As for “I don't much care what your political or religious affiliations”

Then why suggest “Sen Lyn Allison speaks and you swallow her beliefs”

Your cheap aside implies an affiliation between my politics and those of Lyn Alison who, as leader of the Democrats in the Senate, is a public figure with publicly declared political views. With such comment you express the interest in my political affiliations which you are now denying.

As for past my adventures you ask

“Have you offered to pay for upkeep on babies conceived from your 'relationships'- fleeting or otherwise?”

and when I reply you complain

“Nor do I particularly want to hear your past misadventures or adventures...not remotely interested.”


I know it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind but between successive posts is “frequent” to the point of mental disorder.


Either make your mind up or admit you suffer from short term memory loss and the only reason you are posting is your nurse got distracted.

Oh I measure my responses to everyone, come here with reasoned debate and I am reasoned in response. Come here spitting vitriolic and sanctimonious venom and I will eventually be tempted to stoop to your “challenge”.

I have no issue with “Catholics”, I dated one for 3 years, a lovely lady. When her priest told her she could not date me and take mass she simply told him he could shove his mass where the sun don’t shine (explosive folk those Maltese). She attended her church every week and never took mass again, such strength of spirit in the face of malignant manipulation was true courage.

I do not accept the authority of the Pope nor his Bishops and I reject their malevolent and pernicious attempts to exert power over our lives.