MJ, sorry I missed your post there. I'm just glad that reason has
prevailed in parliament and women can make their own decisions, in consultation with their doctors, about what is best for them.

"However it is curious to include wanting freedom of religion and freedom from religion in a sentence as we can’t have both. Freedom of religion usually allows for a freedom not to have a religion but doesn’t allow freedom from religion"

Not really, we can have both. You are free to practise yours or any other religion that you please. Its a lifestyle choice made by you.
I should be free from rules where religious dogma is the driving force and not our ability to reason. Abortion, contraception, divorce, etc, are all such areas. Nobody is forcing you to be personally involved with any of them, if thats what your god or church tells you.

Helen is correct - human beings are being killed.
She is incorrect, though, to say that, therefore, it is not justified.
Women are engaged in a just war to end their worldly dependence on men, and therefore, their actual present and potential future oppression.
Marginalisation and Oppression are the twin narratives of Women throughout History.
There is no Power in the Pro-Choice Woman denying that she is killing her children, the power is accepting that it is necessary.
The misery that accompanies the realisation that Truely Ultimate Sacrifices are being made - ensures that the idea of merely becoming part of the established economic order of men to safeguard one's own Freedom, is by no means enough.
The True Ideal is not to simply participate in the order, but, to change it fundamentally.
The dearest to us are being thrown over the parapet in the name of Freedom. But, Wars are supposed to end.
Our Children will stop dieing only when Women realise there actual power does not reside in the Abortion Clinic, or with abortion Pills - "Choice" is not the real Power. "Choice" simply allows continued Participation in a Spiritually bankrupt, adversarial, beligerent, superficial, market driven, meaningless society.
The Real Power is to pay homage to our dead heroes, to feel the horror, and to resolve to change a socio-economic system that enslaves both MEN and Women.
Abortion does not mean that women can finally strut on the worldly stage as egotistical men do; abortion is the first horrifying step towards the eventual elimination of the dominance of the ego's "will to power". The Real Power of "Choice" is to realise that it has created the opportunity for Women all over the Western World - empowered, wealthy, educated - to Finally unite as one, to change the Order to something far more Sane, Communal, Tender and Compassionate, that makes the need for Abortion history. The Collective Power of Women is to Liberate both themselves and there Lovers by changing the system that enslaves them both.
Abortion CANNOT continue, it must end by changing the System that demands it.

Hi y'all
Helen's thoughtful and provocative essay on the semantics of abortion hinges on her semantic analysis of the charter of the TGA and its relationship to the medical effects of RU486. In her argument she uses the following point:
"pregnancy is more than a mere “physiological process” occurring in the mother. From conception a new human person exists, therefore there is also a “physiological process” occurring in the baby which must be considered;"

Someone posting previously has correctly stated that it is for the courts to determine what a statute means. Helen preempts such judicial consideration, but her essay could be a submission to such a case.

Back to her interpretation of the medical effect of RU486 as an abortifacient. She uses the assertion that pregnancy is "more than a mere physiological process". At one level this is perfectly true, this is fundamentally an assertion that there are two physiological processes occurring during pregnancy. Both fall under the auspices of the TGA's charter. I doubt this is the semantic interpretation she was intending.

What she seems to be asserting is that, from conception onwards, life includes something other than physiological processes. So, the semantics of abortion in Helen's essay reduces to belief in this other than physiological processes. And now we are in the realms of 21 grams, which is the core of this debate - is there something more than physiological processes involved in pregnancy?

She rightly notes that in this debate the parties start from different premises. Her premise of the innate dignity of human life is an assertion backed by appeal to authority and universality rather than argument: but that is another semantic debate.

odsoc

My heartfelt thanks to all pollies who voted in favour of the RU486 bill. Maybe I should have a little more faith in our democratic system - seems to have worked here.

To all who oppose safe abortion for women, please refrain from using the label 'pro-life'. (Just had to indulge in further semantics)

A timely article appeared in today's Guardian regarding the efficacy of RU 486.

Please link to below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1710735,00.html

Cheers to all.

Gray, you are on a power trip! You have given not one single valid reason why abortion should not continue other then for your own selfish beliefs. Nothing is ever black or white, many decisions are made with regret, many with relief, but they are decisions made by the person who is pregnant, and should not be made for that person by others who want to assume a position of dictatorship. The drug under debate, if found safe, is merely offering an alternative to surgery; that could well be a good thing. You state abortion cannot continue but it is already legal and not up for vote. Abortion will continue with or without your consent. Thank goodness it is legal or we would have a return to the backyard barbers of long ago because sometimes a woman feels it is necessary. By the way I personally do not believe in abortion, but KNOW that it is necessary for some women to have that choice. The decision to have an abortion is private and NOT for me or for you to judge Gray.

"There is no Power in the Pro-Choice Woman denying that she is killing her children, the power is accepting that it is necessary."

How's that for another "whack-job" for your anti-life charter, Col?

Sorry Scout but pro-life is an accurate description, just as anti-life is and as such, will continue to be used...Gray has proved that point unquestionably in the previous ?? well, post - for want of a better description.

I'm glad he/she is on your side, not mine. Sounds a lot like the rantings of a rather inebriated group meeting of WEL females that I once attended...once was enough to hear this line of 'justification' spewed forth in more ways than one and with a well used cask or two for back-up in that instance!

An 'interesting' concept...women kill your babies so that ? how did that go, so that we then can remove the reason for killing our babies. That's even more confusing than Col arguing against himself within the same paragraph.

I hope you get help with your Catholic issues Col and that you have a wonderful life too, it is possible and that's a good place to start to achieve it.