Appalling emotive article which just shows how unintelligent and insulting this debate has been. The pro lifers are not providing any real insight or understanding into the high rates of abortion and resort to cheap magazine sensationalism. Playing dictator over women's ovaries is not going to advance their cause at all.

Non of the pro lifers to my knowledge have addressed issues such as:

1. Why are women choosing abortion over adoption when there is such a great demand.
2. The overpopulation of the world, especially in the 3rd world, and its strain on world resources, and the fact that these days many educated women take this fact into consideration when planning their lives and whether to have a family.
3. The lack of support for educated career women who would be thinking of having children but find the costs of child care and child raising etc too much and too stressful.
4. Why the contraceptive pill isn't working well enough to prevent pregnancies in the first place
5. Why more women are choosing a single life, or a life of several relationships over the traditional get married and stay with one person only scenario, and why this isn't being respected as a valid option those who want us to have more children.

The pro life point of view assumes that human life has higher value than any other form of life. This arrogant viewpoint is not helping the world to advance in anyway whatsoever.

I too will celebrate with a drink. The only issue with me is the safety of this drug. We all know there are risks with drugs so sensationalizing a couple of bad experiences is also not going to help the debate.

Give an inch and you will lose a mile. I am not handing over one inch of my rights as a woman. Women worldwide need all the inches they can get.

“Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future. Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present, as though they were taking something away from our lives. Children are seen - at least by some people - as a liability rather than as a source of hope. Here it is obligatory to compare today's situation with the decline of the Roman Empire.” Pope Benedict XVI

You can make it work Minuet.

Pat Rafter is one of eight children. His family all work together, maybe because there was a critical mass. All the siblings provided really valuable support. Imagine if you were to put a dollar value on the things a large close family provides for each other. Children make us wealthy truly they do.

I think we suffer from a lack of imagination.

Escape from Affluenza – a doco about the millions who are opting out of materialism and discovering the happiness of living according to their highest values.

Savings hints – a website that helps families save thousands a year without pain.

Minuet it needn’t be children or quality of life it can be both.

We should listen to Melinda who has done the empirical research, spoken with hundreds of these women and listened to their stories.

Her article reminded me of this. The Meaning of Sex

http://www.godspy.com/life/The-Meaning-of-Sex-Fertility-Contraception-and-the-Reshaping-of-Sexuality-By-Juli-Loesch-Wiley.cfm

I wonder what you think?

Martin,

I'm sorry I can't relate to that article at all.
I'm happy with my life, my sex life, and my ability to have choices.
I'm not interested in having a big family either, but thats fine for Pat Rafter's family.
I would be happy to have a baby and offer it up to adoption but with all the horrible stories, and lack of support by the community, I feel like I would be seen as an awful person who rejected her child. I would not be able to go through a pregnancy without everyone saying how crazy I would be to give up my baby. How stressful and victimizing!
In the meantime, abortion where contraceptive fails is an effective, convenient and confidential method of stopping an embryo the size of a speck of sand or rice from forcing me into a situation that for me personally could bring on great stress.

I persoanlly feel that nature has intended women to be able to have tonnes of children in the likelihood that some will probably die. Mankind however has developed the technology to improve conditions for survival, and now has the ability to monitor all life on the planet to the extent where we can address where things are out of balance.

Once again a person is equating the issue of who decides whether Ru486 should be made available, is turned into an argument about abortion.

We live in a democratic society and this society has decided to legalise abortion. Ru486 is a drug that performs a medical purpose that is legal in Australia, it should be judged on scientific grounds only.

A celebration for the current political sucess, is not a celebration of abortions, it is a celebration of proper processes being upheld, of democracy working. A democratic process was followed to legalise abortion and while you may disagree with this policy you should respect the processes involved in making and changing them. To try to change this policy by interfering with who decides the availability of RU486 is cheating the process, it is cheating democracy.

Melinda is pointing to this celebration, which is a celebration of the current law not being distilled by inappropriate means. A law that was decided democratically. A law that many women fought vehermently for and is therefore considered one of the battles for women issues. She is then equating it to a celebration of abortion, which is an emotional and illogical conclusion.

If you wish to win this fight, then do it on a case by case basis. Allow each woman to make her own choice and remember that no woman finds this an easy decision. Allow each person to make their vote and eventually the policies will change. If the ethics are so obvious it should be an easy argument to win.

If you are truely serious about taking this 'problem' back to the 'cause' then you would advocate for a MALE BIRTH CONTROL PILL.

At least women have some real sort of choice in this area. The only real birth control for men is vasectomy, which is generally out of the question for youngish men without kids.

Why dont you advocate for a MALE PILL?

Do you have a fundamental problem with giving men some real power over their own reproductive choices? To free us from being at the mercy of a woman's reproductive choice?

l reckon if a male pill were on the market feminists would fight it tooth and nail as an example of the patriarchal oppression of women by denying them our seed to give them choice.

Its a relief that common sense has prevailed and women have retained a very important tool over the control of their own destinies, notwithstanding the ideological and moral projections of the self righteously sanctimonious.

This article is a steaming pile of emotive anti-choice effluent. A quick scan of the author's other articles make it clear that it isn't a one off.

She claims to be really all about offering more support (and thus a better "choice") for all those women who really want to have the baby - but what has that got to do with RU486? Offer the support, then those who don't really want to have an abortion wont. Thats great, I don't think you will find anyone who disagrees with that, but this is just a smokescreen. If the author really believes what she says, why doesn't she make some concrete suggestions for empowering disadvantaged women and giving them more choice rather than blaming abortion?

Why don't you be honest Melinda, abortion makes you sick and you want to stop everyone from doing it. It's not about womens rights, its about your beliefs. And people who are stupid enough or unlucky enough to get pregnant when they don't want to be, well thats just tough they shouldn't go round having sex, should they. Tough luck on the vote, but I know you and Tony Abbott will keep trying.. you'll never win though, even if you do somehow manage to make abortion illegal it won't stop people doing it, you'll just manage to kill a few more women with unsafe abortions.