Ah Philo, sounds to me like you fear the great Islam invasion...

Islamic countries are actually addressing population control,
including abortion, unlike the old Catholic Church, which still
has their head in the sand as usual.

The point is, if your end of the religious spectrum had a say
in the running of things, abortion would be banned, women would
be forced to have children they didn't want etc.

Society would be intolerant, constant references would be made
to some so called holy book, as guidance. In fact the Christian
Taliban are nearly as fanatical as the Muslim Taliban, if you
weigh it all up.

Luckily the Christian Taliban are just noisy, but small in
numbers, the majority of society does not want the Godsquad
to rule. Lucky that, or alot of us would have to pack our bags
and try and find a tolerant place in the world to live, much
like people from other countries, who come to Australia for
that very reason.

I am not going to take part in a debate about whether abortion is right or wrong because that’s not on the menu here.
My first impression of the article:

I agree with the author that these drugs should not be administered to women who choose to have a chemical abortion because they have not been approved for abortion and might not be safe.

Her concern that women will not be fully informed may be valid or may not; but she seems to speak from experience. If she’s right, then I am concerned about a few things as well.

Firstly, if her experience is that women seeking abortions are usually not being told what they are in for, I wonder what else has been going on at clinics in her opinion for her to say this. I obviously haven’t read any of her other writings; perhaps she has talked about these other experiences in other articles? What else don’t women know about?
Is she being genuine or trying to scare women out of having abortions at all?

Secondly, if her concern is valid and women will not be fully informed about the drugs, the danger is that women may view these drugs simply as an alternative to the abortion drug RU486, while in reality these drugs are not approved abortion drugs.

Finally, abortion clinics are supposed to be pro-women. Withholding any facts and information about the drug is fooling women and is disrespectful.
I find it scary to think that women and girls, who trust and rely upon pro-women organisations can't trust these. If abortion clinics would withhold important information and facts from women and use them as guinea pigs, what might they experiment with next? Hmmmm...is she trying to scare women again, or is this a genuine concern?

If Melinda is not right about the women not being informed: Even if women were fully informed, it is also not pro-women to inject women, no matter how informed they are, with drugs that haven’t been approved for abortion and might endanger their future health or that of future children.

Celivia

The fact that the drug has not been approved for the purpose of abortion in Australia is one of the reasons for the clinical trial. Clinical trials have to be conducted in this country before any medication can be approved for a particular purpose by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. This is the case for all new drugs or new indications for old drugs. Methotrexate is approved for a number of other medical purposes (and has been used for nearly half a century) so its overall safety profile is well known.

The question of how well women will be informed is not a trivial one. I don’t doubt that there have been times in the past when the quality of informed consent to participation in clinical trials has been inadequate, but I would bear in mind Melinda’s partisan views in her assessment of what will happen in this one. My guess is that given anti abortionists are now using tort law (centred on issues of consent) as a weapon to harass abortion providers, those conducting this trial will take pains to be absolutely scrupulous on this issue (not that they wouldn’t be otherwise). See a couple of Philo’s posts on 3rd August above (and my reply).

Grace,

It was Melinda who brought up the “tumour” reference, carried on by a number of posters who I suspect were trolling (see my first post on 24th July).

The consensual/non consensual intercourse issue ought to be problematic for anti abortionists as well. If an embryo or foetus has an absolute right to life, then whether it resulted from rape or a consensual act of love is really immaterial.

My insistence on calling an embryo an embryo and a foetus a foetus and not a “baby” is not just scientific pedantry, unless you are going to argue that taking the morning after pill is of equivalent moral seriousness to infanticide.

The issue of consent is particularly interesting. Consent is required for sex, abortion, medical treatment or trials, contact with children etc. etc.

Assuming women are appropriately informed, the trial declared a success and Methotrexate is approved as a safe drug for this purpose by the Therapeutic Goods Administration - where does it leave this concept of unilateral consent only women ere required to give?

I note the arguments for adoption are immediately dismissed as uncomfortable for the woman, both physically for the remainder of the pregnancy, and psychologically for the rest of her life. They want to be spared the constant worry, possible regret a couple of years later, or the embarrassment of an adopted child turning up to their door some 20 or 30 years later. Fair enough.

Women want the ability to decide whether to become a mother at this particular time, with current partner, or to this very zygote – potentially just one of 400. OK, no arguments there.

So we have 80,000 to 100,000 safe abortions per year. So the discomfort may be no more than a visit to a dentist; health benefits no less beneficial than a good boob job. All good clean therapeutic fun. Fine.

A couple of posters have warned against categorising ‘unwanted pregnancies in terms of “good” or “bad” women’ or forcing women to become unwilling parents as in "Nothing will change a woman's adamantine determination not to bring a child into the world that she knows she cannot adequately parent." I second those sentiments.

But, why does the same logic not apply to men? If people argue that ownership of genetic material is deemed transferred at point of ejaculation, then why should ex owners bear responsibility for its subsequent use or disposal? If this is a basis for consensual transfer of ownership, then why should it be any different then selling a car or house? With those, we are no longer responsible for future running costs, maintenance or alterations. Nor do we expect to borrow these items every other weekend.

On the other hand, if we are not discussing inanimate objects or material possessions, we’ll need better arguments to justify such male marginalisation to inconsequential status as parents. Until then, Methotrexate is just another drug in the armoury of secret women’s business and no different to any other form of paternity fraud.

Because I came into the discussion rather late, I first wanted to give my impression of the article itself before reading any comments.
I’m glad that there are some balanced views in this discussion from people like Yabby, Snout, Col and some others. Some people sound like they have some of their body parts superglued to the bible.

Snout, I think you’re right – your tort law weapon point makes sense
I had the impression from the article that using methotrexate as an abortion drug was a pilot experimentish program, but apparently this method has been used by Marie Stopes clinics and others in about 50 counties where RU486 is not available and is believed to be safe and effective, albeit not as effective as RU486.

In the USA it has been used as an abortion drug since 1993 and is said to be safe. http://www.medicationabortion.com/methotrexate/index.html

However, medical abortion using methotrexate remains the least effective option out of the three abortion methods (the others being abortion pill RU486 and surgical abortion).
If RU486 will become available in Australia in about 12 months or so, there might not be a need to go through a lengthy process to approve methotrexate as an abortion drug.

I feel quite relaxed now about this methotrexate/misoprostol regimen now. And about misoprostol- this is also used in combination with the RU486 drug which means it’s here to stay when RU486 is widely available.

One thing I want to say is that while the government is spending millions of dollars on making counseling available for pregnant women in an attempt to prevent abortion, I’d rather see the government spending these funds on more sex education in schools and free contraception. The fact that teenage girls have to pay for contraception is preventing them from using it. Even John Howard said that he thinks that the counseling is probably not going to make a huge difference in lowering the abortion rate. I believe making contraception free will make a big difference.