Thanks for your informed comments Sneekeepete and your research Scout.

When will the tiny moral minority stop trying to force their beliefs and lifestyles on the majority of Australians?

Surveys show that 75% of Australians support the availablity of abortion. Most medical practitioners, including the Department of Health, believe that medical abortion is safer than surgical abortion so let's import RU486 and use the most effective medication.

Melinda

I must take you to task when you state that methotrexate is "one of the most dangerous anti-cancer drugs on the market". Sorry you are talking rubbish.

Methotrexate is hardly ever used to treat cancer, except rarely in acute myeloid leukaemia. It is almost exclusively used as a disease modifying anti rheumatic drug (DMARD) in rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and sjogrens. It is is safe drug with many people taking it for many years without side effects.

A recent paper published on PubMed:
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the efficacy and tolerability of methotrexate plus misoprostol regimen as a method for early medical abortion < 49 days L.M.P. MATERIAL AND METHOD: 50 mg methotrexate was administered orally to 20 women < 49 days L.M.P. followed by 800 mcg misoprostol vaginal and oral administration 3-7 days after the methotrexate. RESULTS: 19 Successful medical abortions (95%). One woman chose vacuum aspiration for termination of the abortion on day 3 of the induced bleeding. No serious side effects were observed after administration of the drugs. CONCLUSION: Medical abortion with methotrexate and misoprostol is safe and effective and can be offered to practicing gynecologists.

Check your facts before writing emotive twaddle.

Melinda
you failed once again if you don't want a abortion don't have one. Try living your life to everyone else's.

The inconsistencies in the case of the pro-abortionists are well illustrated in the consecutive postings of "sneekeepete" and "scout".

One lamblasts Melinda for evoking emotional language by referring to the developing baby as a "tumor", and the other confirms that that is exactly what these people think by going even further to specify it as a "space occupying lesion".

I met one of these "space occupying lesions" the other day. He was a much loved, happy bouncing two year old. Less than three years ago when he was the "lesion" of a single young girl, the advice had been abort , abort. Thankfully neither the girl or her mother saw the pregmancy as a "space occupying lesion", but a life to be valued.

The reality is that it doesnt matter whether we see this "lesion" as welcome or not Sneekeepete, it remains a life, and a caring society will welcome and nurture it,

Two Bob

It seems that most of those opposing Melinda's article are not prepared to consider the real facts. People can waffle on and claim that "embryonic cells are stopped from dividing and multiplying" in a medical abortion, but they choose to ignore the fact that it is the BABY's HEART that was still beating 14 days after the injection of methotrexate. The baby's heart starts beating less than 4 weeks from conception.
See the baby's development at http://www.visembryo.com/baby/stage16.html
This is not a tumour or clump of cells. If more women were properly informed about both the development of a baby and the consequences of abortion, we would all be better off.
And especially the women, like Ellen, in Melbourne, who was not properly informed, suffered emotionally after her abortion and subsequently received a compensation payout through the courts.
The thought of promoting as DESIRABLE a method of abortion that takes WEEKS to complete the killing of the child is beyond belief!
Jenny Stokes, Research Director, Salt Shakers.

Melinda is correct - methotrexate is a cytotoxic product. Steve Madden is incorrect in his outline of what it can be used for, it is also used in the treatment of non-AIDS related primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL), which is a lethal brain tumour if left untreated.

I find it incredible that the abortion providers are trawling medical therapies to identify some of the most highly toxic treatments usually reserved for life-threatening cancers. Methotrexate has a mid-range observable and quantifiable toxicity but, as with most anti-cancer drugs used for the treatment of terminal coniditions, little attention is given to the long-term effects. In cancer treatment you are often concentraing on an extension of survival with a good quality of life.

Welcome to the brave new world where an unborn baby equates with a malignant neoplasm.

Denis