Whoever said this thread would turn into an "anti-choice rant" needn't worry. It appears to have already turned into a pro-choice rant complete with euphemisms ("tumour" "parasite") and the cold heartedness typical of most militant "pro-choicers" I've come accross.

Melinda is right - pregnancy is not a disease. Treating a pregnant woman as "diseased" and an embryo or fetus (human being) as a "tumour" or the latest pc buzzword "parasite" is dehumanising and degrading to us all. This ideology of "pregnancy as disease" already present in our society, even affects women who continue their pregnancies, as they are subject to invasive and often unecessary tests on themselves and their baby.

Where is our human dignity? If we treat women's babies as rubbish, what does that say about her own humanity? Sadly, the fact that we are willing to push (sorry,..offer "choices") even more chemicals on to women to solve the very real issues they face, with little regard to the long term complications (did anyone read the part about the drug being found in the egg follicles of women or did everyone just skip over that part?) says that we as a society don't care much about women and their health at all, let alone regard them as human beings with much value and worth

Denis.

If you would like to debate me on current cancer therapies go ahead, but you are wrong. Methotrexate is not used to treat lymphomas of any kind anymore or if it is, the physicians are not following NCI guidelines. Monoclonal antibodies like Bexxar and Rituxan are now used in combination with CHOP. (If you have a subscription to Blood, the Journal of the American Heamatological Society I can let you have the links).

Methotrexate is cytotoxic, so are T lymphocytes and NK cells found in most peoples immune systems. But it’s a good “nasty” word for you to use to defend the indefensible.

I find it incredible that a safe well tolerated drug that has been studied for over fifty years and is very effective in autoimmune disease is suddenly demonised by the pro-life lobby. If the author of this article needs emotive clap trap to push her point of view then it shows me there is little substance to her argument and as a person living with incurable cancer I find it offensive.

“Welcome to the brave new world where an unborn baby equates with a malignant neoplasm” Is this the new mantra of “Salt Shakers”? You lost on RU486 and are looking for your next fight. Get your facts correct ,after searching the medical databases I can find no abstracts that match any of the statistics given by the author of this article.

Salt Shakers has obviously sent out an alert, I welcome the peanut gallery to OLO.

Steve

I am happy to debate cancer / brain tumour treatments with you, I know more about them than I ever wished to know. You have got it wrong. I am referring to non-AIDS related PCNSL, I think you have confused this with lymphoma. No one in their right mind would use prednisone for a PCNSL, as opposed to dexamethasone. CHOP is used for lymphoma, not PCNSL.

The latest treatment for PCNSL involves methotrexate and BBB (blood brain barrier) disruption.

Anyway, my comment still stands: "Welcome to the brave new world where an unborn baby equates with a malignant neoplasm" despite your derogatory reference to the "peanut gallery".

Steve, you obviously meant the comment about Salt Shakers as an insult! However, I take it as a compliment that you think we have that much influence. [By the way, I haven't sent out an alert!]
It always seems to me that when people stoop to calling people names and throwing insults they haven't got any real arguments.
If you're concerned about peanuts, perhaps you should really be looking for the elephant in the room ....
The rest of us can see it.
Jenny Stokes, Salt Shakers.

The question arises, if this drug is so bad, then why is Melinda
not supportive of the speedup of RU 486? She mentions ideology,
well no one is more guilty of that then the Catholic Church and
its followers. Is Melinda a Catholic perchance?

Family planning, how many children that parents want to raise,
should be the right of every woman on the planet. A foetus is
easily created, most women could create about 400 of them in their
lifetime. Reality prevails, you can't keep them all.

Perhaps its time to focus on the suffering of the many starving
babies that already exist, rather then get carried away by
religious ideology. The problem is, the Catholic Church does
not seem to have a problem with suffering, so perhaps its just
their ideology that is flawed.

If Melinda is concerned about ethics, would she please justify
her reasoning for unneeded suffering in the world, as is inflicted
by Catholic dogma. If she disagrees with Catholic dogma, I would be
happy to hear it.

Elke, Husmusen, Two Bob and Denis:

Before replying to sneekeepete and narcissist's characterisation of any pregnancy as a malignant tumour, space occupying lesion, parasite, etc. please check Wikipedia's article on internet trolls http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll. Abortion is too important an issue to devolve into a troll-feeding exercise.

Steve and Denis, the current use of methotrexate in oncology is important, but I'm not sure what relevance it has to this debate.

Realist, no one is suggesting methotrexate should be an over the counter medication. I don't know where you get that from.

Melinda is trying to bolster her anti abortion position by confusing it with important scientific questions about the safest and most effective clinical procedures for procuring abortions.

Issues of informed consent and the pressures women experience in deciding about abortion are very important. By all means lets discuss these.

Jenny Stokes, describing an embryo as an "unborn baby" or a "child" is the same as decribing a seed as "an ungrown plant" or a "sapling".

Scout, my guess is that your contribution to this string might be wasted given the current quality of postings