I have been thinking that advocates for abortion services are keen to see a new method of abortion that doesn't involve invasive surgery - pills to take at home, for example - so that termination of pregnancy can be removed from the control of a clinic and placed in the woman's control, at home. Maybe it's thought that a day will come when women can take a tablet in the privacy of their own homes, a drug publicly funded and easily accessed, that will safely terminate a pregnancy. Then women wouldn't need to seek a doctor's approval for abortion.

In this sense, would pro-choice advocates accept a higher risk in order to achieve more control over abortion for women? Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Ruby, women don’t need to seek “doctors’ approval” for abortion. It is unfortunate if some women feel this way, and abortion providers and others in the medical profession possibly need to look at the way they are communicating with women if this belief is prevalent. There are laws in all states and territories about under which circumstances a woman can seek an abortion. Doctors and others involved in the provision of abortion services have a duty to ensure that the services they provide are safe and effective, and to ensure that the client has the opportunity to make a fully informed decision about all, repeat all, her options. I doubt very much that any responsible practitioner would compromise safety for the sake of convenience, as you suggested.

Ruby, while I have no doubt your question was a bona fide one, my experience is that some people with an ideological opposition to abortion under any circumstances will sometimes adopt a seemingly pro-abortion stance that invites attack because of specious arguments and irrelevant hypothetical suggestions. Narcissist and Sneekeepete (now isn’t that a Troll name?) have, I believe, already tried this tack.

The author of this article tends to try and inflame a controversy.

“Will the Sydney women be told what they could be in for? My research on abortion over a long period gives me no cause to hope they will be fully informed.”

Research has shown that people retain very little of the information provided to them, particularly when it is complex and outside their sphere of knowledge. Secondly, not everyone is blessed with the same level of intelligence quota.

It does not matter which way you look at “all drugs have the potential to cause harm” even drugs that we consider to be safe and use everyday.

There are some pharmaceuticals in use today that are used in the treatment of disease outside their primary purpose.

“Thirteen per cent experienced bleeding up to 56 days.”

Bleeding can be a complication of spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or when surgical abortion is performed and this is usually due to retained conception products such as placenta.

How often have we seen medical research published supporting a particular course of action, only to find further research which disputes the original claim?

It wasn’t that long ago when silicone implants were blamed for many diseases occurring in women and an enormous amount of junk research was published to support these claims.

Now once the dust has settled silicone breast implants have proven to be totally safe!

Ruby, I think safety is extremely important, but it has to
be compared with the statistics of the dangers of childbirth and
pregnancy. In that kind of comparison, products like RU 486
come away looking extremely safe in comparison.

Next thing is that clearly abortion is a traumatic event for some
women. They should be able to make an informed choice, without
having placards waved in their faces by members of the godsquad,
without having godsquad members with a religious agenda, posing
as unbiased councillors, which seems to be be happening more
and more, particularly in the US and I gather now in Australia.
Next thing these people will be applying for Govt funding, to
push their religious agenda on others.

Give women choice, give women unbiased information, give women
products and services that are safer then the alternatives. Then
let them make the final decision. The role of the church should be
to preach to its flock, not to enforce its agenda on others, often
by quite devious means.

Jenny Stokes

Interesting job you have.

I have seen some of the cruelty in reasearch of animals so you guys can play god.

So listen up/

If God sat back and gave us a choice then who do you think you are.

Sure I read your crap but most of these terminations are done early and the morning after pill is sensible.

You cant inflict the pain on something the size of a grain of rice which is what it is in most cases.[actually its not even that]

Thats not the case in the reasearch as you call it with animals however is it Jenny?

The most that might happend is the mother might get a gut ache.

[ Please note I said the women]

Whenever people start telling others what to do the public need to stand up and be counted.

As for your morals and your fellow reasearch buddies experminenting on defencless animals you make me sick.

Just let people make up their own mind and leave the poor animals alone.

shame on you.

The use of abortion as fertility control is openly abusive of women's dignity. By condoning invasive medical and surgical procedures to support the belief that fertility can and should be controlled after conception denies every fact known about women and their reaction to pregnancy. So what is the argument here? It would seem that it is a lose/lose situation for the mother and baby and win/win for the drug companies and those who surgically prey on vulnerable mothers.
As a member of a 'caring profession' I find it abhorrent that no real attempt is being made to institute care based on the truth, that women deserve to be treated with dignity, that fertility is best handled by education before the occasion for intercourse arises and that women's innate sense of motherhood is a reality that cannot be ignored.
all the methods of termination are bad for the mother, her baby of course and her family - and in the long run, society. We cannot ignore the long term effects of choosing to kill rather than support life, the evidence is inescapable. The vulnerable in institutions from child care to retirement homes are daily under threat of being judged less than worthy of life, every day there are more abuse victims in once happy families. Members of caring professions are losing their way as they are being sucked into the 'life choice' game. I can't believe it doesn't affect them because I know it does. This issue is about more than choosing between different weapons it is about how we have allowed ourselves to become complicit in such murderous decisions without having recourse to conscience - and it won't stop there. In this 'Lucky Country" we have more than we need for ourselves and others to share - our heritage is founded on mateship and caring this is so unaustralian.