"How anyone could judge Mr Bush on his Iraq policy and then condone abortion is straight out hyprocrisy!"
No it's not. However if you believe it to be so, I expect you to rabidly condemn the Iraq War and call for it's end. You will also call the Howard government hypocrites for supporting the Iraq War, while opposing abortion.

1430, neither have approximately 99.30% of abortion users...

Truth in advertising means showing women ultrasounds of their foetus/embryo before they choose to end his or her life at the altars of convenience and material prosperity.

YngNLuvnIt

You hit it in one. 99% plus of abortions have nothing to do with rape.

Well said Jocelyn Scutt. This is more about control of women's fertility than anything else. Why should a vocal minority group thrust its moral view of the world upon the 70% of the Australian population that don't agree with them.

I think its more wicked to bring an unwanted child into the world. As abortion before 12 weeks is safer for the mother than a full term normal pregnancy I object to my taxes being used to pay for a "counselling service" that tells lies and half truths.

With the introduction of the Access Card there is no guarantee that the lists of Australian women who have had abortions won't find their way to "Right to Lifers" so I am most unimpressed by a special item for abortion procedures.

Australian women are damned if they do have childen by pressures to work in child "unfriendly" work places in jobs that have no flexibility for school age children. If they put their children in child care they receive the rebate 18 months after they have spent the money.

Its now quite acceptable for government ministers to denigrate women who don't have children and neither side of politics bothered to provide election sweeteners for the increasing number of Australians who are too poor or insecure in their workplace to embark on parenthood and mortgage.

Yes I have made an implied judgement that rearing children while renting is irresponsible or "unAustralian".

Whilst I agreed with Jocelynne's main points I found myself annoyed by aspects of her wording and focus.

I found it easy to rephrase the comment

"It is highly unlikely that the federal government would provide funding to services giving out false and misleading information about men’s health care and services."

as "It is highly unlikely that the federal government would provide funding to services giving out information about men’s health care and services."

- there may be a slight exageration there but I'm not sure.

Given Jocelynne's focus on discrimination perhaps she would care to comment on the relative spending on health services specifically helping women vs those specifically helping men.

Or maybe some of her approach focussed on making people feel hard done by rather than a serious discussion about discrmination.

But the issues around government providing funding to services which engage in misleading tactics is still valid (and I'm not just talking about the funds paid to political parties either).

I started a thread earlier in the General Discussion area regarding what I perceive as a conflict of interest for the federal health minister over the abortion issue and recent comments by the pope. Comment welcome - http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=616

Given that the Federal Health Minister has control over a lot of the issues the author raises and given the threat of excommunication made by the pope against politicians it would appear that Tony Abbott's position is compromised while he remains a practicing Catholic.

R0bert

RObert you raise the point of religion and the Minister for Health. This highlights the basis of the debate from the anti abortionists’ i.e. that health issues for women, 81% of Australian women, are being dictated by religion. And what is religion? Religion for me is an antiquated interpretation of the world that needs to be relegated to the dustbin. That the health policy for over 50% of Australia's population should be based on religious grounds is utterly unacceptable. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Health financially supporting only those counselling services that provide the religious options and not all options is reminiscent of the likes of the repressive regime under the dictator Chechescu. Thank you Dr Scutt for writing such a wonderful article.