Helen you have learnt the first lesson in religons don't let the facts get in the way of your beliefs and you have show your skill in this area with this piece. Bit she left out from FDA trials

From September 2000 when Mifeprex was approved until June 2005, with over 460,000 estimated uses of Mifeprex in the United States, there have been four reported deaths in the U.S. that were associated with a serious bacterial infection. In two of the cases it was shown that the infection was due to Clostridium sordelli. These patients had no fever but had a rapid pulse, low blood pressure, and very high red and white blood cell counts. They also had symptoms that included weakness, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea with or without abdominal pain. The label changes were made to alert physicians and patients to the possibility of this rare infection....fatal sepsis in women undergoing medical abortion are very rare (1 in 100,000)

Surgical abortions facts
Despite the use of local anesthesia, a full 97% of women having abortions reported experiencing pain during the procedure.

All medical procedures carry risk eating peanut butter can be fatal Helen.

Helen Ransom is letting ideology drive her criticism of Mifepristone rather than good science, rationality or reason.

For each drug or medical procedure there are potential side effects. The same arguments could be used against the availability of aspirin or paracetamol.

The bottom line is that the religious right and other ideologues under the banner of "right to life" want to interfere in a decision that should be made by those most closely involved - the woman and her medical advisors.

At least Helen Ransom doesn't hide her commitment to her religion.

I am not catholic and I don't want the catholic church controlling my body and my life!

sand between my toes,
You may not want the Catholic Church controlling your body, but it appears you do not want your consciousness of being a mortal human either.

Coming from a background where we had life and death over animals I sometimes think we are too precious about humans. I want all children to reach their full potential and I don't see how quantity in this day and age leads to quality outcomes.

I can remember a university friend from a family of 7 children saying that her mother didn't send the small children to school if she hadn't been able to feed them breakfast.
I can remember a time in Australia when too many children were a curse and children went hungry - and my mother remembers when children went to school without shoes. I can remember my father making our toys because Australia was too busy rebuilding the economy to worry aboout toys [ show me a small violin]

I never thought that Australia would become so devided that we would argue along sectarian lines - but there you are!

Umm, a couple of joined cells are not an umborn baby! Its my
understanding that the product is banned because of Catholic
interference in our political system. The church has every
right to preach to its flock, but for the rest of us, who
accept a more scientific understanding of the world, it should
be every woman's choice what she decides to do. Fact is that
the human population is still increasing at 80 million per
year, as many other species are wiped out. Without
biodiversity, we would not have humanity, so other species
matter too, not just wall to wall humans

Yabby
You are just a bunch of cells too. Just because your cells are more differentiated and specialised so you can gather your own food, find shelter etc., doesn't mean you are any more human than the foetus.

Also you'd be suprised how many organ systems are around by 10 weeks.

Justin, thank you for your comment. Perhaps you should differenciate
between a zygote, a foetus and a baby. Human skin tissue carries
our dna after all, that does not make it a person.

At the end of the day, women can shed around 400 eggs in their
lifetimes, all of them potentially cute babies. Darwinian
evolution (Natures laws) apply, they can't all survive, thats
the reality of it, so religion has to get used to that.

Yabby
"Perhaps you should differenciate between a zygote, a foetus and a baby."
With respect, that really is all semantics. I can differentiate between zygote, blastoma, foetus, baby, adult, grandmother, whatever. Their point in development doesn't determine their validity as a human being.

"Human skin tissue carries our dna after all, that does not make it a person."
Yeah, the human skin is a part of a person though. It's one of the many types of cells our body differentiates into, as well as nerve cells, red blood cells etc. To be honest, I didn't get your point here. Are you saying that the presence of human DNA in a cell doesn't make it a human? If so, I'd agree with you. However that isn't contradicting my arguement. Human skin isn't a growth centre, its a growth site. Because at the point skin develops we are quite specialised, we have other genetically programmed growth centres that 'grow us' per se.
If I'm misunderstanding you, maybe you could post and just clarify please :)

By the way, I don't want to get into an embryology arguement. Because I'll lose lol. I got through those units with Pass/Credits.

"At the end of the day, women can shed around 400 eggs in their lifetimes, all of them potentially cute babies...they can't all survive"
Yes, but the difference is that they haven't been fertilized. They are your cells. When those eggs join with another man's sperm cells, they become an independantly growing organism. They are no longer your cells, that are that being's cells. I'm sure you noticed the differences between you and your mother.

Yes, justin86, you are just arguing semantics. I think it is unlikely that I will ever be pregnant with my grandmother in my belly! Equating the unborn with the living and breathing is an absurd tactic.

While a foetus, zygote, baby is inside my body I am responsible and that includes whether or not it comes to term. I have, in the past, chosen not to bring a child to term. I did not make that decision lightly, however I know to this day (20 years later) I made the right decision both for the baby and myself. If RU486 had been available I would've have been spared the harassment by the misnamed 'right-to-lifers' who threatened me at the clinic and contributed to the trauma of my situation.

(formerly Trinity)

Peace

Of course it's little more than semantics. To the right-to-life brigade it's a fully-fledged human being from the moment of conception. This is an article of faith, and as such they will not budge while they retain their belief system, no matter what rational or objective evidence is presented. Fortunately they're in a minority in the electorate, but it seems their views are disproportionately influential in our current, increasingly authoritarian Federal government.

What gets me is the patent dishonesty in the tactics that they employ: here we have yet another article by a Christian who wishes to push their religious values on the rest of us inder the guise of a disingenuous concern for women, via a very thin argument about possible side-effects of the drug. Of course it will have side effects for some women, and for this reason potential users should be provided with as much unbiased evidence as possible - like any other medication.

But please don't try and get us to swallow the line that women who find themselves accidentally pregnant are the chief concern here.

mahatma duck, Ironically, it is you who is using a metaphysical belief system and articles of faith.

Scientifically, the unborn is a distinct human life from the moment of conception. Talking about 'human beings' is bringing metaphysics into the debate and you and the other pro-abortion people here are the ones doing it.

Stop forcing your beliefs on the unborn.

This isn't a debate I feel comfortable engaging with and I suspect a lot of men are just like me - undecided, a bit confused, hesitant and a little beguiled. I’ve learned a lot reading through these posts so thanks everyone. Do I have a position? No, but I do know one thing and that’s this. Women and birthing are exploited by pharmaceutical companies and these companies are owned and controlled by men.

Mahatma duck complains "what gets me is the tactics that they employ: here we have yet another article by a Christian who wishes to push their religious values on the rest of us under the guise of disingenuous concern for women ..."

Isn't this exactly what the pro-abortion lobby and the pharmacutical companies are doing? They are promoting abortion via the back door, and the companies are rubbing their hands all the way to the bank. To help women?

It's OK for pro-abortionists to put their views, but let someone opposed to abortion [and I know some who NEVER go near a church but won't have a bar of abortion] express their opposition, and the anti-Christian sectarans are jumping up and down, gnashing their teeth with rage. spewing out their bile by the bucket. Any opposition to them must be stifled at birth. Well get used to it because the people fighting abortion [as they are perfectly entitled to do] won't be silenced by sectarianism or anything else.

Big Al, you miss the point entirely. A secular society
needs tolerance to function. Be it the Pope or Bin Laden,
when they try to force their so called holy book inspired
views on us agnostics, we will protest loudly.

You have the free choice not to have an abortion and believe
Bin Laden, the Pope, or any other religious leader that you
choose to follow.

That does not give you the right to try to force your holy
book inspired views on women who disagree with you and your
beliefs. You are fortunate to have freedom of religion.
Some of us want to be fortunate to have freedom from religion.

Yabby, Just how far does tolerance go? Even some pro-abortion people are getting nervous at the number of abortions being performed in Australia, [over 90,000 per year].

I don't think we should tolerate the killing of unborn babies [having seen the ultrasounds now available no one can deny what they are killing is a tiny helpless human]. I also don't think we should tolerate the sale of a pill which has "helped" some women , including young Holly, into their graves.

It is interesting to note that in many of the comments about Helen Ransom's article refer to the author having some religious bias (i.e. Catholicism) when it comes to reporting about RU486 (mifepristone.) Ms Ransom has researched her article well, giving a well constructed debate using scientific and pharmaceutical facts to support her argument from reputable international medical journals and resources. There is also some qualitative data gathered from the experiential account of a young woman that reported how the taking of RU486 effected her physically, psychologically and emotionally. Yet she is attacked as letting her Catholic beliefs for clouding her objectivity in reporting on the matter.

As a woman in her mid 30's, a health professional and a Bioethicist I would like to applaud Ms Ransom for highlighting that there are a generation of young woman in our community that would see themselves as being pro-woman and yet pro-life not because of an ideological framework but through intelligent reasoning based on philosophical, anthropological, ethical and scientific foundations.

Feminism is an ideology that has always promoted a pro-choice mandate, yet Ms Ransom has provided an alternative view to this traditional notion of feminism. She has rightly challenged Lynne Allison's comments especially since the Senator suggests that she is speaking in the best interests of Australian women. There is a new generation of feminism that individuals such as Ms Allison needs to consider, and that is the pro-woman and pro-life, intelligent, articulate and professional woman. Please view www.womensforumaustralia.org to see an example of a generational change in what thousands of Aussie young woman really think it is to be pro-woman.

If this drug has led to occasional serious problems, then perhaps it should be further scientifically investigated rather than simply talked about.

Tolerance has two extremes; deficiency and excess.
Deficiency: Bill doesn't tolerate his neighbour eating pizza because Bill hates European food.
Excess: Bill turns a blind eye to Bob running over his neighbour
My point, we must observe the mean.

"Perhaps you should differenciate
between a zygote, a foetus and a baby. Human skin tissue carries
our dna after all, that does not make it a person."
Entirely correct, Yabby.
A zygote, a foetus, a baby, a teen, an adult, an elderly person, they are all organisms. Human organisms.
Eggs and sperm have the potential to form an organism. They are not themselves organisms but they combine to form an organism. A human organism.

Al, regards teen pregnancies, the statistics show that a country
like Holland, with a great school sex education system, has only
about 10% of the teen pregnancies, then a country like America,
where abstinance is preached. So its clear what works!

Jose, you are correct regards human organisms. But an organism
does not have to be a person. A person needs a functioning
brain. A zygote or foetus are not people. So refering to
"murder of babies" is melodramatic nonsense.

RU 486 could in fact do lots of good, for it would empower
women with more choices and it should be their choice as
to which organism they want in their body and wether they
are prepared to accept the responsibility of leaving it there.

The largest abortant is in fact mother nature herself. I can't
remember the stats but its in fact a huge number of zygotes which
are aborted as part of the natural process.

Yabby, Are you saying they don't have sex education in American schools? I query your statistics.

How can you look at the latest ultrasounds and video of what's going on in the womb and still say they are not tiny human beings - babies at various stages of development? Some pro-choice supporters no longer deny that they are killing a baby but they don't care. It seems that you are still in denial.

You are also in denial about the lethal side effects of this pill. It's "helping" women into an early grave.

Al, you might query my statistics, but perhaps you should get yourself a google bar :) My data comes from the Economist, May 13th 2004. US births per 1000 women 15-19 is 53, Netherlands 6.

No, US schools don't have proper sex education programmes, they even have a nutcase prez preaching compulsory abstinence only programmes.
All religion driven I might add. The Planned Parenthood website is just one with lots of details.

At around 8 weeks, the foetus is about the size of a bean. At around 25 weeks all organs are in place. Yes it might be a cute bean,
but so is that newly born baby duckling cute and its far more alive
and thinking then the bean. I am not advocating abortion at 25 weeks, I am advocating abortion when most of them occur, in the first few weeks. RU 486 does exactly that

All organ differentiation occurs by 3-5 weeks. Complete formation of the face by 8 weeks. I do the ultrasounds and these 'human organisms' are definitely bigger than a bean. If a child is born with a deformed limb, the insult would have occured between 4 and 8 weeks depending on the degree of deformation.
With regards to this safe drug, we are looking at a post marketing experience of 1 in 100,000 dying from fatal sepsis. Is this really safe, let alone safer than what is happening now ?
Depending on where you get your figures from, current annual Australian abortion rates are about 71,000 to 90,000. Maternal mortality is 0 - 1 annually. (See ABS causes of death stats)
Are we going to accept a safe drug giving us 0.7 - 0.9 annual mortality rate?
I think we need to accept that drugs are BIG business, regardless of our philosophical stance on this issue.

Pointless arguing about when a foetus is 'human'. Issue is: abortions will continue. Therefore should be safe, convenient and not the subject of harassment by others.

Admittedly RU 486 is another product for sale by the big drug companies - sad but true and not a reason to ban it.

Reduce rate of abortion by comprehesive sex education - as posted by Yabby. Abortion is very much a last resort. Taking RU 486 is also - who wants painful cramps? It will never be the only method of contraception.

The no-choice contingent don't have to have abortions if they don't want them and should let the rest of us live our lives in the manner we see fit. My life; my body - keep out.

Mac, the figures in Europe are far better then 1- 100'000 which you quote. Even at those figures however RU 486 is about 8 times safer
then having a baby. Considering that about 1800 people a year die in Australia from car accidents, you'd better stop driving too, for your odds of death would be far far worse.

At the end of the day, most modern Western countries have approved RU 486, its only the godsquad (aka Vatican ) which is trying to hold things up everywhere, using any excuse they can think of, but thats just them. I guess it would annoy those nuts who want to bomb abortion clinics too.

If you want to argue about the size of the bean, fair enough, perhaps its two beans.

Leave the choice to women and empower them with that choice. Unless you want to go back to backyard abortions where 1 in 3000 die.

Scout,

I also agree that 'arguing' does not benefit women facing abortion, regardless of one's ethical orientation.

But these issues do need to be discussed. What should happen is that the vitriol, name-calling and nastiness so often associated with comment on abortion, is stopped. All people deserve to have their beliefs heard, and respected.

Harassing women must stop. But we all need to remember that coercion and harassment occur on both 'sides': whether it is outside an abortion clinic as the woman is about to undergo abortion, or the social response to a women becoming pregnant under 'less-than-ideal' circumstances.

Many women are harassed into having abortions they don't want to have. And many women finding themselves experiencing distress and grief over their abortions are harassed by the pro-choice contingent into keeping quiet, being thankful for her 'choice', and bullied into thinking that she is abnormal - that if she were only 'well-adjusted', she wouldn't have any problems dealing with her abortion. See the vitriolic pro-choice response to Melinda Tankard-Reist's book on post-abortion grief, 'Giving Sorrow Words', for example.

A debate is useless; dialogue is vital.

But fundamental to a dialogue is the elimination of blaming and name-calling: pro-life is not necessarily 'no-choice' or 'anti-choice'; pro-choice is not necessarily 'pro-abortion'. These tags are just as pointless, and just as counterproductive.

Both ideologies exist on a continuum: believe it or not, it is possible for some women identifying as pro-choice to have more in common with other women identifying as pro-life, than others identifying as pro-choice. Fundamentalism exists in both arenas.

Nothing in this abortion 'debate' is as black and white as the media would have us believe.

Tracey, thanks for a very reasoned contribution.
Meanwhile I must contest some of the comments from
YABBY, Your statement that thanks to sex education, there were on;y 6 births per 1000 from 15-19 yr. olds in Holland compared to 53 per 1000 in the US might not mean much. It might mean that the Dutch kids are having abortions at a higher rate than the Americans.

In Australia we have widespread sex education in schools. Yet abortion figures from the Federal Health Dept. shows that in 2003-04, 16.6% of the 91, 358 abortions performed in Australia were from 15-19 yo's. I don't think that says a lot for sex education as the answer to teenage pregnancies. In some States it was 20% or more.

Your concern that a return to "backyard" abortions would mean a rate of one death per 3,000 is probably guesswork. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, famous former abortionist who admits to performing 60,000 abortions before he reversed his attitude and became an opponent of abortion, [see video "The Silent Scream"] said in answer to this question, "One can expect that if abortion is ever driven underground again, even non-physicians will be able to perform this procedure with remarkable safety. No woman need die if she chooses to abort during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy" {Aborting America, Doubleday 1979 p.193]
In Portugal, Italy and Germany, the figures quoted as dying from illegal abortions have been shown to be grossly exaggerated to an absurd degree.
Probably so in Austraia too.

While I'm at it, Yabby has complained that "the Godsquad aka The Vatican" is to blame for the opposition to abortion. I'm sure that The Pope would be only too pleased to acknowledge that the Catholic Church has led the fight against abortion. However there are others such as the Muslims and those with no religious affiliation whatever. They just feel it's wrong. Like a woman I know whose daughter became pregnant, and was being pressured by the man's mother [supposedly a Catholic] to abort . This woman, with no religious connections stood firm against abortion, and now her daughter and partner have a lovely 11 y.o. daughter. They have been unable to have any more children so she is all that more precious to them [and her grandmother who saved her from the abortionist's knife].

Al, you really are going to have to inform yourself a bit better then
quoting the lady down the street who has a nice kid. Every egg she
has shed, could have turned out to be a cute kid. Fact is, we can't
keep them all, get used to the laws of nature.

If you want to know a little about what is going on in the US, the Allan Gutmacher Institute is not a bad place to start. The link is as follows: http://www.agi-usa.org/index.html

There is a clear link between good sex education at school and teenage pregnancy and contraception. Australian figures are somewhere in the middle of Western countries, which means most likely our sex education is only average. European teenagers have a lower pregnancy rate because more of them are on the pill, thats the basics of it. The highest pregnancy rates in the US are in the Southern Bible belt, where half of all schools only teach abstinence.
When they then break their abstinence, which the majority of them
do, bingo they are pregnant.

Read up some WHO information about what happens in countries where abortion is banned and women turn to coathangers and all sorts of other methods, to get rid of their unwanted pregnancies. The figures are actually worse then what I quoted.

But at the end of the day its a far bigger question. The pope and the Muslims can preach and do what they please, nobody is forcing any of them to have an abortion. For those of us who think they
are preaching nothing but pure gobbledygook for their own vested
interests, I remind you that we live in a secular democracy, not in a country of religious tyranny. Just about every campain against abortion anywhere, has the Catholic Church behind it. Perhaps they should first of all teach their priests to stop interfering with little boys, before they come preaching to the rest of us.

Luckily 85% of Australians are pro choice, whew! The blocking of
RU 486 was simply a question of more Catholic interference in the political system.

Some questions Tony Abbott should respond to regarding comparison of death as a result of abortion, whether it be surgical abortion or use of RU 486 and death during childbirth:

I refer to this article:

Pro-life groups given pregnancy counselling funds
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1498231.htm

Question 1: As there is 27 times more chance of a woman dying during pregnancy and/or childbirth than that of either surgical abortion or taking an abortion pill (RU486), will the Commonwealth accept liability and provide compensation to a family in the event of death during pregnancy and/or childbirth in the event that counselling being funded by the Commonwealth, designed to discourage women from having abortions, results in a woman deciding to continue with the pregnancy and finding herself among the following statistics:

Report on Maternal Deaths in Australia, 1994-96
http://www.npsu.unsw.edu.au/mda9496preface.htm

“There were 90 maternal deaths in the triennium 1997-99, and there were 758,030 confinements, indicating one maternal death per 8,423 confinements.

Question 2: Will the Commonwealth accept liability and provide compensation in the event a woman regrets her decision to continue with the pregnancy and suffers hardships or depression in life as a result of counselling which may have deterred her from going ahead with an abortion? I refer to this report and expect that the women in Australia would be affected the same way:

Abortion cuts risk of later blues
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17070446%255E23289,00.html
“PROCEEDING with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is more likely to cause depression than having an abortion, a controversial new study has found. Researchers in the US questioned 1247 women who aborted or delivered an unwanted first pregnancy between 1970 and 1992. The women were interviewed over several years. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that going ahead with an unwanted pregnancy was more likely to lead to depression. “

Felix

Interesting questions, Felix.

This is why it's so important that coercion and pressure should not be allowed to influence a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy, or to proceed with her pregnancy, if that decision is ill-suited to her personal circumstances.

When either of the above happens, women are more likely to experience grief and psychological distress, which can manifest immediately, or take some years - in the meantime, having a profound effect on her self-esteem and interpersonal relationships.

Women should be completely informed of all their options and the associated risks, and adequate support systems put in place to deal with them if and when they arise.

A dialogue, not debate, over abortion is vital to enable this approach to succeed. Working on the present model, neither side - *generally* - is able to present an unbiased and comprehensive picture of all the factors at play in a 'crisis' pregnancy.

In many ways I find the discussion of abortion to be interesting, in that nearly always the discussion fails to link cause and effect.

Prior to the 1960s and the contraceptive pill it was naturally assumed that there was a link between sexual intercourse and pregnancy. Even today, for males, though the mechanisms of the Child Support Agency, men are held accountable for children that they have sired, whether they wanted to have children or not, the general consensus being that if they didn't want to have children they should not have had sex. Even if the woman has lied about her being on contraception or the like, the man still pays.

However there appears to be a double standard, that is that a woman is not held to the consequences of having sex. Maybe this is the right way to look at it, that sex and consequence should not be linked.

However, arguments about 'its my body, keep out' maybe should have been applied prior to conception, that if men have to accept the consequences, so should women. Of course this does not apply to rape or other coercion, or in the case of foetal abnormalities.

The very question of "should sex be consequence free, for the first time in human history?" surely must be at least considered, even if the answer is that sex and consequence should not be linked.

Hamlet,

Certainly, many men are held accountable for children they did not intend to have; many more are not. It's not a perfect system, and I feel for all parties who feel wronged by it.

However, in terms of the double standard you mention, the reproductive consequences of having sex which leads to conception involve either miscarriage, abortion (surgical or chemical), carrying the child to term and adopting out or carrying the child to term and raising him/her.

These consequences, whatever their measure, are all ultimately borne by the woman. Sometimes some of them are shared by the man, in varying degrees. Abortion should not be seen as an 'easy way out'.

Tracey

My post was not specifically about the double standard, I used the illustration of men paying to raise children only as an example of consequence of sex.

My main question, and I shall repeat it in maybe a slightly different form, is:

Should the idea of the consequences of sex be simply left out of the debate entirely? That is, if a person choses to have sex, should the possible consequence of conception simply be ignored?

The past 50 years or so is the first 50 years where this consequence has been taken out of the equation. Our society no longer links sex with reproduction. It is linked with power, money, pleasure, pain, lingerie, cars, food, drink and everything else that the advertising agencies can think of, but sex is no longer linked to reproduction. Indeed reproduction is linked to a lower economic status, to servitude and (horror!) not being able to satisfy the needs of'self'.

Is it any wonder that in the face of society's denials that sex and children are linked that there are so many unwanted pregnancies.

Yes, women bear the overwhelming burden of reproduction.

There should be informed choices, but perhaps the first informed choice that should be addressed is: "Do I choose to have sex now when this may lead to conception and its consequences?"

That is the question that men are expected to ask themselves, and they have less of a load to bear. For women this question should, therefore, be blindingly obvious, but often, it appears, never asked. And this is the question that is never asked in discussion on abortion.

I am asking the question, not suggesting an answer, because each person must be responsible for hers or his own answer to that question.

Crikey Hamlet, you should try being an average sexually active woman some time.

For the first 10 years of my adult life I spent all my time trying to avoid getting pregnant. I was always aware sex could lead to pregnancy and always used contraception, still I had scares, as has everyone, and once (just once) after being taken off the pill for medical reasons, a condom tore and I got pregnant. I had an abortion and have never regretted it, all I felt at the time was relief.

Then, some years later, being in a stable relationship, I wanted to get pregnant. Given my past history, I thought it'd be easy. It wasn't, 6 months later I was pregnant and overjoyed, then I had a miscarriage and grieved bitterly. 3 months later, pregnant again and this time a gorgeous daughter. 3 years later, another much wanted daughter.

And ever since, you guessed it, I've dreaded the idea of getting pregnant again, but I'd still like a sexual life with my partner, so we use contraception and so far, so good. But I promise you, I never take it for granted and if my period's late, I break out in a cold sweat.

Women are way more conscious of the consequences of sex than men, it is so much part of our everyday life. Most of the women of my age I know (late 40s) acknowledge that if they haven't actually had to consider abortion its been more by good luck than anything else.

Yes, women are VERY aware of the potential consequences of sex. A period more than a day late and every woman I know starts to wonder.

Enaj, Laurie count me in as well.

As women we are constantly reminded of our fertility - once a month! To imply that we engage in sex without that niggling worry of pregnancy is an implication only those who don't get pregnant could posit.

I have had 2 abortions and have never regretted either (once in my teens and once when married to a violent husband). Have used contraception - it doesn't always work. Abstinence is only something I do when not in a relationship - I have to be honest I love sex.

Therefore the more options available the better. I would consider RU486 the penulitmate choice to abortion and neither are desired. When will they perfect the male pill?

Cheers

PS may all men reincarnate as sea-horses. (look up your natural history if you don't get this)

Hamlet,

I don't think that the consequences of sex are left out of the debate at all. I think they are constantly discussed. This, along with sexual health, are the primary drivers for debate over sex education, and the accessibility of contraceptives.

I also feel that our society very heavily, and primarily, still links sex with reproduction. Just because advertisers use sex to *sell* power, money, lingerie, cars, food etc doesn't mean society no longer *links* it to reproduction. It's just far more lucrative to use it to sell cars than it is to sell babies. And in a materialistic society, babies don't confer the 'status' that other objects do.

As Scout, Enaj and Laurie have pointed out, I know very few women of childbearing age who ignore the consequences of sex. Statistically, around half of women presenting for abortion were using contraception at the time of conception. This would indicate that the consequences of sex were foremost in the woman's mind, and preventative measures had been put in place; only these measures failed.

I do agree that modern attitudes of reproduction have shifted towards children being considered more a 'burden' than a blessing. This has everything to do with economics, individualism and changes in the structure of community.

To my own mind, one significant problem in the rate of abortion is that the way abortion is so hotly and divisively debated leaves little room for us to discuss it openly and productively.

I think the question you pose, "Do I choose to have sex now when this may lead to conception and its consequences?", is an excellent one, and one that should kick off how we educate young people to take responsibility for their sexual activity. It is the question my mother-in-law posed to her son (my husband) when he became a teenager. And it worked: when I became pregnant to him five months after starting our relationship, he stuck around to take responsibility. He was 23.

Hope I understood your question better this time.

Tracy
I'm with you on the issue of finding ways to lower the abortion rate, rather than just having a rant about it.

One of the key issues I think needs to change is the social stigma attached to single mothers and adoption.

I'd like to focus on adoption though. Although I must admit this isn't my area of expertise, accounts of my friend's personal experience has been that it is very hard to adopt in this country. This seems to come down to two main issues; social stigma and tight regulations.

I can't comment on the regulations as I really don't know a lot about it, maybe I will do some research into it after exams. However I've always thought that keeping the mothers identity secret from the child throughout life has been a silly rule and really needs to be changed. The natural birth mother will always have something to contribute.

As for the social stigma, it seems adoption tends to be assaulted in every direction. I remember reading an article over here in WA where everyone was hot under the collar because a homosexual couple were placed on the adoption list. Although not the ideal circumstances, I thought it represented a irony; we'd rather terminate the child than give him a chance with a couple who from all accounts were loving people.

Couple this with the stigma attached to continuing with the pregnancy. We all know about the overbearing threatening family members, and then there's the social embarressment a woman gets put through when she everyone sees shes not just put on a few kilos. My friend got pregnant to her boss, and proceeded with the pregnancy because she wanted to give the child a chance. She lost friends; and the attention from the males, being a good looking girl, has almost evaporated.

No wonder abortion can appear at the time as a clean quick-fix option. The truth is women who proceed with pregnancies to give their children a chance should be given a medal, not stigmatised.

Justin86 your idea of insisting that adopted children can always contact their natural mother absolutely stinks. There is nothing more disgusting than the cheque book journalism [indulged in most recently by Australian Story] where the journalist with camera recording confronts natural mother and asks why did you give up your seriously disabled child.

The decision was made privately 18 years before and as journalists won't back off then adoption looks a really unviable option.

I estimate that if all abortions were converted to adoptions there would be a surplus of 60,000 babies per year. Put them in orphanages? The state who would ultimately pick up the bill for rearing the children would find it cheaper to continue to subsidise abortions.

Justin,

I completely agree with you about the stigma attached to continuing with an unplanned pregnancy. It's something I had to deal with when I became pregnant, unexpectedly, with my first son.

The cost of me continuing my unplanned pregnancy was that I became a social outcast. It was like I had some hideous disease. I suspect I'd have had much more support if I'd chosen abortion: my social circle simply had experience dealing with that situation. It was what they advised me to do, I wouldn’t have had an inconvenient child floating around, and I'd have been back at the pub drinking with them sooner rather than later.

I also put on far more weight than was acceptable, and that put off any remaining friends from that period in my life(!). I worked in youth media at the time, and the sudden halt in invitations to media launches and related events was embarrassingly noticeable...

Through the pregnancy, during and after the traumatic birth, I was socially isolated, and unfortunately dealing with unresolved child sexual abuse issues and financial instability. It all came back at me. I experienced five months of Postnatal Depression as a result. Lucky for me I had a wonderful and supportive partner, and great parents (both sets).

Abortion would never have been the right choice for me. And I have never regretted my decision to have my baby (he's now four!). But honestly, there was so little social support out there for me.

Sometimes I feel so outraged at how unwelcoming our society has become towards pregnant women, mothers, and children. But then I'm equally dismayed at how some people can be so hostile towards women who feel that abortion is the most suitable decision they can make, in a society that is ill-equipped to support them to continue with their pregnancy.

I seriously believe that we can do better than the current polarised ‘abortion debate’: collaborative, creative solutions come from discussion and dialogue – not a fight over which ‘side’ wins.

Tracy A,
Thanks for sharing your experience. All the best to your family.
Your experience highlights that the 'abortion debate' is only the tip of the iceberg, and there are so many underlying considerations, both personal and societal.
Abortion is our society's most troublesome symptom. Masking the symptom with a painkiller, like mifepristone, does not treat the illness.

Tracey,
I agree completely with your comments regarding pregnancy and kids. The most miserable time of my life was being isolated at home with two kids (even though I adored them and wanted them both) under 4 and a husband who travelled all the time.
Our society loathes children, taking toddlers or crying babies anywhere in public is an exercise in disapproving looks, muttered remarks and barely concealed irritation. I was once asked to leave a library because my small children were laughing. (I had asked an assistant to help me find the book so I would not be in the library long, the assistant was incompetent and taking forever.) Another assistant asked me to keep them quiet and when I asked her "How?" because all I could do was take them from laughing to crying, she asked me to leave! However, none of this made me regret having my kids, it just opened my eyes to how purse lipped our society is about kids, and, how sanctimonious. Motherhood is good as long as you don't bother me with your kids.
I also agree completely that women should be supported whatever their reproductive decisions.

Maybe my earlier attempted point missed its mark.

I was asking the question about the regard of the consequences of sex and how these consequences have changed.

I recognise that women are constantly reminded of their fertility.

It has been only recently that sex and childbirth have become uncoupled from one being the consequence of the other. As posters here have stated, women today have the choice of contraception and termination, as well as the previous options of abstinence, childbirth and adoption. Most of the posters here have been born post-pill, it is likely that some of there parents were born post-pill, and they cannot conceptualise a society without the present level of sexual freedom.

It is this that I refer to as the consequences of sex not being recognised.

Add to this the much lower rates of maternal deaths in childbirth than previously. Even in my childhood (I’m 49) it was fairly common to hear of women dying in childbirth in Australia. Every family had, in its circle of friends, relatives and neighbours some close knowledge of a woman who had died giving birth.

Today the rate of death in childbirth in Australia is something close to 8 deaths per 100,000 births. In contrast, in Timor the rate is around 860 deaths per 100,000 births. The Timor rate gives an impression of just how lethal sex can be.

Add to this consideration that the average number of ‘babies per woman’ in Australia was 3.7 just about the time of the release of the contraceptive pill on the 9th of May 1960, but is now down to around 1.76. The discontinuity between sex and childbirth is apparent.

I don’t think that anyone would say Australian women in 1960 were having twice as much sex as Australian women in 2005, to result in twice the number of children.

I don’t think that many women, under the age 50 in particular, are aware of the previous, virtually absolute, link between sex and childbirth. Not sex and conception, but childbirth as an almost inevitable outcome of sexual activity.

Justin86, I agree that women proceeding with pregnancies should be given a medal, not stigmatised. Better still, they should be given practical help, and the only people I know of doing this belong to those much vilified organisations, the Catholic Church and the Pro-life movement. I have obtained the names of some of them which might be useful to know: The Caroline Chisolm Society, Open Doors, Pregnancy Help, Geelong [Vic] and Centacare.

Pregnant women and young families in general need and deserve all the help and encouragement they can get. Whenever I get the opportunity , I say to young couples with small children, "You're doing a good job". Doesn't seem like much, but a word of encouragement can mean a lot to struggling parents.

So far as the women contributers to this thread who boast about having abortions and being happy about it, I'd like to quote from the Melbourne Herald-Sun of April 22, 2004 p.32. "Shocking film reignites abortion debate".
It states" My Foetus, a 60-minute documentary shown at 11pm on Britain's channel 4, shows footage of a four week old foetus being vacuumed from its mother's womb. "The documentary also shows images of the dismembered remains of 10, 11 and 21 week old fetuses, their broken limbs measured by a tape". It concludes: " Journalist Lauren Booth, a pro-choicer who has also had an abortion, said she recoiled when watching the film's pivotal moment. "My hand flew to my mouth in shock" she said "I swallowed. I didn't want to say it, but the word 'murder' came to my lips."

Boast about having abortions? Is that how being honest seems to you, Big Al? Should I lie, and participate in this debate without coming clean about my own real life experience?
I am not happy I had an abortion, I wish I had never been placed in the situation where I felt it was the lesser of two evils, but I was and I made my own decision, and I have never regretted it. I regret falling pregnant in the first place, very much, but genuinely believe I did all I could to be responsible, and was, like many women, unlucky. I am not boasting, it takes some courage, even anonymously to admit to having one, because I know it makes me vulnerable to accusations like yours, but I would regard it as despicable to remain silent.
The idea that abortion is restricted to a particular kind of immoral woman will continue as long as women are bullied into silence about their own life experience. I do not boast about my misfortune, boasting is something I leave to the self righteous.

Dr Mac,
Thanks for your comments. We've all come through it fine - two little boys under four... and a big break planned! I completely agree the 'abortion debate' is only the tip of the iceberg - and far from the most productive way of addressing these societal problems.

Enaj,
That our communities are not receptive to children is such a shame, isn't it? In the end, we searched out a community, 200km from where were living, which was heavily populated with young families and receptive to children. Imagine: shops supplying chalk for kids to use on the footpath outside, where some shop owners are happy to hold or play with my kids while I do my thing, and where another harassed parent is just around the next corner to lend a sympathetic ear... And there are as many dads at playgroup as mums... It is possible!

Big Al 30,
I understand that you have strong beliefs about abortion. However, while our personal beliefs are very important to us, in themselves they do not prevent women from facing unplanned pregnancies, nor help women when they find themselves in that position.

I don't believe that women in this forum are boasting about having abortions. What I’m hearing them say is that they refuse to be denigrated for making the decisions they have made, and they refuse being made to feel ashamed or guilty. If we are to come to a greater understanding of circumstances leading women to abortion, we must cease blaming, and offer understanding instead of judgement, regardless of our own personal position on abortion. We need to talk to each other – a dialogue, not a debate.

For many women, the secrecy, guilt and stigma surrounding abortion creates further problems, by not allowing them to express their emotions, grieve, and discuss the circumstances surrounding their abortion.

I really appreciate the women who are brave enough to talk candidly about their experiences. And similarly, if we want to make a difference to all women facing this situation, we need to be brave and *really listen* to what they are saying.

Big Al

I never perceived boasting in the statements of those women who revealed their abortions. There was more a form of regret that they considered the abortion to be necessary, due to the failure of contraception.

And if I have misinterpreted those who have revealed so much, please accept my apologies.

Few women in this society use abortion as the primary method of contraception. That is not to say that in some societies this wasn't so, East Germany being a prime example.

The only people who actually want to see more abortions are those who profit from abortion, like the clinics and pharmacutical companies. But as a certain prime minister said, we live in an economy, not a society. Hence no one really has the right to question the economics behind the abortion debate (snigger!).

I am disturbed by abortion, mainly from the perspective of being an old fashioned fart, who believes in responsibility. If you want to have sex, be prepared for the consequences. Nothing is free, including the pleasure of sex. But that is just me.

I don't expect women to share my views.

I also consider that late term abortions, where the 'foetus' lives and cries after being 'aborted' until they die from hypothermia from being left in a cold laboratory dish to be an abomination. We are rapidly drawing near the time when one woman's aborted foetus can be equated with another woman's premature delivery.

I recognise that this particular scenario is rare and extreme, but it raises the issue about whether foetuses that may be aborted in future may be better off being implanted as part of an 'IVF' type program.

Pre-birth adoption perhaps? A science fiction scenario? Or maybe no more science fiction than the idea of a contraceptive pill seemed in 1956.

I would say that I feel that we have to reduce the overall incidence of abortion in this country, I would prefer this to be by better contraception, and greater support for pregnant women and promoting the value of motherhood. Whatever else, legislation will not be successful in this regard.

Thank you Hamlet - I appreciate your point of view, although I do not completely agree with you, but I always enjoy a difference of opinion reasonably expressed.

Tracy & Enaj - I agree that motherhood is undervalued and society's attitude has not changed much from children should be "seen and not heard" - and don't get me started about disapproval of breastfeeding in public! Anyone who disapproves of breastfeeding in public has some major problems regarding sex. Ooops I did get started.

Big Al - NO ONE brags about abortions - you have simply attempted to stifle open honest discussion by placing the most spurious label on our honesty - I predict a sea-horse future for you, me lad.

Scout, far from trying to stifle discussion, I am trying to make you face up to what abortion really means. You are seizing on one word to try to side step the issue. In fact, some women do boast about their abortions. At a public meeting some years ago, women were jumping up shouting "I've had five abortions - I've had three abortions, I've had seven abortions". Read my post again, watch that documentary "My Foetus" and try to deny that abortion is barbaric butchery. Nothing can justify this. Nothing.

I don't know how women who have had abortions can avoid the anguish of wondering in the small hours of the morning " what would he/she have looked like if I had given them a chance at life instead of destroying my own flesh and blood".

There must be alternatives, giving pregnancy and motherhood the respect and practical support they deserve.

I can't speak for all women, but I never wondered in the small hours or at any other time, anymore than I wondered about who the foetus I miscarried would have turned out to be. I grieved the miscarriage, certainly, until I became pregnant with my daughter and then, I guess, I was grateful for the miscarriage because without it, I wouldn't have had her. The same is true of my abortion, without it, I wouldn't have had the two daughters I have. The only thing I wish had been different is that I hadn't got pregnant so young.
After miscarrying at about the same gestation as I had my abortion, graphic pictures fail to shock me, because I saw what I lost and it looked like a slightly heavier than normal period.
Life is difficult, Big Al, and it is useless to wonder about what might have been, far better to celebrate what is. Most women who have had abortions also have children, far better for them to concentrate on being the best parent they can for the kids they have.

Big Al, you stated that nothing is worse than abortion. Well that's silly there are a number of situations when abortion is clearly better

1. when you know the foetus is deformed - in fact as enaj said mother nature spontaneously aborts foetuses upto 12 weeks for know discernable reason. Foetuses that die in utero are also very often deformed

2. when the mother knows the environment is such that the baby can't thrive like if China hadn't enforced the one child policy 25 years ago the country would not be able to feed itself

3. than allowing child to be subjected to the horrific abuse toddlers like Daniel Valerio was subjected to in his short life.

Big Al no one is saying you are not permitted to carry your pregnancy to term. And when your baby is born, I am quite happy that my taxes support a high quality health care and education system so that your child grows into a happy healthy adult.

The debate is about 'choice'. No one is stopping women who want to have children from having them if it is right for them, the right time for them or their circumstances are such that they want to have children.

Just as they have the right to chose we should also respect the choices that other women have a right to make. If they chose an abortion then it's right for them.

We are all women whether we chose to wear our hair long or short, wear skirts or trousers, stay at home with children or pursue a career. It's the right to be ourselves and have some control over our lives and destinies that leads to a full-filling life.

We should respect each others right to chose and right to be ourselves. Be yourself and no-one can tell you you're doing that wrong.

There is nothing that endangers a woman's rights or health more than to have other people make their decisions for them or tell them what they should or should not do. Motherhood is simply not for every woman. It is not always nessarily the right thing depending on circumstances.

Mifepristone does not endanger the lives of women any more than any other medication does - they all come with a risk of side-effects. Greater risks to women's lives (if you want to look at it that way) can result from childbirth given statistics on maternal deaths in Australia.

Hamlet, perhaps you are correct and you just see things from
an old fart's perspective :) The thing is, I think that people
who limit the number of kids they have are being very responsible,
if you think in global terms. 80 million added a year is enough
IMHO. That does not mean that they should not enjoy healthy
sex lives for the rest of their lives. If there are simple and
practical solutions available, if contraception fails, then women
should be empowered to use them, it comes down to choice.

My take in response to Al is that perhaps we should be more
concerned with all those starving babies and people that already
think and feel pain, rather then potential people. Every one
of those flushed eggs, could have been a lovely person. Sadly
reality prevails and they can't all survive, as Darwin made
clear. So Al, if you really care about the starving babies and
its more then just rhetoric, you are free to sell your computer
and send the money to Africa!

Yabby, strange that you should introduce Darwin...

One of my views on sex has been moulded by reading such books as "Why is Sex Fun' by biologist Jared Diamond. I won't try to summarise the whole book here, but the thrust of the book is that sex is fun so that humans will reproduce.

I find it interesting that so many people pick as their partners for sex a person who part of their brains would chose as being the ideal partner for reproduction, and then they use contraception. Something of a biological contraction here.

We are nearly all attracted to 'beauty' for sex, the interesting thing is that beauty, if placed in a pre 20th century situation, would be indicative of the prime characteristics of the person that we would want to share our genes (genes, not dreams) with.

Few of the women here, who say that they enjoy sex, would consciously pick a technically good lover with outstanding communication skills, but an unattractive body and face and high pitched voice, who is balding, over a 'hot' guy with a great bum, broad shoulders, six pack abs and the ability to communicate that is exceeded by the average gorilla, with an IQ of a puppy.

Even today, when we seek our partners for sex, we choose those that biology and evolution would have us choose for their genes, even if we don't intend to actually reproduce with them.

Evolution and natural selection run deep in our bodies and minds. Is it any wonder that so much contraception fails?

We are at nature creatures of evolution, seeking to perpetuate our 'selfish genes' (reference to John Dawkins). As I have said before we have had just about 50 years of practical contraception and 'free sex', as opposed to about 20,000 times that time as humans seeking mates for reproduction, and 2,000,000 times plus as part of the evolutionary tree. Humans cannot change that fast, as much as we would like to think that we can.

Hamlet I have Jared Diamond's book, so know what you are refering
to. I think you miss the point however. Humans have sex because
its pleasurable first and foremost. It evolved to be pleasurable,
so that people would have it more often and have more kids as
a result, not as a prime purpose. Just Nature's way of achieving
her objectives, even we arn't aware of them.

Much of what happens in our minds is at the subconcious level.
There are good evolutionary reasons why we are hugely attracted
to one person or another. We can think one thing, feel another and
just follow our feelings in the end. It happens all the time.

The thing is, you are saying that we should just let nature take
its course. If we get horny and have kids, so be it, have them.
In that case you have to apply the same to other aspects of
our lives. Antibiotics, vaccines etc, are all human inventions
which change natures course. If we bred constantly and saved
everyone, what about other species for instance? What is your
reason for only accepting some products to change natures course
and not others?

Actually Yabby, I am not saying that we should let nature take its course.

What I am saying is that we should be aware of our evolutionary heritage, and why we do the things we do, rather than just assuming that we make fully conscious decisions all the time.

Sometimes this recognition, and asking the right questions of ourselves, will help us navigate through life without as many difficulties.

I raise this out of recognition that so much contraception fails. I wonder how much of this failure is due to subconscious choice to risk pregnancy at times when abstinence would be more advisable?

Or perhaps the dependence on one form of contraception when two combined forms may be much more efficient? For instance, use use of both condoms and diaphram, rather than just using one of them. Of course both stop the 'spontenaity' of sex.

I am also sure that a lot of couples have just 'risked it' out of hope that conception will not take place, not realising that the time that women are most inclined to sex is the time of most likelihood for conception to take place.

Of course there is a place in our world for the developments of medical science to be used. I am not one of those who believes that when Genesis says that the women will give birth in pain that the use of anaethesia should be banned in childbirth.

We should ust recognise that we have an evolved in certain ways, and that evolution sometimes confounds our intellect.

Sand between my toes: A correction: I didn't say that abortion was the worst thing in the world. I said that the barbaric butchery of abortion can't be justified. It is out of control,and whatever conditions were imposed when it was first made legal they are now virtually ignored.

Teenage sex is also a free-for-all, thanks largely to the avalanche of pornography which hits them from the movies, TV, Internet video's. and magazines. Some of them have the strength of character to say NO, but far too many take what they think is the easy way out [which turns out to be the hardest way].
I would have thought that with all the readily available contraception, inintended pregnancies would be low. Is it the fault of the product or the users?
Yabby: I won't be selling my computer. You would miss fighting with me if I did. However my wife and I sponsor two overseas children, hoping you do the same.

Hamlet, you are correct, we should not ignore our evolutionary past.
OTOH Nature does not give a hoot, if we enjoy our lives or not, as
long as we reproduce. But we care.

I fail to see why you have such high regard for abstinence, when
sex with somebody we love, can be so pleasurable and so fullfilling.
Catholic priests might deny their natural urges, but even they have
been shown to fail miserably in reality. Again its a question of
what we think versus what we feel, ie. emotion versus reason.
IMHO we are emotional creatures who think a little bit, not the other
way round.

I don't believe that modern contraception is such a failure either.
I see it as a massive improvment over what was 50 years ago!

Al, you have made my point for me. Clearly you would rather argue with me, then sell your computer and send the 1000$ to Africa, to
save another 2-3 lives. We now know your priorities! :)

IMHO most of the starving babies are also in those parts of the world where women, (no thanks to those Catholics) don't have free
access to family planning, abortion, etc. So they pop them out,
5,6,10, whatever comes along. If they had a free choice, perhaps they would prefer 2 or 3, properly fed, properly educated, just like
Western women do. The Catholic Church has a lot to answer for.
I still think that the pope should be charged with environmental
degradation....

Yabby, I am not talking about long term abstinence, by any means.

I am talking about the situation, for instance, where a horney couple cannot get hold of condoms for a few hours or days. Better to wait a short time, rather than take the risk and either have to raise an unwanted child or pay for a termination.

You raised sex with 'someone that we love'. Here we do have a sticking point. Are you talking about love as a feeling, the sort of 'lurv' as espoused in popular music, fiction and soap operas, or the sort of love that requires an deep, unshakeable devotion, commitment and duty, in sacrifice of self?

What passes for love these days is just the feeling of 'being in love', which may make for wonderful sex, but rarely passes onto the next phase.

True love between a couple can really only be equated to the same level of attachment and caring that a parent has for their child. Few parents will completely leave their children because they are not satisfied in the relationship with them. This is partly biological, of course.

However there are many people who leave their partners, after professing what they called love, and making a solemn oath, promise or vow to love their spouse. If someone can, in good conscious, leave a dutiful and caring spouse, even if that person does not meet up to their expectations, then love was never there in the first place.

If someone says "for better, for worse: for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish, till death us do part" and then they leave the marriage in search of self fullfillment then they never loved the other person at all.

And how does this affect contraception and abortion? Love is no guarantee of great sex, and great sex is not guarantee of love. But if a couple actually love and respect each other then they wll love and respect the sex that they have, and will make sure that they will approach sex with thought and responsibility.

Just wanted to comment on how refreshing it is to hear people of differing ideologies actually discussing abortion and discussing their experiences and ideas, instead of hurling insults at each other... [mostly... :) ]!

Hamlet, regarding your sticking point of different kinds of love,
as you say, we cannot ignore our evolutionary past and the notion
that we humans always act rationally, or are able to even do so,
is a flawed one.

Hormones affect behaviour, we evolved to pairbond and if you've
lived with a bunch of hormonally surging teenagers, you'll know
what I mean :)

So yes, people will have sex, even if not in that long lasting,
soulmate type of relationship that you talk of. Convince a 16
year old that she doesent love her first boyfriend and see how
far you get...

The thing is, we have all made mistakes in our lives, done things
that we regret later on, we live and learn. If a teenager lands
up pregnant, I see no good reason why she should be forced to
have a child that she does not want. The most to suffer will be
the child, some mothers actually do take it out on their kids.
Thats why I believe that women should be empowered with choice
and have kids that they love and want, not ones forced on them
by society's rules. RU 486 is one way to achieve that.

Yabby, I would not force any woman to carry to term a child that she did not wish to carry. And yes, even at my advanced state of decay I rememember what it was like being young and in love, having married at 20 to an 18 year old woman, and having that go sour after not too many years.

I would not say that I would make abortion illegal, excepting where the foetus being aborted was reaching maturity approaching viability. I also know of few people who would support the idea that third trimester abortions are a good idea.

Women will always seek terminations, and procedures should be as safe for the woman as possible, using the latest medical technology. What I would ask is that the need for any abortion be reduced by improving contraceptive methods and education, linked with a shift in societal values so that motherhood, and parenthood in general, is supported.

I would not have a clue how to deal with the 'problem' of teenage mothers, some of whom have either received insufficient education re sexuality and contraception, and some chose to get preganant in order to make their lives seem more valuable. Whilst the rate of teen pregancy has lessened, we still have too many children having children.

Maybe the idea of informed consent should also be taught at an earlier age as well. I was recently disturbed to hear that many young male teenagers did not know that sex with a girl under the age of sixteen was actually illegal. Young teenagers have always thought they know everything that was worth knowing, whilst us old fuddy-duddies, or whatever else we want to call ourselves, have been concerned that teenagers will get themselves into trouble.

There is, in law, an age of consent. If this is not going to be enforced, it should be scrapped from the law completely, or the age should be lowered, and then enforced. But can a 13 year old really see the consequences of all their actions in a way that ensures that informed consent can be given?

YABBY, you talk about my priorities. We all know your top priority, which is to trot out your tired old bigotry against the Catholic Church, blaming it for everything under the sun.

The Church doesn't control India, where they are "popping out" kids as you put it , at an increasing rate. Nor does it control Indonesia or Africa. The Pope doesn't control the rainfall in Africa causing drought and crop failure, famine and starvation. Why don't you blame the corrupt tin-pot African dictators like Mugabe who has driven the white farmers off their land, giving it to his cronies who let it lie idle and unproductive. He has also bulldozed poor peolple's homes leaving them helpless and homeless. Other dictators cause civil wars resulting in starving refugees, who don't always get Western food aid because the government grabs it.

And what makes you think you know what size families Africans or anyone else wants? Even some Western women want more than 2 or 3 kids. I knew a family with 21 kids. And they were NOT Catholics either.

If contraception is so successful, why are we getting more abortions than ever before? Surely sexually active adults who want to avoid pregnancy should have more brains than to say "stuff it, we'll take the risk". How stupid and irresponsible is that? Kids shouldn't be doing it at all. Are we raising a generation with no morals and no self discipline, and no responsibility for their actions? If so, what price the future?

So you think I should sell my computer and send the money to Africa! One less opponent for you. It won't happen. At least, I am trying to help two children. Who are you helping? All you are doing is is shooting off your big mouth, and showing everyone how bigoted you are.

Hamlet I agree with most of your last post! The age of consent is a line in the sand that we draw and its open to debate when it should be. The insurance companies claim that its only about 25 when we
become sensible :) Enforcing the age of consent would be near impossible with teenagers. The more you ban something, the more they will try to do it...

Al, no bigotry on my part, I am just well informed. You really need that google bar :) The Vatican spreads its tentacles throughout world politics and power. Inform yourself please. Just one link for you, an interview with a retired director of WHO, how the Vatican
interferes. He worked there for 24 years and spilled the beans when he retired. http://www.population-security.org/29-APP3.html

That link can take you to other links, if you are interested. As they say, you can take a horse to water.. etc. etc.

Regarding my donations, if you are so interested, my donations go
to helping protecting a species called the bonobo. They are near
extinction, with only a few thousand left, versus 6 billion humans.
The growing African population is taking them to extinction, I hope to do my bit to turn that around, if at all possible.

Regarding world birth rates etc, please inform yourself. A copy of the SBS World Guide will give you exact figures for each country.
You can't seriously debate these issues, by just refering to the lady down the street etc. If you keep your computer, thats fine by
me, its the two dying kids that miss out, thats all.

Yabby: Let me quote some of your previous post: "The growing African population is taking them to extinction. I hope to do my bit to turn that around if at all possible". And ....
You can't seriously debate these issues by just refering to the lady down the street etc." "If you keep your computer, it's fine by me, it's the two dying kids that miss out that's all".

Comment 1. You seem deliberately obtuse about "the lady down the street". The point I made was that some people with no religious affiliation think abortion is wrong. This lady stood firm and talked her daughter out of an abortion. It's not only the Catholic Church which opposes abortion, others do too.

Comment 2. You are trying to lay a guilt trip on me about "two dying kids that miss out". This is rich coming from you who prefers to give his money to save an animal, whereas I give mine to try to help two children. Not only that, but you say this animal is threatened by "the growing African population taking them to extinction.." It's hard to ignore the inference that maybe a few dying Africans would be in the best interest of the bonobo. When it comes to the crunch, which are more important, animals or humans?

Hamlet, Yabby:
If I may summarise?

1. Humans have sex because its fun – designed (oh no, please do not go there!) this way to ensure survival of the species.
2. Humans have employed contraception because in the modern world people want to chose the timing for reproduction/family responsibility.
3. There seems a flaw in current effectiveness of sex education as there's plenty of it but there's still a high abortion rate when it should be comparatively low.
4. Teenagers are laws unto themselves

From your discussion, two issues:

First, a more open attitude towards sex is needed, to assist parents and teenagers in discussing the pleasures and the dangers. This should improve awareness in teenagers and could develop into a more responsible attitude – much like drinking. Look what taboos/authoritarian views on drugs have done.

Second, no matter how much we try, society will always have a need for abortion. No contraception will be 100% (except abstinence – but that’s not really contraception, is it?). Therefore, healthy and safe abortions should be available.

I know there is more, but this is a good place for me to start. If there is something I have missed, please feel free to point it out.

Al,
If you’re going to accuse Yabby of bigotry, perhaps you would care to state your affiliation? Catholic perhaps?

However two points you made were right –
“Surely sexually active adults who want to avoid pregnancy should have more brains than to say "stuff it, we'll take the risk". How stupid and irresponsible is that?”
and
“Kids shouldn't be doing it at all.”

Both are right. Nevertheless, both are truisms that will not change – no matter what kind of moral nirvana we hope to live in. Why not look for solutions to minimise harm to society rather than demonise and attempt to control what will not ever be controlled?

As to the importance of humans over animals, well, without the animals and the greater ecosystem, the precious humans are doomed.

An interesting judgement that sneaked under most peoples' radar was passed down by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in March this year.

It is the matter of: R v David John IBY [2005] NSWCCA 178 which involves the court reinterpreting the meaning of 'born alive' from the older rule that required the baby to breath of its own, to a baby breathing with artificial assistance, such as a respirator:

The key paragraphs being:

64 The context in which the rule arises for present consideration is a context in which the Appellant wishes to avoid criminal responsibility for manslaughter of a baby which was injured as a late term foetus, indeed was fully developed in perfect condition and within a week or two of actual birth. In the current state of medical technology and with the extremely low rate of stillbirths in the Australian community, the born alive rule, if it is to survive at all, should continue to be applied, as Ellis DCJ did, so that any sign of life after birth is sufficient. This happens to be consistent with the authorities.

65 It is also the approach which conforms best with contemporary conditions. It is now virtually certain that a newborn baby which shows any sign of life would have lived but for the conduct, said to constitute manslaughter or dangerous driving, inflicted on the baby late in the mother’s pregnancy.

The Judges did not apply the WHO definition:

“Live birth is the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy, which, after such separation, breathes or shows any other evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached; each product of such a birth is considered live born.”

The full judgement can be found at:

http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/scjudgments/2005nswcca.nsf/a16acdaf45f305714a256724003189f5/4d344cd3699e4c55ca256ff8007e5398?OpenDocument

One interpretation that is capable of being made is that a third trimester termination, where the child shows signs of life, can be considered manslaughter.

Reason, all I can say is excellent post! One gold star for you and please post again :)

Hamlet, in most countries around the world, abortion is accepted in the first tremester. Fair enough.

Al, sometimes you need to see the big picture. 85% of the population agree that abortion should be available, even many Catholics. Of those left, the majority are Catholics and a few Fundies. Plus of course your lady down the road. No other group has a worldwide campaign against contraception and abortion, as the Vatican has.
IMHO the whole issue is more about the so called infallibility of
the pope then anything else. If this pope changes his mind over what the last pope said, voila, eggs on lots of faces, so they can't back down. Fact is that even 80% of US catholics think that they are wrong, including 50% of US Catholic priests (see Economist (25/01/2001)

Most countries where hunger and starvation is occuring, Niger, Ethiopia etc, have birthrates around 4-5%, compared to our 1.4%. Women in these countries are largely denied empowerment to choose the size of their families. Genocide in Rwanda is largely attributed to too many people crowding too little space. The more food that is sent to deal with it, the more people will create even more starving babies, without some kind of family planning in place. It urgently needs to be dealt with.

Reason is correct, without biodiversity, humanity won't survive either. Our species is the first which evolved to be able to change the planet significantly. We have a moral obligation not to wreck it completely, but preserve it for all species in a sustainable way, for future generations. Bonobos and other species have a right to this planet too, not just wall to wall humans, in the name of religious dogma.

Hamlet,
I see where you are coming from. In deed, late term abortions are problematic at best – horrendous at worst.

Would it not then be best that any desire to abort be considered and made available at the earliest opportunity? To avoid the later, very grey and emotive issues? Better sex education, better support to teenagers in discussing and feeling comfortable with their sexuality are a start.

At the end of the day though, who has the right to decide for a woman – at any stage – that she must carry a pregnancy to term? And who will carry the subsequent responsibility if the woman was against such decision?

Yes, there are issues of personal responsibility – but to remove a choice, as I see it, must be balanced by another taking on the responsibility of the choice that was removed.

Thanks Yabby. I’ll keep the star and hopefully add to the collection!

And welcome to the most interesting world of OLO… some ‘interesting’ folk around here, as I’m sure you’ve seen.

Reason

I would agree that if a termination is to take place it is better that it takes place early.

You ask the question:

"At the end of the day though, who has the right to decide for a woman – at any stage – that she must carry a pregnancy to term? And who will carry the subsequent responsibility if the woman was against such decision?"

The relevance of this question bears on the personal liberty of the woman concerned, obviously, and the use to which her body is being made of the 'foetus' that she is carrying. To take this to the nth degree, this question may be re-phrased as:

"Right up to the time that contractions start or the baby breathes of its own, who has the right to decide for a woman – at any stage – that she must carry a pregnancy to term? And who will carry the subsequent responsibility if the woman was against such decision?"

Until recently when a woman killed her child who was under 12 months old she was not generally charged with murder but infanticide. Women who have committed infanticide were generally placed on good behaviour bonds. So, who has made the decision that a woman would be held responsible for the life of her offspring?

It is worthwhile reading

http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lrc.nsf/pages/DP31CHP5

to see a view of how society really views the nature of the products of conception.

Sorry, I am a bit angry here, but at what point do we hold a person criminally responsible for the life of another? Do we wait until the foetus has been out of the womb for twelve months? Or perhaps we only hold life dear when the fourth child has been killed, as in the case of Kathleen Folbigg?

I would say, and will continue to say, that when the product of conception is able to have at least a fair chance of life outside the womb, then termination should not be an option. The woman carrying the child gave up her rights by failing to have an early termination,

To return to the original question, i.e. whether the pill RU 486 is safe for women, I quote from an item in the Melbourne Herald-Sun of November 14, page 28: "Senator Warns Of Pill Danger". "Women in remote areas may be at risk of dying without access to surgical care if the abortion drug RU 486 is made available to them," a Liberal Senator and obstetrician has warned.

Senator Alan Eggleston who practised as an obstetrician for 20 years, is urging the Howard Government to resist pressure to change the ban on the abortion drug." "The main trouble with RU 486 is that it may result in an incomplete miscarriage, leaving the woman in danger of potential life-threatening haemorrhage and infection" Senator Eggleston said.

How can a warning from a man with Eggleston's 20 years obstetric experience be ignored?

At least nine women have died overseas using RU486, and dozens of others have suffered serious after-effects - usually from remnants of the fetus remaining in the womb and becoming septic.

Senator Eggleston concluded: "The potential for problems in country areas where quick access to a surgically equipped hospital was not always possible should raise serious concerns about the wisdom of of making this medication generally available ", he said.

And if abortion becomes illegal and women resort (as they have throughout history) to illegal, unsafe, backyard abortionists to terminate unwanted pregnancy in sordid despair, will you be as concerned about their health, then?
Everything to do with reproduction is risky, childbirth, pregnancy, abortion, contraception, the lot, by all accounts this drug compares well.

While I am sure Senator Eggleston has the best intrests of his patients at heart, I hardly think that we should place his opinion over that of the Australian Medical Association, or the Royal College of Obestritians and Gynecolegists (apologies for the appalling spelling), who both apparently support over-turning the ban. Women would still have to go to a doctor to get a prescription, and they would manage with their doctor how they would be cared for. It is not as though the proposal is to let Mifesperone to be sold at the local Coles.

Every medical procedure or treatment has risks. The fact that some women do not have easy access to a hospital in case of hemmorage is appalling, as she is just as likely to require that access for a natural miscarriage, or any other drama. It seems to me that if you KNOW that you may need services, you can put yourself in a position to be able to access those services, and be aware of the warning signs, even more so than if a random event, like miscarriage, which happens in something like 30% of pregnancies.

Even highly trained doctors with years of experience can sometimes act out of consideration for their preconceived religious/philosophical beliefs, rather than out of concern for the wishes and well-being of their patients.

Many years ago, my first wife [after having had what we both regarded as enough planned and wanted children] went to our GP [who just happened to be Catholic] for a referral to a specialist to have her tubes tied. She was referred to a specialist [who happened to be Catholic] and he refused to do the operation, or even to discuss it in a rational manner. But they both took our money, in return for virtually refusing the service which we had suggested. So much for "morality". Could something like this still happen today? Knowing the grip which religious dogma still has on many otherwise rational people, I would have to say "Probably yes".

My sister, again many years ago, had a responsible position at a fairly large English hospital. She told me that one of the doctors was a Jehovah's Witness and would have nothing to do with blood transfusions. Apparently, if one of his patients could be seen to need this procedure, he would excuse himself and send for another doctor. Hopefully, another doctor would be available, but is any hospital invariably adequately staffed? And what about a large scale emergency involving many critically injured people?

How about Tony Abbott, a Catholic, as Health Minister? My comments are not about politics, or Tony's intelligence, honesty, integrity, capability or any other quality. His personal feelings are bound to be part of his decision making processes and it is probably inevitable that he is not really comfortable about abortion.

Those who feel that I am being unfair could consider this. What if we had a Health Minister who was a Jehovah's Witness? He/she could be one of the most honest and capable people imaginable, but could he/she be totally impartial on matters involving blood transfusion? And what if new techniques became available? Wouldn't he/she be more likely to consider the alleged risks, rather than the likely benefits?

enaj: Your concerns about a return to backyard abortions may be unnecessary. Former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson [60,000 abortions] said " One can expect that if abortion is ever driven underground again, even non-physicians will be able to perform this procedure with remarkable safety. No woman need die if she chooses to abort during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy." [from Aborting America, Doubleday 1979 p.193] I don't want anyone to die, mothers or babies.

Indeed, wealthy women have always been able to procure safe terminations, and, if it is driven underground, will do so again, but what about women with few resources? What about girls like a relative of mine who, as a terrified 15 year old, resorted to taking some appallingly dangerous concoction recommended by some backyard person as the cheapest method and nearly died, in agony?
If abortion becomes illegal, the major effect will be to drive up the price and then desperate women will, as they always have, take matters, sometimes fatally, into their own hands.
You simply cannot compell women to bear children they do not want. That is the insurmountable problem.

Absolutely correct enaj, safe abortion was the preserve of the wealthy when abortion was banned and that would be the situation today if the mostly male and fundy religious have their way.

Consider this extract from an article about RU 486 on the ABC science website:

"Professor Caroline de Costa is the Professor of Obstetrics at James Cook University in Cairns. She was the author of October's Medical Journal of Australia article, and she's the AMA's spokesperson on RU 486. Yes, there is a small risk of pelvic cramps and bleeding after taking RU 486, but the risks can be safely managed, and the risks are no greater than managing other obstetrics procedures like pregnancy and surgical abortion, she says. She told the ABC’s PM program, 'A small number of women who have a medical abortion may need to be seen by a doctor and examined, and an even smaller number of those may need to have curettage, but that's also true of women who have a surgical abortion.’........

........The conservative Christian right is a powerful force in federal politics and it could be a while yet before RU 486 lands on pharmacy shelves in Australia.

In the meantime, beware politicians brandishing a report."

The full text is available at:

http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/s1509095.htm

Big Al and others would do well to accurately inform themselves on the advantages/disadvatanges of RU 486.

I am always bemused by this hysteria over foetal life. If human beings were in danger of extinction, maybe, just may be there would be some justification, although it would still be an infringement on the autonomy of women.

In fact imagine a world where humans were on the brink of extinction - how swiftly would women be coerced into becoming baby machines? Enforced artifical fertilisation? Legalised rape? Frightening scenario. Not likely to happen - but an interesting hypothesis.

I agree that religious ideology should have absolutely no bearing upon our supposedly secular government's approval or otherwise of medical treatments, including RU-486. In recent days it has become increasingly apparent that Health Minister Abbott, in rejecting calls from the AMA for the legalisation of RU-486, has selectively cherrypicked from the limited advice he has received in order to justify his refusal to legalise RU-486 on supposedly medical grounds.

In so doing, he commits exactly the same kind of deception that Ransom does in this article: disingenuously invoking concerns for women's health as the basis for banning RU-486, when in fact he is motivated by his religious beliefs. The AMA has called the Health Department's research upon which the Minister claims to have based his decision "skewed", a leading obstetrician has called it "alarmist", a Liberal doctor backbencher is calling it "totally and absolutely ridiculous" and even Dr Andrew Childs who contributed to the Health Department's advice stated he has never said the drug should not be used.

Indeed, as stated by Senator Kerry Nettle this week, "Mr Abbott's position is consistent with the religious right's anti-choice scare campaign which has been trying to drum up fear of the drug based on selective and inaccurate usage of available data.

Talk of advantages and disadvantages of RU-486 remind me that it all DIS-advantage as far as the unborn are concerned. Some posters are talking as though the unborn child has no rights whatever.

We are not talking about a tumour, we are talking about a tiny human being - even many pro-choice people admit that. I am taking a 2 week holiday, so you can get stuck into me as much as you like.

Big Al 30 - enjoy your break, while you are away consider that adult females are living,breathing,independent,human beings - NOT BABY MACHINES.

Thank you

Having read all the above 80 posts with great interest, I’d like to comment on RU-486 (not abortion as a whole).

There is a perception that right-wing pro-lifers are trying to ban this drug by suggesting RU-486 is not medically safe. The pro-RU-486 lobby are saying ‘look at the medical evidence’. Caroline De Costa’s article claims it is safe and effective. Abbot and other politicians disagree.

I believe the medical evidence is unassailable. There is no RU-486 study showing less than 5% failure rate. This is 20 times higher than that of surgical abortion. It is also far more painful. Studies show that there is heavy bleeding for 10±4 days. There have been enough serious side-effects and deaths to require the USFDA to remove the drug from market.

How is using this evidence being irrational?

The lack of reason here comes in the form of (old) feminist ideological convictions that abortion is the only way forward. The developers of this drug, and the Population Council that has spread it around the world, have publicly said that RU-486 is the solution to a lack of abortion facilities in third world countries and remote areas. They also believe is will remove the stigma from abortion clinics when doctors can give this drug and the patient can walk away.

Unfortunately for them, it hasn’t quite worked out. As a pharmaceutical researcher I’d suggest that the drugs side effects would only be acceptable for life-threatening illness. Is that what pregnancy is? The Population Council believes so. It had the drug approved in the US in 6 months under the guise of ‘drug for life-threatening illness’ without any clinical trials in the US. Its approval was a flawed process. As it is only used by abortion facilities and doctors it’s failures are being under-reported. We only hear of the severest cases that lead to death because coroners and lawyers get involved.

I’m sorry for sounding so harsh, but there is nothing good to say about the drug. It’s not the panacea people are hoping for.

Tama, I think you should cite your sources. I'm surprised that the Australian Department of Health have been so mislead.

Every one is aware that the US has an extremely conservative government that has refused aid to countries that practice population control so its no surprise that american women's control over their fertility has been eroded.

The debate over whether women have control over their fertility is as fundamental to their ability to function as equals in this society as their right to vote and earn equal pay for equal work.

Billie, first and foremost you have hit the mark: for RU-486 supporters this debate is all about women's rights to control their fertility. But perhaps you should be careful about equating access to abortion as being equivalent to other fundamental rights. Abortion is only regarded as a right to some. Women in Poland have no access to abortion yet they have access to more education and work opportunities than most Western countries.

I would be happy to cite every point from my last article- if space and time permitted. If you are interested in these facts google a few key words like "Population Council' and RU-486, 'Bermuda Conference, Also have a look at Emile Baulieu's book. He was the inventor of the drug.

I have written an article on RU-486. Some of the key refernces are as follows:
Irving M. Spitz, C.Wayne Bardin, Lauri Benton, and Ann Robbins, "Early Pregnancy Termination with Mifepristone and Misoprostol in the United States," New England Journal of Medicine, 338(18). (April 30, 1998).
Raymond, et al, RU 486: Misconceptions, Myths, and Morals
FDA Mifepristone Hearing, July 19, 1996
Testimony of Beverly Winikoff, Program Director of Reproductive Health, Population Council at FDA Mifepristone Hearings, p. 81; Margaret Talbot, "This Pill Will Change Everything About Abortion," The New York Times Magazine, July 11, 1999
"Commercial challenges in bringing Mifepristone to developing countries," by Roy Karnovsky, President, Advances/The Neogen Group, at meeting Towards Safe and Effective Use of Medical Abortion, sponsored by Population Council and Wellcome Trust, Bermuda, January 10-13, 1998
FDA Announcement of Approval. Larr Backorik. Sept 18, 1996

Tama, first question. Are you a Catholic?

Both Poland and the US are two countries where the Vatican has
huge influence in politics, one way or another.

Personally I take far more notice of the views of many more secular European Govts and their opinions, then anything coming from the
religiously fanatical Bush regime or the Vatican influenced Polish
Govt.

Yabby, you are running away from the issue. Tama has given an impressive collection of references and you just dismiss them because you don't like the Vatican. Get a life. There doesn't appear to be any connection with the Vatican anyhow. Incidentally, Catholics have as much right to express an opinion as Calithumpions and athiests. Tama's religious affiliations if any are none of your damn business. I don't ask you whether you are a Communist, athiest,agnostic or whatever. I don't need to know. I judge you by the arguments you put up. Try giving the same consideration to Tama's post. Let's see you deal intelligently with the case she has so ably put up..

Well done and congratulaions Tama!

Al thanks for the comment. Fact is I have every right to ask if somebody is a Catholic. If they don't answer, I can draw my conclusions from that.

If ru486 is allowed in Australia, should be decided by independant medical experts, as with other drugs, not by theologans or politicians with a religious agenda which they would like to impose on others.

Today in much for the 1st world and increasingly so, abortion in the first tremester is seen as a right and so it should be! Catholics need not have one, nobody is forcing them to. They however have no right, through devious or other means to try and impose their theology on the rest of us. We do not live in a religious tyranny as we used to, much as some keep trying to reimpose it.

Let the pope preach to his flock, the rest of us demand freedom from religious tyranny.

Yabby, you have just given us "more of the same". This is no answer to Tama's post.
Everyone has an agenda to push. Catholics have theirs, Uniting have theirs, Jews have theirs, Muslims have theirs, athiests have theirs, Greens and Democrats have theirs, Marxists have theirs, Liberals and Labor have theirs. In a democracy, everyone can put their views forward, and push them in every lawful way they can. Nothing wrong with that.

You seem to have an obsession about silencing any ideas you perceive as coming from the Vatican. You even see the Polish Government as an arm of the Church of Rome.

Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, was also opposed to abortion, and his Oath strongly forbade it. He couldn't have been a Catholic.
The Modern Oath [1964] contains the words: "Above all, do not play at being God". How can doctors and nurses who take the Hippocratic Oath break it so flagrantly? Isn't abortion playing God by violently snuffing out an innocent little life which could grow to adulthood and reach his/her potential?

The Melbourne Herald-Sun of November 29 carries a story about chemists in the Gold Coast giving "schoolies" a morning after pill. How can this be when this pill is not approved for such use?

Al the data on ru 486 has been done to death on these boards. There is clearly no problem. If somebody has a religious agenda to push
and uses selective data, I don't even bother anymore. I'll read data quoted by more objective medical people, not religious people.

I highlight the fact that the Vatican cares more about its own survival then the long term sustainability and survival of our planet. I highlight their agenda, their politicking, the damage
that they are causing to our environment with their policies.
I have every right to do that. You seem to have no problem with
relgious tyranny, so much for the depth of your philosophical thinking.

If in that case one day Islam overwhelms where you happen to live and forces their way of life on you, you can only blame yourself,
for there is not much difference between religious tyranny of catholics or muslims. No wonder people are constantly at war.

I really don't care what Hippocrates said a long time ago. I use science and reason to reach my conclusions. In his day, they still thought that the brain was in the heart, so his opinion or understanding of the human body were rather limited to say the least.

Yabby, that's sophistry. Have you read a single article published in a reputable journal about RU-486? All I can confirm, as a scientist, is that RU486 is a poor excuse for a drug.

If you want to call this selective data, that's fine. You can deny reality. If your religious fervour for RU486 access exceeds rational boundaries it only tells me that you are promoting a distorted ideology.

RU486 was approved is for ideological purposes. No other drug would pass with 10% failure rates and severe side effects. Authorities ignore these facts because it is a convenient solution to a problem of abortion access. It is not good healthcare. RU486 was stumbled upon and promoted as the solution to the lack of third world abortion access by population control advocates (see Emile Baulieu's book, The Abortion Pill - he was the discoverer and openly talks as such).

This is the real agenda. It's about pushing abortion down poor peoples throats because we're stuck in the backwards 1960's mindset that a population explosion is going to end the world. Catholics like me are only trying to prevent such distorted ideas.

I don't want a population debate here. It suffices to say the doomsayers were proven wrong 20 years ago. But now we have this drug, and we want to give Australian women access to it because it's easier than surgical abortion for doctors. So the doctors promote it as safe and effective despite the data showing it's no better - in fact it's worse for the patients.

And as you seem so keen on Vatican bashing I would like to point out two things. First, before you comment on Catholic teaching, read the Vatican’s definitive statement on abortion: it’s called Humanae Vitae. Second, in that document you’ll read guidelines on human nature and how to best preserve it’s good qualities. According to these ideas, abortion is not a very positive thing.

How is this teaching is contributing to the demise of the world? Perhaps you’d like to point it out using your highly developed scientific mind.

Yabby, Data from Tama was from medical sources, not religious. You are ignoring it because it may not agree with your information from elsewhere, or your own preconceived ideas.

I am opposed to tyranny, religious or otherwise. We must never give in to terrorists or our free democratic way of life will go under and our grandchildren will curse us for our weakness. I would have a lot to say about Islam, except that thanks to Premier Steve Bracks and his Racial/Religious Vilification Act, I could be forced into financial ruin hiring lawyers, or even jail.

It seems that you can vilify Christians with impunity, but even quote from the Koran and your're toast. So don't say I don't care about tyranny, Communist, Islamic or otherwise.

But we're getting off the subject again. You dismiss poor old Hippocaties, but can you dismiss the 1964 version of the Hippocratic Oath? They knew a lot about the human body in 1964. And what about the sources quoted by Tama?

Hehe... I just knew she'd be a catholic who reads the Humanae Vitae :) Yup I read it years ago and threw it in the bin, its simply the pope's opinion lol. I was born a catholic so am quite
well informed. The Vatican is in a corner on this of course. If they change their mind about contraception and abortion now, bang goes the papal infallibility story and they refuse to wear so much mud on their faces, so they plod on relentlessly, no matter what the damage that they cause to millions of people.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/parting-shot-to-pope-get-real-on-aids/2005/12/03/1133422148025.html

Thats what one of Australia's most eminent scientists, president of Britains Royal Society, thinks of Catholic policy on the topic :)

The figures have all been crunched on here before Tama. 1 in 100'000
deaths, similar to surgical abortion, 14 times safer then birth.
Women aren't flying to NZ to obtain 486 for no reason you know..
Give them the choice! We don't want religious tyranny here!

Yes human overpopulation remains a huge problem. 80 million a year added every year. Every woman on the planet has should have the human right to family planning and abortion in the first tremester.
There is no good reason for them not to, but Catholic dogma and papal infallability issues are holding up justice for these women!

Yabby, you're absolutely right. I don't know why I was even arguing with you, lol.
Your powerful insight, knowledge of relevant statistics and ability to identify the salient points of every argument have simply astounded me.

It's a pity you're no longer Catholic though. A lot of my friends gave up their faith when they became mentally unstable too.

Yabby, On the question of over-population, I don't think anyone would say Australia is over-populated. Our birthrate is 1.77, so it is under replacement level. Without immigration the Australian population would eventually abort itself out of existence.

Tama, thanks for your post. Let me put it this way.... You might know a little about neuroscience and the importance of homeostasis to your wellbeing. If the Catholic Church helps you achieve that then fine, so stay with the diminishing flock, apart from Africa of course, where people are less educated and more gullible, so they continue to win new converts.

I have no problem with people being Catholics, I have a problem with the Vatican trying to force its agenda on the rest of us. Whilst they do that, they are free game lol, I'm not into religious tyranny.

Al, the question of sustainability in Australia has yet to be answered. Some people like Tim Flannery think we are already overpopulated, due to our ancient, clapped out soils, water problems etc. Farming is not yet sustainable, although we are getting better at it.

In the bigger scheme of things, you have to see things globally. If every Australian died tomorrow, it would only take 90 days of present human breeding to replace all of us. What we are doing as a global species is not sustainable, thats the big issue

Yabby, Once again you mention the Vatican's agenda. Again I say that most organisations and many individuals have an agenda. The Feminists cerainly have an agenda, and push it very hard, requiring interference in political processes.

So do the Secular Humanists. In their magazine "The Australian Humanist" issue Summer 1973, they set out seven main objectives:

1. Legalisation of homosexuality, and its acceptance as being equal to hetrosexuality as a way of life.
2. Legalisation of abortion on demand.
3. No fault divorce .
4. Legalisation of euthanasia.
5. Abolition of all controls on pornography.
6. Abolition of religious eduation in schools.
7. Legalisation of "soft" drugs e.g. marijuana.

As you can see, some of these have since been carried through, partly or fully, which certainly required some "political interference". If they have the right do this, so do the Christian religions, including the Catholics.

Al I think the Catholic Church really needs to navel gaze a bit as to what it really is. Is it a religious organisation basing its views on theology, or is it a political organisation basing its view on philosophy?

If its a religious organisation preaching to its flock, then fine, whatever the flock thinks is ok by me, for their lives. If its a political organisation, wanting to push its religious agenda on to me based on its theology, then that is what bin Laden is doing too. I have huuuge objections to that.

If its a political organisation trying to push its philosophy onto me, then we can argue and fight over that, then its the same as Liberal/Labour etc, no holes barred squabbling as we do over politics, so don't expect any sympathy if things get nasty, for I havent heard you pleading that the Liberal party should not be attacked etc.

Human rights are a huge issue. Taking peoples right away from them is a huge issue. If somebody wants to take away those rights and wants to force me to live a certain way, they had better have very good reasons. We can argue about philosophy, but we can't argue
with people who claim their inspiration is divine or supernatural.
Thats just their claim, nothing more, no substantiated evidence.
Our lives are based on our ability to reason and evidence. Go to
a court of law and tell the judge that you think xy is so because
you had a holy vision and see how far that you get.

Ok Al, I will use up my valuable 2nd post for the day to explain further the principle I am getting at here, for you to get your mind around and think about...

Lets say its 2055, the Indonesian population doubles to 400 million, ie 2% per year growth, millions sail to Australia and the Greens say it humanistic to keep them all here so we do. One of Osama's sons starts the Osama party, he's charismatic and wins 55% of the vote of the people.

The Osama Party decides that you will pray to Mecca 5 times a day,
your wife will wear the burqa, no music, no pictures, the Koran will become the new constitution etc. Its part of the theology of the Australian majority after all. Would that be democracy or religious
tyranny?

Yabby, The Christian religion, whether Ctholic or Protestant, is engaged in Faith AND MORALS. Abortion is a moral issue, so the Church has a view about it, and expresses that view and backs it up with action, just as the Secular Humanists and Feminists do with their ideas. Do you have the same objections when a Leftie priest or parson criticises America and George W. Bush?

Islam taking over? You are really pushing the envelope with this. You ask whether it would be democracy or something else. Well, in the first place, please don't blame the Pope if Indonesia doubles its population by 2050. His influence there is nil. He can't even save Christian girls from being beheaded. The prospect of the Greens being the Federal Government is virtually nil. If millions of Indonesians tried to come, it wouldn't be democracy or anything like it. It would be an invasion, and I would resist it if I were still around [which is somewhat unlikely!] I would not like to live under Sharia law, and I back every move to defeat terrorism and any move which would strengthen our capacity to resist Islamic extremists.. We have to beat Osama, no matter what it takes and how long it takes. I hope this makes my opinion about dictatorship clear, regardless of who is in charge, Osama, Hitler or Stalin.

Al you missed the points I was trying to make. You clearly don't have a problem with theology trying to impose its morals on those who do not believe. We'll see if you still feel the same if Islam should ever want to impose its morals on you or your kids, grandkids etc. If religion wants to be political, then accept all the resulting open slather, like me saying exactly what a backward organisation I think that the Catholic Church is.

My hypothetical was simply that, to see if you operate by any kind of philosophical principles or if you just doggedly follow theology, no matter what.

The Vatican has an influence on just about every country, by its efforts to manipulate the work of WHO. Family planning etc is a world wide health issue and funding for many countries, especially the third world, is decided in the US, where the Vatican has huge
influence.

The sad part of all this is that whilst either the Vatican or Islam continually try to impose their theological values on the rest of us, there can never be peace as there will never be tolerance.

Yabby, you are splitting straws about "philisophical" and "theological". What you want is religious organisations [especially the Vatican] to confine their views ro the church pews and not comment on moral questions of public interest. In other words, you want to censor them. Jesus said "Go teach all nations". He didn't say don't go beyond the church doors. Incidentally, I guess it's OK for Leftie priests and ministers to attack John Howard and George W.Bush, march against apartheid, ban the bomb and end capital punishment? Did you carry on against them as you do against Christians and others who oppose abortion?

Also, when you talk about the Church forcing its values on the community, how about the Secular Humanists forcing their values on us by No Fault divorce, decriminalising homosexuality, and the Menhennit Ruling on abortion which opened the door a little, so the abortionists could kick it open the rest of the way to the point where it is out of control. [Aided an abetted by the Feminist lobby.] I guess you believe it's OK or them to do this, but not OK for the Church to respond by opposing it.

You want to impose censorship and ban their activities where they don't suit your ideas. Who's doing the "imposing" now?

Al there is a huge difference between philosphy and theology. We can reason about one, the other is simply claims about the supernatural, for which there is no substantiated evidence. So its like chalk and cheese.

There is a huge difference between religion stating its views and trying to manipulate the political system, to enforce its agenda. The Vatican are experts at that, so are open slather for abuse because of it. I carry on against Xtians or any other religion who want to deny me or others our human rights, based on their theology.

Big difference in what the secular humanists and Vatican are doing.
Nobody is forcing Catholics to divorce, abort, or be homosexual.
You can live your life as you please. But Catholics want to deny the rest of us to live life as we please, to force their values on us. Huge difference. One is about respecting the rights of others, one is about intolerance and trying to force their religious agenda down the throats of others.

Yabby, first your statement that there is no substantiated evidence for the supernatural. I believe it is obvious from the complexity and balance of the universe that it could not have just happened by chance. It must have been created by a super-intelligent being. But that's a whole new question. Furthermore....

There were many people like you at Fatima, Portugal on October 13, 1917 when the Great Miracle of Fatima occurred. There were 70,000 people, including members of the anti-religious government of the time who were dumbfounded when, after hours of pouring rain, the sun appeared. Then it began to spin, gyrate across the sky and then plunge towards the crowd. People were terrified, some who had been jeering finished up on their knees praying, confessing their sins aloud. I can hear you saying "mass delusion" The fact that the ground which had been saturated was now bone dry answers that theory. This was all reported in the secular newspapers controlled by the government e.g. O Seculo. It really happened. Check it out.

You think the Church shouldn't intervene in social questions. If Christian missionaries hadn't intervened and lobbied for change with the authorities of the time, children in China might still having their feet bound tightly so they lived in agony with deformed feet as they grew. Widows in India might still be forced to throw themselves on heir husband's funeral pyre in the practice of "Sutee". Will you tell me the Church should have stayed out of it? Now some sections of the Christian Church [notably Catholics} and others who just think abortion is wrong are trying to save the unborn from being killed by chemical or other means in the womb. Seems reasonable to me

You claim that what the Secular Humanists have done is different from Church lobbying. They have changed the Laws under which we have to live. If we do want to divorce, the rules are now very different thanks to SH and Lionel Murphy. The innocent party has lost all the former advantages and can be left in great hardship.

Al perhaps you should read Richard Dawkins, he will explain to you how complexity arises from simplicity, via the molecule dna.

As to Fatima, you need to be at least a little skeptical lol. The sun can be seen from half the planet at any one time. If the sun
was bouncing around as claimed, not only Fatima people would have seen it, it would have been observed by half the planet :)

If the God that the Vatican claims is true, he is free to post the
10 commandments on the face of the moon, for all of us to see and
immediately stop any arguments regarding his existance.

Regarding the chuch and social questions. Any humanist and nearly
any enlightend person will agree that we should do things to assist others from suffering concious pain. That is a far cry from trying
to contravene the laws of nature as humans are doing. If we do that, we have to accept responsibility for our actions. If we preserve life with antibiotics, vaccines and everything else we do, we are not letting nature take its course. We then also have to be responsible for the risk of too many humans making life on this planet unsustainable for much of the biodiversity that exists.

Abortion in the first tremester involves no pain to any person, no suffering is involved. It is simply the outcome of two individuals who got horny, despite not actually wanting a child, which is quite human. It is also the acceptance of natural law, that far more potential individuals will be produced then can ever survived.

The big difference is this Al. You think that Gods plan will make it all ok in the end. I don't believe you. I think that we humans have to be responsible for our own actions and the future of this planet.
As you have no substantiated evidence to support your claim, I see not a single reason why I should accept your viewpoint.

"You claim that what the Secular Humanists have done is different from Church lobbying. They have changed the Laws under which we have to live. If we do want to divorce, the rules are now very different thanks to SH and Lionel Murphy. The innocent party has lost all the former advantages and can be left in great hardship."

Al, what is it with you, that you want to own another person? Sorry,
its just not on. Everyone is a free spirit. If somebody loves you,
thats an honour, not a right. You cannot compel people to stay with
you, whether they want to or not. The days of slavery are long gone..

When will you start to respect the rights of other people?

Yabby, You ask "when am I going to respect the rights of people". I ask when are you going to respect the rights of the unborn?

I respect the rights of spouses to expect loyalty to their Marriage vows. But if the marriage breaks down because one has been shacking up with someone else, the innocent party should have the protection of the law in the welfare of the family. Not splitting everything in half, so the guilty party gets as much as the innocent, which Secular Humanists have made happen. Marriage is not "slavery" as you put it, but it is a commitment which should be honoured. in the best sense. Do you really believe it is slavery??

I don't think you can get around that question of Creation by mentioning dna. Certainly there is dna in animals and humans, but not in the rocks and gas of Venus and Saturn for example.

So far as "The Miracle of The Sun" at Fatima is concerned, Yours is the first time I've seen this question asked. The answer is this The background of this event
goes back to May 13, 1917 when a series of visions of the Virgin Mary to three children began. [ I assume you have checked on this.] They continued every month to September, and the children were promised a sign to convince the community that they were telling the truth. So the promise of a miracle at noon on the 13th October was made for the local area, not half the world. Make the Sun behave in this manner restricted to a certain area? Seems impossible, but nothing is impossble to God.

Print the Ten Comandments on the Moon?? They would still be hard to read, and would spoil a beautiful feature woudn't it? Would it make people any more inclined to take notice of them anyway? God gave us Free Will to obey or disobey.

I ran out of space. Yabby, you say we should accept responsibility for our actions. I agree. The "two individuals who got horny" should accept responsibility for their horniness. Agreed? But they are running away from their responsibility by making the tiny innocent human life pay the price for their horniness by sending him/her to oblivion.

I respect the rights of people Al, not a few dividing cells. They are simply the product of biology, no brain, no nervous system,
just dividing cells. The rest is emotional rhetoric. I accept the laws of nature, not all potential humans can survive. The biggest
cause of abortion is in fact mother nature herself. I accept that people should have children when they want them, for no other reason.

Marriage is not a business deal, nor should it be. People can have intentions at one time, but over time, people can change and grow. Before marriage, people can feign about who they really are,
others are gullible and believe it. Does that mean a lifelong forced living with somebody who we have come to detest? I think not.

No judge can establish who is guilty and who isn't, as many things are at play that the judge can't be aware of. If you marry somebody, that does not imply ownership! It implies respect and commitment, but things can change over time, people can change. That does not mean we should be miserable for the rest of our lives, caught in a situation by some stupid law.

We know of only one sun Al. If it bounced around, everyone would have seen it. Otherwise it was not the sun. On the other hand, mass delusion caused by religion is pretty common. Think of Jims Jones followers who all killed themselves in the name of religion.

If you are interested what goes on in peoples minds when they have visions, go to the Radio National website "All in the Mind". Read the transcript on epilepsy, then you will know where prophets and visions come from.

Horniness is a natural and normal phenomena Al, to be enjoyed by all.
That does not imply wanting a child at all. Simply mother natures way of ensuring the survival of the species. That does not mean destruction of the planet in the process, by too many humans trying to live unsustainably

Yabby, I think you are too dismisive of the fetus as "dividing cells". Ultrasounds show that they are obviously human from a very early stage, with beating heart and brain structure etc. Read DrMac's post and the info on human fetus on the Net.

If a man leaves his wife and kids to shack up with another woman, he doesn't deserve to get half the proceeds. Judges may be stupid sometimes, but surely thay can figure that out. However, thanks to Senator Murphy and his mates', No Fault Divorce, being the innocent party doesn't mean a thing when it comes to the bottom line.

Your dismissal of Fatima as a "delusion" won't hold up when you consider that as well as the earth being saturated by heavy rain before the event, it and the people's clothes were dry affterwards. A delusion can't dry saturated ground and clothes.

I am intrigued by your comment that "If we preserve life with antibiotics, vaccines and everything else we do, we are not letting Nature take its course." You say elsewhere that you "accept the laws of Nature". This prompts me to ask you:

1. Are you suggesting that we should cease using these things and let people die of disease and infection, because of your fear of over-population?

2. If you accept the laws of Nature, surely that means letting the fetus develop as Nature intends and eventually be born? It seems to me that your statements on accepting the laws of Nature and support for abortion can't be reconciled.

Nope Al, do your homework. The shape of something can even happen
in Madame Tussauds, doesent mean its a human. At week 12 there is
no functioning and developed brain, just lots of dividing cells.
Its not a person, end of story.

You have no idea why a man leaves, or a woman leaves a marriage.
Lots of things can come into play. Some people are better court
actors then others, etc. Why are you tying up money with blame?
They are separate issues. Marriage is not a business and it should not be. The fact that no more private investigators are hired and
no more dirt upon dirt is aired in court, is a positive thing IMHO.

My dismissal of Fatima holds up completely. I've been here in dry heat, we've had a thunderstorm with rain, its all gone in a few minutes. No miracle at all. There is a thing in science which basically states that the greater the claim, the greater the evidence required. If you think there is a god, fine, let him provide the whole world with clear unquestioning evidence, its never happenened. But lots of gullible and deluded people are common.
Go to any mental asylum and you have 3-4 new versions of Jesus a day...

What I am saying is either let nature take its course or don't.
If you interfere with nature to preserve life as we do, ok. Then
accept that we also interfere with nature regards pregnancy etc.

I accept the laws of nature. I accept how there is a balance.
If we interfere in one sphere, we should also interfere in the other, or the whole thing is out of balance. If you understand biology a bit, you'll also understand how that will eventually lead to the collapse of humanity in the end. I also understand that you are not a biologist and believe in a gods plan etc, so its harder
to discuss these points.

To all posters, and Graham and all OLO Directors and staff, have a safe, happy and relaxing Christmas. Maybe we'll box on in 2006.

Yabby, Give the kid a chance! You can't expect his/her brain to be fully functioning at 12 weks. But is it is developing, and has divided into the three sections it will have as an adult. We are talking about a tiny human life, programmed to grow into an adult human over a period of years. What right have you or anyone to cut short that process and deny completion of that program? If you can't see the difference between this and a Madam Tassaud waxwork, you are no biologist yourself.

Divorce: If your wife left you with a couple of childen to move in with another man, would you be happy to sell the home etc and split it 50-50 with her? Then have to find alternative accommodation and rear the kids alone? I doubt it.

Fatima: It wasn't just a sudden thunderstorm as you describe. It had been pouring for hours, and the ground and people's clothes were saturated.
The Miracle only lasted a matter of minutes. This sudden drying of the ground and clothes can't be explained in natural terms. The atheists like yourself who came to jeer were just as impressed as everyone else, maybe more so. You say it was a delusion. Who could delude 70,000 people at once, including these sceptics? I mentioned earlier that it was only seen in the local region. This extended to about 25 miles away, which makes delusion even more unlikely.

Interfering with Nature: There is a great difference between interfering to save a life and interfering to take a life. No need to have a Biology Degree to see that By the way, do you actually have a Degree in Biology?

Al its not for me to do anything. Most women could create about 400 little human organisms in their lifetime, fact is they can't keep them all. Raising kids is more then having them. They need to be fed and clothed for 20 years, an education provided etc. So women should decide when and how many of the 400 they want to keep and raise.
All could be cute...

This whole nonsense comes from Catholic dogma, that because God killed Onan for wasting little sperms... sheesh... are they holy too?

Divorce: I actually put a submission to a Royal Commission years ago, that on divorce all jointly accumulated assets should be split 50/50. The non custodial parent should then pay alimony.

Fatima: No doubt the town has made a fortune from all this, as the village of Loch Ness has made a fortune from Nessie. All the villagers of Loch Ness will tell you that Nessie is real...
Al you really need to learn about being skeptical a little more.

Nature is nature Al. If you don't interfere one way because you claims its gods law, then you have to be consistant. Even smart guys like Paul Collins understand the sustainability problem, which the Catholic Church refuses to address.

Your memtion of "400 little organisms" is something of a red herring. You should be talking about "32" which is about the absolute number of pregnancies a woman is likely to have in a lifetime say from 15 to 45 years of age. which would b about 32.

Of course children need to be cared for until they can "leave the nest" and that includes the time they are growing in the mother's womb.

I still don't agree with you view on divorce, an even split between the parties regardless of circumstances, and far too many avoid paying child support and seem to get away with it.

True there is commercialism in Fatima. Where do you draw the line between visitors wanting a souvenier and exploitation? There is no comparison between "nessie" and the Miracle of The Sun on October 13, 1917. Only a handful of people claim to have seen Nessie. At Fatima, 70,000 people of various persuasions including militant atheists like yourself witnessed it, and their reports were even published in the Government newspapers O Seculo and O Dia, both anti-religious.

I am being consistent, on the side of preserving life, [born and unborn] by opposing abortion, and supporting medical treatments which will save lives. You are concerned with reducing the planet's population by abortion and letting people die for lack of treatment.

I haven't seen Paul Collins on TV for some time, but if he is a smart guy, it must have happened since he was last on TV at my place.

Read my post again Al. I say most women "could create 400 etc" which is true.You don't seem to understand the difference between an organism and a baby. 50'000 miscarriages a year occur, natures own abortion.
Ova not used, are flushed down the toilet... there goes potential life. Thats nature for you, exactly as Darwin stated.

If paying child support is a problem, that can be dealt with. They have certainly clamped down on that.

Fatima, alot of people have made alot of money out of Fatima, no need to add to that really.

I am concerned with the world being a sustainable place for future generations Al. What the Catholic Church is doing is trying to go against Natures laws, that is bound to fail. I am more concerned with concious pain and suffering here and now, by concious, thinking people and other species, then I am about what % of organisms get flushed down lifes toilet. According to the Catholics, every sperm
is holy. Rubbish!

Paul Collins has written a number of books. Your ABC shop should be able to provide you with a more thoughtful philosophy, then what the Vatican can provide.