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.