So now we can murder babies easier?

I must say I totally agree with Sen. Allison, and totally disagree with the comment by DLC. Women should have the right to make choices about their own bodies and whether or not they want to be pregnant. I find the arguments about pregnancy being "natural" spurious and arguments about the sanctity of life to be ludicrous.

Too much of the discussion is ideological. The decisions about termination of a pregnancy should be made exclusively by those most closely involved.

As for questioning pregnancy being "natural", I mean that the body has to work against itself to stop the rejection of something that does not have the same DNA. That is a particular stress on the body that can result in the forms of sickness, up to and including fatal illness, that can accompany pregnancy.

Let the woman, and her closest medical advisors decide.

Keep the religious right and the ideologues out of trying to run other people's lives.

2 Articles discussing access to a drug for abortion. Great, good lets discuss
But wait we have the already “Pro-choice” accusing “Right to Lifers” of quashing women right to control their body, Right to life saying its murder etc etc etc.

I am going to start another lobby group called the “Take Educated responsibility”. I will be using the oft-neglected philosophy of you take responsibility for your actions.
What is behind this new lobby group…….

Well I am all for giving access to best medical care to women who are pregnant and want an abortion. Especially if the pregnancy is a result of rape, incest, there is extreme danger to the woman and all necessary precautions were taken but still failed to stop the pregnancy.

However a person who has a one night stand and falls pregnant after using NO contraception. The pro choice started at deciding to have sex. Should we “condemn” (could not think of another word) the woman to an unwanted pregnancy. Probably not, but what a shame. The emotional and physical impact will be there.

What about pushing contraceptive education even harder. When was the last article discussing increased and better education. From what I saw out of the thousands of abortions each year only a small proportion (1%) is a result of incest rape etc. The rest are in what I would see as pro-choice category. That is shocking if right? The pill is known to be NOT 100% effective. Do people know that? Shouldn’t the pill and condom be used at the same time. Other options? Stopping unwanted pregnancy first and foremost is a win-win for the Pro choice and Pro Life.

So Senator Lyn Allison, Democrat spokesperson on health and incoming Democrat Leader you can continue pushing for this drug but unless you start discussing another issue it just shows your shallow thinking and looking for political point scoring”.

For the sake of clarity, I would like point out a discrepancy between Lyn Allison’s article on RU486 and my own.

Lyn Allison stated that 99 percent of women have no adverse reaction to this drug. I claimed US trials showed 99 percent did have an adverse reaction.

I invite readers to have a look at the FDA website on RU486 http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/mifepristone/mifepristone_historical.htm

If you click on the “Mifepristone Label” pdf and look through the document you’ll read: “Nearly all the women who receive Mifeprex and misoprostol will report adverse reactions, and many can expect to report more than one such reaction” (p11)

Furthermore, the FDA’s Medical Officer’s Review on this drug states that 99 percent had an adverse reaction. The reference for this is:

FDA “Medical Officer’s Review of Amendments 024 and 033: Final Reports for the US Clinical Trials Inducing Abortion up to 63 days Gestational Age and Complete Responses Regarding Distribution System and Phase 4 Commitments” Appendix A at 11.

jimoctec: I am in fact an atheist, but I hold human life in the highest regard. I don’t care about arguments saying that pregnancy is natural; such things do not concern me.

What does concern me is that we as a society allow humans to kill other humans for the horrid crime of existing. As far as I am concerned, the act of voluntary conception is an implied contract that you will allow the baby to occupy a place in your womb until it has reached its full term. After that point, you can give the baby up for adoption for all I care.

i am assuming you are a man DLC, because you show absolutely no understanding of what it is to be pregnant. Those nine months produce enormous and often irreversible changes to a woman's body, and in many cases adoption can be more traumatic than abortion. By saying a woman is obliged to carry a foetus to term makes her a prisoner in her own body. And is it just the woman who is under this 'contractual obligation' towards the foetus, or should the man also be forced to support the woman while she is pregnant and unable to work? Because it would be patently unfair to burden only one of the people who participated in the 'voluntary conception'.

I am pro-choice, but i also agree with many that the current level of abortion is too high, and like Big Fish i think pro-choice and anti-choice people should have common ground in desiring a decrease in unwanted pregnancies. I think the answer is in education and the promotion of contraception- we should try and emulate the policies of the scandinavian countries who have low levels of teenage pregnancies and abortions. But i would always advocate that women deserve a choice because of things such as contraception failure, and seeing as abortion is legal in this country, it makes no sense to have RU486 banned if the medical community believes it to be safe.

Well, there we have it folks - the Australian Democrats still exist. I was starting to wonder though because there has not been a peep out of them since the last election.

Sightings of them were rarer than Big Foot.

But then Lyn Allison and Andrew Bartlett pop up with articles on OLO within days of each other.

t.u.s

The article seems pretty sound to me.
However, I must say that it would be good if people were given a bit of encouragement to minimise risks that might bring on medical intervention:
Why should our taxes be syphoned off to provide medical expenses for people with health problems because they insisted on smoking?
Or for people who developed diabetes and a host of other associated complaints, basically because they wilfully disregarded an appropriate diet, and also neglected exercise?
Or for those undoubted risk-takers, bunjee-jumpers and jockeys in horse-races?
If we are going to be niggardly, why single out one small element of the risk-taking horde?

Thank you for giving me the chance to sign the petition.

As for side effects, nothing I have done in my reproductive life is without them; sex, pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, abortion, the pill, condoms, IUDs, you name it, they've all had side effects or consequences. I kind of take that as part of being a woman with a sex life. I believe even celibacy has side effects. And life itself is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.

Good article. It is ludicrous Australian women are denied access to this relatively safe alternative.

I read through that link provided. It said that 96% of the participants in the trials experianced cramps.... Er... so what? Most women I know experiance that once a month, so its hardly a big deal, or a reason to continue this foolish ban!

I support Lyn Allison's call for mifepristone to be made available in Australia. If Australians are serious about getting most value for our medical dollar then we need to use mifepristone instead of abortions where practicable.

As glaucoma causes destruction of the optic nerve and results in blindness I find it totally wicked that Senator Brian Harradine was able to foist his views on Australian legislation and deprive Australians access to cheap proven medical care.

Women who are desperate to rid a foetus will try gin, rue, metal coathangers. Do women in rural Australia need the added expense of travelling to a capital city to procure an abortion? Or is every foetus important enough for the grateful Australian tax payer to provide adequate single parent pension, child endowment and funding to public schools to allow the child to grow up in decent frugal comfort. If not, then rethink your opposition to family planning whether it occurs pre conception or just after conception!

We argue about this as Howard legislates our labour laws and democracy down the drain.

Howard is really trying to return us to the 1950's when women's place was in the home, bad luck if the husband died, was a wastrel or beat her up, so long as she kept smiling and popping out kids that was all that was required.

Yes let's legalise Mifepristone.

The awesome thing is Mifepristone can be used in more than one way. For those mothers who go through full term pregnancy, only to find
that they don't feel mentally or physically prepared to have the baby, fear not! You can feed that baby Mifepristone until his inconvienient ass overdoses. Oops thats a bit harsh. I mean until that little parasite says sayanara. Hrmm..that didn't work. I mean until there is a successful termination.

Therefore I advocate infanticide being made legal on the grounds that it protects the mothers pyschological and physical well being. Because it is her life, and it is her right to choose.

Justin no woman today would submit her body to the rigours of pregnancy to just to let the baby die or have the baby adopted.

In a culture that worships the body beautiful, would you voluntarily submit your body to increased risk of tumor growth, incontinence, increased weight, increased cellulite, varicose veins.
Make no mistake abortion is safer than carry a full term pregnancy and using mifespristone is less stress on the body than abortion.

For the record I have no problem with infanticide when then baby is so disabled that it will be unable to have a normal life.

I am really offended by the army of do gooders who expect parents to look after seriously disabled children when these same do gooders are divorced parents. I have no problem with the state or society rearing these disabled children but truly annoyed that its your genetic material its your problem. God help us when we revert to user pays health care!

Best solution, make all male / female sex without a license illegal.

So it is moral to kill babies because it may result in your body looking a little worse? Are we so vain that was can justify murder for such reasons?

Ladies and Gentle men, if you decide to have sex without use of a condom or other easily available contraceptives then this is the price you pay! Don’t externalise your problems on the resulting baby!

DLC, the point, however, is that no matter the fact that men and women had a 50-50 split in creating the situation, it is only women whom suffer the consequences.

Perhaps you should do a little research into the possible complications of pregnancy and see if this seems like just 'losing your looks'.

Hmm, gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, piles, vomiting...

nevermind being ungainly for months, feet spreading, skeleton changing, hot flushes, food restrictions, stretch marks...

People abort because they do not want to go through this, and never signed up to it when they had sex, especially if they were using contraception, which MOST people do

Laurie, I would be interested since I find it hard to find data on this, Where does anyone find info on what proportion of abortions are for women who have used contraception but it fails? The only thing I find is that incest/rape/etc is a very very low proportion.

And I have heard (not confirmed), why do the Scandinavian countries have a lower incidence of abortion, do they use better contraception? Help appreciated.

I would ask if the failure rate is significant (small number but due to the consequences high impact) do we combat this by better education or using multiple contraceptives?

the lower incidence of abortion in the scandanavian countries is the result of a number of factors. firstly sex education begins at a young age and the sylabus is governemnt regulated and the same no matter what type of school. this has resulted in better and more effective use of contraceptives, and contrary to claims from various so called moral crusaders, has in fact resulted in a much lower incidence of teen promiscurity, with all the benefits such as lower pregnancy, lower abortion rate and lower rate of std infection. compare this to countrys which teach abstinence or very little sexe dd in school and the rates of all these things are much higher.

im trying to find a link to this information. will post it when i can.

DLC, using emotive language as you do, "murdering babies" is
exactly that, but not very factual. A zygote is not a baby,
its not a person either. When your brain stops, you are
no longer a person, if you havent got a functioning brain,
you are not a person either. Millions upon millions of
human eggs and sperm are flushed down toilets every night.
To pretend they are sacred, when two of those happen
to meet up, is IMHO ridiculous. Just because something
has become an organism, does not make it sacred.

That is a catholic defintion, no more. We need freedom
of religion, but we also need freedom from religion if we
so choose!

Big Fish- I don't have any 'official' data on this, only personal experiance, discussions with friends etc. Most pregnancies in my acquaintance, and most 'scares', come while using the pill and/or condoms.

Unfortunately, taking antibiotics for an ear infection or similar will disrupt the way the pill works (or vomiting, or getting diarroea), for up to a month- if your doctor does not specifically mention it, most people I know simply forget about this effect... after taking the pill for months on end, it is such a routine, like brushing your teeth, that you forget that it might not be entirely effective.

And condoms sometimes break, or slip off on withdrawl...

Like I said, no official stats, but my experiance is that most people ARE being careful when they accidently get preganant.

Big Fish and Laurie,

According to the Democrats website, 'more than half' of women presenting for abortion were using contraception at the time they became pregnant.

http://www.democrats.org.au/docs/2005/abortionmyths.pdf
This correlates with the impression I have gained sifting through various abortion data; around half of women seeking abortion were using contraception at the time.

If even 30-40% of women were not using contraception at the time of conception, it suggests to me a great hope for empowering more women to avoid unplanned pregnancies.

In my opinion, the discussion would be far more productive by focusing on how to reduce the rate of unplanned pregnancies and support women facing an unplanned pregnancy, rather than enter the fray on whether or not, or why, abortions should or shouldn't be legal. Otherwise it ends up being a ping-pong exercise in rhetoric and emotion where both sides are abused, offended and demonised, and winning the debate becomes the most important thing, rather than helping women who are facing a crisis point in their lives.

Yes, discussions on the humanity of the foetus are utterly important; yes, speaking out for human beings without a voice is vital. However, whether we believe in the sanctity of human life from conception - or not - will not *in itself* prevent women from finding themselves facing a personal crisis and an unplanned pregnancy.

What we believe to be morally 'right' or 'wrong' are highly important and highly personal beliefs that are of immense value to us personally, but fail to translate in a public discussion over how we can best proceed in reducing the rate at which women are faced with unplanned pregnancies, or how we can support those who are.

It would seem to be that RU486, if made available across the counter, would basically abolish the need for all other forms of contraception. After all, why use reventative measures, such as the oral contraceptive pill, IUDs, implants and the like, all of which have side effects, when simply taking a medication at the first sign of pregnancy would solve any other difficulties.

That would leave the barrier methods as being necessary only for disease prevention.

It would also mean that termnation clinics would be put out of business.

In regard to lower pregnancy rates in some European countries, maybe this will help:
http://www.clothesfree.com/pregnancy.html

If Senator Allison's latest scramble for votes does not work, she would always be welcomed in the Drug Rep world. A drug that is 99% safe ... they all start their life this way. Do we recall Vioxx having a very short life span.
Mifepristone, may have many promising 'other' uses, but thats akin to importing whipper-snippers to 'power my pushbike'. We're talking about importing 'medical abortion'. Bound to be taken up by a medical community that can become further removed from the hands-on process, after all we acknowledge it's not pleasant business.
I quote from the Medical Observer (23/9/05) Dr Edith Weisberg "In a study we undertook some years ago of more than 2000 women seeking abortion in NSW, 49% stated they were using a method of contraception at the time they conceived."
A point of contention, no contraceptive-based sex education program has ever reduced the teen pregnancy rate. Similarly, at my last search, no case studies of antibiotic-induced pregnancy has ever been reported. Although theoretically the 'threat' exists.
Mifepristone is moving in to cover up the dismal statistics associated with modern contraception.

Dr Mac
I was just making a point as to the natural progression of the logic being argued, using sarcasm. As you see in the subsequent post, sand beneath toes actually believes infanticide should be legalised.

Some questions Tony Abbott should respond to:

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

A couple of articles for those who do not know the history of this medication and what it does:

ABORTION PILL, OR SOMETHING MORE? THE FIRESTORM OVER THE ABORTION DRUG RU-486 HAS HAMPERED U.S. SCIENTISTS WHO WOULD TEST IT TO FIGHT CANCER AND OTHER CONDITIONS. NORFOLK SCIENTIST GARY D. HODGEN HOPES TO SEE MAJOR STUDIES ON RU-486 ONCE THE FDA APPROVES IT.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1996/vp960811/08110065.htm

RU-486 Explained
by Heather Guidone
http://www.insiderreports.com/storypage.asp_Q_ChanID_E_HQ_A_StoryID_E_20001536

Felix good questions. Devils advocate. I suppose if the woman decided to continue with the pregnancy then her CHOICE means I think not. Also if she decides to have unprotected sex again probably not. CHOICE is a hard thing.

I note that men are not expected to "jump through hoops" if they make a decision to take viagra or have a vasectomy. They have the right to make up their own mind without being hindered and are considered intelligent enough to be able to make their own decisions. Not so for women, apparently they need to be guided by men such as Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce.

Oh Please!!

I understand this argument had ended a few months ago, Although I am still very passionate about the subject as I know many women are.
It has been a strange argument that has reminded as all of abortion.
I think what everyone is forgetting that it is not an argument of abortion. That was finnalised awhile ago (exact date unaware) and is legalised in Australia. The debate is about RU486 and whether is should be introduced. As a female in our community I am concerned about the rate of abortions in Australia and concerned with the social issues around them. But aslong as abortions are being used I would prefer a women to have the option of a less invasive procedure. RU486 carries just as much risk as a surgical abortion, as any procedure to this extent would. Judging the unkown circustances of why women would have an abortion it is not our business. It is our business though to extensively control the environment it is carried out in and make it not as harmful, to maybe a future mother to be.
Invasive surgery can damage the uterus walls and cause future damage. Surgical procedure is invasive and surgical procedure is unnessary when other means are available.

My family wants to adopt anyone have any suggestion on where we might start, We want a private adoption,