To me, one of the frightening things about this is not only the issue of abortion (my views about this already known to regular posters) but the idea that the Health Minister can decide at his own discretion without any debate which procedures qualify and which do not is of major concern. Kate Mannix is right. It is undemocratic.

This also potentially means that everything is up for grabs: hip replacements (last time I checked, hip replacements weren't "elective" either, no one just decides they "would like a new hip"), cataract surgery, heart bypass...we should be rightly concerned that abortion procedures are at threat by this type of legislation, but we should also be looking for Medicare numbers that cover any medical procedure any of us or our family might reasonably need at some point.

Just as this is an issue about the rich having access to terminations and the poor not having access (which it might be argued is already the case in New South Wales), imagine if this idea was applied across the board to a much wider range of surgeries.

To my mind, the logic behind the private health insurance system is to take the pressure off the public system, although what it seems to do is ensure that some people get treatment quickly while others do not. This legislation only exacerbates this issue by potentially making health provision even less equitable.

This is a HUGE issue that must be debated.

Kate Mannix appears to know very little, or is completely lying about, Catholic thoughts on abortion. Her little online group of malcontents dissemenate apostasy and pass it off as 'refomer open mindedness'. The Catholic church has always opposed abortion, and I would recommend 'Evangelium Vitae' for those who think otherwise.

I'm not happy with the Health Legislation Bill either. We need a Health Bill that fully bans the public funding of abortion. We need the states to make abortion a criminal procedure. Quite frankly it doesn't matter what kind of tyranny the 'majority' wants to impose on the vulnerable. If 51% of Australians thought it was a good idea to put detainees into slave labor for the state, then would we do that under the guise of democratic governance? Human rights are above the whims of masses of people, whose opinions on abortion have been manipulated by ouright liars like Mannix (an ironic name for someone shouting heresies in Australia). Everyone has the right to life, and abortion kills babies.

Dangerous waters ahead; here be dragons methinks.

I am not a big fan of the concept of abortion. The arguements revolve around the rights of the women and her body - throw in the belief in some circles that the aborted fetus is a life and emotions run ragged.

A lot of energy was once invested in determining when life began. In spite of the best science it satill remians pretty much an act of faith what one believes.

If there is still debate about when life begins we'd be better off declaring that we dont care if it is a life or not - the tumor in my uterus represents an over bearing inconvenience and needs to be gotten rid of - there is some honesty in such an approach.

What is also over looked is the bind women find themselves in after the abortion - procured or natural there is often a sense of unresolved grief are not warned about;- externally imposed guilt is partly to blame but so to is what seems to be a tragic ambivalence in many - not all women when it comes to aborting a fetus.

I do not for a moment think that the democratic nature or otherwise of this Bill amounts to a hill of beans.

What the 'right to lifers' seem to always miss is that the problem doesn't end with birth, unlike abortion where it is all over and there is no 'product' to be cared for by either an unwilling mother or an unwilling state.
VERY rarely is the willing FATHER in the picture.

Hooray - you saved a life so it can suffer for the next 80 years, more than likely making those around it suffer also. Well done.

While I think it is unfortunate that men can't have more of a say, until they step up and have more of a responsibility then it simply must be that the person who stands to lose physical health and earning potential must have the final say.

To the crazy person suggesting that abortion be criminalised - what would you suggest people do - stop having sex?
Accidents *will* always happen because contraception is not fool proof and surely you are not advocating orphanages and adoption to deal with these unwanted children. Now THAT would truely be tragic.
Bring on that underclass of parent-less slaves mentioned by a previous poster! I'll keep one in the space under the stairs....

I do agree that whether the 'product of conception' is 'alive' or not matters little to someone considering an abortion. Honestly, it comes down to a stitch in time saves nine....one hour of procedure to save a lifetime being ruined by the responsibility for an unwanted child which once here, can't be gotten rid of so easily.

Also - I have had close experience with both modes of dealing with unwanted pregnancy and I can tell you - abortion weighs on my mind a LOT less than the child ditched on someone elses charity.

It is absolute clap trap that women have all this 'unresolved guilt' over abortion - it's just not true - the number one feeling of women post abortion is overwhelming releif.
I think men who can't understand why a woman doesn't want to hand over her body to ravishing changes and a lifetime of servitude made that one up.

Three recent articles on OLO about abortion. This one, another by Snator Natasha Stott Despoja, and the third by Leslie Cannold

In not one article has the author mentioned if the abortion rate is too high, not one has mentioned ways of reducing the abortion rate or the rate of unwanted pregnancy, not one has mentioned adoption or contraception, and of course not one has ever mentioned the father.

Overall, one has to suspect that these authors consider the rate of unwanted pregnancy and the rate of abortion to be acceptable, (or they can’t think of ways to reduce it).

Abortion is often related to family (via such terms as ”family planning”), but what is mysteriously missing is the term “best interests of the child”. It appears that “the best interests of the mother” is the main factor, with about 90% of abortions being deemed “convenience” abortions, where the pregnancy is not deemed to be seriously affecting the health of the mother, but only an inconvenience to her.

Perhaps “the best interests of the child” is only used if the mother decides to keep the child, (and does not want to adopt the child out), and then the mother wants the father to pay her money. The term “the best interests of the child” is rarely used if the mother decides to “terminate” the pregnancy. How ethical and moral.

But certainly more statistics should be kept on abortion. The Medicare numbering system for abortion means that even the number of publicly funded abortions being carried out is not accurately known. But the taxpayer has a right to know how their money is being spent, and the public also has a right to better knowledge about the nature of abortion in Australia, and that can only come from collecting better statistics.

Perhaps with better statistics, there would be better solutions put forward to reduce the amount of unwanted pregnancy and abortion, if that is what abortion advocates really want (but somehow I keep thinking that they don’t)

A good start would be allowing people surgical sterilisation when they asked for it, not only after X number of children or a drawn out fight - but that's asking doctors to let some of that power slip and admit people might just know their own minds.

The thing with a lot of these arguments here is that, Timkins, you want the father involved but your language squarely lays the 'blame' for being pregnant at the feet of the victim of the pregnancy - the female. How come?
They've had a male contraceptive pill 'in the wings' for some time but I've yet to meet a man who would take it - the almighty penis is too precious to be mucked about with taking hormones! ...yet Viagra made it through approvals in something like two months...

S0 - it DOES take two to tango - but it seems like only one suffers for it.

I would like to hear YOUR solution to reducing unwanted pregnancy, Timkins (although that's probably all you were waiting for - an open invitation to crap on.....)I think it's actually what we should be doing, it's just that when this topic comes up people seem to lose their grip on reality and start talking about abstinence - which we all know is the shortcut to perversion and madness.

P.S - Your solution better not include going to church either....