Monday, February 06, 2006

Gillard challenges minister's abortion claims courtesy Sydney Morning Herald.

So tired of Tony Abbot's whingey-whingey-I-know-what's-best-for-women-in-the-country-even-though-I'm-not-a-woman-and-don't-live-in-a-rural-area thing when it comes to the RU486 abortion drug.

Nothing like claiming that allowing doctors to use it would cause a "black market" in the drug to try to create some anti-RU486 hype, without considering that continuing the ban on it would actually be far more likely to encourage a black market where it's used in dangerous, non-doctor-supervised ways. Oh, and that if Australia is populated by unscrupulous doctors who'll peddle this drug, as according to Mr Abbot it is, shouldn't there be something done about that ASAP..?

So thank goodness Julia Gillard has made some sensible comments about the whole thing (when will she be Labor leader PLEASE!?). Doctors are not encouraging women to have abortions willy-nilly, so it's highly unlikely that it will change if RU486 were to become available.

Why shouldn't the Therapeutic Goods Administration handle the RU486 matter, like they do with all other drugs? What makes Tony Abbot god on this matter? I mean, ibuprofen, found in many painkillers, increases your risk of having a miscarriage and that's available in all kinds of forms in supermarkets around the country.

Hopefully the politicians doing the "conscience vote" later in the week on the matter will think reasonably about it and see that it's something for the TGA to decide about.

2 comments:

Odysseus Snelling said...

*With shocked inflection to voice*
But don't you realise that using RU486 is much more dangerous than having some random guy, who isn't a doctor, stick a mangled coat-hanger where it don't belong (and where it wouldn't have to go if you'd just listened to the ABSTINENCE ONLY sex-ed class you recieved in your "WE WANT TO HAVE AMERICA's LOVE CHILD" school!)

On a more serious note: Of course Abbott is the god when it comes to abortion. Don't you remember that Pro-Life publicity stunt he pulled last year (the one which was reported with much gusto when he thought he'd found the child given up for adoption, but that was almost completely ignored by the media when paternity test proved he was, chalk another one up for the Liberal party, lying to Australia). Because his girlfriend didn't have an abortion in like the 70's, he's clearly completely up to date (well, more so than his collegues) on the issue and has intimate knowledge!

Della said...

Yes... at least we know from that that Mr Abbot has had sex within the past 40 years... *shudder*

Now pass that coat-hanger over so I can gouge my eyes out to that mental image! :-p