Expanded, NOT Restricted, Abortion Options

Canada's lawless abortion regime rightfully stands as a beacon to progressive countries struggling to escape patriarchal attitudes to women's health and reproductive freedom.

But as we've noted recently (here and here), Australia has grabbed the patriarchal bull by the RU486 (aka 'home abortion pill') horns.

Pioneered by Dr Caroline de Costa, the medication is set to be added to Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory list, which would lower the cost from $300-400 to $36 for woman who can pay and $12 for women on benefits.

(For those interested, there is -- of course -- a political angle. When Tony Abbott, former seminarian nicknamed the Mad Monk, was Minister of Health in a previous government, he fought tooth and nail to keep RU486 out of the country. Now that he is Liberal leader of the opposition, feminists and pro-choicers are dredging up that unsavory past to paint him in a light unfriendly to women.)

Meanwhile, in Canada, RU486, or mifepristone, remains unapproved by Health Canada.

In fact, the most recent reference I can find to it in medical literature is a paper from 2005 by Jennifer LaLiberté.

Mifepristone has been around for more than 20 years. It is considered to be very safe and is the preferred method of medical abortion in many countries, most notably France.

Use of mifepristone (Mifeprex®) has been associated with fewer deaths than Tylenol or Viagra, and is safer than full term pregnancy.

Antis love to cite the rare instances of complications and really really love to cite the ickyness of the process. In fact, some like Big Nursie Stanek, absolutely revel in descriptions of cramps, bleeding, and pain.

But, frankly, only people who believe women's reproductive organs mirror Barbie's smooth plastic parts, think that being female is all sugar and spice.

Who among us hasn't has a narsty bloody crampy period and wondered just what was happening? Is this a miscarriage, we wonder? We don't know, do we? We just deal with it.

Today, on March of the Feti Day, as hundreds (of bussed-in Catholic schoolchildren) gather on Parliament Hill to shriek abuse and hatred at women, it seems appropriate to ask: just what the hell is going on with RU486 in Canada?

It has many benefits: safety, lower complication rates than other medical abortions, privacy, and -- in particular -- cost. In a universal healthcare system, it is the duty of policy makers to satisfy patients while minimizing cost.

A recent news story about Health Canada may shed some light on our federal health regulatory body.

In mid-April this year, there was a badly bungled recall of birth control pills.

Apotex, the maker, discovered that some lots of pills contained not one week of sugar-pills (included to insure that women take a pill every day) but TWO weeks, significantly raising the chances of unintended pregnancy in women who thought they had that covered.

Apotex informed Health Canada of the problem last Thursday. However, Health Canada and Apotex failed to inform the general public of the problem until last Monday, nearly a week after the problem was first identified. A Health Canada spokeswoman explained that an urgent recall was not issued immediately because the problem with the pill was not considered life-or-death. Instead, the department and Apotex issued a “Class II” recall, reserved for products that may cause temporary health issues, or where the probability of a serious health impact is low.

In other words, risk of accidental pregnancy was not deemed serious enough to trigger an urgent product recall.

The department upgraded the recall on Monday to a Class I recall after realizing some women who shouldn’t become pregnant for medical reasons could be affected.

Health Canada spokeswoman Blossom Leung said in an e-mail the recall assessment takes health impacts into account, not “lifestyle impacts” such as unplanned pregnancy, which is why the urgent product recall was only issued Monday.

A department that considers an unplanned pregnancy a 'lifestyle impact' and not, for some women, a devastating health risk, is -- one might say -- a tad tone-deaf to the reproductive needs of Canadian women.

And we're not the only ones wondering what's up. Here, pharmacist and lawyer, John Griess, writing about OxyContin compares the US FDA's approach to Health Canada's. The FDA would not approve a generic form of OxyContin, considered to be hella more dangerous to addicts than the reformulated version, while Health Canada saw no problemo with it.

Health Canada’s focus on bioequivalence with no mention of its duty to “protect the public by minimizing risks” highlights the difference between the two organizations, and indicates why clinicians and Canadians should be concerned about what’s going on at Health Canada.

So, as fetus fetishists stomp their widdle feet on Parliament Hill today, we ask: What is Health Canada doing to provide Canadian women and families with the widest possible choice of legal, safe, preferred, and cost-effective medications to terminate pregnancy?

After all, isn't that the most rational (i.e. non-religious) argument fetus fetishists have? That they don't want to pay for 'lifestyle issues' of slutty women?

Seems Health Canada doesn't want to either, even at a greatly reduced cost to taxpayers.

We at DJ! suggest that women raise the issue with their doctors and OB/GYNs. Also, we should inform ourselves about the safety and efficacy of mifepristone. We will need to counter the lies of the antis if/when this issue ever comes up in Canada.

ADDED: Gail of ROAR in PEI has some trenchant thoughts.

ADDED: Jarrah of Gender Focus adds her thoughts. There is no reason this is not available to Canadian women.

Home Abortion: Quick and Cheap

Fetus fetishists really really hate medical abortion.

First, it's done very early -- up to 9 weeks -- so women can act quickly and get it over with.

It's private. One doesn't necessarily have to go to a special clinic. Any doctor can prescribe the pills. One can even buy them over the Internet to get around idiotic laws.

It's safe and effective.

And it's cheaper than surgical abortion, but still quite a lot of dough to find on short notice.

For all those reasons, zygote zealot are pushing hard to demonize and/or place unnecessary restrictions on the procedure.

Today, there are three stories about medical abortion.

From Prince Edward Island, which anti-choicers like to style as 'North America's lone life sanctuary' because no abortions are done there, comes a story of -- SHRIEEEEEK!-- a woman who had a medical abortion right there in the green little sanctuary.

She found a doctor who wrote the prescription.

So, while the Fetus Lobby is working to out the damn doctor (PEI is a pretty small place after all), the provincial health authority shows no interest in it.

Richard Wedge, acting CEO of Health PEI, said the agency does not track this kind of procedure in the province, but he believes it is uncommon.

"I'm not aware of actually any physicians that are actively promoting this kind of treatment," said Wedge.

"It's quite likely that somebody could learn about it, keep the medications in their office or provide prescriptions for women to go to the stores, but we don't track it and we don't have any organized clinic for medical abortions."

(By the way, there's a poll at that last link, now running 86% in favour of both surgical and medical abortions being done on the Island.)

In Ireland, where the Catlick church is having paroxysms over the possible loosening of abortion law in the case of imminent death of the woman, there comes this sad, infuriating tale.

In fact, Claire’s dire financial situation is such that, having decided to end her pregnancy, she quickly discovered that she couldn’t afford the €1,000 cost of travelling to the UK to get one. The only other option for previous generations would have been a backstreet abortion but Claire searched online for a website from which she could buy drugs to induce a medical abortion, and stumbled across a website of a non-profit group that offers assistance to women in countries where abortion is illegal. Completing the online consultation, which is then forwarded to a licensed doctor who makes a decision about whether the drugs (which can only be taken up to nine weeks’ gestation) are a suitable treatment, Claire encountered another problem.

The website no longer posts drugs to Ireland because of the number of seizures by customs officials. Instead, women are advised to have the drugs sent to nearby jurisdictions where they can be collected.

Claire, who was seven weeks’ pregnant, ordered the drugs for €100 [$135 CAD] and had them sent to the North. She collected them on Wednesday and took them at home the next day.

“I felt awful for about three hours — severe cramp and nausea — but then it was over and I felt instant relief,” she said.

Yup. Officials in Ireland go through the mail to seize drugs.

In 2009, 1,216 tablets were discovered while this figure dropped to 671 tablets in 2010 and 635 in 2011, although it remains unclear if this fall coincided with the decision of the website to stop delivering to Ireland.

That price seems pretty reasonable. In the US, Planned Parenthood says costs range from $300 to $800. That would include consultation and after-care, but still, rather a lot.

So, the Fetus Lobby will go nuts if this proposal in Australia is successful.

The federal government will consider subsidising controversial abortion drugs - allowing women to end pregnancies for as little as $12 [$12 CAD].
. . .
Reproductive health group Marie Stopes International Australia has lodged an application with the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) Advisory Committee in the hope the drugs will become taxpayer funded.

Only 187 authorised medical clinics were approved to distribute the two drugs, and campaigners claim the current $300 cost has been prohibitive for many women on lower incomes seeking a non-surgical abortion.

Twelve bucks.

SHRIEEEEEEK!

Image source.

More on stripping women . . .

Speaking of forcibly stripping women. . .

Sheema Khan writes eloquently about this week's Bright Shiny Thing -- barring niqab-wearing women from taking the Canadian citizenship oath.

She winds up with an anecdote that some may not have heard.

Inas Kadri had her niqab torn off by a woman in a Mississauga mall in the summer of 2010. The incident did not shake her faith in Canada. Rather, she re-evaluated her role as a citizen: “Living with people in this society, I think I should work harder to educate people about my religion.” Fellow niqabi Sana Mutawi summed it up best: “We want our kids to be brought up in an understanding community, so they will be good citizens.”

Hate the niqab all you want. But banning it is not a Canadian value.

More than that, banning something helps to demonize the custom or the wearers, enabling pointless violence in suburban malls.

And speaking of pointless, spiteful violence. . .

OccupyMelbourne protesters had camped out in a park. Told that was against the law, a few cheeky buggers decided to wear their tents as clothing.

That was a bit much for the bully-boys. This happened on December 5. Watch.




Ban, demonize, harass, it's all good, when you are in charge of keeping the uppity [insert derogatory epithet] down.

It's time - marriage equality in Australia

Found this on Twitter. Sweet.

Added by fern hill: I'll see your ad with one from Ireland. I was sure I posted this before. It's from 2009.

Why is the Catlick Church so adamantly anti-abortion, anti-contraception?

Because they cut into its bottom line.

Today's shocker comes from Spain, but it's not at all a unique story.

What began as a trickle of revelation about General Francisco Franco’s ideological cleansing by taking children from their parents is now a fully engaged scandal in a country wracked by debt, unemployment and civil unrest. As many as 300,000 babies, Spaniards have been told, were wrested from their mothers between 1960 and 1989 by a network of doctors, midwives, priests and nuns who then sold them to infertile couples for huge sums.

The scandal emerged four years ago, when a dying father revealed to his son, Juan Luis Moreno, that he and a childhood friend, Antonio Barroso, had, in fact, been bought from a priest and a nun for about 200,000 pesetas each in 1969, money that could have bought a small flat. Pesetas were the Spanish currency until 2002.

Nobody knows for sure how many children — and parents — are living false lives. Nearly 1,000 lawsuits have been filed in courts ill-prepared to handle them. And with the scandal has come a stream of shocking details — tiny corpses kept in freezers as decoys to show grieving parents; nuns with million-dollar real estate holdings and caskets exhumed after decades found empty.

Same story in Australia with added misogynist glee -- torture.

More than 50 years have passed since Betty Mills was kept in solitary confinement and forced to give birth without medical help, but time has done nothing to erase the pain she was forced to endure in giving up her child because of her status as an unwed mother.

As a 21-year-old she was forced into a maternity home for six months where she was forbidden to have contact with other mothers and gave birth in a small bedroom alone and unassisted before having to relinquish the son she so dearly wanted to keep.

Her story of abuse and loss stayed a painful secret for decades but it has become a familiar story for the Senate Community Affairs Committee, which has been going through submissions for an inquiry into the Commonwealth's contribution to former forced adoption policies and practices.

The accounts received by the committee date from the 1950s to as recently as 1987.

The Australian Relinquishing Mothers Association has told the committee that many of its members had experienced being shackled or tied down, denied pain relief and told they must ''suffer for their sins'' at government- or church-run homes in Australia.

''As young and vulnerable women we found ourselves banished from our homes and communities because of a sense of shame,'' the group told the committee.

''Governments, churches, schools and employers all played their part in separating and isolating us from our families, peers, partners and support networks, reinforcing a sense of shame and the need for secrecy and causing severe emotional distress.''

ARMS said in a written submission that some mothers were never allowed to hold their babies and some could not even see them because a screen of pillows was put in front of them while they gave birth.

Others were wrongly told their children had not survived the birth when they were in fact alive.

In July this year, the Catlick Fucking Church actually apologized.

The Catholic Church in Australia has issued a national apology over past adoption practices that have been described as a "national disgrace".

The apology was prompted by an ABC investigation into claims of abuse and trauma in Newcastle.

It is believed at least 150,000 Australian women had their babies taken against their will by some churches and adoption agencies between the 1950s and 1970s.

Psychiatrist Geoff Rickarby has treated scores of affected women, and says it is a stain on Australia's history.

"It sounds like some totalitarian country somewhere hundreds of years ago, but in fact it's Australia only 35, 40 years ago," Dr Rickarby said.

But really, should we in Canada be surprised by lies, avarice, and child abuse by the Vatican Taliban?

Our national twist on the scheme was to label the children themselves defective.

Orphanages and schools were the financial responsibility of the provincial government but funding for mental institutions was provided by the government of Canada. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, in cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church which ran the orphanages, developed a scheme to obtain federal funding for thousands of children, most of whom had been "orphaned" through forced separation from their unwed mothers. In some cases the Catholic orphanages were re-labelled as health-care facilities and in other cases the children were shipped from orphanages to existing insane asylums. Years later, long after these institutions were closed, the children who had survived them and become adults began to speak out about the harsh treatment and sexual abuse they endured at the hands of the psychiatrists, Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and administrators.

Kinda funny, innit? We progressives are wringing our hands at the imminent prospect of becoming serfs in the new(ish) corporate feudalism. When, really, most of us have been mere incubators, sex toys, slaves, and commodities for centuries. Our owners have changed, that's all.


h/t for the story from Spain to Dr. Dawg

More on the Australian 'self-abortion' case

The bizarre Australian 'self-abortion case may be over, but its impact may be long lasting.

Queensland Council of Civil Liberties president Michael Cope said the jury had correctly represented society.

"[It was a] sensible decision by the jury," he said.

"It's always difficult to know what motivates a jury but I'm sure part of it was the common feeling that [Ms Leach and Mr Brennan] had been put through more than enough.

"One of the great things about juries is the history is that they have been prepared to deliver verdicts contrary to the law and this is what they have done in this case."

Canadian readers will immediately see the similarity to the trials of Dr Henry Morgentaler.

On June 1, 1970, Morgentaler was arrested in Montreal for performing illegal abortions. In 1972 he ran in the Federal Election in the riding of Saint-Denis as an independent, finishing fourth with 1,509 votes. Later in 1973 he claimed to have performed 5,000 illegal abortions. He was acquitted by a jury in the court case, but the acquittal was overturned by five judges on the Quebec Court of Appeal in 1974. He went to prison, appealed, and was again acquitted. In total, he served 10 months, suffering a heart attack while in solitary confinement. Morgentaler first went to the Supreme Court of Canada in an attempt to overturn the country's abortion law in Morgentaler v. The Queen but was unsuccessful.

In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted as part of the Canadian Constitution. Morgentaler was charged again in 1983 in Ontario for procuring illegal miscarriages. He was acquitted by a jury, but the verdict was reversed by the Court of Appeal for Ontario. The case was then sent to the Supreme Court of Canada. He was acquitted once again, and the Canadian Supreme Court declared the law he was convicted under to be in violation of the Charter and thus unconstitutional in the case of R. v. Morgentaler 1988 (1 S.C.R. 30). This ruling by Justice Brian Dickson essentially ended all statutory restrictions on abortion in Canada.

The over-reaching cops and prosecution in Oz may well come to regret the Pandora's box they've opened.

Bizarre 'Self-Abortion' Case Is Over

Remember the bizarre case of two young Australians charged with self-abortion back in April 2009?

They faced prison time, because abortion is illegal in Queensland unless women jump through various stooopid hoops. This pair found a way around the hoops and were charged under Queensland's 1900 -- yes, 1900 -- abortion law.

Yesterday, they were acquitted of all charges. The jury took less than an hour to decide the case was totally idiotic. (More background at the top link, but basically the partner, Sergie Brennan, procured abortion drugs, Tegan Leach took them, they worked as intended, and that was it.)

Until the cops got involved. As I wondered at the time, how the hell did this private matter come to the attention of the authorities? It appears the cops interviewed them on an 'unrelated matter' -- which turned out to be a murder case. They noticed the blister pack that had contained the pills.

As John Birmingham points out in today's Sydney Morning Herald:

The thing is, those cops didn't have to do anything with that blister pack. Cops ignore stuff like that every day. Experienced, humane police officers know that not every law needs to be enforced in every instance, because they understand the consequences of putting someone into the system can be far worse than letting them off with a warning.



I guess Tegan and Sergie didn't get that someone like that.

But it doesn't end with the cops. A case like this was always going to be political. And now, after the relief of the verdict and the eruption of righteous anger set to follow, it will be even more politicised. Of course, the criminal justice system isn't supposed to be political, but we live in the real world. At any number of points before this reached court somebody, somewhere in the system, had the authority to pull the case. The state decides not to proceed with criminal cases for any number of reasons every day of the year.

Perhaps that's what Anna Bligh [Premier of Queensland] and her faux progressive and enlightened government were hoping would happen. That somebody, somewhere in the system, would just make this go away. That they wouldn't actually have to act on those brave and difficult feminist principles they've doubtlessly been yammering on about since the first formation of their political consciousness - and which we heard so much about when this proud, proud feminist was elected Premier.

Anna Bligh is an interesting, if unpopular, figure in Aussie politics. Raised Catholic, she considered becoming a nun. Now, though, she's a 'proud, proud feminist'.

She has an odd way of showing it. Just a couple of days ago, she blocked a private member's bill by one her Labour colleagues aimed at finally decriminalizing abortion in the state.

Ms Bligh told the MP that there wasn't enough support for such a bill.

Odd, that. The Australian Reproductive Health Alliance cites a survey of attitudes from 2003 that showed 81.2% of Australians, regardless of gender or religion, agree that "women should have the right to choose an abortion".'

Seems abortion politics in Australia are as nutty as anywhere else.

But at least the insane ordeal is over for Tegan and Sergie.

Couple of Updates

I've been remiss. There have been developments in two stories I was following here at DJ!

First, the bizarre case of self-abortion in Australia. Some charges were dropped and I was hoping the rest would be too. But, sadly, no. The young couple will face trial at some unspecified date. They are out on bail.

Next, the very sad case of Harlan Drake, who shot and killed two men in Michigan, one of them -- to the delight of the pro-liars -- an anti-abortion zealot, is back in the news. A month ago, he had been found not competent to stand trial, and was sent to a psychiatric institution for treatment. Apparently, he has responded well. He has now been deemed competent.

The prosecutor says that a notice of insanity defense has been filed.

I want to hear his reasons, such as they might be given his disturbed state of mind, for shooting a gravel-pit owner and an anti-abortion nut.

The fetus fetishists are having parties in their pants anticipating any suggestion that the accused holds 'pro-abort' views. Because, you know, that would totally and absolutely even things up on the 'who's more violent than who?' debate.

Self-Abortion Case Update

The young couple whose arrest for self-abortion that sparked the current furore in Australia have made their first -- and hopefully, last -- court appearance.

One of the charges against the young man has been dropped. And the couple's lawyers are arguing that the rest of the charges should be dropped too. The judge has reserved her decision on whether they will go to trial.

Abortion in Australia is under state, not federal, jurisdiction. Abortion in the state in this case, Queensland, is illegal under a law written in 1900. Yes, you read that right, 1900.

But there are regulations that allow doctors to perform abortion under certain circumstances and they do. However, the case of this young couple called into question whether those regulations allow medical (i.e. drug-induced) abortion or just surgical abortion.

Many worried doctors and hospitals announced that they would no longer offer such abortions.

Queensland pols were in pickle. Some were calling for decriminalization of abortion. Some warned against opening the 'debate', fearing that fetus fetishists would snarl things up forfuckingever.

In a rush, legislators amended the code to extend the existing legal defence for surgical abortion to medical abortion.

One of the results was that the Premier, a woman, received threats against her children.

Well, we already knew that Australian fetus fetishists are just as capable of violence as the ones we are more familiar with. The young couple's house was firebombed when their arrest was made public.

But what none of these stories mentions is WTF led to the police search and subsequent charges in the first place.

I'm keeping an eye on it.

Another pregnant woman’s health endangered in Australia.

Cue the shrieeeking from Blob Blogging Wingnut and her fundamentalist christian acolytes who are willing to sacrifice women’s lives in order to Save The Fetus©™.

In Australia, one woman with the support of her loving family members, is a living (so far) example of the need to change the criminal laws that currently forbid physicians to intervene medically, even if their patient’s survival and her future capacity to bear children is threatened.

“The pregnant woman at the centre of Queensland's abortion law standoff is pinning her hopes on legislation being fast-tracked into state parliament to allay doctors' concerns about performing drug-induced terminations.

Shay, whose unborn child is so severely malformed as to have no prospect of survival, has been told the pregnancy must be aborted for the sake of her health.

But with medical abortion services suspended due to the impasse between doctors and the state government over the legality of the procedure, no hospital will admit her.

"This is not a moral issue, it is to save someone's health," her father, Gary, told The Australian.

"Everyone should get off their high horse and get my daughter into theatre. Every day that goes by is a day too long for her."

The predicament of 19 weeks pregnant Shay, 24, has added an intensely personal dimension to the legal and political imbroglio that erupted after police moved to prosecute a couple in Cairns for illegally procuring a medical abortion, prompting obstetricians to demand the scrapping of criminal sanctions on abortion.

The government will amend a section of the criminal code, exempting doctors from prosecution for performing otherwise illegal abortions, to cover recently developed medical techniques involving drugs such as RU486 and misoprostol.”

We have previously written about some of the tragedies that Australia’s archaic abortion laws have produced.

More anti-abortion violence, Oz-style

Those peace-loving, violence-abhoring anti-abortion zealots strike again.

THE couple charged with breaching Queensland's century-old abortion laws, triggering the first prosecution of its kind, have told of how they were firebombed out of their home near Cairns.

Sergie Brennan, 21, who is facing up to 14 years' jail for attempting to procure an abortion for his 19-year-old girlfriend, said their former home south of the city had been hit by a Molotov cocktail, and his car was vandalised in a separate attack.

"It was pretty bad," he said in his first interview since being charged with partner Tegan Simone Leach, who is accused of procuring her own miscarriage. "Everyone in Australia knew who we were, and where we lived."

Mr Brennan, a quietly spoken mechanic, said his girlfriend was "coping" now they had moved to a house with security cameras and dogs. "We are OK now because nobody knows where we live ... we just have to get through the court case," he said.

Mr Brennan said he had been told by his lawyer not to discuss the case, set down for committal proceedings in the Cairns Magistrates Court next month. But he said he and Ms Leach, who faces seven years' jail if convicted, were hopeful they would be cleared.

Some background here and here.

Meanwhile, Blob Blogging Wingnut continues to insist that women don't talk about their abortions because -- whatever the women themselves might say -- they are deeply wounded/shamed by them. Um. No. Many women don't talk about their abortion because they're afraid of the violent reactions whipped up by people like SUZY ALL-CAPS.

Self-abortion case gets weirder

Remember this bit of Australian idiocy?

Well, it gets stranger.

CAIRNS teenager Tegan Leach, facing up to seven years' jail under Queensland law for procuring her own abortion, came to the attention of police with her 21-year-old boyfriend during an unrelated murder hunt in the northern city.

It seems there was a MASSIVE (I can't use that word anymore without CAPS ;)) murder investigation going on, involving interviews with at least 200 potential informants. Somehow along the line -- police decline to be specific -- the illegal, self-induced abortion came to their attention.

Detective Senior Sergeant Ed Kimbacher would not reveal the source of the tip-off to police about the allegedly illegal abortion, but said the information that prompted police to raid the couple's Mount Sheridan home on March 30.

But what on earth -- other than commmon, or garden-variety panty-sniffing -- caused the cops to charge the young couple?

Meanwhile, allegedly, they have left their house after a fire-bomb was thrown at it and anti-abortion fundy nutbars stood outside and chanted 'abuse'. But noooooo, that wasn't the doing of the good, peaceful nutbars.

Teresa Martin, president of Cherish Life Queensland, yesterday distanced the group from any violence. . . . "If that was the case," she said, referring to Dr de Costa's uncorroborated claims of a firebombing, "certainly in no way shape or form would any of these people be members of Cherish Life."

Abortion is illegal in the state, unless women leap through various stooopid hoops, which this couple found a way around.

They both face prison sentences.

The case has renewed calls to decriminalize abortion as sensible and humane jurisdictions like Canada have done. It has also sparked stories about other Australian women taking matters into their own hands and getting the abortion drugs themselves.

Trial starts September 3. It'll be a corker.

Some good may come of this, but it's such a shame these young people have to be put through all this crap.

Australian Idiocy

How the hell did this come about?

Tegan Simone Leach, 19, is believed to be the first woman charged in Queensland in nearly 50 years for organising her own miscarriage and is facing up to 14 years in jail.

Pro-abortion lobbyists are rallying in Brisbane today against the landmark test case saying it "sets an ugly precedent for the rights of women".

Ms Leach's partner Sergie Brennan, 21, who lives with his girlfriend at their Mt Sheridan home, in Cairns south, also has been charged with attempting to procure and supply drugs to procure an abortion.

In Australia, abortion is the subject of state law rather than federal law. In Queensland, it is legal only with medical supervision. (One state, Victoria, recently decriminalized the procedure and according to one nutbar, was visited by Gord's wrathful fire as a result.)

What I want to know it -- how the f*ck did police come to be involved in this?

Police allege a family member obtained the abortion pill misoprostol from a doctor in the Ukraine and smuggled it into Australia on a flight to Cairns on December 25.

The pill was then allegedly successfully used by Ms Leach to terminate her pregnancy and induce a miscarriage at 60 days.

Who ratted them out? And why?

Another supposedly damning fact is the allegation that the pair did not ask about the lawful process for obtaining an abortion. Huh? Like maybe they knew that most abortions in their state are carried out in private clinics with a minimum cost of $370.

So, good. The pro-choice forces there are taking up this cause as a definitive demonstration of the idiocy of the law. But really. Putting these kids through this, when it appears they acted responsibly . . . .

(I found an earlier report that mentions a police search of the couple's home. WTF? I'm going to try to find out more.)

Social deprivation, not genetics, accounts for children's deaths.

An international, groundbreaking new study led by Dr Janet Smylie of the Centre for Research on Inner City Health based at the Keenan Research Centre, St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto has released its findings. The infant mortality rate for native babies in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand is higher, as much as four times that of non-native newborns. It also identified spikes in occurences of SIDs, injury, suicide and accidental death among aboriginal kids in all four countries.

"Every infant who dies … I believe is a tragedy we should follow up on," Smylie said. She also spoke of stereotypical and at times racist treatment received by native people.

"I saw a lot of challenges when I was delivering babies here in Ottawa. Young aboriginal moms who had perfectly good networks of family support — sometimes they were being referred to have the social worker see them even though their family was strong. I remember [another] … patient who had called into the hospital in a little bit of a panic. She had some anxiety and a strong accent. The triage nurse called me and said: 'There's something wrong with your patient. I think she's retarded.'"

"Those are stories that are just a little too frequent."

The organizations and researchers who instigated, implemented, charted and compiled the results of the study hope that the information produced by this report will become the basis for stronger policies and programs to improve children's health in the aboriginal and indigenous communities.

One man in Australia welcomes the fire

and brimstone too, no doubt. When facts, reason and compassion reside in the pro-choice camp, religious fundamentalists will resort to threats, opportunism, and literal interpretation of selected scripture from the bible.

Pastor's abortion dream inflames bushfire tragedy - The Catch the Fire Ministries has tried to blame the bushfires disaster on laws decriminalising abortion in Victoria. The Pentecostal church's leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah, claimed he had a dream about raging fires on October 21 last year and that he woke with "a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia ... Asked if he believed in a God who would take vengeance by killing so many people indiscriminately - even those who opposed abortion, Mr Nalliah referred to 2 Chronicles 7:14 to vouch for his assertion that God could withdraw his protection from a nation.

"The Bible is very clear," he said. "If you walk out of God's protection and turn your back on Him, you are an open target for the devil to destroy."

In news reports, officials have declared that some of the fires may have been deliberately set by arsonists. One has to wonder if any of them were disciples of Mr Nalliah?

One former supporter of Mr Nalliah's fundamentalist sect is recoiling from his words.

A furious Peter Costello has rounded on a Christian cult for suggesting the Victorian bushfires were divine retribution for the state's abortion laws, describing it as "beyond the bounds of decency". Just three weeks ago, the former federal treasurer sent a video message to a special Australia Day prayer meeting organised by Catch the Fire Ministries leader Danny Nalliah.

But he reacted angrily to a statement by Mr Nalliah yesterday recalling a dream concerning the consequences of Victorian abortion legislation that became law last year. ... "To link the death and the suffering of bushfire victims to other political events is appalling, heartless and wrong," he said. "Those who have suffered deserve every support and sympathy. It is beyond the bounds of decency to try to make moral or political points out of such a tragedy."

Last month we wrote about the decriminalization of abortion in Australia and a recent study that was done regarding women who faced unintended pregnancies.

Grand merci à lagatta!

More abortion recriminalizers' propaganda, Down Under

Over at unrepentant old hippie, JJ reminds us of the zygote zealots' rightwingnutz mob mentality, complete with an eloquent photograph. Hyperbole + overwrought visuals = fanaticism.

In the southern hemisphere, a study from Australia - a country that recently decriminalized abortion services - presents a complex portrait of the reasons why women choose to terminate a pregnancy.

Prior to the law's introduction into Parliament, the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) carried out an investigation, which presented three options to Parliament. The first was codification of the existing law, which made it a criminal offence to destroy the life of an unborn child "capable of being born alive," which was said to be any time after 28 weeks gestation. The second option was allowing an abortion to be performed at any stage of a pregnancy, if a woman gives her consent and the medical practitioner considers it ethically appropriate. The third option was the two-tier system which was finally accepted, using 24 weeks as the defining point. According to figures from the VLRC investigation, about 94.6% of abortions in Victoria are carried out before 13 weeks of gestation, 4.7% between 13 and 20 weeks, and less than 1% after 20 weeks. Yet, although only a small number of women need late-term abortions, the ones who do are the most vulnerable: teenagers, victims of sexual assault including incest, sufferers of mental illness, women who have experienced a sudden tragic life circumstance or have discovered a fetal abnormality. .... An all-women task force of leaders from central Victoria's Anglican Church diocese submitted their comments during the VLRC investigation: "In our view, public acceptance of the reality of abortion, including acceptance of the practice among women of diverse religious communities, indicates that a change in the law is timely."

The study audited data recorded over a 12 month period of phone calls from women facing unintended pregnancies and who wanted an abortion. The 5400 calls were received by the Royal Women's Hospital's Pregnancy Advisory Service from women seeking advice between October 2006 and September 2007.

Of about 3000 women who gave a primary reason for wanting an abortion, 23 per cent said they did not want children now, 11 per cent said they were too young, and .4 per cent said their partner was violent or they had been raped. But 16 per cent of callers mentioned violence as a contributing factor in their decision to seek advice, a statistic Dr Rowe said was disturbing. "It does suggest that 'exposure to violence' needs to be included in all health services for women, because it is a common occurrence in the community and it's only just been acknowledged," she said.

Predictably, no-choice abortion recriminalizers gave the findings their own spin, proclaiming that the women were using abortion as a form of birth control. In fact, 29 per cent of the callers in the study had used contraception to prevent pregnancy. Just another day in the no-choice fetus fetishists propaganda factory, cranking out more lies and more shrieeekkks!!!