RU486 Vote - ACL Roundup
The Australian Christian Lobby has released it's summary of the house of representatives vote on the RU486 drug. This has the full list of who voted for and against, as well as summaries of the various members comments on the bill.

It is worth noting that Kim Beazley (who voted to allow the TGA to have sole authority in approval of RU486) repeats the 'back alley abortion' myth rubbish. He said

I start with the premise, and I still hold the view, that abortion is killing…When I started in politics, my view was that the legal system and the criminal code ought to reflect that. That is no longer my view. Tested in the experience of community opinion and community practice, I know that to persist with that view produces a large number of very unsafe procedures and great dangers to women. Therefore I cannot continue to hold that view, the principle being confronted with the practicality.

Ignoring the fact that allowing abortion is correlated with higher maternal mortality, his logic seems to be that Abortion is killing but we should allow it because some (obviously a much smaller amount than the amount of abortions) women may die? That logic is insane? Talk about choosing the greater of two evils. That's like saying that because some people may die from anti-biotics, we should ban it completely, even though many more would die if it was banned.

I also find it notable that Kim has taken the back alley abortion myth, even though it was admitted that the figures for the number of deaths was invented as a propaganda tool by the pro-abortion lobbyists.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, admits his group lied about the number of women who died from legal abortions when testifying before the Supreme Court in 1972. "We spoke of 5,000 - 10,000 deaths a year.... I confess that I knew the figures were totally false ... it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?"

I guess people will still believe the myth when they find it 'useful', like Mr Beazley. But with his logic and believing in myths, I reckon he isn't a good choice for our Prime Minister.

Update:Reading more of the members comments is very enlightenining.

Arch Beavis "I do not share the view that life begins at conception". Obviously he believes in the scientifically falsified notion of spontaneous generation of life.

Ann Corcoran "This bill does not make abortion easier or more difficult to get." Hmm... so what about all the times people for this bill said that it would make it easier for regional women to get an abortion?

Graham Edwards "Why is it that other countries have a far lower incidence of abortion that we do here in Australia? I suspect that it has a lot to do with the issue of proper sex education." Yep. This is like saying 'People are just naturally good, so if they know enough everything will work out fine.' I think real world experience shows how wrong headed this idea is.

Martin Ferguson (Member for Batman!) "There is no justifiable case for the minister for health, irrespective of who the minister for health is, deciding whether applications for evaluation of RU486 can proceed." Then why was the authority given with bipartisan support in the first place?

Jill Hall (Who gets the award for mind boggling irony) "I think bad decisions are made by parliaments and politicians if we base those decisions purely and simply on our personal, moral and religious beliefs and values." Did anyone point out to Jill that she was doing just that in this vote?

Kirsten Livermore 'As parliamentarians we should not impose our moral views on women and we should not allow those views to stand in the way of a woman’s ability to make her own decisions about something as personal as abortion…" And yet she stands by the government imposing their moral views on the unborn.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Friday, February 24, 2006