Keep your politics off my elbows
Friday October 14th 2005, 10:56 am

A pill or general anaesthesia?I have a problem that Gray’s Anatomy hasn’t quite solved. I can’t seem to tell the difference between a uterus and an elbow. It’s not like one is magical and glows in the presence of copies of the Bible and the other doesn’t. Further, I don’t have a uterus, but I do have an elbow, so for the moment, I’ll address how I expect to be able to operate elbows.

If I fall off my barstool and break my elbow, chances are I’d need a surgery under general anaesthesia to insert a few pins and plates. The surgery itself has a high risk of complications and general anaesthesia is potentially lethal. If someone came up with a pill that could safely and effectively fix my elbow in a day or two, without the need for surgery under risky general anaesthesia, one would be foolish not to opt for the new magic elbow pill.

If politicians made the elbow pill illegal on their own personal religio-moralist grounds, I’d feel very put upon by that politician and his religion- wouldn’t you? How dare they tell me how to operate my elbow! Worse, for their personal moral reasons, they would force me to risk my life to have my elbow put right, when the current best practise medical technology makes that risk of lethality unnecessary.

This perilous position is precisely where Australian women were placed by former Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine in 1996 when the government of the day acquiesced to his demand that the RU-486 (mifepristone) abortion pill not be approved for sale in Australia.  I’d like to know how many women died from 1996 to present as a result of complications or suffered acute pain from a surgical abortion procedure when such was completely unnecessary in the majority of cases. There’s little doubt who bears responsibility for all that pain and the possibility of needless deaths of Australian women, who only wanted not to be pregnant.

An elbow is a body part. So is a uterus. If you have problems with either one, you sort out the best medical course of action with your physician. I fail to see where the politicians have any place for comment in the private operation of elbows or uteri.  

RU-486 is under consideration again, absent Senator Harradine. Let’s hope there’s been a little commonsense infused in Parliament since his departure. However, if anti-choice Health Minister Tony Abbott is any indication, I’m not feeling rainbows of hope at the moment.

-weez 


14 Comments so far
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No waiting at Pregnancy Counselling Centres

Abortion Grief Counselling Association (AGCS) has sent letters to all members of federal parliament asking them to consider strategies to cut the number of abortions, including a ban on coercion.
"Across Australia the (pre-abortion) counselling…

Trackback by Suki Has An Opinion 10.14.05 @ 11:45 am

Bit of a straw-man argument weez….elbows don’t equal foetuses…

Comment by Adam 10.14.05 @ 11:45 am

Adam, I also don’t see the difference between an elbow and a fetus. Until birth, it’s still a part of the body in which it resides, like any proper elbow. You can bet that if I had a uterus, I’d be in full charge of operation of the device and its contents. Fortunately, the law of the land in Australia agrees.

Since Australian women can control their reproductive bits, there’s no just or lawful cause to make that control more painful or hazardous than necessary. If there’s going to be abortions, they should be as safe and comfortable as possible for women. Restriction of access to painless, nonsurgical abortion is nothing more than punishment for choosing to terminate a pregnancy. We don’t punish people in Australia unless they break laws- and terminating a pregnancy is completely legal.

A vote against RU-486 is a vote in favour of needlessly inflicting pain and risking women’s lives.

Comment by weezil 10.14.05 @ 11:52 am

Adam, does an elbow equal an empty uterus?

Comment by suki 10.14.05 @ 12:04 pm

Adam: It’s called a metaphor you dick. A straw man argument is something else entirely. In this case, the metaphor is a device to help you see the issue from another angle. Obviously you missed this entirely because you remain wilfully ignorant and blinded by dogma.

Comment by Marcus 10.14.05 @ 12:04 pm

Hear hear. (The original post, that is.)
Hopefully they’ll allow the pill in, might be worth dashing off a few letters to MPs in any case.

Comment by Kate 10.14.05 @ 12:47 pm

Kate, I agree- this is one item that really does require letters to MPs. There’s no logical or just cause to subject women to the risks and discomfort of surgical termination when the same thing can be accomplished with a pill.

The failure to approve mifepristone for pregnancy termination ought to attract a big, fat criminal negligence claim on the government.

Comment by weezil 10.15.05 @ 9:27 am

Perhaps you used the wrong metaphor. Try asking a bloke if he would like to wait for his scrotum to drop off or if he would like a little pill to fix the problem. JT

Comment by JahTeh 10.15.05 @ 10:31 am

JT, I was trying not to be terribly graphic… but you’re not far wrong. 😀

Comment by weezil 10.15.05 @ 4:54 pm

I’m a woman we always go straight for the brain.

Comment by JahTeh 10.16.05 @ 9:44 pm

JT, then how do you deal with Bronwyn Pike and Tony Abbott? No brains…!

Comment by weezil 10.17.05 @ 9:41 am

How hard is it to short circuit a robot?

Comment by JahTeh 10.17.05 @ 10:08 am

OK, JT, here’s the plan: I will distract them with a jug of wine and some Jesus bickies I nicked from a cathedral. You search around for their OFF switches.

CLICK!

Problem solved.

Comment by weezil 10.17.05 @ 7:32 pm

[…] Barney, let’s get our terms straight: if you’re not changing its nappies and feeding it, it’s not a child, it’s a foetus. A foetus is part of a woman’s body, not unlike her liver or elbows, until she gives birth. A woman has the ultimate right to choose what she wants to do with her elbows and liver. Why can’t she control her uterus and/or her foetus without some man’s approval? Worse, when she’s already been violated in the worst imaginable way, why should our laws victimise her yet again? […]

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