Senator Fielding has used his newfound notoriety to assist the agenda of my Family First party.

Trouble is he is not as long-standing as Harradine, nor has he the credibility, experience or respect of his fellow Australians to be anything more than an inoffensive poster boy for the Christian right. He was strangely silent last month when Australians discussed 48 hour cooling-off periods prior to terminating a late-term pregancy. Now after some homo-social bonding in the PM’s office he’s on fire. Like all spotfires, there is little fuel.

While he may identify as patriarchal, and try to save us from ouselves, he will never be the ‘The Father of the Senate’.

He may however, go on to be Steve whatshisname, second cousin – once removed.

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HoWARd is described as behaving like he is drunk with power in the Senate. I agree. When drunk, many men become licentious and promiscuous looking for someone or something they can have sex with… pulse and consent optional. On one such drunken, power fuelled rampage John and Brendan bought the promisekeeper Steve Fielding a Long Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against the Wall. And Steve drank it.

I am beyond surprise at how cheaply Senator Steve Fielding sold his vote to allow the government to have their Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union fees) Bill 2005.

Lyn Allison’s push for changes to existing legislation must have really had the numbers in parliament and I now understand why the conscience vote wasn’t prioritised for this year. HoWARd (and Nelson) had to have something bright and shiny to offer Steve. Family First is clear about it’s policy on abortion.

It seems HoWARd et al have tired of the old Senate slut Barnaby, and a new rentboy has emerged in Steve Fielding.

Steve Fielding – we know what your are and now we know what you are worth.

I’m going to rejoice when the conscience vote finally comes and all sorts of people remember the self-determining women that are their mothers, sisters, nieces, cousins, girlfriends, wives and mistresses.

Then it will be Steve who? Family First what?

A Senator who can’t or won’t be accountable deserves to be irrelevant.

I was listening to The Health Report presented by Dr. Norman Swan on ABC’s Radio National.  His topic was RU486 – Some possible side effects and his guest was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Harvard Medical School in Boston and Director of Obstetrics at Massachusetts General Hospital – Michael Greene.

This was a very informative discussion between an Australian Doctor who may one day (again) have a patient who would benefit from RU486 and a Professor who is familiar with research involving the outcomes of more than a million RU486 users in the world.

"Many women say it (RU486 procedure) feels quote “more natural” unquote, many women say they feel under more control if you will. And then many women prefer to be able to just receive this medication from a physician in a physician’s office rather than having to go to what’s identified as an ‘abortion facility’ or an ‘abortion clinic’." -Professor Greene.

It was my kind of program – long on evidence and short on belief. 

Unfortunately the Australian government has not prioritised the need for a broadening of choice for Australian women and a conscience vote is not likely until the new year. 

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In her brief to Federal MP’s presumably to inform them before their chance to locate and exercise their conscience, leading obstetrician Professor Caroline de Costa, from James Cook University’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Queensland, said that in several cases pregnant women had traveled to Auckland and Wellington to make use of New Zealand’s availability of RU486 to end their pregnancy.

I’m fairly confident a woman is the same everywhere in the world…in a gynaecological/obstetric sense.

The major difference between New Zealand women and Australian women seems to be that nine years ago they didn’t have a Harradine and currently they don’t have an Abbott. 

Australian women are exercising their right to choice by traveling to countries and ordering the RU486 tour option.   

Let’s break free from two disproportionately powerful men with no medical qualifications and create choice right here at home.   

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