The girlchild has just moved out of our home and I miss having her around. I miss the throng and thrust that a young person adds to an old person’s existence. I miss her energy, chatter and company. I miss the rush of love and pride that I would feel whenever I saw her achieving, exploring, trying.

When she was growing up, and as a sole-parent, I tried to balance all the conflicting stakeholders – need for money, career, self, activism, sex, companionship. In all these considerations, I kept ‘parent’ at the top of my list and ran my decisions through the ‘how-might-this-affect-the-girlchild-filter’.

Now, 21 years later, my gorgeous girlchild has a career, a boyfriend, friends, is a volunteer helping youth and is steadily changing her world one injustice at a time.

Recently, I was very unwell and the girlchild took carer’s leave to tend to me. Nurse J was dutiful and patient and kept that drug-trolley stocked and rotational…

I am so honored that she has modeled herself on what I did when she was growing up and our relationship is nurtured, respected and phabulous. I know if/when she becomes a mama herself she will have ‘permission’ to define that role in any way she wants.

I can’t think of a better legacy to leave for my girlchild.

‘The love you make is the love you take’ is true for us.

I couldn’t be more proud or more happy for the girlchild or myself!

Our house has always celebrated the girlchild’s birthday with a cake that reflected current events.  At her last birthday the girlchild completed her probationary driver status, and had to fund high fuel costs. For those squinting the green cake is supposed to be a bowser. With thanks to the Patissier Avec Frontier.

Recently, Kathy Fox interviewed me and my perspective on feminist blogging.
Check out the Wo! Magazine site and I highly recommend browsing the back issues.

Suki Lombard of ‘Suki has an Opinion’ says: “Blogging gives me the widest possible audience, enormous flexibility and a 21st century place to house my feminism. It’s a matter of convenience and time management.”

“Gender will not define interesting,” says Lombard who posts on topical issues and encourages feminists wanting to promote their blogs to “Write well. Be a crowd of one. Celebrate your uniqueness.” To promote the feminist blogosphere, Lombard recommends the monthly Carnival of Feminists. The online ‘carnival’ showcases the finest international feminist ideas and writing, while networking through cross-linkage of blog posts and different bloggers.

“This is great way to distill international feminist blogging,” says Lombard. “Perhaps that’s the point of the internet, there are no boundaries.”

Image from here

Since being elected leader of the Labor party Kevin Rudd has said he offers a new style of leadership and an alternative policy platform rather than an echo of the Government. Really?

On the issue of legislation which will implement the recommendations of the Lockhart review into stem cell research, including a new process of allowing embryonic cloning, Kevin certainly has an alternative policy platform, but it’s alternative to former leader Kim Beazley. What I’m really looking for is an alternative to HoWARd.

Kevin Rudd: “I find it very difficult to support a legal regime that supports the creation of a human life for the single and explicit purpose of experimentation on that human life”

John HoWARd: “I don’t think the science has shifted enough to warrant the parliament changing its view (since the 2002 vote to ban therapeutic cloning).”

My concern is that Kevin has articulated his belief that human life begins at conception. What may be the implications on choice this may have for Australian women in the future.

The Lockhart review suggests that,

A fundamental judgement needs to be made about when a fertilised egg becomes a potential life form deserving of special ethical respect and treatment. A key recommendation of the Committee was for a clearer definition of what a human embryo is. The current statutory definition catches embryos from about the age of 22 hours to about 8 weeks. This is in stark contrast to the definition which many in the scientific community would prefer.
The UK’s Warnock Committee were of the view that until the fourteenth day of development most cells of the embryo had the potential to develop into tissue which would not even form part of the ultimate foetus (such as placenta or the amniotic sac), and that cells which were identifiable as dedicated to the development of the foetus itself would not be determined until at least day 14 after conception. Defining an embryo before this stage as a ‘potential life’ therefore, according to the Warnock Committee was ‘inaccurate and misleading.’

Image from here