Australian Democratic leader Senator Lyn Allison has taken a novel approach to explaining her pro-choice position. Last night in the Senate she said, "An estimated one in three women have had an abortion, and I am one of them."
Sen. Allison also noted that if she hadn’t terminated her pregnancy at 18 years old, she wouldn’t be in the Senate now.
"Women are fully human," she said. "It is galling listening to the men, and it is mostly men, who have such contempt for women who terminate unwanted pregnancies, who have neither the compassion nor the understanding of the huge and, for many, daunting task of taking an embryo the size of a grain of rice to adulthood."..."There are plenty of blokes around this place who don't understand why women would do this. There are complex reasons why women need to make this decision … I wanted to send a message to all those women to say I'm one of them."
Sen. Allison was one of several politicians to get personal during a debate over the abortifacient, RU486.
I think this is great--though I can’t imagine any U.S. senators lining up to tell their stories. Thoughts?
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I think, sadly, that any female senator in the US courageous enough to tell a similar story would be putting an end to her political career. I'm not familar with Australian politics, but I'm sure she's pissing a lot of conservatives off. I applaud it.
Please note ... our argument has absolutely nothing to do with abortion per se. Abortion is freely (and actually free) available in Australia and women are NOT vilified for same.
Quite a few polititians, both male and female have told of similar experiences ... we, if nothing else, have an open society.
Nor, strictly speaking, is RU-486 "banned". The debate, which I might add has been used opporunistically by some (pro-lifers) to resurrect a situation that no longer exists (ended 30 years ago), is purely whether the Minister for Health has the right of veto over the TGA (FDA).
The concern with RU-486 is for women who are not located in city centres, but those on isolated farms (i.e.large geographical area vs low population density), and as RU-486 can be used at varying stages of pregnancy it is feared deaths may arise where appropriate follow-up healthcare is virtualy non-existent.
Australia is not like America, there is no abortion debate just media-hype, and some extremist wanting to get some press.
Actually, Senator Lyn Allison joined forces with three other (women) senators from other parties, including conservatives. The bill has been given a conscience vote and will not be dealt with along party lines.