Oh and welcome to Emma, I’m a reader of your blog, good to see you here.

In practice, I suspect there will be little hindrance. Most abortion practitioners are not hugely fond of third trimester terminations and would probably be uncomfortable performing them without seeing a need. Not to mention the fact that no-one is going to ask for one without need. Two doctors just means Dr Bev in the next cubicle pops in as well to have a quick chat and commiserate that things have reached such an awful pass before making an extra note in different hand-writing. Then the procedure gets booked, hopefully not less urgently because there is no deadline.

The issue at the moment is that you can go through the head of department, the legal team and the hospital ethics committee with the sworn statement of a psychiatrist that this woman is going to kill herself and still end up in court because a Catholic senator doesn’t like it. Also, there is no legal or procedural obligation for a public health service to provide termination services, witness Bendigo for instance.

Not perfect. Much better. Probably the best possible.

I have been following the new closely on this issue and I was bitterly disappointed to read that our parliamentarians were heading for option B. To me it’s a sign that our elected representatives, deep, deep down, still don’t trust pregnant women with moral choices. They don’t trust women at all… not really…. The Greek “wandering womb theories” and the later “hysterical theories” of male physicians left scars that run too deep to be countered in this generation.

I know Helen, and I feel the same frustration. It’s actually very difficult to find a place in the party if you see yourself more as centre-left than socialist left, but don’t subscribe to social conservatism.

I DO lose sleep over the issue. Although I lose more sleep over crying Bears of course!

There is some protesting outside clinics and things, but quite low-key, and they do not get much sympathy from the general public.

Last year (? or maybe the year before?) a vote in the federal parliament changed the laws to allow for medical abortions to occur, with the end vote being something like 70% in favour of the change. This was broadly seen to reflect public sentiment.

The anti-choice voices might be noisy, but they are few.

My point is that it’s about supporting our pro-choice sisters in the ALP who are doing the really hard yards behind the scenes, and who need our support. It’s about making sure we don’t make the mistake of disappearing them. Just because we don’t see their work, doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it. Talking to the media is often what one does when they aren’t able to do the numbers; it can be a good sign that they aren’t pissing potential supporters off by running non-party lines.

It really shits me when people like Leslie Cannold (whom I admire very much), say such things, when they know first hand how hard these women are working.