Blog for Choice

Yesterday was the 33rd anniversary of the court decision that made abortion legal for women in the USA - Roe v. Wade. With the coalition of the religious right with the fiscal conservatives of the Republican party having reached a point of domination of not only the federal legislature but an uncomfortable number of state legislatures, the right for women to choose an abortion as part of family planning is increasingly under threat. Roe v. Wade may soon be merely a shell that guarantees women the hypothetical right to seek an abortion while a multitude of practical barriers are placed in their way that will make it almost impossible to have an abortion unless one is wealthy.

As Australia increasingly takes its lead in public policy from the USA, and the current government is well-known for the anti-abortion stance of prominent ministers, the roll-back of abortion rights in the States should not be merely dismissed as "it couldn't happen here" - after all, thanks to Harradine and Abbot we still don't have the right to be prescribed RU486, years after European and New Zealand made it available.

Read some Blog for Choice posts. Then worry for yourself, your friends, daughters and nieces. Then get activist on some patriarchal arse. Bitching on blogs is cathartic, but you have to step away from the computer once in a while to get something done.