Thursday, February 3rd, 2005...10:00 am
A day I thought would never come
Obviously, the Liberal government are not my favourite people. But I believe in giving credit where it’s due, so this morning I sent the following email:
senator.payne@aph.gov.au, senator.kcpatterson@aph.gov.au, B.Nelson.MP@aph.gov.au, J.Hockey.MP@aph.gov.au, senator.ferris@aph.gov.au, S.Stone.MP@aph.gov.au
Dear Senators and Members
I am writing to express my appreciation of your public comments supporting the right of women to choose to terminate a pregnancy. I am not a Liberal supporter, but I believe it is important that those who value women’s ability to access safe and affordable abortion services stand together when that ability is under threat.
Thank you
These people will be receiving vast numbers of emails and calls calling them baby slaughtering murderers and the like. It’s important that we don’t get shouted down.
I encourage anyone else who shares my views to do the same. If you find another conservative politician who’s speaking out, please let me know in comments.
Here are the links to the media reports of the Senators’ and Members’ comments:
Marise Payne
Kay Patterson
Jeannie Ferris, Joe Hockey, Brendan Nelson and Sharman Stone
Update: the only one to reply so far is Jeannie Ferris. She thanks me and says that we’ll be needing to speak up as this unfolds. I agree.
16 Comments
February 3rd, 2005 at 12:47 am
I will be emailing them, too. I think it’s important to realise that whatever your personal views on abortion, the ultimate decision can only be made by the woman. Pro-choice is not the opposite of pro-life!
February 3rd, 2005 at 4:19 am
Will follow suit, Zoe.
Don’t miss Bozzo’s newest boffo act- he now wants to know when, where and why YOU terminated a pregnancy and how old you were when you did it.
-weez
February 3rd, 2005 at 8:00 am
Stuff him, I’ll send him the details in an email and save him the trouble.
February 3rd, 2005 at 8:51 am
Done.
Thanks for the links and the prompt!
February 4th, 2005 at 2:08 am
Yes, yes, and more yes.
Aha, so it was your abortion bumper sticker I saw. It gets straight to the point!
February 4th, 2005 at 3:10 am
I got it via Suki’s. There’s a matching one that says “… have a vasectomy”. Noice.
February 4th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Great idea. Thank you.
I can lose sight of the positive (and brave) in this issue.
It’s first on my list of nocturnal activities…
February 5th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
sarah: you’ve hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial other thingy
February 5th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
oh yeah, and Zoe. if they respond saying they need you to speak up in writing (cause they’ll ignore email i reckon) please let me know. i’ll be glad to annoy people with petitions and letters and stuff.
February 5th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
I’ll be emailing them too, a handy list of lagginag Liberals that I sincerely hope experience trouble getting pre selection.
John Murphy should be commended for being staunchly pro life in an anti life party. Take that Carmen Lawrence (who knows a thing or two about how deaths are caused).
February 6th, 2005 at 1:57 am
Dear Marcel
I don’t bite at that kind of bait.
Regards, Zoe
February 7th, 2005 at 6:40 am
Marcel’s out of the house again, thereby promoting the pro-choice cause in person.
February 7th, 2005 at 7:42 am
well i’m impressed, senator Payne and senator Ferris both responded to my emails.
neither told me to get stuffed for writing drunken emails and both thanked me for my input
if they do debate this in parliament, as the daily tele reckons they might (hello, stupid newspapers started the whole thing with some stupid attempt to make a story out of statistics anyway i reckon) then i think both of these senators will have had at least a little “people input”
i don’t vote liberal, but i do vote for people who listen. they’ve got my vote.
February 11th, 2005 at 4:45 am
All three female cabinet ministers support the status quo on abortion, as do most other coaltion female MPs.
To your list of coalition women who support choice and have spoken out you can add:
Senator Amanda Vanstone, Immigration Minister and Cabinet member. See http://www.sundaytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,9353,12172387-1702,00.html
Helen Coonan, Communications Minister and Cabinet member. See http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,11399099%255E421,00.html
Senator Judith Troeth, see http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/archive.php?search=abortion&pollid=32# 16 November 2003
Joanna Gash, see http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12202106%255E2702,00.html
February 11th, 2005 at 9:37 am
Thanks, Louise. My god it’s hard to send Amanda Vanstone a thank you email, but I’m going to do it.
February 12th, 2005 at 4:39 am
The leader of the Australian Democrats Senator Lyn Allison made a speech to the Federal Senate on Wednnesday 9th Feb 2005 condeming recent anti-abortion comments. The Democrats have also started an online peition to support a womanÂs fundamental right to safe, affordable and legal abortion. Both the speech and the petition can be found at.
http://www.democrats.org.au/campaigns/pro_choice_petition/
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