Hi Anna, Hugh and Anne!

I heard on the radio yesterday that the Fed. Govt. is funding a new 24 hour,
7-day-a-week "pregnancy counselling" phone service with $15.5 million of
taxpayers' money that is part of a "$50 million initiative to bring down what he
[Tony Abbott] says is the high rate of abortions in Australia."

The new phone "service" manual for 'counsellors" has been developed by the
successful tenderers, McKesson Asia Pacific Corporation, with the help of two
Catholic agencies and, while they have refused to make its contents public, it
is clearly anti-abortion and the "counsellors" will not give advice to women
about how or where they can get a termination if they want one. According to the
Australian (Jan. 2, 2007) McKesson will subcontract some services, such as
counsellor training, to the Caroline Chisholm Society and Centacare, the
Catholic church's health and welfare arm.

There are a number of female parliamentarians who have been trying to expose the
bias in this "counselling service" but it seems like Kevin Rudd and most of the
Labor Party are also supporting the government's position.

I think it is long past time that those of us who see the population explosion
as probably the main threat to the continued survival of our species start
speaking out - and LOUDLY!!!! In fact, in might not hurt to YELL!!!!

John Hill
PS Can any of you discover whether McKesson supplies condoms (particularly in
"third-world" countries), or, indeed, what contraceptive advice their services
promote? I have not been able to discover anything at all about pregnancy
counselling or contraceptives in their literature so far.
.....................................................
Background information the corporation our govt. has chosen to provide advice on
pregnancy to our young women:

McKesson Corporation, a giant American company, "is the world's largest health
information, technology and services organisation, with over 5,000 healthcare
clients in the United States and approximately 600 in locations including
Europe, Australasia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Globally, McKesson has been operating telephone-based health advice services for
more than 25 years. We invest more than US$300 million each year on IT and
services infrastructure research and development. We employ over 1,000 people in
healthcare software research and design and more than 30,000 people overall.

Founded in 1833, with annual revenues of more than US$80 billion, McKesson
Corporation ranks as the 16th largest industrial company in the United States."

McKesson is (according to their main website at:
http://www.mckesson.com/en_us/McKesson.com/About%2BUs/About%2BUs.html ):

a.. Is the largest pharmaceutical distributor in North America. Every day we
distribute one-third of the medicines used in North America, supplying more than
25,000 U.S. healthcare locations from Wal-Mart to the Department of Veterans
Affairs to community pharmacies.

b.. Is the nation's leading healthcare IT company, with software and hardware
technology installed in more than 70% of the nation's hospitals with greater
than 200 beds.

c.. Provides decision support software to help physicians determine the best
possible clinical diagnosis and treatment plans for patients.

d.. Develops and installs electronic systems that eliminate the need for paper
prescriptions and paper medical records and provides physicians with easy and
secure online access to patient information.

e.. Helps prevent more than 330,000 medication errors every week through
bar-code scanning technology that helps to ensure the right patient gets the
right drug at the right time.

Healthcare is in our genes. McKesson is America's oldest and largest healthcare
services company, with its pharmaceutical wholesaling roots dating back more
than 174 years. In fact, the company created the first national drug
distribution system. Today, McKesson is the largest pharmaceutical distributor
in North America, delivering more than a third of all medicines used daily by
pharmacies, hospitals, nursing homes and doctors' offices. For more about
McKesson's history, as well as all of our current businesses, please see our
online media kit.

By combining its industry-leading technology and scale with unsurpassed clinical
knowledge, McKesson is helping healthcare providers deliver better, safer care
while reducing unnecessary costs.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., McKesson employs over 30,000 people
across the nation and around the world dedicated to delivering vital medicines,
medical supplies and health information technology solutions that touch the
lives of patients in every healthcare setting."


Their Asia Pacific branch website is at:
http://www.mckesson.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=1\
76

See the articles at:

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s1911644.htm
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/labor-pains-over-new-pregnancy-bill/2007/\
05/01/1177788141401.html



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