Summers should damn Gillard as she does Abbott Anne Summers tries to push Labor's scare campaign: Tony Abbott is, of course, trying to reassure us all that he is not the man he once was on the subject of abortion. No longer ""the easy way out"," he now likes to use a 20-year-old quote from Bill Clinton that abortion should be ""safe, legal and rare"." He apparently is unaware that the word ""rare"" really upsets women who chose abortion because they have an unwanted pregnancy, not according to some preordained timetable. Julia Gillard in 2006 didn't worry Summers at all, though: Many members, including the minister for health (Tony Abbott), have adopted the Bill Clinton terminology that they would like to see a circumstance where abortion was safe, legal and rare. I agree with those comments. We would all like to see a circumstance where abortion was safe, legal and rare. The only difference on this point is that Abbott is a man and Gillard is a woman. I therefore conclude that in taking offence at one but not the other Summers has demonstrated she is exactly the kind of sexist she condemns.