Religion & Ethics Australia Daily

A twice-weekly public affairs review from the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling College

No. 006, 2-4 November 2004  ² compiled by Rod Benson

News reports

Aboriginal issues

The high profile of indigenous art has prompted a softening of traditional cultural taboos such as mourning protocols. SMH 4 Nov 04

Abortion

Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson lamented that there are too many abortions of “potential fellow Australians” each year; Queensland National Party senator-elect Barnaby Joyce said he wanted to help fix the problem of 100,000 abortions in Australia each year; Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz said he was personally against federal government subsidy of pregnancy termination via Medicare; Health Minister Tony Abbott told Catholic leaders last week to “put their energy into building a constituency for an end to late-term abortions; and Labor MP for Lowe John Murphy said, “I will always stand up for the unborn as I did during the embryonic stem-cell research debate.” Sarah Maddison, spokeswoman for the Women’s Electoral Lobby, believes it is possible the Nationals and Family First Party will demand an end to Medicare funding of abortion, as the price of their support for the full sale of Telstra. Aust 2 Nov 04

In South Australia, the only Australian state that keeps full abortion records, just over 5000 abortions are performed each year. Over the past five years, just over half of the 377 abortions performed on women between 22 and 24 weeks pregnant were because it was detrimental to their health. Foetal abnormalities accounted for most of the other late-term abortions, and only ten were carried out because of the mother’s medical condition. Bronwen Weller of the South Australian Pregnancy Advisory Service said women had aborted their healthy foetuses at between 22 and 24 weeks because they had belatedly discovered they were pregnant, ended their relationship with the father, or started a new job. Aust 2 Nov 04

Catholic Health Australia, one of the nation’s largest non-government health organisations, yesterday called for state and federal health ministers to mount an inquiry into the “abortion industry.” CHA’s Chief Executive, Francis Sullivan, said, “Not only are abortions too easily accessed, the community has been lulled into a sense of ignorance over the tragedy of late-term abortions.” It was revealed that NSW Health did not collect specific figures on late-term abortions; the figures were collected under gynaecological and obstetrics data. SMH 2 Nov 04

Late-term or “partial birth” abortions involve “a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is medically unnecessary and involves tremendous pain to the unborn child,” says NSW MLC Gordon Moyes. Media release

Given the advances in pediatric medicine, which mean babies born at less than 25 weeks gestation have a vastly improved shot at life, it was inevitable that new questions would emerge about the ethics of late-term abortion, The Australian observes. “Support for the status quo [that abortion laws in Australia broadly place the emphasis on a woman’s right to choose] should not imply that abortion is a good thing, because it is anything but. Many young women who terminate their pregnancies and think little of it at the time experience profound pain and regret later in life.” Aust 3 Nov 04

The risks of terminating a pregnancy are well documented but women are kept in the dark, argues Melinda Tankard Reist, author of Giving Sorrow Words: Women’s Stories of Grief After Abortion and bioethics adviser to Senator Brian Harradine. Aust 3 Nov 04

The Australian publishes nine letters to the editor on abortion. Aust 3 Nov 04

The Australian publishes eight more letters to the editor on abortion. Aust 4 Nov 04

Politically conservative women mobilising against anti-abortion Coalition forces yesterday appealed to their male colleagues to stand up for a woman’s right to choose. “[Male MPs’] responsibility as legislators is to make the woman’s decision safe – not to make the woman’s decision,” South Australian Senator Jeannie Ferris said. Aust 4 Nov 04

Women are travelling from Western Australia to Melbourne for late-term abortions to avoid state bans or because doctors refuse to perform them. Aust 4 Nov 04

Bioethics – cloning

The United Nations has again deferred a vote on an international cloning ban because of an apparently unbridgeable gap between supporters and opponents of therapeutic cloning. BioEdge 29 Oct 04

An American team has successfully cloned monkey embryos for the first time. BioEdge 29 Oct 04

Bioethics – stem cells

Within 15-25 years, doctors will be using embryonic stem cell therapy to treat a host of serious diseases, from Alzheimer’s to Huntington’s, claims Martin Evans, a pioneer of embryonic stem cell research. Aust 2 Nov 04

Censorship

The ABC is locked into a battle of perception and interpretation with the Australian Broadcasting Authority over the ABC Radio AM program’s Iraq war coverage. Aust 4 Nov 04

Criminal justice

A blood sample taken by a doctor at RPA Hospital from NSW Supreme Court Justice and former NSW Attorney-General Jeff Shaw has disappeared. The judge crashed his car near his home on 13 October. If found guilty of drink driving, Justice Shaw could be dismissed from office. A second blood sample was given to Justice Shaw on the night, as is normal procedure, but he allegedly had no legal or moral obligation to hand it over. Simon Longstaff from the St James Ethics Centre said he did not believe Justice Shaw should be required to make good for deficiencies in the police investigation. NSW Council of Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy said that Justice Shaw should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But the loss of the sample could harm the public’s perception of the legal process. Aust 3 Nov 04; AFR 3 Nov 04; SMH 3 Nov 04; Aust 4 Nov 04; SMH 4 Nov 04

The NSW government has announced a review of the law covering the collection, storage and transport of blood samples taken following car accidents in light of revelations that a sample taken from a Supreme Court judge, Jeff Shaw, had been lost. SMH 3 Nov 04

Debt

Easy credit and low interest rates have encouraged Australians to borrow, doubling household debt in just ten years, and worrying some economists. AFR 3 Nov 04

Ethics – business – Australia

Sydney Councils will introduce strict rules to govern the demolition and renovation of houses that contain asbestos, fearing that WorkCover lacks the required resources and that too many unlicensed and illegal demolitions are going undetected. SMH 2 Nov 04

Ethics – medical

Ryan Galea, 4, who suffered severe brain damage after hospital staff apparently failed to follow the directions on a gel used to induce labour, has secured a record damages settlement that could reach $10 million. Aust 2 Nov 04

Evangelism

A man jumped into the lion’s den at Taipei Zoo yesterday in an apparent attempt to convert the lions to Christianity. “Jesus will save you!” he shouted at two African lions, before being bitten in the leg. Fortunately the animals had just eaten. SMH 4 Nov 04

Fraud

Internet fraudsters are casting a wider net and “phishing” for Australian job seekers, as people who bank online wise up to the prolific hoax email scams. AFR 2 Nov 04

Homosexuality & faith

Pulitzer Prize-winner Nicholas Kristof mounts a convoluted argument over whether the Bible is anti-gay, claiming that conservative Christians ignore its central message of love. Age 1 Nov 04

Rocco Buttiglioni, a Christian conservative who was to become the European Commission’s commissioner for home affairs and justice, has been dropped for declaring homosexuality a sin, that single women are not good mothers, and that a woman’s place is in a Christian marriage under the protection of a man. AFR 2 Nov 04

Human rights

On 31 October the Second Baptist Church, Little Rock, Arkansas, presented its annual 2004 Brooks Hays Memorial Christian Citizenship Award to Denton Lotz, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance. The award, given annually since 1982, was established in memory of Hays, a former Arkansas congressman and president of the Southern Baptist convention who lost his seat in congress because of a stand on racial equality in the 1950s. The award is given to those who have applied their Christian faith in a profound way in various fields of public service. BWA News Nov 2004

Arundhati Roy, who will receive the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize tonight, has pledged the $50,000 prize to three Aboriginal community organisations. She is known for her campaigns for human rights, her passionate advocacy of non-violence, her vocal and eloquent pleas for the millions displaced by the Narmada Dam projects in India, and her powerful insistence on justice for the poor. SMH 3 Nov 04

Judiciary

The incestuousness of the “Labor mates’ network,” reflected in Justice Jeff Shaw’s transition from NSW Attorney-General in 2000 to Supreme Court Judge in 2003, “muddies the separation of powers between government and judiciary. Aust 4 Nov 04

Organ donation

When Marg Cutting gave her son’s organs for donation, she had no idea she might see the lifesaving results. But Australian organ donation in 2003 amounted to a low nine donors per million of population. SMH 4 Nov 04

Politics & faith – US

The President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Richard Land, hailed US President George W. Bush’s narrow win – along with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress – as a significant step forward in the “culture wars.” He bemoaned a ballot vote in California where a majority appeared ready to approve funding for research using embryonic stem cells, calling the procedure the “biotech equivalent of child sacrifice.” Ethics Daily 3 Nov 04

Pornography

Australian police will join officers from America’s FBI, and British and Canadian forces in a global fight against internet-based crime, focusing initially on child pornography. Aust 2 Nov 04

A 36-year-old married computer technician in Perth has admitted to amassing what is believed to be Australia’s biggest child pornography library, including 350,000 images of young girls. Aust 3 Nov 04

Workplace relations

Unfair dismissal laws have more to do with ideology than lifting employment, says Peter Martin. The federal government is about to reintroduce the oddly-named Fair Dismissal Bill, exempting businesses from the need to act fairly when dismissing workers. SMH 3 Nov 04

Other items of interest

Emotive images from the womb have distorted the case for abortion, and abortion services will always remain an essential feature of sexual health services, says UK Family Planning Association Chief Executive Anne Weyman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1336693,00.html

“Right-wing US Catholic Bishops have successfully reduced broad Catholic social teaching – which also contains strong commitments against poverty, capital punishment, and unjust wars – down to just two hot-button social issues: abortion and gay marriage,” says Jim Wallis. http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=sojomail.display&issue=041101#3

Jim Wallis suggests that an important debate has commenced in the US over what the most important ‘religious issues’ are in politics. The Religious Right fought to keep the focus on gay marriage and abortion, but many moderate and progressive Christians insist that poverty, the environment and war are significant religious issues. http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=sojomail.display&issue=041103#3

Mainline Protestantism is losing ground to exuberant evangelicals who have “tipped the country Republican.” http://www.alternet.org/story/20328/

READ is published by the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling College, 120 Herring Rd, Eastwood NSW 2122 AUSTRALIA. Telephone (02) 9878 0201. The content of READ and the views expressed in articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling College or the Baptist Churches of NSW & ACT. Subscription is free. To subscribe, email with the words “subscribe to READ” in the subject line. Use the same email address to request more information. Copies of original articles are available on request. Abbreviations: AFR=The Australian Financial Review; Aust=The Australian; SMH=The Sydney Morning Herald.