Religion & Ethics Australia Digest

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

No. 030, 25-31 March 2005  ² edited by Rod Benson

News reports

Aboriginal issues

On 19 November 2004, Aboriginal man Mulrunjie Doomadgee was found dead in a police cell on Palm Island. The inquest into his death begins today. Aust 29 Mar 05

Abortion

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales compares abortion in Britain to the eugenic practices of Nazi Germany. Telegraph (UK) 27 Mar 05 *

Bioethics – embryo

Couples will no longer be able to choose the sex of their baby in Sydney fertility clinics, after Australia’s highest ethics authority ruled the procedure was not in the interests of resulting children. SMH 25 Mar 05

Although the foetus is not a person for legal purposes, most people regard it as having moral status. Very often, the older the foetus is the more people feel that it should be respected. The Scotsman 28 Mar 05 *

Bioethics – organ transplantation

An investigation has been launched into the death of a 15-year-old Brisbane boy forced to wait three years for a kidney transplant – even though his father was a willing donor. Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 27 Mar 05

Bioethics – stem cells

The House leadership has agreed to allow a floor vote on a bill that would loosen the restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research imposed by President Bush in 2001, according to members of Congress and others privy to the arrangement. Washington Post 25 Mar 05

John Howard has shelved plans to extend restrictions on the scientific use of IVF embryos, reports say. Mr Howard failed to reach an agreement with the states, meaning embryos created after April 5, 2002, can be used in stem cell research. SMH 26 Mar 05

Using cells from an aborted foetus, a Chinese neurosurgeon has given new hope to Willie Terpstra, who has motor neurone disease. SMH 28 Mar 05 *

Federal minister Eric Abetz has attacked the states for blocking John Howard’s attempt to extend the three-year moratorium on the use of new stem cells. Aust 28 Mar 05 *

Bioethics – withdrawal of treatment

The videotape that runs endlessly on TV stations around the world shows an apparently smiling Terri Schiavo caressed by her mother’s hand. But many experts agree the tape is a cruelly misleading trick of biology. Reuters 23 Mar 05 *
Letting Terri Schiavo live is as much about political expediency as it is about preserving a woman’s life, writes Michael Gawenda. SMH 25 Mar 05

There is a conspiracy of silence about the actual processes of death, argues Polly Toynbee. What kills you in the end if you have cancer or other terminal diseases is dehydration when you can no longer swallow enough water to live – and it takes time. The Guardian 25 Mar 05 *

George W. Bush and the Republican Party are using Terri Schiavo as a political tool, writes Andrew Sullivan. Aust 29 Mar 05

Should Terri Schiavo live or die? Underlying the two opposing positions in the debate are two metaphysical systems that we inherited from the Greek philosophers Plato and Epicurus. Somewhere between these two extreme positions lies a third, argues Edward Spence. SMH 28 Mar 05 *

As Terri Schiavo faces her 11th day without food or water and debate rages about her right to live or die, one family in Perth is challenging Australia’s euthanasia laws. Karen and Bill Spanbroek’s son, Michael, has Huntington’s disease and now lies unconscious in hospital. For the past five years he’s been kept alive by machines and tubes. But under Western Australian law any involvement in his death would be illegal. ABC AM 29 Mar 05 *

To avoid the sort of dilemma highlighted by the Terri Schiavo case, make your own wishes clear in a ‘living will’.
The Guardian 29 Mar 05 *

For Christian conservatives and their allies in Congress, Terri Schiavo is being murdered, writes Michael Gawenda. In their view, her death will be evidence of what happens when a godless, materialistic, valueless liberal elite captures the courts, the media, Hollywood, popular music, popular culture. Fair enough. Except that those propagating the “culture of life” are among the fiercest defenders of capital punishment. The Age 31 Mar 05 *

Capital punishment

Colorado’s highest court has quashed the sentence of a man sentenced to death after jurors consulted their Bibles in reaching a verdict. SMH 30 Mar 05 *

Church & state

US politicians allegedly promised that Republican leaders would work to implement the Religious Right’s political agenda in a closed-door briefing with the Family Research Council. More.

Corporal punishment

The child-smacking debate has been rekindled with a New Zealand government survey finding that half of all parents with young children admit physically disciplining their kids. More.

Credit cards

Reserve Bank governor Ian Macfarlane believes the banks’ encouragement of credit card use could trigger the demise of the nationwide eftpos system.
Aust 24 Mar 05

Democracy

A Left that sees a lousy economy as political salvation and frets about stocks and a villa in Italy is not the idealistic, worker-respecting Left. Certainly it is not a believer in democracy, writes Ross Terrill. Aust 28 Mar 05 *

Divorce & remarriage

A leading Church of England bishop has declared that Prince Charles should be required to apologise to Andrew Parker Bowles for breaking up his marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles. Aust 28 Mar 05

Easter

The SMH leader discusses “the radical new challenge of Easter.” SMH 25 Mar 05

If Easter has no religious significance for many Australians, it nevertheless provides benefits beyond the welcome one of a long weekend. The Age 25 Mar 05

Perth’s outspoken Anglican Dean, Dr John Shepherd, said the theory that Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday for our sins had the potential to destroy Christianity.
The West Australian 26 Mar 05

Mel Gibson has released The Passion of the Christ Recut in theaters across the United States and Canada. About five minutes of the gruesome beating of Jesus was cut from the film. Apparently Gibson took to heart some of the criticism regarding the violence of the movie. More.

Environment

So much for protocols when a New Zealand river may fall victim to carbon credits, writes Miranda Devine. SMH 31 Mar 05

Ethics – political

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan faces calls to resign after a report into his son’s links with a company embroiled in the UN’s oil-for-food scandal revealed that documents held in the Secretary-General’s office were ordered destroyed the day after the Security Council approved an official inquiry. SMH 31 Mar 05

Foreign policy

Australians are as just as concerned about United States foreign policy as Islamic extremism and regard the US as more dangerous than a rising China, according to a new poll. SMH 29 Mar 05
Fraud

The admission of widespread data fabrication by Eric Poehlman, a well known nutrition researcher, has sparked a discussion of about how journals can handle such impropriety. The Scientist 28 Mar 05

There are concerns regulators are not doing enough to get the message out that corporate crime doesn’t pay. Aust 30 Mar 05

Human rights

For the UN to call Australia out for human rights violations would be a joke if it weren’t so serious. Aust 30 Mar 05

Illness – mental

People suffering mental health problems are being forced to take out private health insurance because public hospitals have cut programs to treat many conditions, including anxiety and postnatal depression. Aust 28 Mar 05

Judiciary

The crest of our states’ courts says it all: “Dieu et mon droit.” It’s a message that the sovereign has used since the 15th century and makes the lavish claim that power springs from God and birthright. What judge would want to disturb that notion? SMH 25 Mar 05 *

High Court Chief Justice Murray Gleeson has endorsed moves to widen the pool of potential candidates for the judiciary and break the monopoly enjoyed by barristers. Aust 29 Mar 05

Pluralism – religious

United Methodist Church minister Rev Kirbyjon Caldwell offered the benediction at both of President George W. Bush’s inaugurations. After the 2001 prayer, Caldwell was criticized for saying at the end of the prayer “in the name that is above every name, Jesus. Amen.” At this year’s inauguration, he closed his prayer by saying, “Respecting persons of all faiths, I humbly submit this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen” – and was criticized by the religious right. More.

Politics & faith – Australia

The Christian Democratic Party will rebrand itself to broaden its appeal across the Christian right, as it moves to compete for the Christian vote with the emerging Family First Party and as it prepares for life after its founder. SMH 29 Mar 05

The Christian Democratic Party, born of Fred Nile’s morality crusades, is battling the newcomer, the Family First Party. Christian Democrat’s NSW director, Phil Lamb, argues that competition will grow the cake, and that the fallout will be multiplication of the conservative fundamentalist Christian vote. SMH 30 Mar 05

Hillsong’s prominence in the media is not just a quirk of newsroom priorities. It is part of the carefully orchestrated dominance of the religious right, which is creating the impression that the only Christian voice is a conservative one, writes Muriel Porter. The Age 30 Mar 05 *

Pollution

Local residents have dubbed it the Thin Red Line – a 750-metre barrier running along Foreshore Road thrown up as Botany Bay’s last line of defence against a plume of toxic chemicals seeping south-westwards in the groundwater. SMH 31 Mar 05

Racism

African American actor Laurence Fishburne says he found a racist “vibe” during his first stint in Australia, because his appearance led people to assume he was a “Maori bloke”. SMH 29 Mar 05

Refugees

Yesterday the Howard Government took another tiny bite at reform of asylum-seeker policy. This time the beneficiaries will be those whose applications for refugee status have failed but who cannot be sent home. Aust 25 Mar 05

The spin doctors who push the Howard Government’s appalling refugee policies tend to foam at the mouth when you call the Baxter immigration detention centre a concentration camp. But this is precisely what it is, as any dictionary will confirm. SMH 26 Mar 05 *

Social justice

India has given one its top civilian awards to Australian Gladys Staines, a social worker and widow of missionary Graham Staines who was killed by a Hindu mob along with their two sons in 1990. Ms Staines received the award for “remaining steadfast in her devotion to care for people affected by leprosy, despite her personal tragedy”.
ABC Online 30 Mar 05

Taxation

A study released yesterday confirms the findings of the recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report that so upset John Howard and Peter Costello – income taxes have been rising in Australia. Aust 24 Mar 05 *

A flat 30 per cent marginal effective tax rate for all corporate and personal income would be a progressive step, argues Ross Garnaut. SMH 31 Mar 05 *

Technology

iPod people are everywhere. But, as always happens with technologically driven social change, fears abound that iPods will lead to antisocial behaviour and destroy traditions and our sense of “community”. SMH 26 Mar 05

Your body could soon be the backbone of a broadband personal data network linking your mobile phone or MP3 player to a cordless headset, your digital camera to a PC or printer, and all the gadgets you carry around to each other. SMH 26 Mar 05
Other items of interest

In August it will be 60 years since America dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. And the very creation of such a weapon of mass destruction led to a terrifying arms race that continues to this day. More.

D.A. Carson and others critique the Emerging Church Movement for its reductionistic understanding of modernism and an inappropriate dismissal of confessional Christianity. More.

Gary Bouma, Professor of Sociology from Monash University; Robert Forsythe, the Anglican Bishop of South Sydney; and Rev Dr David Milliken from the Uniting Church discuss Christianity in Australian society. More.

The birth and death of Christ are big events, but Easter Monday is just a bonus holiday to further emphasise the importance of Easter to Christians. So let’s call it Compassion Day in the interests of religious pluralism, argues Eric Claus. More.

Bill Muehlenberg reviews God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics by Marion Maddox. More.

Former US senator and presidential candidate George McGovern argues that challenging a mistaken war can be more challenging than fighting one. More.

It is Darwinists, not Christians, who are stonewalling the facts about evolution, argues Charles Colson. More.

Conservative evangelicals of the ilk of Peter and Phillip Jensen have never before had unfettered power, run complex and inclusive community institutions, or been exposed to such public scrutiny. More.

Dave Belden argues that the liberal elite have run the US and the media for too long, and both right and left have something to learn when a lot of the ‘People’ disagree with them. More.

Atheist psychiatrist Robert L. Spitzer argues that gays can change. More.

Brian Walden considers the gap between science and religion, and what this might mean for the future of humankind. More.

Choice is the mantra for neo-liberals who believe, fundamentally, that god is actually the market. But is there a social plimsoll line, a point of overload that makes societies sink? asks Eva Cox. More.

Once again, controversial historian Keith Windschuttle presents us with a lesson in how not to read a text. More.

Fundamentalism, secular or religious, is a creation of the modern humanist world, writes John Carroll. More.

Religion & Ethics Australia Digest is published by the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling College, 120 Herring Rd, Eastwood NSW 2122 AUSTRALIA. Telephone (02) 9878 0201. Back issues are available at http://www.baptistsocialissues.org.au/review.htm 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. Abbreviations: AFR=The Australian Financial Review; Aust=The Australian; SMH=The Sydney Morning Herald. An asterisc (*) following an entry indicates that the article contains significant new information. To receive a free copy of READ by email each week, email and type “subscribe to READ” in the subject line.