Religion & Ethics Australia Digest

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

No. 043, 29 Jul – 4 Aug 2005  ² edited by Rod Benson

News & opinion

Abortion

Where does Feminists for Life fit in the pro-life community, asks Rob Moll. More…

The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Taskforce on Pastoral Responses to Abortion has launched a consultation with women to hear directly some of the experiences surrounding a difficult pregnancy or abortion. More…

The Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, has indicated he wants to introduce a Medicare rebate that provides counselling for pregnant women in a bid to cut Australia’s abortion rate. SMH 3 Aug 05

Animal rights

In his new book In Defense of Animals, Peter Singer reduces the value of human life to a tick-list of capabilities. More…

Bioethics – cloning

Snuppy, the first cloned puppy, offers hope for endangered species such as dingoes and opens the kennel door to designer breeds and even copycat pooches. Aust 4 Aug 05

Bioethics – stem cells

US Senate majority leader Bill Frist is 100 per cent “pro-life,” except when it comes to aborting embryos to harvest stem cells. More…

Christian scientists and political conservatives are upset with Bill Frist’s support for expanded embryonic stem-cell research. More…

Killing human embryos for research is not pro-life, argues Stan Guthrie. More…

Bioethics – withdrawal of treatment

Right to Life has conceded it will not appeal to the courts over the withdrawal of Maria Korp’s feeding tube. Herald Sun 30 Jul 05

A little-known Queensland tribunal has granted four patients, including a 39-year-old paralysed man, the right to die in five years. Sunday Mail 31 Jul 05

As debate rages on the fate of Maria Korp, an inquiry will look at care and guidelines for such patients. The Age 1 Aug 05

Life-support for Melbourne throttling victim Maria Korp is withdrawn because it’s death-delaying rather than life-sustaining, writes Julie-Anne Davies. More…

Capital punishment

Advocates for the re-introduction of the death penalty would argue “an eye for an eye” is adequate justification for the return of the hangman. Part 1… Part 2…

Death & dying

Lindsey O’Connor explains why your living will may not be good enough. More…

Drugs

Australia now has the lowest rate of smoking in the industrialised world and we come 23rd in the rankings for alcohol consumption. Aust 29 Jul 05

Ecstasy is more popular than ever before, with new research showing one in five Australians in their early 20s has used the party drug, making it more prevalent in Australia than in any other English-speaking country. SMH 29 Jul 05

Environment

Australia should stick with trying to reduce coal’s greenhouse effect through the new six-country climate pact rather than pursuing expensive renewable energy options, John Howard has said. Aust 29 Jul 05

The collapse of Kyoto, post-2012, has spawned the first regional greenhouse agreement. Aust 29 Jul 05

For its mostly European supporters, the Kyoto greenhouse treaty’s time surely had come. Aust 30 Jul 05

Climate sceptics who questioned the scientific basis of climate change have been isolated as the flat-earthers of the 21st century, argues Anthony Albanese. Aust 1 Aug 05

Best to sign onto the partnerships concept, and try to make it work, writes Tim Colebatch. The Age 2 Aug 05

Geoff Kitney explains why Europe rallied to sign the now dead Kyoto Protocol.
AFR 4 Aug 05

The ecological footprint smells like just another tool of social control that leftist green ideologues love, writes Miranda Devine.
SMH 4 Aug 05

Andy Crouch suggests why evangelicals are—but shouldn’t be—cool toward global warming. More…

Ethics – business – Australia

Sentences for some corporate crime could be tougher because of judge Ray Finkelstein’s decision against Steve Vizard. AFR 29 Jul 05

Hillsong pastor Brian Houston is under investigation for breach of reporting requirements after failing to lodge financial statements that would reveal his earnings and assets. The association through which Mr Houston received all income from the church, book-writing and speaking on the lucrative pentecostal circuit had failed to file financial accounts for three years. Aust 3 Aug 05

Euthanasia

A Melbourne public hospital is appealing against a Supreme Court ruling that it hand over the private medical file of a woman who had a controversial late-term abortion.
The Age 29 Jul 05

Almost 60 per cent of Victorian GPs have been asked to end a patient’s life with a third agreeing to the request.
Herald Sun 31 Jul 05

The New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) board has decided not to change its position opposing euthanasia. More…

Executive salaries

Macquarie Bank has challenged criticism of the $10 million-plus pay packets handed to its top executives, saying it can’t base remuneration policy on society’s perceptions of what is right or wrong. SMH 28 Jul 05

Feminism

Revolutionary lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys is pursuing her 30-year mission to shift women out of collective complacency. Beauty And Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices In The West is her sixth book. More…

Freedom of speech

Ideologues shouldn’t make comments in their employer’s name, writes Gerard Henderson. SMH 2 Aug 05

Free speech at stake: the best way to rebut bad ideas is to hear them out. Aust 3 Aug 05 [scroll down]

When it comes to hiring and firing, the boss traditionally gets the last word. But the tables may be set to turn as disgruntled ex-employees find a powerful new voice in community forums and online diaries. SMH 4 Aug 05

A new blog is born every second, research into the explosion of personal internet publishing sites has found. SMH 4 Aug 05

Gaming

player can do almost anything, much like in real life. The US ratings board the sex scenes; Australia banned it. SMH 1 Aug 05

HIV/AIDS

Politicians must suspend moral judgments if AIDS is to be defeated. More…

Homosexuality

Growing conservatism has been blamed for less tolerance of homosexuality, writes Julie Szego. SMH 30 Jul 05

A Tasmanian gay man is challenging a Red Cross ban against taking blood donated by sexually active homosexual and bisexual men. Michael Cain, a 22-year-old from Launceston, said yesterday he tried to donate blood last October in response to a call for donors but was turned away because he had had sex with a man in the previous 12 months. Mr Cain said a nurse told him that “you people” had a higher risk of contracting blood-borne diseases. Mercury 3 Aug 05

Human rights

The United States military commission process under which Australian David Hicks would be tried for terrorism offences was flawed, with juries selected to ensure conviction, two former prosecutors have claimed. Aust 1 Aug 05

Australian girls as young as 14 have been flown overseas and forced to marry older men in an attempt by their families to protect them from promiscuity and Western influences at home. Aust 2 Aug 05

Sending Australian girls overseas for marriage against their will was “tantamount to sexual trafficking” and offenders would be severely punished, the federal Government has warned. Aust 3 Aug 05

Illness – mental

Australian parole officers have called for many mentally ill prisoners to be released from prison and given help in the community. The submission also calls for the creation of a limited number of special courts to deal with offenders with a mental illness. Aust 1 Aug 05

An estimated two-thirds of prisoners in South Australian jails have a psychiatric disorder, but the state Government has admitted it cannot provide appropriate care for them. Aust 2 Aug 05

The NSW Government was accused yesterday of keeping mentally-ill prisoners behind bars illegally. Aust 3 Aug 05

Judiciary

A coming vacancy in the High Court is sure to excite those who would make the court “relevant”, and an instrument for change. The concept of a representative judiciary is ridiculous – would we really want judges from, say, the mentally handicapped or the criminal? Aust 29 Jul 05

Marriage

The multiple marriage, once associated with celebrities and socialites, has drifted into the suburbs and found a new respectability.
SMH 30 Jul 05

American brides are rejecting the vow to love “till death do us part” in favour of more cautious promises such as staying together “for as long as our marriage shall serve the common good”. Aust 2 Aug 05

A radical new book by Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, debunks the concept of marriage as a time-honored institution, and argues that we need to loosen up about it. More… Responses…

Poverty

Poverty is a violation of human rights, argues Thomas Pogge. More…

Racism

Macquarie University Law Professor Andrew Fraser defends his view that “an expanding black population [in Australia] is a sure-fire recipe for increases in crime, violence and a wide range of other social problems” on Counterpoint. More…

Refugees & asylum seekers

Children have been freed from detention, but much more remains to be done, writes Arnold Zable. The Age 1 Aug 05

Smoking

Women who smoke while pregnant have been given another reason to quit after a study found it might cause their baby to become an unruly and badly behaved child. Aust 2 Aug 05

Terrorism

Until they act to root out the cancer in their midst, Muslim organisations in the West deserve little sympathy, argues Patrick Goodenough. More…

The Provisional IRA last night took the historic step of ordering its militants to end their decades-long armed campaign in Northern Ireland in favour of trying to achieve a united Ireland through political means. Aust 29 Jul 05

Italy has banned Islamic burqas under tough terrorism laws that provide two-year jail terms and E2000 ($3200) fines for anyone caught covering their face in a public place. Aust 1 Aug 05

There are limits to what freedoms we will give up in the war on terror, writes Andrew Lynch. The Age 4 Aug 05

Trade

Prime Minister Mark Vaile has made a personal appeal to the incoming leader of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, to step-in and revive the Doha talks that have broken down in Geneva. Aust 1 Aug 05

Vilification – religious

A senior Victorian judge has called for changes to the state’s contentious religious vilification laws. Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal president Stuart Morris’s comments came as he dismissed as preposterous a lawsuit launched by a convicted sex offender and self-proclaimed witch. Herald Sun 2 Aug 05

War

On August 15 we will celebrate VP Day (Victory in the Pacific), once known as VJ Day (Victory over Japan). Aust 4 Aug 05

More than 1800 US troops have died in Iraq since the war began. SMH 4 Aug 05

Weapons

Pax Christi International believes “it is immoral for states and non-state actors,
including terrorists, to use or possess nuclear weapons or to threaten their use as a
deterrent.” More…

Welfare provision

Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen responds to the apparent Anglicare financial crisis and fears that it will be shut down. More…

Work

John Quiggin finds employees on the downshift, choosing spare time over income. AFR 29 Jul 05

Workplace relations

Kim Beazley says Labor is prepared to abandon its pledge at the past three elections to abolish the Government’s individual employment contracts. Aust 30 Jul 05

John Howard made it clear that despite Kevin Andrews’s obvious fudging there would be no opportunity under the new system for bosses to negotiate away smokos and lunchbreaks. The smack over the snout for Peter Costello was even more obvious. Aust 1 Aug 05

John Howard has left himself plenty of “wiggle room” over his plans to deregulate industrial relations. SMH 1 Aug 05

Melbourne’s Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart has sought to protect Church agencies from manipulation by lobby groups working to gain Church support for their position on the Federal Govenemnt’s industrial relations reforms. CathNews 3 Aug 05

Other items of interest

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo writes on “The myth of moderate Islam.” More…

The recent and sudden interest in both Christianity and Islam has been fuelled by the threat that their more robust forms, generically labelled ‘fundamentalism’, are believed to pose to the stability and comfort of the secularised West. More…

EU elites are using the cover of recent terror attacks to take away our freedoms, argues Bruno Waterfield. More…

Aboriginal Baptist minister Rev Graham Paulson is spearheading two projects to provide new pathways of leadership training for Indigenous communities and churches. More…

Consumerism reaches ever-higher levels of absurdity, yet most of us are blind to it, writes Clive Hamilton. More…

How well do God and Mammon sort together at the big end of town, asks Anne Hyland. AFR Magazine 29 Jul 05

How host communities feel about themselves after receiving a short-term mission group may be more important than the number of latrines dug or homes built. More…

Click here for local information on commemorations of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Who is the driving strength behind the Pentecostal movement in Australia? Meet Brian and Bobbie Houston. 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. To view the original article or transcript, click on the blue underlined text at the end of the summary. Abbreviations: AFR=The Australian Financial Review; Aust=The Australian; SMH=The Sydney Morning Herald. For a free copy of READ by email each week, email and type “subscribe to READ” in the subject line.