ACL compiles a daily media monitoring service of stories of interest to the Christian constituency relating to children, family, drugs and alcohol, marriage, human rights, religious freedom etc. Visit the ACL’s website each day to see what’s of interest in the news. Please note that selection of the articles does not represent ACL endorsement of the content.
Abortion
Abortion provider to send text message reminders to women
The Christian Institute
Britain’s largest abortion provider has been criticised for trivialising abortion after announcing plans to send text message reminders to women booked in for an abortion.
BPAS, formerly the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which carries out almost one third of NHS-funded abortions, likened the service to reminders sent out by dentists before a check-up.
Bioethics
Maternity units refuse to tell parents the sex of unborn babies
Laura Donnelly and Will Taylor – Telegraph (UK)
The hospitals say they are too short-staffed to establish the sex of the foetus during ante-natal screening. But some medical groups believe the NHS policies are being driven by fears that females could be selectively aborted among cultures which value boys more highly. There is also concern that it is driven by people threatening to sue over being told the wrong gender of child.
Children & Family
Kids rip off family home
Julieanne Strachan – The Canberra Times
An increasing number of elderly Canberrans are asking for housing assistance after being cheated out of their homes by adult children. Financial abuse of elders is a growing concern for welfare advocates and financial advisers.
Sexuality a tough subject
Frances Stewart – The Canberra Times
Understanding the range of different sexual orientations is an important part of every Canberra teen’s development, according to Australia’s only openly gay education minister.
Education
They’re not faring well and the answer’s not welfare
Lainie Anderson – The Punch
Teenage mums in Adelaide’s northern suburbs will soon lose their welfare payments if they don’t go back to school. Local federal MP Nick Champion asked for his electorate to be included in the Federal Government’s tough-love trial. As he says: “We are not doing anyone any favours if we do not help teen mothers finish school.”
BBC turns its back on year of Our Lord: 2,000 years of Christianity jettisoned for politically correct ‘Common Era’
Chris Hastings – Daily Mail
The BBC has been accused of ‘absurd political correctness’ after dropping the terms BC and AD in case they offend non-Christians. The Corporation has replaced the familiar Anno Domini (the year of Our Lord) and Before Christ with the obscure terms Common Era and Before Common Era.
Environment
Engineering the Earth: forum’s big ideas
Breanna Tucker – The Canberra Times
Shading the Earth under a giant umbrella, painting roofs white and simulating volcanic eruptions have been proposed as the latest solutions to climate change. The seemingly wacky set of ideas will be explored by more than 65 scientists today as Canberra hosts a forum on the controversial field of geoengineering.
Euthanasia
Nitschke wins right to use euthanasia drug
Greg Kelton – The Advertiser
Right-to-die campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke has gained permission to import a drug used in voluntary euthanasia. He will provide the drug Nembutal to a Victor Harbor woman who wants to die. “The drugs will be provided to her with clear instructions,” he said. “They are to help her sleep. “If she breaches those instructions she will be aware there are significant dangers.
Why safe euthanasia is a myth
Brian Pollard – Mercatornet
The criminal law in Australia holds that the intentional taking of human life is a major criminal offence. This accords with the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Australia is a signatory, which declares that the right to the integrity of every person’s life is equal, inherent, inviolable, inalienable and should be protected by law.
Gambling
Pokie assault by football codes adds to Julia Gillard’s troubles
Sid Maher and Rowan Callick – The Australian
A grand-final week assault by AFL and NRL clubs on the government over poker machine reform will intensify pressure on Julia Gillard, who faces increasing caucus concern over the policy, the key to her power deal with Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie.
Expert rubbishes AFL’s pokies warning
Lexi Metherell and staff – ABC
A leading gambling researcher has dismissed the AFL’s concerns over the Federal Government’s planned restrictions on poker machines, labelling claims they could seriously hurt AFL clubs as “beyond belief” and “extraordinary”.
Wilkie faces pokies legal threat
Hannah Martin – The Mercury
Anti-Pokies campaigner Andrew Wilkie says one of Australia’s most powerful gambling groups is threatening to sue him. The independent Tasmanian MP, whose support of the Federal Government depends on its backing his tough poker machine reforms, says he fears Clubs Australia will try to sue him for “hundreds and thousands of dollars” after he labelled the group bullies.
Human Rights
A fight for right (not) to party at Harkaway Hall
Stuart Rintoul – The Australian
For the past 100 years, the Harkaway hall has hosted just about every big thing that’s ever happened in the tiny Victorian community, including weddings, dances, engagements, anniversaries and public meetings. But 13 years ago, Harkaway banned 18th and 21st birthday celebrations at the hall, fed up with young people getting drunk and causing damage.
Marriage
Why I support gay marriage
Kristina Keneally – Eurekastreet
I didn’t hear the word lesbian until I went to university. In my childhood, homosexuality was not discussed: not at home, not at church, not at school. I’m sure there were homosexual people in my classroom or community. Possibly even in my extended family. But they were not ‘out’. Even the prevailing culture did not engage with homosexuality: growing up in middle America in the ’70s and ’80s was still far more Happy Days than Glee.
Religious Persecution
Punjab: armed Muslims rape a Christian, a “common practice”
Jibran Khan – Asia News
The rape of Christian women in Punjab has become a “common practice” an “outrageous” phenomenon compounded by the fact that “the police protect the guilty” and not the victims. This is the bitter synopsis of Fr Jill John, of the Diocese of Lahore on the last recorded case of sexual violence against a Christian mother.
Suicide blast hits Indonesian church
The Guardian UK
A suicide bomber attacked an Indonesian church on Sunday, killing himself and wounding at least 20 people. The attack in Solo, in Central Java province, occurred as services were ending. A witness told the local station MetroTV that she heard the blast just after she walked out of the Kepunton church.
Video: Police ban Bible from Christian café
The Christian Institute
Police in Lancashire have told the owner of a Christian café to stop displaying Bible texts on a video screen, because it breaches public order laws.
Refugees
Bowen defends Malaysia deal rights protections
ABC
The Federal Government says there is no need for human rights protections under its Malaysian asylum seeker deal to be made legally binding. The Government wants to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia – although the plan is in legal limbo because of a High Court decision and a political stand-off over offshore processing of refugee claims.
Amnesty weighs in on people swap plan
Ross Peake – The Canberra Times
A new twist emerged in the Malaysia people swap plan as Amnesty International said Australia’s standing in the region has been damaged by the fierce political debate over stopping boat people. The criticism came as the Federal Government said yesterday the quota of 800 people to be sent to Malaysia under the people swap plan had been quarantined.
Further
Pope defends traditional values
Victor Simpson – Associated Press
Pope Benedict XVI called Saturday for a common front with Orthodox Christians to defend traditional church values, warning of threats posed by abortion and gay marriage. Facing discontent within his German flock, the pope said religion must not be banished from public life and that Christian churches “are walking side by side” in the battle. “They speak up jointly for the protection of human life from conception to natural death,” he told a meeting of Orthodox Christians on the third day of a visit to his native Germany.
Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party – We’ll not give up
The Star
The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party will never give up its struggle to implement hudud (sharia) law. PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi said it was not an issue to be debated and must be accepted by all. He invited non-Muslims to study hudud law at the PAS-run institute of higher learning, Kolej Universiti Islam Zulkifli Muhammad in Gombak, Selangor.
I find it absolutely bizarre that teen mums are forced into work and/or study to access benefits, but women in their 20s and 30s, who did things the right way – got married, then had kids in what they thought were loving relationships at the time, only to later be abandoned by violent cheating spouses, are punished for doing the exact same thing!
I have just been through a horrendous custody battle with my exhusband. We seperated after he bashed our five year old daughter while on a drug high. He has a very long history of violence against myself and other women, and of drug convictions. He then shacked up with a diagnosed sociopath who also has a long history of drug abuse, violence and child abuse against her own child who had been removed from her care. I on the other hand, am a university graduate, a christian with a long history of volunteer community work, don’t use drugs, don’t drink, smoke, and chose to not even date until my daughter was old enough to understand (and even then, only another hard working, uni graduate, christian man who don’t use drugs, smoke etc).
Yet despite what sort of person my ex, and what sort of person I am, I had the family court tell me I was seriously neglecting my daughter because I was finishing a gradate degree part time, during school hours – with the only except being short periods of prac with my shifts being either when the family court forced her to stay with her father or her grandparents (who were also part of the family court proceedings). I was told I was “selfish”, “career obsessed” and “neglectful bordering on abuse” for daring to want to complete my studies and eventually do what I do now – work two days a week while my daughter is at her grandparents’ house (by court order!).
Even the fact that when we were going through family court was when my daughter was nearly 6 til when she just turned 8, which meant that when she turned 6, I either had to be studying or working part time (or applying for work and not knock back any offers) to receive the sole parent payment, and that once she turned 8, I would have been dumped on the dole (as the SPP gets cut off when your child turns 8), no matter how many times I pointed out, I HAD to study (or work part time) or I wouldn’t receive any centrelink benefits at all, each time I was still told I was selfish and career obsessed for doing so.
Even pointing out that I have been left with serious injuries by my exhusband, and that my doctors have repeatedly said I should NOT be working and it’s crippling me, and I live in constant pain just doing two days a week, and that I do NOT want to be studying or working, but that I do it because centrelink says I must AND because it took three years for my ex to pay any child support, and now he only pays little more than the bare minimum, yet the family court continued to tell me that I was selfish, didn’t care about my daughter and obsessed with career.
The greatest hypocrisy is being told that my ex using drugs constantly when our daughter wasn’t there was irrelevant because our daughter wasn’t there, but if I do something productive (work or study) when my daughter isn’t with me, that I’m neglecting her.
Without finishing my postgrad degree, my previous studies are useless when it comes to being employed in my field, and due to my physical disabilities, I need something I can get a good hourly rate to overcome the fact I can only work 2-3 days a week at best, and I am very limited in what kind of work I can degree. Even now with me working, my daughter and I still live far below the poverty line, including myself going without necessary medications and treatment I desperately need, just to make sure rent and bills are paid.
It’s just a pathetic joke that teenage mums are helped to finish their studies and encouraged to work, but caring, responsible women in their 20s and 30s are punished if they suddenly find themselves single and are forced to study or work, but punished by the family court for doing so, even though it’s the only way to feed their kids, with a pathetic child support system that says deadbeat parents only have to pay $12.76 a fortnight, and they can’t even be forced to do that.