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
Zoe’s law risks female rights, women warn
AAP
A bill that allows people to be charged with grievous bodily harm if they hurt an unborn baby will have significant and far-reaching consequences for female rights, a coalition of women’s groups warns. The coalition – which includes Women’s Health NSW, Family Planning NSW and the Women’s Electoral Lobby – says the NSW government has ignored women’s groups’ concerns over the legislation, known as Zoe’s Law.
Coalition MP under pressure to drop Zoe’s Law
Amy Corderoy – Sydney Morning Herald
Pressure is mounting on the Liberal Party to drop a new law that would for the first time define a 20-week-old foetus as a “person”. The NSW Bar Association has written to Chris Spence, the Liberal MP proposing the law, to say it opposes the law on the grounds that it is “arbitrary” and may lead to the interests of the foetus prevailing over a woman’s ability to have a late-term abortion.
Classification
Push to ease adult-only content rules for TV slammed by South Australian Government
Caroline Winter – ABC
The lobby group Free TV Australia wants people to be able to watch adult-rated programs at any time of day. The group, which represents the major free-to-air stations, wants to remove a ban on M-rated content being shown before 8.30pm.
Donor Conception & Surrogacy
A person is a person no matter how small: Dealing with IVF’s ethical questions
Ken Connor – LifeNews
A heartwarming report was recently published by the San Jose Mercury News telling the story of a family whose year’s long dream of parenthood was finally realized when a couple they’d never met donated their 19-year-old frozen embryo to them for adoption.
Drugs & Alcohol
New laws follow death of 17-year-old student Henry Kwan
Mark Coultan – The Australian
NSW has become the first state in Australia to completely ban substances with psychoactive properties in an attempt to stop the proliferation of synthetic drugs.
Education
WA: 600 teaching jobs to go: union
David Weber and Stephanie Dalzell – ABC
The State School Teachers’ Union says it is expecting that more than 600 teaching positions will be lost next year. The union’s claim comes after the State Opposition tabled an Education Department document in parliament yesterday suggesting teacher numbers per student would drop in 2014.
Schools birthday cake ban queried by experts
Susie O’Brien – News Ltd
Bans on students bringing birthday cakes and home-cooked treats to school have been questioned by allergy experts. A growing number of schools prohibit sharing food to protect students with severe allergies and anaphylaxis.
Marriage
Same-sex marriage not the vote winner advocates hoped it might be
Australian Conservative
Despite the combined efforts of former prime minister Kevin Rudd, gay marriage activists and much of the media, Saturday’s election result appeared to confirm the view that gay marriage does not seem to excite very many Australians outside of the inner city elite enclaves.
Rudd is best hope for gay marriage
Patricia Karvelas – The Australian
Kevin Rudd is being urged to sponsor the next gay marriage bill from the backbench, capitalising on his pledge during the election campaign to make the issue a priority in the first 100 days of a re-elected Labor government.
Overseas Aid
Millions of Zimbabweans at risk of chronic hunger
Susie Turner – AP
Zimbabwe is facing a “dire” food situation after erratic rains and “unusual” mid-season droughts triggered critical levels of crop failure, Christian Aid has warned. The World Food Programme estimates the number of people who will need food assistance in the coming months at two million.
Politics
Who goes to Canberra? The seats that hang in the balance
Jonathan Swan – Canberra Times
The election is over but candidates in eight seats are still waiting on results from the Australian Electoral Commission, with, one imagines, well-chewed fingernails, four days after Tony Abbott was declared Prime Minister-elect.
Secular politics does not mean religious silence
Tim Binsted – AFR
Kevin Rudd’s public belittling of a minister who asked him about his stance on gay marriage showed that some Australians would prefer religious believers kept their views to themselves – but marginalising any sector of society is an affront to democracy.
Rudd wants to be leader again
Craig Emerson – The Australian
Andrew Fisher served as a Labor prime minister on three separate occasions. Rudd has told three journalists at this newspaper that he wants to emulate Fisher and become a three-time Labor prime minister. He has described himself as a “determined bastard”.
Turnbull’s electronic voting pitch is on the right track
Edwina Byrne – Eureka Street
Malcolm Turnbull — who according to our new Prime Minister ‘virtually invented the internet in this country’ — has called for the introduction of electronic voting in Australia.
Greens lose ground in NSW
Ammike Foley – The Land
Despite a concerted push to woo the regional vote at Saturday’s federal election, the Greens have gone backwards in regional NSW and look unlikely to capture one of the State’s Senate seats.
Senate bid for union boss Paul Howes kiboshed
Andrew Clennell – the Daily Telegraph
Union boss Paul Howes’ bid for Bob Carr’s Senate spot looks over before it even starts amid complaints from within the party that it would breach Labor rules because a woman should be installed in the spot.
Refugees
Syria’s refugee crisis: How the human race is heading for an epic fail … again
Candace Sutton – news.com.au
The number of Syrian refugees has passed the two million mark. A country is “haemorrhaging” people who are fleeing with “little more than the clothes on their backs”. Already it is “the biggest refugee crisis of this century” and the “biggest displacement crisis of all time”, says the United Nations, adding it is “nothing less than alarming”. And now, finally, the UN has admitted it.
Religious Freedom & Persecution
Christian mother killed, boy kidnapped in Somalia
ASSIST News Service
Islamic extremists from the Al Shabaab rebel group are suspected of killing a Christian woman in one town last week and kidnaping a 13-year-old boy from another, sources said. According to a story by Morning Star News, the militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of its underground church, are suspected of killing Fatuma Isak Elmi, 35, on Sept. 1 at about 7:30 p.m. inside her home in Beledweyne, Hiran Province in south-central Somalia.
How God is moving in Syria despite heartbreaking persecution
Charisma News
In this exclusive interview with Charisma News, Jane (not her real name), a Syrian Christian, gave us a firsthand account of what it’s like to be a Christian in the war-torn country during this dangerous and uncertain time.
Sexualisation of Society
Hotels and the pornography plague: an example of moral responsibility from Scandinavia
Robert George – Life Site News
A bit more than a year ago, we made public here on Public Discourse a letter we had sent to the chief executive officers of our nation’s largest hotel chains, respectfully asking them to stop offering pornography in their hotel rooms.
Other
Women will regret putting off pregnancy if they wait too long
Fiona Macrae – Daily Mail
Women should start their family by the age of 35 or they could be haunted by their decision to wait, leading fertility experts warn. In a fresh warning against delaying pregnancy, experts also say women should not necessarily use their career as an excuse to put off motherhood – as working life doesn’t get easier with age.
Hillsong Church will expand to Los Angeles, says Pastor Brian Houston
Gina Meeks – Charisma News
Hillsong Church founding pastor Brian Houston announced that the megachurch, which already has 11 congregations worldwide, will be starting a new church in Los Angeles.