1. A couple of recent items regarding Australian foreign policy and Feminism, abortion, and contraception
1.1 What AusAID's Feminism-abortion-contraception training programmes look like
See the article "Ladies dispense tough justice", by Rosemary Neill, dated June 29, 2013, downloaded from
The Australian's website:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/ladies-dispense-tough-justice/story-e6frg6z6-1226671595465
(That article came to my attention
via the version printed under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 24 of the "INQUIRER" section of
The Weekend Australian, June 29-30, 2013, First Edition, No. 15153, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited.)
See also item 12 of
this Notes post and item 1 of
this Notes post.
Labels: abortion, contraception, feminism
1.2 Mr.—now Sen.—Carr "makes his case for … Australian foreign aid tied to population control policies."
At the end of last year, I logged, in item 7 of
this Notes post, Sen. The Hon. Bob Carr, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, writing that
On the Security Council we'll be working for the rights of women and girls - to education, training and jobs, and to maternal and reproductive healthcare. Its what we're already doing in Myanmar, Indonesia and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific.
The following quotation—Sen. Carr's answer, presumably in late 1999 or early 2000 (when Sen. Carr was The Hon. Bob Carr
M.P., Premier of New South Wales), to an interview question—might shed some light on Sen. Carr's motives for that work:
Well, all our foreign aid has got to be made dependent on population control policies in these countries[, i.e., "Third World" countries] and on the empowerment of women. The most useful nexus here is the empowerment of women, their empowerment through legal rights, legal entitlements and education. That's the indicator that most effectively curbs population, and we've got to think about this. We are all citizens of this planet, there is no other planet and NSW is not a region of the Federal Republic of Mars. State leaders are quite entitled to discuss global warming because in the end it affects us all.
[bold type in the original (the interview answers were in bold, the questions not in bold), my interpolation,
interview "populate & perish?", with The Hon. Bob Carr M.P., Premier of New South Wales, downloaded from The University of Sydney's Work and Organisational Studies' "workSite" ("issues in workplace relations") website:
http://worksite.econ.usyd.edu.au/carr.html]
(That interview came to my attention
via the
Cut & Paste installment "Robert No Headline Carr does a tedious dance before creating a Cut & Paste headline", dated April 15, 2013, downloaded from (behind the paywall at)
The Australian's website:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/cut-paste/robert-no-headline-carr-does-a-tedious-dance-before-creating-a-cut-paste-headline/story-fn72xczz-1226620292926)
Labels: abortion, contraception, feminism
2. "In NSW more than 50 per cent of school-age Catholics at-tend non-Catholic schools"
The quotation, including all the dashes (the second of them resulted from the word "attend" spanning two lines), in that headline comes from the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (Archdiocese of Sydney) Noticeboard article "80 attend Northern Mass", no byline, p. 32 (the "Classifieds, What's on and CCD Noticeboard" page), the Sydney
Catholic Weekly, Vol. 72, No. 4679, published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.) (That article is apparently not available online.)
Labels: Catholic schools, education
3. "Ms Plibsersek said two drugs used to terminate pregnancy for medical reasons would also be available through the PBS[ the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme] from 1 August 2013"; those drugs, namely "Mifepristone (Linepharma®) and misoprostol (GyMiso200®)[,] will be subsidised for medical terminations up to 49 days of gestation."
The quotations, excluding my square-bracketed interpolations, in that headline come from the Ministerial media release "New Generation Medicines Added to the PBS", dated June 30, 2013, downloaded from the Ministerial subsite of the Federal Department of Health and Ageing's website:
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr13-tp-tp068.htm
(The Minister in question is the Minister for Health, The Hon. Tanya Plibersek
M.P. (who is also the Minister for Medical Research).) See also the article "Julia Gillard's cut-price abortion drug as RU486 slashed to $12", by Samantha Maiden, dated June 30, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney
Daily Telegraph's website:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/julia-gillards-cut-price-abortion-drug-as-ru486-slashed-to-12/story-fni0cx12-1226671939686
(That article came to my attention
via this blog post by Miss Edwards.) See also the article "‘Horror’ at RU486 move", by Damir Govorcin, dated July 3, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney
Catholic Weekly's website:
http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=1&subclassID=2&articleID=12397&class=News&subclass=CW National
(That article came to my attention
via the version printed under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 2 of
The Catholic Weekly, July 7, 2013, Vol. 72, No. 4680, published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.)
Labels: abortion, RU486
4. "Kasper Admits Intentional Ambiguity" (in Vatican II's documents)
The quotation in that headline is the headline of a blog post by Boniface, dated Sunday, April 14, 2013, downloaded from the
Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog:
http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2013/04/kasper-admits-intentional-ambiguity.html
(That post came to my attention
via this AQ post.)
Labels: Vatican II, Walter Kasper
5. "The percentage of wives having affairs rose almost 40 percent during the last two decades to 14.7 percent in 2010, while the number of men admitting to extramarital affairs held constant at 21 percent, according to the latest data from the National Opinion Research Centre's General Social Survey."
The quotation in that headline comes from the article "In US, cheating is not just for husbands anymore", by Frank Bass, dated July 2, 2013, downloaded from
The Sydney Morning Herald's website:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/in-us-cheating-is-not-just-for-husbands-anymore-20130702-2p971.html?skin=text-only
Labels: adultery, marriage, social trends, vice
6. Sydney's "Archbishop[ Michael] Kelly had been created count of the Holy Roman Empire and assistant at the Pontifical Throne in 1926."
The quotation, excluding my square-bracketed interpolation, in that headline comes from the
Australian Dictionary of Biography entry "Kelly, Michael (1850–1940)", by Patrick O'Farrell:
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-michael-6920
(Msgr. Kelly's creation as Count of the Holy Roman Empire came to my attention
via a photo caption in
this Catholica post.)
Labels: Holy Roman Empire
7. A couple of recent items regarding the Australian Defence Force
7.1 "THE person behind the stirring speech delivered by army chief Lieutenant General David Morrison in the wake of shocking revelations about an army email sex ring was his transgender speechwriter, Lieutenant Colonel Cate McGregor."
The quotation, including its bold type (it was the first paragraph of an article), in that headline comes from the article "Transgender Lieutenant Colonel Cate McGregor speaks out about abuse and support", by Ian McPhedran, dated July 5, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney
Daily Telegraph's website:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/transgender-lieutenant-colonel-cate-mcgregor-speaks-out-about-abuse-and-support/story-fni0xqrc-1226674523255
(That article came to my attention
via the version printed under the headline "Courage and true defence of choice", with the same byline, on p. 25 of
The Daily Telegraph, Friday, July 5, 2013, Vol 1, No. 2891, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd.)
See also the blog post "Some jokers are real", by Mr. Bernard Gaynor, dated July 20, 2013, downloaded from his website:
http://bernardgaynor.com.au/some-jokers-are-real/
Labels: A.D.F.
7.2 (More from) Mr. Gaynor on the Australian Defence Force
See the blog post "What I note about the Australian Defence Force", by Mr. Bernard Gaynor, dated June 28, 2013, downloaded from his website:
http://bernardgaynor.com.au/what-i-note-about-the-australian-defence-force/
(That post came to my attention
via this True Catholic thread.)
Labels: A.D.F.
8. Mr. Parrett and Prof. Williams on 'separation of Church and State' in Australia
See the letter which was published under the heading "Education funding: Separation of Church and state", by Mr. Colliss Parrett, dated July 3, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney
Catholic Weekly's website:
http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=2&subclassID=5&articleID=12404&class=Comment&subclass=Letters
(That letter came to my attention
via the version published under the same heading and by the same author on p. 8 of
The Catholic Weekly, Vol. 72, No. 4680, published by the Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.)
See also the opinion piece "Nation's very foundation built on right to choose own god", by Prof. George Williams, dated July 16, 2013, downloaded from
The Sydney Morning Herald's website, in which Prof. Williams writes that
Australian law establishes a separation between church and state, and provides for religious choice. However, the regime is not complete. The constitutional protections say nothing about the states, which remain free to prefer one religion over another, and can ban the employment of people based upon their beliefs.
[http://www.smh.com.au/comment/nations-very-foundation-built-on-right-to-choose-own-god-20130715-2q05e.html?skin=text-only]
(But see, again, Mr. Parrett's letter, and also Dr. Zankin's letter, headed "Christianity holds sway until we become republic", published on
the Herald's letters page of July 17, 2013 (headlined "Rudd, Abbott both fail on real action on climate change").)
Labels: Church and State, law, Constitution
Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of The Dedication of
Our Lady of the Snows',
A.D. 2013
