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Keywords: Contraception

  • AUSTRALIA

    The ceremonious dance of freedom and tyranny

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 October 2022
    1 Comment

    Governments have, with little opposition, passed laws that privilege individual choice on issues related to abortion, contraception, gender equality and marriage. If we regard unrestrained individual choice as the fullest expression of human development, we shall necessarily relativise and erode social bonds.  

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Irish Church accepts its teaching jars with the faithful

    • Gerry O'Hanlon
    • 27 May 2015
    56 Comments

    Archbishop Martin voted no in the gay marriage referendum. But after the result, he says the Church needs ‘a reality check across the board’, and that means more than a new language. When Church teaching is invoked to bar women from office, to forbid contraception and condemn homosexual relations as intrinsically disordered in  a way that conflicts with the ‘sense of the faithful’ of so many of the baptised, then the Church, despite the many wise things it has to say, loses credibility.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Conscientious Catholics come around to contraception law

    • Fatima Measham
    • 20 November 2012
    23 Comments

    Last week the UN declared access to contraception a universal human right. The Philippines Church's opposition to reproductive health legislation is hollow because it is doesn't address identified social problems. Many conscientious Catholics are arriving at the conclusion that they can support the bill without having to renounce their faith.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Spiritual leader for questioning Catholics

    • Gerald O'Collins
    • 05 September 2012
    27 Comments

    The late Cardinal Carlo Martini reached out constantly to the young, to intellectuals, to all manner of alienated Catholics, as well as immigrants and refugees. He was explicit in expressing his view that the encyclical Humanae Vitae had done 'great damage' reaffirming the ban on contraception. To him, it was why the Church lost credibility with young people on questions of sexuality and family planning.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Contraception not the answer to maternal mortality

    • Eugene Hurley
    • 18 July 2012
    67 Comments

    More than 350,000 women die every year from difficulties related to pregnancy or childbirth, many on our own doorstep in East Timor and Papua New Guinea. Senator Bob Carr's announcement of a doubling in AusAID funding for family planning targets pregnancy itself as the problem, rather than the lack of good basic health services.

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  • RELIGION

    US bishops' contraception conundrum

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 29 March 2012
    39 Comments

    To maintain moral influence, the US Catholic bishops' fastidiousness about indirect cooperation with government on contraception would need to be matched by an equal fastidiousness in cooperating indirectly with government in the abuses associated with military, penal and immigration policy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Philippines bishops' contraception conundrum

    • Fatima Measham
    • 18 May 2011
    30 Comments

    While Catholic bishops in the Philippines have opposed modern forms of birth control, the public paralysis this has engendered over sexual health care has led to high rates of abortion. The Philippine Catholic Church can thus be seen to be at odds with its ministry for the poor.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope models condom conversation

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 November 2010
    14 Comments

    Pope Benedict's remarks on condoms have offered rich pickings. Speculation arose whether his statement heralds the collapse of Catholic condemnation of contraception. But the Pope's words were less significant for their content than for their style.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Politicising women's bodies

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 06 May 2010
    36 Comments

    What's the difference between wanting a thin wife and wanting an invisible wife? Which is more democratic: the western tendency to idealise the porn-star aesthetic, or the old-fashioned imperative for modesty and virtue? When the chips are down, is raunch culture really more dignifying than discretion?

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The morality of population control

    • Paul Collins
    • 17 December 2009
    22 Comments

    It's hard not to sound misanthropic when discussing population. Conservatives accuse you of favouring abortion, contraception and sterilisation in developing countries. Progressives say you're a cultural imperialist diverting attention from social justice.

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  • RELIGION

    Reliving the Church's sexual evolution

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 August 2008
    20 Comments

    The year 1968 is usually associated with student protests. In the Catholic Church, it is remembered for Humanae Vitae, the papal document directed against artificial contraception, and for the turmoil that followed it.

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