Writings

A collection of 345 posts

Writings

Can Doctors Say No to Providing Abortion Care?

The religious rights of a small group of medical professionals do not trump those held by the remainder of the citizenry. I recently returned to Australia from Seville, where I attended an international conference on all aspects of abortion care. Among the issues discussed were the barriers women face to

Writings

Who Has the Courage to Stand Up for State Schooling?

Are there big ideas in Australian politics any more? Or big politicians with big principles and the wit and courage to stand by – and for – them? The answer may be “no”. The forces decimating visionary and moral leadership include the hollow machine men running the main parties, their small target

Writings

Flu Jabs - Australia Needs to Do Better

A report into what went wrong with this year’s seasonal flu vaccine for kids deserves our attention. The West Australian Health Department’s Ministerial Review into the Public Health Response into the Adverse Events to the Seasonal Influenza Vaccine sought to uncover the reason for “an alarming rise in

Writings

Talking About Rape

It’s the end of the footy season, so everyone’s talking about rape. Or, more specifically, about the young women who were so stupid as to put themselves in a position where they’d be raped, or be able to claim later that they were. TV presenter Kerri-Anne Kennerley

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Leslie in the Hot Seat on ABC TV’s Q & A

Watch Leslie chat with Presenter Tony Jones, the Chaser’s Craig Reucassel, Women’s Weekly editor Helen McCabe, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne on one of Australia’s most watched TV current affairs shows. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3010595.htm

Writings

New Problem With No Name

The first problem with no name was uncovered in the 1960s by a feminist named Betty Friedan. Once named, the problem had a chance of having its parameters defined and negative consequences addressed. Now, we are in the grip of another problem with no name. Yet the evidence is everywhere

Writings

Australia’s Hung Parliament and the Governor General’s Moral Dilemma

Last week questions were raised about whether Quentin Bryce should excuse herself from the Governor-General’s role in the event of a hung parliament because of a conflict of interest. Bryce’s son-in-law, Bill Shorten, is a Labor MP likely to have a senior role in the Gillard government if

Writings

The National School Chaplaincy Program Is an Accident Waiting to Happen

Around one in five young Australians suffers from mental illness. These include anxiety and depressive disorders, as well as complex conditions like anorexia and bulimia. Some 10 per cent of young Australians suffer abuse or neglect while one in five has a parent with poor mental health (21%) or a

Writings

A Few Good Men and Stephen Milne Rape Allegations

Important stories can hit-and develop-at the wrong time. Like in the days leading up to a coup that delivered Australia its first female Prime Minister. Such losses are an inevitable part of an unpredictable news cycle, but sometimes they must be resisted. Some stories are just too important to let

Writings

What the First Female PM Means for Australian Women

What does Australia’s first female PM mean for Australian women? Nothing. And Everything. In the tense hours between 7pm on Wednesday until Labor’s caucus meeting on Thursday morning, women were emoting on Twitter: “My little boys may wake up to a female prime minister. I could burst into

Writings

Protect Our Kids from Scripture Teachers and Junk Food Advertisers

It’s easy taking candy from a baby. That doesn’t make it right. This is James, a NSW scripture teacher: “The great opportunity we have in teaching scripture in our primary schools … is that we’re allowed to teach it up to an hour a week … I spoke to

Writings

Leslie Talks to TokenSkeptic About Big Pharma

Leslie and science educator Michael McRae ask how industry-funded research and marketing influences our health. Read it or listen to it on the TOKEN SCEPTIC blog. Publication history > Episode Twenty-Three - On Big Pharma - Interview With Dr Leslie Cannold and Michael McRaeTOKEN SKEPTIC 2010-06-11 http://tokenskeptic.org/2010/

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Leslie Talks to Kate O’Toole on ABC Youth Radio Triple J’s Hack

On child support and whether men have become reproductive slaves Listen to the audio here [http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/daily/hack_thurs_2010_06_10.mp3] Publication history > Leslie Talks to Kate O'Toole on ABC Youth Radio Triple J's HackTriple J Radio

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Leslie Talks Men and Abortion on Radio JJJ’s Hack

Leslie talks to Kate O’Toole about men and why you can’t have half a baby or half an abortion http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/daily/hack_wed_2010_06_09.mp3

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Leslie Explains to the 7Pm Project Crew Why Corporations Shouldn’t Own Our Genes

Leslie can be found 6 mins 55 seconds in.

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Does NSW Labor need to go?

In the wake of yet another scandal and ministerial reshuffle in the NSW government, Leslie joins other ethical opinion leaders to answer the question, is it time for the NSW government to go? http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/demands-grow-for-labor-to-go-20100605-xlr3.html

Writings

When Difference of Desire is Sold As a Deficiency

Why can’t a woman be more like a man? Henry Higgins posed the question in My Fair Lady and ever since Viagra began earning Pfizer more than $US1 billion ($1.2 billion) per year, the big pharmaceutical companies have been asking it, too. Why can’t women’s sexual

Writings

Shape your Online Image or Others will Shape it For You

My story begins with a fax machine. A fax machine in a walk-in stationery cupboard at a law firm at the start of my working life. It was new and fandangled, the height of whiz-bang. We were all taught to work it but no one understood it, so it wasn’

Writings

The Patenting of Human Genes Must Be Stopped

Craig Venter is back in the news. The entrepreneurial geneticist recently announced he has created a new form of synthetic life. The new microbe, which thrives and replicates with only a man-made genome, paves the way for a world full of organisms that are built to order rather than evolved.

Writings

What Public Infidelity Has to do With Me

At a press conference after his resignation, the former NSW Transport Minister David Campbell has this to say about revelations he had visited a gay bathhouse: ’I made some personal choices which have put me and my family in this situation…I’ve apologised to them for it. I apologise

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Corruption Is Never Harmless, in the Church or State

Corruption is the most serious moral scandal of our time. Why? Because corruption is a double-edged sword, a moral evil that may turn one chump’s decision to bribe, extort or otherwise abuse his power for personal gain into destruction of the very systems that order our society and make

Writings

Why We’ve Stopped Trusting Science

The 1950s was the apex of scientists and scientific credibility. My parents, like most of their peers, were taken in by heroic media depictions of Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, and the outpouring of scientific ingenuity in the cold war race to the moon. Like many of the

Writings

Patently Absurd. Why Corporates Shouldn’t Profit From Our Genes

How can human attributes be deemed corporate property? We tend to think of patents as good, or at least necessary, legal tools. Patents provide legal protection for innovations on which inventors rely to recoup the investment of time and money they made to develop a new medication, or bring a

Writings

The Skinny on the Ethics of Dating

When does an impolite boyfriend become unethical? Chronic rudeness on this or other fronts may indicate the presence of more serious moral disorders. A reader named Pria asks whether the man she describes as her “boyfriend – so-called” is impolite or unethical. “So-called” arranges dates at the last minute, then breaks

Writings

Get Religion out of Government Schools, Please!

A mother writes to me, torn with guilt about a decision she made about the education of her daughter, who began kindergarten this year. The family doesn’t believe in “structured religion”, preferring instead to raise their children as “tolerant of all religions but followers of none”. For this reason,