Writings

A collection of 345 posts

Writings

Role of Big Pharma in question after half a century of the pill

An independent study is needed of the pill’s impact on women’s lives. IF YOU don’t know it yet, you will soon. This year in the US, Bayer Schering Pharma is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the oral contraceptive pill. Our turn comes next. The company launched the

Writings

Support for Dying Friend our Final Gift

A READER – a qualified scientist I’ll call Ron – asks for my view on a dilemma that pitted his personal and professional integrity, and belief in absolute truths, against his love for a dying friend. Ron’s friend, also a scientist, was dying of cancer. “He said that he would

Writings

Pregnancy and Job Seeking. Is it Time to Lie?

A reader seeks advice on an acutely female ethical dilemma. She has just landed a much-wanted interview for a nine-month job, but discovers herself pregnant. The child, if born, will be her third. If she miscarries, it will be for the third time, too. She wants the baby

Writings

Good Parents Send Their Kids to Private School, Don’t They?

The Bankwest press release was crafted to provoke controversy. “More Australians Choose a Good Time over Kids Education.” It had the same flavour as the bank’s offering when it released similar market research last year. “Aussie families prefer holidays and Botox to private school education.” Yes, the Bankwest “Social

Writings

Do We Really Need to be Polite to the Family Pedophile

A reader seeks advice in resolving one of the most distressing dilemmas ever tackled by this columnist. The mother of two daughters, aged one and three, habitually finds herself in the holidays in the company of a child abuser. This, at least, is what she has been told about the

Writings

Kissing a Friend Goodbye

A new friend of mine recently told me a story about an old friend of hers. I use the term “friend” advisedly here because friendship is what this story is all about. Ellen was asked by her school chum Cassandra to babysit her child so that Cassandra could nip off

Writings

Desperate or Deadbeat Dads?

In recent weeks, I seem to have become a bloke magnet. Two weeks ago at the State Library cafe and one night last week at my usual watering hole, I’ve had men in my ear. Sweet men, sad men, vulnerable men – some recently divorced, others single for years – crooning

Writings

Women Failed by Catholic-Run Hospitals

There is no room at the Women’s. Once the hospital saw its mission as the service of all the Victorian women. Now, women inquiring about having their baby there will be asked their postcode. Should they fall outside the hospital’s new geographical catchment area and be at small

Writings

Leslie Talks to 4BC Morning’s Host Greg Carey About The Capacity for Consent

A district court judge has questioned the fairness of convicting a man who pleaded guilty to rape, for continuing to perform sex acts on an unconscious woman. Was the man really treated unfairly, or is the judge confused about what consent is all about? Listen now [http://media.mytalk.com.

Writings

Leslie Talks to 4BC Morning’s Host Greg Carey About Matthew John’s Scandal and Sex Lies and Relationships

Rugby league star Matthew John’s infidelity has raised the issue of staying with a partner who has strayed. Greg Cary talks to author Ruth Simons, about the thought processes behind cheating. Listen now [http://media.mytalk.com.au/4bc/podcasts/lesliecannold.mp3]. Publication history > Sex, Lies and Relationships4BC

Writings

Can it Ever be Ethical to Let Women Die?

A disturbing trend is emerging in the writings of those opposed to legal abortion. Since the passage of Victoria’s Law Reform Act last year, they have been campaigning against the limits the new law imposes on the rights of healthcare professionals to conscientiously object to involvement in abortion. From

Writings

Something Mad About Refugee Policies

Even if we eliminate people smugglers, the people needing smuggling won’t disappear. Kevin Rudd has an unnerving resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman, the gormless cover boy of Mad magazine. Periodically offered for higher office, Neuman’s election slogan is always the same. “You could do worse … and always have.

Writings

Betrayal and the Shocking Lies of Rex Crane

“From Hero to Zero” ran the headline, a nice one to describe the fall from grace last week of the Federal President of the Prisoners of War Association of Australia, Rex Crane. Crane took us all for a ride. Now 83, he claimed he was Australia’s youngest POW. Abandoned

Writings

We Must Say “Know” to Abstinence-Only Sex Ed “Choices, Decisions, Outcomes”

Your children have a right to sex education. This right is a component of their sexual rights, themselves a subset of the human rights guaranteed to them in international laws, human rights documents and other consensus statements. But don’t cry out for joy or fly off the handle with

Writings

Pulling Out the Racist Tag is a Lazy Way to Argue About Policy

There is little evidence to support racial motives behind criticism of Obama. THE cry of “racism” has sounded, and the hounds are off and running. Since last week’s outburst by Joe Wilson during President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress on health care – the congressman

Writings

Circumcision - Who Decides?

Circumcision used to be the done thing. Now, only around 10 per cent of Australians circumcise their male infants. But in Tasmania, they are trying to find a way to stop them. A recently released Tasmanian Law Reform Institute issues paper makes no bones about its desire to use the

Writings

One Step Forward, Two Back, in Fight for Reproductive Rights

RU486 is available, but in Queensland a teenager is charged over an abortion. This week’s announcement by Marie Stopes International that clients of its clinics in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, the ACT and Western Australia can now terminate pregnancies at less than nine weeks using RU486 is one more step

Writings

When Giving Cuts Right to the Bone

Years ago, when I was doing a Masters of Bioethics under renowned philosopher Peter Singer at Monash University in Melbourne, I signed up to the newly founded Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry. The donation of bone marrow is not a simple or pain-free procedure, but I was young and

Writings

Gene Patents Violate Civil Liberties

There’s a question that’s been around for about 30 years: whether private, for-profit companies should be allowed to gain exclusive control over knowledge about our genes. Should private interests profit from their understanding of the human genetic code or from tests or cures they may – or may

Writings

Labels Rarely Go More Than Skin-Deep

The recent rallying of Indian migrants in Sydney and Melbourne, and last Monday’s Four Corners about the death of Aboriginal man Mr Ward, are just two recent reminders that racism is alive in Australia. While much remains the same on the racism front, there are also small changes. These

Writings

There’s no Rule Book for Families

“I was upset by what happened. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever felt so humiliated in my life. I understand that the president made a ruling based on the current rules. But as any mother knows, sometimes families don’t play by the rule book … I hope

Writings

What we Have is the Failure to Communicate

We have a problem. Despite broad and sustained scientific consensus about the growing incapacity of the planet to sustain us and the threat posed by climate change, our elected decision makers and key corporate players seem incapable of doing enough of what is required, to avert the coming crisis. This

Writings

Where Rights, Medicine and Law Collide

Last year an Australian woman undertook a medical procedure. This week she and her boyfriend will face court because of it, charged with a crime. If found guilty, the 19-year-old and her 21-year-old boyfriend could get 10 years’ jail. The names of the couple don’t

Writings

You’re Off to a Party? Its no Laughing Matter, You Sick Swine

Why would someone hold a swine flu party, a celebration intended to help you catch the virus? If you are invited to one, should you attend? Should viral socialites be shunned and pilloried, or are they providing a much-needed warning to those in charge of public communications about H1N1

Writings

Sexual Freedom Won’t Spare You Regret

Here’s how a 15-year-old West Australian girl described a sexual encounter she had with three boys at a party after too much drink: “It felt really good at the time but afterwards I felt cheated and used.” The Matthew Johns affair is the last in a long