Writings

A collection of 345 posts

Writings

The Bill Henson Affair: Shame on Adults for Paranoia over Adolescence

For a friend of mine, adolescence was no time of innocence. It was the worst and most confusing time of her life; made all the worse by the insistence of the adults she knew that the pain would be useful later. The main problem was that believed she had lost

Writings

We Thirst for Justice, but Beware the Unforgiven

What is unforgiveable? Are there some acts that cross the moral line in the sand dividing the venal from the inescapably evil? Are there some things, and some people, we cannot forgive? As an ethicist, I am asked this question more than any other. Perhaps because the thirst for justice-and

Writings

Why Parental Leave is a Moral Issue

The government has ordered yet another inquiry into a paid leave scheme for working Australian parents. This one, by the Productivity Commission, follows two similar ones by HREOC and a Senate Committee in 2002. What is left to examine, for heaven’s sake! It’s a leave scheme, not the

Writings

What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us All

What does independent research, shield laws and whistleblower legislation have in common, and why should we give a rats? Answer? All are essential for the creation and dissemination of the quality information on which good decision-making – not to mention the proper functioning of our democracy – depends. Take the de-funding of

Writings

The Dubious Morality of Women

My speciality area of ethics is reproductive technologies. What this means is that I spend much of my working life face-to-face with the suspicions that religious men, political leaders and journalists have about female morality. At a meeting I attended, the capacity of women to make ethically defensible choices about

Writings

At 50, the Material Girl is Not to be Pitied

Madonna turns 50 this year. Like every wheeze and fart in the entertainer’s life, this one is attracting comment. From some, it sounds like this. “50? She looks 30! If she really was a taboo-breaker, she wouldn’t have smooth skin and pert breasts. She’d be strutting her

Writings

There is an art to breaking bad news to children

Last year, a girl at my son’s school primary school – let’s call her Susan – had a headache. The next day she collapsed and since then has been in a wheelchair from spinal damage caused by a benign tumour. Susan and the other children were told that that she

Writings

We May Yet Avoid Frying from Global Warming

You may not have heard of it, but my guess is, you will soon. Climate engineering-or global climate control-may soon be a fact of life. First, the good news. You know how the Stern Report said we’ve only got eight to eighteen years left to significantly reduce global emissions

Writings

Cash is Always the Currency of Love’s Labours Lost

It’s always about the money. Or is it? When a marriage ends, insults fly, but most of the time the real knock-down drag-outs are about cash, even when there’s more than enough to go around. Some might say this is to be expected. After all, money is what

Writings

Why Parents Try to Avoid the Pain of Loving a Sick Child

Imagine this. You’ve spent your childhood with a brother bound to a wheelchair by a disease that causes him immense suffering. The condition has haunted your family for generations, killing male children and putting the female ones at risk of passing the faulty chromosome on to their own kids.

Writings

Stripped bare, Spitzer affair raises big question

The facts are simple. Elliot Spitzer, who fought organised crime and corruption on Wall Street, resigned last week as New York’s Governor after Federal wiretaps caught him arranging to meet an out-of-town hooker in his DC hotel. It was the Mann Act of 1910 that brought Spitzer down. In

Writings

In Death We Don’t Part from our Obligations

Last week in New Zealand, Ivy May Ngahooro became the third body snatched after disputes about burial between non-indigenous and Maori relatives. The distress of Ms Ngahooro’s family was extensively covered in the New Zealand press, with the will’s executor, niece Trish Scoble, saying that the loss of

Writings

Stand Up and Shoulder the Consequences

The real test of our principles is when those with whom we disagree stand on them to justify doing something we hate. Polling tells us that the vast majority of Australians support a woman’s right to choose. It also shows that most of us want the Federal Government to

Writings

Threat to Choice Leaves Bitter Taste in GM Debate

Some moral questions reduce to empirical ones. Where you stand and what you’ll stand up for turns entirely on the facts. Have the NSW and Victorian governments done the right thing by lifting the moratorium on the commercial cultivation of genetically modified crops, starting with canola? Both governments have

Writings

Women, vote for yourselves - no one else will

I don’t like her, and it ain’t the hair. It’s the annoyingly wooden affect, and her obeisance over the years to the demands of the American public that she change her name and hair, but stand by her man. But when I mailed in my absentee ballot

Writings

Shameful Apology Proves Sorry Shame

Talk about giving with one hand and taking with the other! There, in Parliament House, with members of the Stolen Generations looking on and thousands more bearing witness via video link on the adjacent lawns. One man, representing the nation, validating the painful experiences of Aboriginal Australians and by so

Writings

Full Disclosure Necessary in Abortion Law

Many people think that the State government’s commitment to the decriminalisation of abortion guarantees a good outcome for women, no matter what model ultimately makes it into law. They are wrong. Legal advice suggests that some models for reforming the law could reduce women’s freedom to choose, and

Writings

Let’s Get Rid of the Cloak and Dagger

Transparency. In recent years, journalists, politicians and medical researchers have joined lawyers and judges in accepting formal obligations to either disclose personal or financial links they have with those they report on or serve, to divest themselves of those links or to recuse themselves. This makes it odd then that,

Writings

Education Ethics bigger than public versus private

There are 17 selective high schools in New South Wales, and 10 schools offering selective classes for academically gifted students. For those who can’t afford private school fees, or the costs of a home in an area blessed with a first-rate public high school, entry to one of these

Writings

Breastfeeding: differing advice flows oh so freely

What’s a Baby-Friendly hospital? If you don’t know, you may soon because if the Australian Government’s House Standing Committee Inquiry into Breastfeeding has its way, the three that currently exist in NSW are set to mushroom. The report is the most recent in a long line of

Writings

One-Size-Fits-All Marriage Model Fails to Bind

It’s built into our psyches. How could it not be, with marriage – and the implied happy-ever-after – concluding every literary and cinematic romantic tale? And then there’s the return of the elaborate, often white wedding, costing on average (based on 2004 figures) $36,234. Social research shows it, too.

Writings

Look at Yourself, Before It’s Too Late

How many of us are not living our dreams? What’s stopping us? And what does dedicating ourselves to closing the gap between what we wanted for our lives and how we are actually living them have to do with ethics? The relevance of this question became clear when meeting

Writings

Insults Deter Quality Debate

Something worrying is happening to column readers. They are becoming rude. Menacingly rude – and just plain mean – when they don’t agree with you. Get a load of this. “Your article was stupid. How dare you leave out [thing I felt was really important here]. You are totally unethical and

Writings

The Futility of Treatment: Who Decides?

Blink and you’d miss it. That’s the fate of stories in the lead-up to Christmas, even explosive ones about the questionable withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from unconscious patients like Paulo Melo. But we need to remember twenty-nine year old Paulo, critically injured in a car accident in Kakadu

Writings

A Man Worth Emulating

In our society, who best reflects Jesus’ compassion and sense of justice? In recent years, courtesy of the Culture Wars, complaints about the absence of Jesus, or Christianity more generally, from the gusto-filled way Australians celebrate Christmas have crowded our newspapers and clogged the airways. This year, In contrast, has