Last Tuesday, West Australian Member of Parliament, Peter Abetz, proposed that women seeking an abortion should be required to view an ultrasound picture of their unborn child.

No other medical procedure is done without obtaining informed consent based on provision of the maximum possible amount of available relevant information.

Seeing a 3D colour ultrasound of the baby could be a big forward step in letting mothers know who and what exactly is the nature of the candidate for termination.

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Anyway, WA Premier, Mr Barnett , opposes the idea and has ruled out any support for what he calls “such drastic measures”.

A spokeslady for Marie Stopes International, worldwide abortion-provider organisation which does abortions in 40 countries, described the suggestion as “dangerous for women” and “impeding women’s choices”.

Yet figures quoted by Mr Abetz show that, in the USA, when women who requesting abortions were shown a 3D colour ultrasound of what was actually in their womb, 89 percent changed their minds and decided against being aborted.

Mr Abetz says, “Once you see the little heartbeat and the tiny little fingers and feet . . . the reality that this is life really hits home.”

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The argument has been raised repeatedly that babies unplanned are likely to be mistreated when born and would be better off killed, so as to avoid becoming victims of child abuse.

As though killing them in the womb is not abuse . . . .

If we can kill unborn babies to prevent them being abused after birth, perhaps we might consider preventing abuse of 5-year olds by killing them at the age of 3.

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The idea that a human life is sacred only when he/she is wanted is not sustainable. Yet many politicians and abortion lobby activists still try it on.

Difficulties associated with unplanned pregnancies are real enough. But our society is morally obliged to find responses better than killing.

Professor Susan Greenfield is a neuroscientist at Lincoln College, Oxford, England, who specialises in “synaptic pharmacology” — an expert on Alzheimer’s disease and similar brain diseases.

Her work makes her aware of the “plasticity” of the human brain.

Every moment, what we do with our brain modifies its architecture, leaving it not quite the same brain as it was before.

A study on London taxi-drivers — who constantly commit to memory numerous street names and routes — confirms physical enlarging of the part of the brain devoted to memory.

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What results when young people spend hours with their brains focussed on computer screens?
Prof Greenfield says that sites like Facebook and MySpace re-wire children’s brains, leaving them ill-equipped to cope with real-world commitments, hardships, struggles, suffering etc. – and dependent on superficial fake-relationships.

Today’s celebrities — and fans of today’s celebrities — perform as though their brains have been filleted of any aptitude except passive ego-massaging.

This may explain the current trendiness of Buddhism. Young computer-game freaks (and their television-watcher parents) like the feelings associated with “spirituality” without the moral demands of true religion.

It’s an eye-opener to read the book “The Unexpected Way” by Professor Paul Williams, ex-lapsed Protestant Christian who became a Buddhist convert and academic — but is now a convinced Roman Catholic:

“For me, faith is not some strange sort of inner feeling. That view of faith is perhaps a Protestant notion . . . faith (is) primarily an act of will.”

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So, what to do?

Set time limits on the time your child spends in front of the computer. Perhaps no time. Perhaps small numbers of hours per week. Use common sense.

Remind your child that God has put inside his head a computer more powerful than any electronic substitute that today’s world can turn on.

Set for yourself, also, restrictions on how long — if at all — you sit looking at screens.

Take your child outside. Join him in observing the real world, in which one can go for walks, meet real people, play sport etc.

Start helping him to pray. Take him to the church and spend time with Our Lord before the altar.

Today is called “Low Sunday” — in contrast with the high drama of Easter, celebrated last Sunday.

Last Sunday’s gospel readings described the rising of Jesus from the dead.

Today’s gospel describes the difficulties one believer had in believing it.

The apostle Thomas, absent when the risen Christ first visited the disciples, said he would not believe “unless I see in his hands the print of the nails . . . .”

The gospel continues, “After eight days, his disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being closed, and stood in their midst, and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Bring here thy finger, and see my hands . . . and be not faithless, but believing.’ Thomas answered, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.’  (Saint John’s gospel, chapter 20) 

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Poor doubting Thomas.

And aren’t we like him – tempted by doubts?

It is a sin to actively doubt, but it is not a sin to have difficulties with belief.

Our responses to such difficulties must be to pray, asking God for the supernatural gift of faith — and to spend time in the company of those who do believe.

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We must strive to make Australia a place where faith is encouraged, and doubts defeated.

Mary MacKillop devoted her life to this.

Blessed Mary hated those aspects of Australia which made faith more difficult.

She told Pope Pius IX in 1885 how her Josephite Sisters were “daily more and more convinced of the evils to their faith to which Australian children are exposed on account of the wicked secular education that is now general.”

What would she say about today’s Australian government schools, where teachers are forbidden to mention God?

And today’s Australian “Catholic” schools where students learn that one religion is as good as another — and that one can find salvation outside the Church and without its sacraments?

Her response would, one suspects, blister this page.

Chlamydia, a sneaky disease with few symptoms, leaves many women sterile — 80 percent of its female victims being aged 15 to 24 years. 

Cases of Chlamydia increased in the Australian state of Tasmania, from 17,000 to 60,000 notified cases, between 2000 and 2009. (The World Today, ABC Radio, 9/4/2010)

Tasmania’s Director of the Sexual Health Services, Dr M. O’Sullivan, told reporters that “simply educating young people may be the solution”.

“We actually set up an advertising campaign where we actually asked them what would be a good logo for young people in your age group, and they came up with ‘Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool’”.  

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Has it been proved that condoms stop people giving each other Sexually Transmitted Diseases?

In 2000, the US National Institutes for Health published the first-ever thorough review of the scientific research on condom-effectiveness. Studying eight STDs, they demonstrated that condoms reduce the transmission risk of two. (1)

When “consistently and correctly used”, they found that condoms provide an 85% risk-reduction for HIV transmission in either sex, and a 45-to-75% reduction for transmission of gonorrhoea in males.

The data were unable to demonstrate condoms being effective at reducing other STDs — despite twenty-eight expert panel members studying 138 peer-reviewed studies on the topic.

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More recent research has been a bit more reassuring to condom fans. (2)

In 2004, the Departments of Public Health and Community Health Services in Denver, Colorado, found that in condom-users there was “limited evidence” of protection against STDs — those using condoms “consistently” deriving more protection than occasional users.

They noted that people using condoms took greater risks — were more promiscuous — than those not using them (new sex partners: 63% compared with 41%; multiple partners: 60% compared with 36%).

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Is it good to keep people believing that promiscuously exploiting one another for sexual gratification is OK, so long as one doesn’t spread germs?

How to get inside young heads and convince them to motivate their actions on the basis of love for other people and obedience to God?

Too hard, apparently.

Sources:  (1) National Institutes of Health, “Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention” (June 2000)(2) http://journals.lww.com/stdjournal/Fulltext/2004/03000/Comparison_of_Sexually_Transmitted_Disease.4.aspx

Last week, a new bill was introduced into the Parliament of the Australian state of Victoria, by Attorney-General Rob Hulls.

Called the “Equal Opportunity Bill 2010″, it will restrict further the rights of religious schools to employ who they want.

A religious body will have to show that any discrimination is “reasonably necessary” to avoid injuring the religious sensitivities of adherents of the religion.

Religious schools will be subject to an “inherent requirements” clause, i.e. to justify why it is an inherent requirement for a teacher of, for example, mathematics, for that person to hold the faith and to adhere to its moral principles.

Religious organisations will be forced to justify their position before the well-known Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal  (VCAT) – a jaw-dropping prospect for anybody who has had dealings with that charming crowd in the past.

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The bill also gives greater powers to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission to investigate, on its own initiative, “any matter relating to the operation of this Act” — without the necessity of  having received any complaint from the public!

One gets the feeling that this government is working stepwise towards the education of all Victorian children being fully free from any acknowledgement of God or of any moral absolutes.

Children are to be convinced in the classroom that their existence is the result of a random series of accidents and is devoid of any purpose or meaning.

Parents serious about their responsibilities now have little option but to home-school their children

The worst they can do is take your children away from you and/or lock you up. Pray daily to God: “Thy will be done.”

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Any Victorian wanting to object to the proposed law can do so by addressing their comments by email to andrew.homer@parliament.vic.gov.au

The government has allowed just 2 weeks for public comment. Submissions close on March 18, i.e. you have until tomorrow to get your comments in.

They obviously do NOT want to hear from you.

ABORIGINAL Dreamtime stories, originally included in the Science Curriculum of Mr Rudd’s proposed National Curriculum, are to be removed.

Year 4 students were to hear “historical examples of different cultures, knowledge about the national environment and living things, for example, Aboriginal peoples’ Dreamtime Stories, that explain significant characteristics of the Earth’s surface and interactions between living things”.

Professor David McGaw, of the Curriculum Assessment Authority, says the Dreamtime stories must go — he hadn’t realised they were included in the science course until seeing media  reports last week:

“I’m a science graduate and a former science teacher. Dreamtime is a religious or spiritual interpretation of the beginnings of life. It shouldn’t be in the science curriculum, and we’re going to take it out. For the same reason, we wouldn’t let Intelligent Design or Creationism be included.”

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Will Professor McGaw, in fairness, be deleting Evolution – another “religious or spiritual interpretation” – as well?

This blog has no beef with people wanting to believe in “evolution” . . . as explained on March 3.

In fact evolution is obvious – provided we stick to what the word “evolution” means in English — i.e. “a gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex form”, or more literally, “an opening out of what was rolled up”.

It’s some of the atheistic, agnostic, anti-God tit-bits, that evo-fans sneak in as part of the supposed meaning of “evolution”, which make the term suspect as part of a science course.

Professor McGaw said schools will be free to teach Dreamtime stories, Intelligent Design etc., in other classes, such as religion. Does not most of what usually passes as “Evolution” merit similar relegating?

* * *

Meanwhile it’s going to be hard to stop people doing what they’ve always done — to look at the night sky and say, “Yes, I believe in a Creator who made all this – and who is a rewarder of good and a punisher of evil.”

As the Bible says, going back 2500 years at least, “The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the skies announce what his hands have made. Day after day they tell the story. Night after night they tell it again.” (Psalm 19)