The decision was met with enthusiasm by those opposed to abortion here, including opposition National MP for Tamaki Simon O'Connor.

Pro-choice groups such as Abortion Rights Aotearoa (ALRANZ) expressed alarm, not only for American women but for what this might signal for our country.

This has left Opposition Leader Christopher Luxon with a dilemma. He found himself caught up in questions that put a spotlight on his pro-life values, politics and integrity.

Luxon's anti-abortion beliefs are not news. In the days following his election as party leader late last year, when asked to confirm if, from his point of view, abortion was tantamount to murder, he clarified "that's what a pro-life position is".

Yet, in recent days, Luxon has repeatedly and emphatically sought to reassure voters National would not pursue a change to this country's abortion laws should it win government.

Abortion is legal in Aotearoa, decriminalised in 2020 within the framework of the Abortion Legislation Act. It's clear Luxon hopes his assurances will appease those of a pro-choice view, the position of most New Zealanders according to polling in 2019.

Principle and pragmatism in leadership

It has long been argued good leadership is underpinned by strength of character, a clear moral compass and integrity - in other words, consistency between one's words and actions.

Whether a leader possesses the prudence to gauge what is a practically wise course of action in a given situation that upholds important values, or simply panders to what is politically safe and expedient, offers insights into their character.

Over time, we can discern if they lean more strongly toward being values-based or if they tend to align with what Machiavelli controversially advised: that to retain power a leader must appear to look good but be willing to do whatever it takes to maintain their position.

Of course both considerations have some role to play as no one is perfect. We should look for a matter of degree or emphasis. A more strongly Machiavellian orientation is associated with toxic leadership.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has characterised herself as a "pragmatic idealist". Her track record indicates a willingness to accept considerable political heat in defence of key values. This is seen, for example, in her sustained advocacy of COVID-related health measures such as vaccine mandates and managed isolation, even when doing so was not the politically expedient path to follow.

Luxon's leadership track record in the public domain is far less extensive. Much remains unknown or untested as to what kind of leader he is. Being leader of the opposition is, of course, a very different role to that of prime minister.

However, in his maiden speech Luxon described his Christian faith as something that anchors him and shapes his values, while also arguing politicians should not seek to force their beliefs on others.

His response to this week's controversy proves he is willing to set aside his personal values for what is politically expedient. This suggests he is less of an idealist and more a pragmatist.

This may be a relief to the pro-choice lobby, given his anti-abortion beliefs. But if the political calculus changes, what might then happen?

The matter is not settled

New Zealand's constitutional and legal systems differ from those of the US, but the Supreme Court decision proves it's possible to wind back access to abortion.

Even if Luxon's current assurance is sincerely intended, it may not sustain should the broader political acceptability of his personal beliefs change. And on that front, there are grounds for concern.

The National Council of Women's 2021 gender attitudes survey revealed a clear increase in more conservative, anti-egalitarian attitudes. Researchers at the disinformation project also found sexist and misogynistic themes feature strongly in the conspiracy-laden disinformation gaining influence in New Zealand.

If these kinds of shifts in public opinion continue to gather steam, it may become more politically tenable for Luxon to shift gear regarding New Zealand's abortion laws.

In such a situation, the right to abortion may not be the only one imperilled. A 2019 survey in the US showed a strong connection between an anti-abortion or "pro-life" stance and more general anti-egalitarian views.

It's clear Luxon is aiming to reassure the public he has no intentions to advance changes to our abortion laws. But his seeming readiness to set aside personal beliefs in favour of what is politically viable also suggests that, if the political landscape changes, so too might his stance.

A broader question arises from this: if a leader is prepared to give up a presumably sincerely held conviction to secure more votes, what other values that matter to voters might they be willing to abandon in pursuit of political power?

• Suze Wilson Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Massey University.
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission

Caritas Philippines national director Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo (pictured) spoke out about the Church's position on social and moral issues in a published statement on Monday.

"We will proclaim what is true, just and right. That is our moral obligation" he said.

"That is why we will speak and act in favour of human rights, the sacredness of life, ecology and the truth, among others".

Bagaforo issued the statement as a response to accusations that the clergy is meddling in politics.

The 2022 Philippine general election will take place on May 9, 2022, for executive and legislative branches of the government - national, provincial and local.

Many bishops have spoken out against issues such as the war on drugs and corruption allegations during President Rodrigo Duterte's administration.

Their commentaries have prompted calls of meddling, particularly from the administration's supporters who say the Church and State should be separated.

Bagaforo said the Catholic Church will continue to maintain its stance as a non-partisan organisation and is urging all diocesan social action centres to remain the same.

He is encouraging Catholic laity and the faithful to choose its political candidate based on what they call a LASER test (lifestyle, action, supporters, election conduct and reputation).

"It is our sacred duty to know our candidates well", Bagaforo said.

"Let our choices be a reflection of our life-earned values. Let us choose who among them will help us be better, not the one who promises only instant gratification".

The Council of the Laity of the Philippines in an unprecedented move has since endorsed vice president Leni Robredo's presidential bid.

Maria Leonor 'Leni' Gerona Robredo is a Filipino lawyer, politician and social activist who is the 14th and incumbent vice-president of the Philippines.

Source

• Inquirer.net
• Image: Fil.Catholic

In a 2019 survey, 44% of Americans - along with 45% of people across 34 nations - said that belief in God is necessary "to be moral and have good values." So what happens to a person's morality and values when they lose faith?

Religion influences morals and values through multiple pathways. It shapes the way people think about and respond to the world, fosters habits such as church attendance and prayer, and provides a web of social connections.

As researchers who study the psychology and sociology of religion, we expected that these psychological effects can linger even after observant people leave religion, a group we refer to as "religious dones."

So together with our co-authors Daryl R. Van Tongeren and C. Nathan DeWall, we sought to test this "religion residue effect" among Americans.

Our research addressed the question: Do religious dones maintain some of the morals and values of religious Americans?

In other words, just because some people leave religion, does religion fully leave them?

Measuring the religious residue effect

Recent research demonstrates that religious dones around the world fall between the never religious and the currently religious in terms of thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

Many maintain some of the attributes of religious people, such as volunteering and charitable giving, even after they leave regular faith practices behind.

So in our first project, we examined the association between leaving religion and the five moral foundations commonly examined by psychologists: care/harm, fairness/cheating, ingroup loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and purity/degradation.

We found that religious respondents were the most likely to support each of the five moral foundations. These involve intuitive judgments focusing on feeling the pain of others, and tapping into virtues such as kindness and compassion. For instance, religious Americans are relatively likely to oppose acts they deem "disgusting," which is a component of the purity/degradation scale. This aligns with previous research on religion and moral foundations.

Most importantly, and in line with the religion residue hypothesis, we have found what we call a "stairstep pattern" of beliefs.

The consistently religious are more likely than the dones to endorse each moral foundation, and the religious dones are more likely to endorse them than the consistently nonreligious.

The one exception was the moral foundation of fairness/cheating, which the dones and the consistently religious supported at similar rates.

Put another way, after leaving religion, religious dones maintain some emphasis on each of the five moral foundations, though less so than the consistently religious, which is why we refer to this as a stairstep pattern.

Chart: The Conversation CC-BY-ND Source: Schwadel et al.

Our second project built on research showing that religion is inextricably linked with values, particularly Schwartz's Circle of Values, the predominant model of universal values used by Western psychologists. Values are the core organizing principles in people's lives, and religion is positively associated with the values of security, conformity, tradition and benevolence. These are "social focus values": beliefs that address a generally understood need for coordinated social action.

Chart: The Conversation CC-BY-ND Source: Schwadel et al.

For this project, we asked a single group of study participants the same questions as they grew older over a period of 10 to 11 years.

The participants were adolescents in the first wave of the survey, and in their mid-to-late 20s in the final wave.

Our findings revealed another stairstep pattern: The consistently religious among these young adults were significantly more likely than religious dones to support the social focus values of security, conformity and tradition; and religious dones were significantly more likely to support them than the consistently nonreligious.

While a similar pattern emerged with the benevolence value, the difference between the religious dones and the consistently nonreligious was not statistically significant.

Together, these projects show that the religion residue effect is real.

The morals and values of religious dones are more similar to those of religious Americans than they are to the morals and values of other nonreligious Americans.

Our follow-up analyses add some nuance to that key finding.

For instance, the enduring impact of religious observance on values appears to be strongest among former evangelical Protestants.

Among dones who left mainline Protestantism, Catholicism and other religious traditions, the religion residue effect is smaller and less consistent.

Our research also suggests that the religious residue effect can decay.

The more time that passes after people leave religion, the more their morals and values come to resemble those of people who have never been religious.

This is an important finding, because a large and growing number of Americans are leaving organized religion, and there is still much to be learned about the psychological and social consequences of this decline in religion.

The growing numbers of nonreligious

As recently as 1990, only 7% of Americans reported having no religion.

Thirty years later, in 2020, the percentage claiming to be nonreligious had quadrupled, with almost 3 in 10 Americans having no religion.

There are now more nonreligious Americans than affiliates of any one single religious tradition, including the two largest: Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism.

This shift in religious practice may fundamentally change Americans' perceptions of themselves, as well as their views of others.

One thing that seems clear, though, is that those who leave religion are not the same as those who have never been religious.

Given the rapid and continued growth in the number of nonreligious Americans, we expect that this distinction will become increasingly important to understand the morals and values of the American people.

• Philip Schwadel Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Sam Hardy Professor of Psychology, Brigham Young University
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission.

The Australian cardinal delivered his intervention at the synod on the family in Rome last week, and an extended form of it was posted to the Catholic Herald's website.

In this piece, Cardinal Pell said bishops stand under the Word of God as its servants and protectors.

" . . . [O]ur first episcopal task as teaching bishops is not to be theologians, but to teach, explain, and defend the apostolic tradition of faith and morals," he stated.

"Young adults need to be shown that our defence of lifelong marriage is sincere and serious."

Cardinal Pell also noted that while bishops are successors of the apostles, "we are not their equals".

Bishops can contribute to the development of doctrine, he added.

"But we have no power to change or diminish the Word of God, much less to refashion it according to prevailing insights, or relativise the objective truths of Catholic faith and morals as passing expressions in some Hegelian flux.

"Too many have lost confidence in Jesus' doctrines and doubt or deny that mercy is found in his hard moral teachings.

"The crucified Jesus was not afraid to confront society, and he was crucified for his pains, teaching his followers that life is a moral struggle that requires sacrifices, and his followers cannot always take the easy options.

"He did not tell the adulterous woman to continue in her good work, but to repent and sin no more.

"The Prodigal Son acknowledged his sins before he returned home."

Cardinal Pell stated that "while we have many theologians, we have one faith and one set of official doctrine".

"The Ten Commandments are not like an examination where only six out of ten need to be attempted," he added.

Cardinal Pell later rejected a call made in a petition for a walkout by conservative bishops at the synod.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Image: SBS

The Golden Rule, or doing as you would be done by, is such a code.

But the fact that men can arrive at the Golden Rule without religion does not mean that man can arrive at the Christian moral code without religion.

Christianity requires much more, and above all does not expect to see charity returned.

To love thy neighbour as thyself is a far greater and more complicated obligation, requiring a positive effort to seek the good of others, often in secret, sometimes at great cost and always without reward.

Its most powerful expression is summed up in the words, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

It is striking that in his dismissal of a need for absolute theistic morality, my late brother Christopher states that "the order to 'love thy neighbour as thyself' is too extreme and too strenuous to be obeyed."

Humans, he says, "are not so constituted as to care for others as much as themselves."

This is demonstrably untrue, and can be shown to be untrue, first through the unshakeable devotion of mothers to their children; through thousands of examples of doctors and nurses risking (and undergoing) infection and death in the course of caring for others; in the uncounted cases of husbands caring for sick, incontinent and demented wives (and vice versa) at their lives' end; through the heartrending deeds of courage on the battlefield, of men actually laying down their lives for others.

We all know these things happen. Continue reading

• Peter Hitchens in ABC Religion & Ethics

Peter Hitchens is a columnist and reporter for the Mail on Sunday.

Indeed, it's true that many Catholic universities traditionally ended the conversations on sex and underage drinking with a simple, "just say no!"

And yet, students attending Catholic colleges do not differ from students at other colleges, with sex and drinking nationally starting before college.

Recent surveys suggest the average age Americans start having sex is 17, and the average age of first use of alcohol is 14.

With 95 percent of Americans having sex before marriage, it's safe to say there's a bit of a gap between the official university policies and actual student behavior.

Moving beyond the stereotype, I suspect the traditional Catholic abstinence-only model isn't as black and white as some people may have painted it.

I spoke the other day with a recently graduated R.A. from a Catholic college who told me the way he was trained to handle sexual issues on campus.

"Sex is not allowed at this school between unmarried students," his Resident Director told him in training.

"But if sexual situations occur, including unwanted sexual acts," he said, dropping to a more hushed tone, "there are some off-campus resources for you to give students including counseling and comprehensive health centers that I'll email you."

This workaround mentality, while well-intentioned, doesn't seem that effective for students who may be uneducated about sexual responsibility, alcohol's effect on the sexual experience, and the shame reaction that occurs after sexual assault.

With a recent poll claiming 1 in 5 women experience sexual assault or attempted sexual assault during college, the "sex doesn't happen, but if it does, deal with it off campus" attitude seems to be a major pastoral missed opportunity.

This week's video, however, proves this stereotype is becoming less and less accurate. Continue reading

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Week

Edward O. Wilson doesn't come across as the kind of man who's looking to pick a fight. With his shoulders upright and his head tilting slightly to the side, he shuffles through the halls of Harvard University. His right eye, which has given him trouble since his childhood, is halfway closed. The other is fixed on the ground. As an ant researcher, Wilson has made a career out of things that live on the earth's surface.

There's also much more to Wilson. Some consider him to be the world's most important living biologist, with some placing him on a level with Charles Darwin.

In addition to discovering and describing hundreds of species of ants, Wilson's book on this incomparably successful group of insects is the only non-fiction biology tome ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. Another achievement was decoding the chemical communication of ants, whose vocabulary is composed of pheromones. His study of the ant colonization of islands helped to establish one of the most fruitful branches of ecology. And when it comes to the battle against the loss of biodiversity, Wilson is one of the movement's most eloquent voices.

'Blessed with Brilliant Enemies'

But Wilson's fame isn't solely the product of his scientific achievements. His enemies have also helped him to establish a name. "I have been blessed with brilliant enemies," he says. In fact, the multitude of scholars with whom Wilson has skirmished academically is illustrious. James Watson, one of the discoverers of the double helix in DNA is among them, as is essayist Stephen Jay Gould.

At 83 years of age, Wilson is still at work making a few new enemies. The latest source of uproar is a book, "The Social Conquest of Earth," published last April in the United States and this month in a German-language edition. In the tome, Wilson attempts to describe the triumphal advance of humans in evolutionary terms. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: Phys.Org

Family Planning says 4000 implants have been inserted this year alone compared with 200 hundred last year.

Auckland Hospital clinical director of gynaecology Dr Mahesh Harilall believes the implants are the main cause of an almost 30% decrease in terminations over the past three years.

Continue Reading

The police reportedly said they were unaware that the march had been organised to advocate gay rights until just before it was scheduled to begin.

But Oceania Pride founder Jasmine Kaur has told the Australia Network she properly notified police about the rally.

"We got all the permits that were necessary, we got the permits from the police department as well as some from the city council for the use of their roads, we also advertised the closure of the roads in the newspaper," she said.

"So everything from our side was done."

Continue reading

It out-rated 3News and Campbell Live and became a trending topic world wide on Twitter, but attracted a lot of negative comment on Facebook and was generally panned by TV critics.

"Perhaps the most disturbing thing about GC is that it is funded by NZ on Air with your money and mine in a $420,000 grant for a programme that showcases young, urban Maori who have moved across the Tasman in pursuit of their 'dream of money, sex and fame'," says Catholic Media Consultant Lyndsay Freer.

"Thankfully, these kids are not representative of the majority of Maori youth or of young New Zealanders of any ethnic background," she said

"What an irony that Television New Zealand is to close TVNZ7 because its limited audience doesn't justify its continued existence, while NZOA pumps close on half a million dollars into clichéd trash like GC which is arguably the pits of the largely second-rate reality TV genre."

Freer said that if a publicly funded agency believes it worthy to promote moronic young TV characters whose dream is to fritter away their money and integrity on the Gold Coast (even if there are some who do), then there should be a re-evaluation of New Zealand on Air's mandate.

"We are all assailed by what has been called 'the globalisation of superficiality' in our reading and viewing habits. Even our daily newspapers are not averse to running front page trivia about such matters as Prince William's wife's sister's derriere or the latest celebrity who is botoxed to the hilt or who has returned to rehab for the umpteenth time," she said.

"One could go on to deplore the values and sexual exploits of these kids in GC (five girls in five nights was one guy's boast). Certainly other programmes showing on our screens are no better. But the point is that NZ on Air is mandated to use public money to encourage quality and representative local programming. The TV3 series will explore emigration from a Maori perspective and how Tikanga Maori supports them as they adapt to life in a new country," they write. Really?

Those involved in promoting overseas tourism to New Zealand just might not agree. More to the point is the comment of Labour MP, Shane Jones, 'It's probably evidence why the exodus of some Kiwis is good for New Zealand.'"

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Stuff.co.nz

Ricky Gervais is working on a new show,"Afterlife", about an atheist who died and went to heaven - the point being made that believers don't have the monopoly on morality.

"All too often religious people equate faith with moral behavior", says Pamela Taylor. "As a Muslim, I can attest to the fact that this is not always the case. As a former atheist, I can also attest to the fact that I was raised not only with a strong moral orientation, but also with the theoretical background, critical thinking and analytical skills needed to make sound moral choices."

She says that, when she was growing up, one of the things she found distasteful about believers was "how easily they seemed to go against their own moral code, ostensibly because God would forgive them."

Read Taylor's Column in the Washington Post

Pamela K. Taylor is a North American Muslim science fiction writer and poet. Taylor has been involved with Muslims for Progressive Values (co-founder), Islamic Writers Alliance (former director) and supporter of woman imam movement
Pamela K Taylor's website
Image: Islam and Science Fiction