Australia’s postal vote on same-sex marriage will go ahead this month after the High Court dismissed a challenge against it. The court handed down its decision 24 hours after submissions closed following a two day hearing. Same-sex marriage advocates had launched two cases, that were heard simulatenously, in a bid to stop the vote. Ballots will now be sent out from next week and all votes must be returned by November 7. The result will be announced on November 15.
Liberal Senator Eric Abetz, a vocal opponent to legalising gay marriage, welcomed the court’s decision. He said the vote would allow “forgotten” Australians to have their say despite “elites” trying to stifle democracy.
“Following the High Court case brought by self-appointed elites trying to stifle the Australian people being thrown out, I am pleased that all Australians will have their say on marriage,” Senator Abetz said in a statement posted to social media. “This case was hypocrisy writ-large from the left like Andrew Wilkie who used the exact same process to extract funding from the Gillard/Brown Government. Democracy is an infinite good and political elites should never seek to stand in the way of the people having their say. This plebiscite will give all Australians, especially the forgotten people who are concerned about the consequences for free speech, freedom of religion and parental choice, to have their say.”
Opposition leader Tony Abbott has taken aim at Labour party leader Bill Shorten, accusing him of “elitist bullying” after he gave a statement saying he would legislate same-sex marriage regardless of the people’s vote. This could be done as the result of the vote will not be binding on parliament  “Shorten has just said that he’ll legislate SSM regardless of the people’s vote”, Abbott tweeted. “This is the kind of elitist bullying that people so dislike and are rightly concerned to reject.”

Twenty-seven babies over a 17-year period who survived abortions were left to die without any medical care, the State Parliament of Western Australia (WA) has been told. Replying on behalf of Health Minister Roger Cook, Parliamentary Secretary Alanna Clohesy made the admission in response to a question from a Liberal Party Member, Nick Goiran, who wants a parliamentary inquiry into abortion.Twenty-one of the babies were 20 weeks gestation or more.
The admission came as the Queensland parliament considered a bill to totally decriminalise abortion in the State. Latest figures for WA show around 8,000 unborn children are aborted each year. Based on the WA and Queensland statistics, a dozen or more children could be born alive each year only to die after struggling for breath. Nick Goiran’s campaigning since 2010 has revealed that children have been aborted late term (post 20 weeks) for disabilities including dwarfism, cleft palate and Down syndrome, contravening the State’s laws only allowing abortion post 20 weeks for “serious disabilities” or significant medical conditions affecting the mother.
A spokesperson for pro-life organization, Emily’s Voice, said, “The children received no medical care or comfort because the mothers, the medical profession and society demanded dead children. The Defence of Human Life in WA has organised a petition demanding an inquiry, and we encourage supporters in the West to add their names in opposition to this crime against defenceless children.”

The Children’s Rights Alliance has called for the urgent implementation of the sections of the Child and Family Relationships Act that ban anonymous sperm and egg donations in assisted human reproduction.
“Children have a right to know their identity. The Act is important because it seeks to protect children’s identity by banning the use of anonymous donations in assisted human reproduction,” said chief executive Tanya Ward. “It also clarifies parentage for children who are conceived this way, establishing a legal relationship between them and their parents.” The law allows children produced in this way to have two fathers or two mothers, or just one parent as well as a mother and a father.
Ms Ward pointed out that many adoptions were not recorded properly, “causing immeasurable damage to people by not being able to access their past and their history”.
UCC law lecturer Dr Deirdre Madden said the rights of children to access information on the identity of donors should take priority, even if this caused supply issues for fertility clinics.
Neither Dr Madden nor the Children’s Rights Alliance believe in the right of a child to a mother and a father.

A powerful group of Tory MPs yesterday pressed Theresa May to do more to support marriage and the family.
The 44 MPs, including three former Cabinet ministers, called for bigger tax breaks for married couples and for school pupils to be taught the benefits of marriage.
Their 18-point family manifesto said that fatherhood should be promoted and fathers helped to assume their family responsibilities. It said that ‘couple penalties’ in the tax and benefit system that encourage mothers and fathers to live apart should be removed.
One of the 44, Congleton MP Fiona Bruce, said family life must be strengthened ‘if the Government is to achieve its welcome aims to increase social mobility, deliver social justice, and make Britain a country that works for everyone, not just a privileged few.’

Supermarket chain Lidl has apologised for airbrushing Christian crosses out of images on some of its food packaging, after being hit by criticism on social media.
The packaging of some of its Greek-themed products depicts images of the island of Santorini’s domed blue churches, but they are missing the crosses mounted on top.
“We are sorry for any offence caused by the artwork on our Eridanous range. We can confirm that we will be revising the design as soon as possible,” the German discounter said in a statement.
Lidl said its product design was not intended to convey any ideological standpoint.
“We made a mistake in the most recent revision of the product design and are now treating the issue with the highest priority,” Lidl said.

The Irish Fertility Society has been lobbying the Minister for Health to not implement sections of a 2015 law that would ban anonymous sperm and egg donation and set up a register of donors so that donor-conceived children could request information about their biological parents after they reach the age of 18.
In a letter to the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, obtained by the Irish Times, the Society alleged a litany of negative consequences should the Act be fully implemented including women being driven abroad to obtain fertility treatment or into “private arrangements with men on the internet”. Other “unintended consequences” of the Government’s plans will be a rise in women buying sperm from foreign donor banks and using it in their homes without medical supervision, a substantial risk of sexually transmitted diseases from “random donors with questionable motivations”.
The letter does not point out that many donor-conceived children seek out their natural parents and half-siblings each year.

By virtue of its definition, marriage can only be between a man and a woman, Pope Francis has said in a new book-length interview. “We cannot change it. This is the nature of things,” not just in the Church, but in human history, he said in a series of interviews with Dominique Wolton, a 70-year-old French sociologist and expert in media and political communication. When it comes to the true nature of marriage as well as gender, there is “critical confusion at the moment”, the Pope said. When asked about marriage for same-sex couples, the Pope said, “Let’s call this ‘civil unions.’ We do not joke around with truth.” Teaching children that they can choose their gender, he said, also plays a part in fostering such mistakes about the truth or facts of nature. The Pope said he wondered whether these new ideas about gender and marriage were somehow based on a fear of differences, and he encouraged researchers to study the subject.

Senators and TDs tasked with turning the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on abortion into concrete legislative proposals will ask a representative of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which is criticized by pro-life groups over its pro-abortion stance, to make a contribution to its deliberations, after the organisation repeatedly accused Ireland of failing to meet its international human rights ‘obligations’.

The UN committee has persistently raised concerns over the state’s criminalisation of abortion and refusal to make the procedure available to rape victims or women whose unborn children show signs of foetal abnormalities. Critics point out that no UN document enshrines a right to an abortion.

It is also expected that the committee will hear from experts that any law requiring a woman to prove that she was raped before she could access an abortion would not work.

The committee, which is expected to call for a referendum on abortion, will hold its first public meeting on September 20th.

On November 1, it will hear from Tom O’Malley, a senior law lecturer at NUI Galway, and Noeline Blackwell, chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre on the possibility of making abortion available to rape victims. Both told the citizens’ assembly that any law that made exceptions for rape victims would not work because it would be too difficult for women to prove.