New Zealand Conservative

I am more-often-than-not in agreement with what SP!KED author Brendan O'Neill writes, especially in regard to free speech and gay marriage. I am afraid I have to disagree with his column this week (based on a debate that eventually never happened), in which he says he agrees with the fact that abortion destroys an unborn life, or potential life, but that a woman's freedom of choice trumps that. He writes - Some pro-life campaigners say, `Ah, but this "act of autonomy" is different to all others because it harms and ultimately destroys another human life - that of the fetus'. I don't deny this. I do think there are massive questions to be asked regarding when a fetus becomes fully human, but I don't deny that a fetus is at least a potential human life and that abortion ends that potential human life. But I have made a moral judgement, and I've decided that it is worse - infinitely worse - to force a living, breathing, autonomous individual to do so...

I've just been reading an article on the website of The Guardian about an ex-nun, who says she is both a female Catholic priest and a Bishop and wears a Bishop's ring. She was 'ordained' by a renegade Catholic Bishop and, along with six other women, has been excommunicated by Rome. She hasn't let that stop her, however, from performing baptisms, funerals, and marriages. The article also mentions her doing a funeral Mass. Ms Mayr-Lumetzberger, it seems, chooses to ignore her excommunication because she doesn't agree with it. Excommunication, though, is surely a heavy price to pay. “It doesn’t touch me,” she says serenely. “The canon [church] law used against me was an unjust law made by celibate men who rule over people whose lives they do not really know, and who give no explanation as to why these negative laws should be followed. Except fear.” With all due respect, you can't be something if you do not have the authority from the governing body of the...