I wish I could say that I was surprised when the federal government announced today that the welfare arm of the Catholic Church, Centacare, will be receiving part of the $51 million being put into the proposed new national 24-hour pregnancy counselling service, and will be playing a major role in its operations. There is simply no excuse for allowing an organisation with a profound and obvious bias to run a publicly-funded helpline for women who genuinely need real, unbiased assistance and advice, free from the political ends of others. Then again, with the stated aim of Health Minister Abbott in creating this service being to reduce the number of abortions across the country, who could be surprised that Centacare was called in to do the “honors”?
There were plenty of suitable organisations that tendered for this project, but it is disheartening to see the Health Minister instead put his moral and political ends ahead of the mental health of Australian women – yet again. It is dubious enough that a helpline such as this be allowed to operate without very clearly advertising its bias, but it is a disgrace that it be allowed to do so with public funding and support. What should have been a sensible, politically-neutral helpline is now looking much more like the dishonest scum that Senator Natasha Stott Despoja tried to shut down with her Private Member’s Bill last year.
I’m also not surprised that this announcement, like John Howard’s “feminism is dead” speech of yesterday, is coming at the most dead news time of year. Abbott knows full well that there is not the popular support for a war on abortion, especially in an election year. Sadly, I suspect he might just succeed in getting away with it quietly, especially with a Labor Party that is too devoid of a moral conscience to seriously take the government on over the right to choose. Welcome to 2007, folks.
Posted by Rebecca 
