It's strange how we can hold a distorted view of the world for so long. Like many of you, my ideas on different issues and philosophies have developed over the years. I've aged and learned to see things from new perspectives and have grown through the humiliations and trials of life. One place where my ideas have shifted greatly is in the realm of evil. When I was younger, the world seemed less evil to me. I believed that hell existed, but that not many people went there. I thought that place was probably quite empty except perhaps for Hitler, Jack the Ripper, and a demon or two.

While virtue-signalling progressives hammer on about conditions in detention centres, and try to force Australian taxpayers to foot the bill for welfare-hopping migrants, the Nauru Government has issued a wake-up call. Published on its website on October 24, 2018, is this statement which hones in on the unscrupulous behaviour of many 'asylum seekers.' The kinds of activity mentioned in the statement will come as no surprise to those of us who are very concerned about the UN's current push for mandatory open-arms policies on migrants and refugees. Comfortable Christians who want to pin this latest social justice badge on their hats would do well to think through the implications of allowing migrants to roam about until they find the most generous foreign welfare system, forcing sovereign nations to advertise their benefits and social programmes on purpose-built websites. For that's exactly what the UN's Compacts aim to do.

Queensland

Exclusion-zones went into force yesterday in Queensland, along with the state's new act that moved abortion into the health code. Queensland is the fourth Australian state to enact the zones - this includes New South Wales, where abortion is still technically illegal; both territories also have the so-called 'Safe-Access' zones. Pro-lifers who wish to pray outside abortion mills and offer help to the women entering them will now have to stand 150m away from the entrance or risk huge fines and potential incarceration.

Ireland's pro-life politicians have been facing ferocious opposition in trying to push through amendments that would mitigate the impact of that country's disastrous new abortion law.  The Eighth Amendment - the part of the Irish constitution which had protected pre-born children from abortion - was repealed in September of this year. The Eighth Amendment was replaced by the phrase, "Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy", allowing abortion on demand in the first trimester, and potentially to full term on certain conditions. Ireland's Lower House has been debating the terms of this change in law.  

George Orwell's 1984 surveillance-state is an oft-quoted reference when speaking of threats to our freedoms in the 21st century. But Orwell could never have imagined the technology that was just around the corner when he wrote his book 150 years ago. Data collection via social media, coupled with face and gait recognition, and almost unlimited data storage mean that every person on the planet can potentially be monitored in real time for the most nefarious purposes. China is leading the world in this kind of surveillance, which is aimed at modifying the behaviour of its citizens. With 200,000,000 (that's two hundred million) surveillance cameras, every action is evaluated and entered into China's Social Credit System.

Just over a year ago, during Australia's debate about changing the millenia-old meaning of marriage, I wrote an article called, "55 Consequences of Redefining Marriage". Unlike most of my articles, which are read by only a few hundred people, this one has been read by over 12,000, with several thousand shares. This is evidence of just how concerned ordinary people are about homosexual unions being called 'marriage' and the massive repercussions that has for everyone. That article was a simple list of 55 examples of discriminatory laws, legal challenges, policies and persecutions taken from 13 countries where same-sex 'marriage' has been legalised. Now, twelve months on from that day when Australians learned that the majority of their conferes had voted to redefine marriage, it seems like a good time to revisit the topic. How many of those consequences have come to pass in this country? Were our fears unfounded?

In addition to being an author, speaker, and blogger at The Bridgehead and other websites, Jonathon van Maren is part of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, an organisation best known for their pioneering use of abortion victim imagery. A few months ago, Jonathon approached me to give him a rundown of the Australian pro-life scene for his website, (you can read that here) so it seemed like a good opportunity to ask him to use the same questions to describe the landscape in Canada. I also asked Jonathan to elaborate on something that stuck with me from his book, The Culture War: in it, Jonathan wrote that addiction to pornography was holding men back from involvement in pro-life work.

Artificial reproductive technologies (ART) are leading to more and more degradation of the dignity of human life as embryos are being completely devalued and new techniques are being developed. Last year, I reported on an Australian midwife who was creating jewellery from thawed, frozen embryos, so that couples could have a lasting memory of the excess children they created via IVF. [read Killing for a Keepsake] I've also written about apps for finding donors, males seeking fertility treatment and more about the manufacturing of human beings here. [read Same-Sex Marriage: Good for the IVF Industry]  Now things have devolved to the point where embryos are being swapped on Facebook and Craigslist, and lesbians can share a pregnancy.

Almost ten years to the day after Victoria created the most liberal abortion laws in the world, Queensland has followed suit and decriminalised abortion there. While many thought the change was a foregone conclusion due to the reigning Labor government's self-avowed love of baby-killing, there was hope that the law could be voted down by the many pro-life parliamentarians, notably from the LNP. But the final vote was 51 to 41 in favour of abortion law reform. Three LNP members crossed the floor to vote for the bill: Tim Nicholls, Jann Stuckey and Steve Minnikin. Remember those names. This law passed despite months of intense campaigning from pro-life groups and individuals, including many fora held to educate voting MPs about the reality of abortion.

This article is based on a talk I recently gave to a group of Catholic students in Melbourne. Readers will note that, while pro-life apologetics is important, our spiritual basis must first be very firm before we engage in any form of activism. We must be very certain that God wants us to serve Him in pro-life activism and also be sure of the guiding principles we need to use in this work.