A READER - a qualified scientist I'll call Ron - asks for my view on a dilemma that pitted his personal and professional integrity, and belief in absolute truths, against his love for a dying friend.

The Bankwest press release was crafted to provoke controversy. "More Australians Choose a Good Time over Kids Education." It had the same flavour as the bank's offering when it released similar market research last year. "Aussie families prefer holidays and Botox to private school education."

Parental leave - or maternity leave, as we tiresomely insist on thinking about it - is back in the news. Australia's National Employment Standards now includes the right of workers to request 12 months of unpaid parental leave in addition to the year to which they are already entitled. A right to request flexible working arrangements to care for a child under school age is also part of the "Fair Work" mix.

With no room at the Women's, patients are at the mercy of religion.

A district court judge has questioned the fairness of convicting a man who pleaded guilty to rape, for continuing to perform sex acts on an unconscious woman. Was the man really treated unfairly, or is the judge confused about what consent is all about?

Rugby league star Matthew John's infidelity has raised the issue of staying with a partner who has strayed. Greg Cary talks to author Ruth Simons, about the thought processes behind cheating.

A disturbing trend is emerging in the writings of those opposed to legal abortion. Since the passage of Victoria's Law Reform Act last year, they have been campaigning against the limits the new law imposes on the rights of healthcare professionals to conscientiously object to involvement in abortion.

Even if we eliminate people smugglers, the people needing smuggling won't disappear.

"From Hero to Zero" ran the headline, a nice one to describe the fall from grace last week of the Federal President of the Prisoners of War Association of Australia, Rex Crane.

Your children have a right to sex education. This right is a component of their sexual rights, themselves a subset of the human rights guaranteed to them in international laws, human rights documents and other consensus statements.

There is little evidence to support racial motives behind criticism of Obama.

Circumcision used to be the done thing. Now, only around 10 per cent of Australians circumcise their male infants. But in Tasmania, they are trying to find a way to stop them. A recently released Tasmanian Law Reform Institute issues paper makes no bones about its desire to use the criminal law to prosecute some hapless Jewish, Muslim or Aboriginal parents for circumcising their boys.

RU486 is available, but in Queensland a teenager is charged over an abortion.

In the 9 August 2009 Body Issue Leslie, Federal Minister Kate Ellis, Ad man Russell Howcroft and plastic surgeon Howard Webster chat with Libby Gorr about "The Future Perfect."

Years ago, when I was doing a Masters of Bioethics under renowned philosopher Peter Singer at Monash University in Melbourne, I signed up to the newly founded Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry.

There's a question that's been around for about 30 years: whether private, for-profit companies should be allowed to gain exclusive control over knowledge about our genes.

The recent rallying of Indian migrants in Sydney and Melbourne, and last Monday's Four Corners about the death of Aboriginal man Mr Ward, are just two recent reminders that racism is alive in Australia.

"I was upset by what happened. In fact I don't think I've ever felt so humiliated in my life . . I understand that the president made a ruling based on the current rules. But as any mother knows, sometimes families don't play by the rule book ... I hope this allows us to have a discussion about how we balance these things and respect the work of working families regardless of whether it's mothers or fathers ..."

We have a problem. Despite broad and sustained scientific consensus about the growing incapacity of the planet to sustain us and the threat posed by climate change, our elected decision makers and key corporate players seem incapable of doing enough of what is required, to avert the coming crisis.

Last year an Australian woman undertook a medical procedure. This week she and her boyfriend will face court because of it, charged with a crime. If found guilty, the 19-year-old and her 21-year-old boyfriend could get 10 years' jail.

Why would someone hold a swine flu party, a celebration intended to help you catch the virus? If you are invited to one, should you attend? Should viral socialites be shunned and pilloried, or are they providing a much-needed warning to those in charge of public communications about H1N1 that they need to think again?

Here's how a 15-year-old West Australian girl described a sexual encounter she had with three boys at a party after too much drink: "It felt really good at the time but afterwards I felt cheated and used."

The Mother's Day press release was cloying. The innovation it heralds is unnecessary at best and, at worst, a sexist menace.

An Open Letter to the Greens and Senator Nick Xenophon on Australia's Emissions Trading System

Should pregnant women smoke? OK, that's a no-brainer but here's a harder one. When pregnant women do smoke, what should we do about it?

Tuned into the boat-people debate this week? If yes, you'll know that the stress and disagreement that has long characterized the debate about migration is over. We all agree now that it's the people-smugglers we love to hate. People smugglers, the PM said, are "the absolute scum of the earth."

A kindler, gentler divorce may be a contradiction in terms, but the means to achieve it has arrived in Australia. Just a few weeks ago at a conference in Sydney, a group of good-hearted, specially trained lawyers met to discuss the ways a marriage in this country could be dissolved using a process called collaborative family law.

Something is happening to conservative political parties in Australia and overseas. Left-of-centre parties have gained power in the UK, US and Australia by advocating agendas far more centre than they are left. This has left the conservative side of politics floundering, unsure if they should stay the course or contest the middle ground by bringing their policies into line with voters who want greater regulation of the market and less government intrusion into their personal affairs. In Australia, centrist Labor governments are in government Federally and in every state except Western Australia. However, this may change with moderate Opposition leaders in both NSW and Victoria seen to have a chance next time voters go to the polls.

Australia has come a long way-some might say the wrong way-when the Education Minister dismisses debates about equity in school funding as a diversion from what she laughably calls Federal Labor's broad and deep reform agenda.

Australian publishing is a success story. In contrast to the uneven product of the heavily subsidized film industry, publishing continues to go from strength to strength. Around 45% of general audience books sold in Australia have been published here, and 40% of the top 5000 trade books have Australian authors. Not bad for an island at what Former PM Paul Keating reportedly described as the universe's arse-end.

Fond of kiddy-fiddlers? A friend of the porn industry? You must be, if you oppose a mandatory filter on the net. Or so says Senator Stephen Conroy and his allies in the Christian Right and Authoritarian Left.

The rugby and footy season have begun. I know, because allegations of sexual violence are in the news.

I was centimeters away from death or serious injury. Millimeters, even. The woman in the car hadn't meant any harm. She had only just parked and was now hurrying on her way, probably wondering if she had enough coins in her wallet for the meter, if the space she'd just backed into was truly legal, and if she still had time to avoid being late.

We expect a lot of our media. Not more than we should, but a decent amount, often without either acknowledging the importance of a free press to democracy, or the structural factors that can get in the way of well-meaning journalists doing the right thing.

Jill Stark interviewed Leslie for her article in the Age.

It wasn't true then, and it still isn't now. In fact, it's a big, fat porky pie. I'm talking about women's rights and the scary potential that, however flaccidly they are enshrined in law now, things are about to get worse.

Philosophers struggle to define love, little less explain it in ways we all crave. Ways that allow us to find and to nurture it, so as we journey through life - with the same lover or someone different - it will continue to flourish.

For Labor, the problem seems grim. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith can either follow the lead of the Obama administration in lifting Australia's version of the global gag rule, or ensure we remain the only country in the world that limits its foreign aid in this way.

British and American parents are about to get it, and Australian parents may want it too. Electronic babysitting, using a hard-to-remove wristwatch device with a GPS chip, is coming to a retail and online outlets soon. Want your tubby daughter to walk to primary school, but need assurance she's arrived safely? Have reason to doubt your year 9 son's insistence he is spending Saturday night at a friend's house? Child location devices offer peace of mind to any parent with a mobile phone or computer.

This summer, Norway has quietly joined Sweden in outlawing paid sex. Men who have sex with prostitutes working in brothels or on the street face hefty fines or six months in gaol, while the women involved will be offered assistance to exit the industry. "We want to send a clear message to men that buying sex is unacceptable," said the Norwegian Justice Minister, echoing the sentiments of Swedish detective Kajsa Wahlberg. "We don't have a problem with prostitutes. We have a problem with men who buy sex."

A while back a reader-let's call her Sharon-contacted me for help. Her story was confusing and hard to follow, so she directed me a website she had set up to publicise her cause. She also sent me some documents, which I committed to read with the view, if I could possibly make it work, of writing a column on her case. I wanted to help.

On Tuesday, Crikey broke a story about conservative magazine Quadrant's publication of an essay on scientific criticism by Sharon Gould. Gould is described as having a PhD in Applied Science (biotechnology) and being employed as a biotechnology informatics consultant.

Ethical talk about the dead usually focuses on rights. The rights of the dead to have their last wishes carried out, and their bodies treated with respect.

Tune out or wise up. Late December and January is the season for think-tanks and institutes. The time where the lack of action on the government and university fronts leaves a hole in the news agenda that third-party mouthpieces for political, industrial or religious interests are more than happy to fill.

It's that time of the year again. No matter what we believe or commemorate, December offers most of us a few days off work. A chance to reflect on what really matters in our complex, crowded lives, and how it can be nurtured so more will grow.

Defenders of torture are fond of the ticking bomb scenario. It describes a terrorist who has planted bombs around a city that are set to blow, but who refuses to tell authorities where they are. The implicit claim of the scenario is clear. That in some cases, in particular where lives are at stake and time is running short, torture may be justified.

How much do you know about your genes? Does your genetic profile match that of a sprinter, or is it more like an endurance athlete? Are you lactose intolerant, malaria resistant, possessed of wet or dry ear wax or at an increased risk, compared to others with similar ancestry, of breast cancer, Crohn's or Parkinson's disease?

For years, we've been tied up in knots, unsure how to protect the rights of women in male-dominated religions and cultures.

Leslie discusses the recent decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria in an article by Stephen de Tarczynski on the Inter Press Service News Agency

There were a lot of contenders for this week's column. The inevitable arrival of paid maternity leave on the list of scuttled government initiatives because of the global economic crisis was one. Minister Stephen Conroy's decision to capitulate to the demands of the religious right and censor everyone's internet access was another. And there's a piece inside me just screaming to get out about what former government leaders must really think about the quality of reporting on the ABC given their decision to participate in The Howard Years, the first episode of which screened on ABC TV this week.

Catch Leslie and a whole range of diverse families in this new educational DVD by the Victoria Educational Association. More information about this resource might be available on their website http://www.vea.com.au/. Or contact vea@vea.com.au.

The Bali Bombers are dead. When news of the executions came over the wireless I found it hard to shed tears. These men were murderers and tears are evidence of compassion. My opposition to the death penalty is motivated by more principled and practical concerns.

Catastrophic climate change is the moral issue of our time. If we flub it, it is our children who will be denied their most basic inheritance - a habitable and sustaining planet.

Hear Leslie and medical doctor Brigid Mckenna, the policy officer for the Sydney Catholic archdiocese's Life, Marriage and Family Centre on SBS World View Forum.

This week, in a rare moment of bi-partisanship, the Federal Government and Opposition joined forces to reject Speaker Harry Jenkins's call for a debate on whether the Lord's Prayer should continue to be said at the start of each parliamentary day.

For millennia, religious authorities have defined death as the stilling of the heart and the absence of breath. But all that changed in the 1960s when organ transplants became medically feasible. In the wake of a Japanese surgeon being charged for a double murder for a failed attempt to transplant a heart, the medical profession put its foot down. It wasn't long before dead patients were redefined from those without beating hearts to those who might-or might not-have cardio-respiratory function, but whose brain stems had definitely gone to God.

"That was very gracious," a friend of mine whispered at the conclusion of a speech I gave recently. We were at a function that my organization-which had done a lot of heavy lifting to achieve a shared goal-had arranged to thank other individuals and groups who contributed to a successful outcome.

I love a good resignation. The drama! The flounce! The sense of moral superiority! Better then a day at the races to watch, and to be the one resigning! I feel giddy just thinking about it.

Yesterday was a big day for my child. The start of term at the primary school he has attended since kinder, and the first day of work for the principal. Oh, and the day he had to fight through a media scrum to get through the front gate.

In the early 1990s I worked as a researcher for an organization dedicated to finding accommodation for young, homeless women. Many of these young women were escaping violent homes and, if they were lucky enough to get a bed in a refuge, they often found more violence there.

Peter Bloody Costello. Thank heavens the man is about to exit the national political stage because, quite frankly, I'm not sure I could take another minute of him.

Denying another's freedom while exercising one's own is hypocritical

The education revolution promised by Federal Government continues to piss me off. First it was a computer for every secondary school student; then it wasn't. These days, the so-called digital revolution means that at some point in the next five years two students will share one computer, if the money to actually install the things and pay for the cost of running them can be found.

Lord help me, here comes another conscience vote. This time, it's about whether our Federal MPs think it's OK to spend our taxes on the cost of an abortion necessary to save a woman's life, or to evacuate her uterus of a fetus that is already dead, or affected by "gross" abnormalities. In 2006, Parliamentarians were allowed to exercise their moral judgment on the acceptability of therapeutic cloning techniques to explore cures for diseases like Parkinson' disease and help for those confined for life to wheelchairs. RU486, and before this, the Northern Territory's euthanasia bill.

Political activism is often a thankless task. It's worse when the cause is not just controversial, but shrouded in stigma and shame. Yes, a lot of hard work goes into raising cash for breast cancer research or to send disabled athletes to Beijing, but at least it's easy to ask your colleagues and friends to donate, and to get VIPs to sign on as patrons to the cause.

They've done it again. For the third time, scientists have found evidence that the contraceptive pill may be inhibiting women's capacity to conceive in more ways than one. Worse, it may be playing havoc with their love lives.

Abortion is back in the news, with a bill now before the Victorian parliament that, if it becomes law, will give women with problem pregnancies of less than twenty-four weeks the right to decide for themselves.

Have you heard about Lucy? The intensively-farmed sow with the intelligence of a three year old who, in a series of Australian radio ads, tells of a life so miserable that she wishes she could "close [her] eyes and not wake up."

Are you a foul-mouthed, domestic disaster of a young woman who cares more about footy than fashion, enjoys sex and can drink a bloke under the table? Then you should know that the Australian version of the British reality TV show, Ladette to Lady, is looking for you.

Moral Maze: Teaching our Kids the Difference Between Science and Faith

However cynical, petty, ideological and pathetically out-of-date it may be, the attack by right-wing "think-tanks" on fair trade just won't go away.

You might think I am the sort of person who has always favoured a charter of human rights, but it isn't so.

Climate change, soaring petrol and food prices, one in seven Australian children living in poverty and catastrophic levels of violence in some indigenous communities. These are just some current issues of national importance that most Australians would see as legitimate topics for debate.

Their strength is waning, but there is still a depressingly large number of powerful men in the west, spread across a range of denominations, spewing raw hate and naked prejudice at gay people. All in the name of Christ.

OK, I admit it. I cry easily. My eldest's grade 6 graduation ceremony provoked a flood. Even k.d. lang's version of Hallelujah can do it. When the face of the little fella in the Worksafe Victoria ad lights up because his Dad is safe and home, I break down in sobs.

For a friend of mine, adolescence was no time of innocence. It was the worst and most confusing time of her life; made all the worse by the insistence of the adults she knew that the pain would be useful later.

What is unforgiveable? Are there some acts that cross the moral line in the sand dividing the venal from the inescapably evil? Are there some things, and some people, we cannot forgive?

The government has ordered yet another inquiry into a paid leave scheme for working Australian parents. This one, by the Productivity Commission, follows two similar ones by HREOC and a Senate Committee in 2002. What is left to examine, for heaven's sake! It's a leave scheme, not the first signs of life on Mars.

What does independent research, shield laws and whistleblower legislation have in common, and why should we give a rats?

My speciality area of ethics is reproductive technologies. What this means is that I spend much of my working life face-to-face with the suspicions that religious men, political leaders and journalists have about female morality.

Madonna turns 50 this year. Like every wheeze and fart in the entertainer's life, this one is attracting comment. From some, it sounds like this. "50? She looks 30! If she really was a taboo-breaker, she wouldn't have smooth skin and pert breasts. She'd be strutting her stuff on the cover of Vanity Fair with a wrinkled décolletage and baggy arms hanging out."

Last year, a girl at my son's school primary school - let's call her Susan - had a headache. The next day she collapsed and since then has been in a wheelchair from spinal damage caused by a benign tumour.

You may not have heard of it, but my guess is, you will soon. Climate engineering-or global climate control-may soon be a fact of life.

It's always about the money. Or is it?

Imagine this. You've spent your childhood with a brother bound to a wheelchair by a disease that causes him immense suffering. The condition has haunted your family for generations, killing male children and putting the female ones at risk of passing the faulty chromosome on to their own kids.

The facts are simple. Elliot Spitzer, who fought organised crime and corruption on Wall Street, resigned last week as New York's Governor after Federal wiretaps caught him arranging to meet an out-of-town hooker in his DC hotel.

Last week in New Zealand, Ivy May Ngahooro became the third body snatched after disputes about burial between non-indigenous and Maori relatives. The distress of Ms Ngahooro's family was extensively covered in the New Zealand press, with the will's executor, niece Trish Scoble, saying that the loss of the body made her feel both "sick" and "frightened". Scoble said that she would not stop until her Auntie May was laid to rest as she had wanted.

The real test of our principles is when those with whom we disagree stand on them to justify doing something we hate.

Some moral questions reduce to empirical ones. Where you stand and what you'll stand up for turns entirely on the facts.

I don't like her, and it ain't the hair. It's the annoyingly wooden affect, and her obeisance over the years to the demands of the American public that she change her name and hair, but stand by her man. But when I mailed in my absentee ballot for the Democratic primaries several months ago (I'm an American citizen as well as an Australian one) the tic was next to Hilary Clinton's name, not Barrack Obama's.

Talk about giving with one hand and taking with the other! There, in Parliament House, with members of the Stolen Generations looking on and thousands more bearing witness via video link on the adjacent lawns. One man, representing the nation, validating the painful experiences of Aboriginal Australians and by so doing, reminding us of what we as Australians have the potential to be. The other - his literal shadow - excusing, justifying, insisting on his version of the truth and in so doing, painfully reminding us why progress on race relations in this country have been stalled for so long.

Many people think that the State government's commitment to the decriminalisation of abortion guarantees a good outcome for women, no matter what model ultimately makes it into law.

Transparency. In recent years, journalists, politicians and medical researchers have joined lawyers and judges in accepting formal obligations to either disclose personal or financial links they have with those they report on or serve, to divest themselves of those links or to recuse themselves.

There are 17 selective high schools in New South Wales, and 10 schools offering selective classes for academically gifted students.

What's a Baby-Friendly hospital? If you don't know, you may soon because if the Australian Government's House Standing Committee Inquiry into Breastfeeding has its way, the three that currently exist in NSW are set to mushroom.

It's built into our psyches. How could it not be, with marriage - and the implied happy-ever-after - concluding every literary and cinematic romantic tale? And then there's the return of the elaborate, often white wedding, costing on average (based on 2004 figures) $36,234. Social research shows it, too. We, as a nation, particularly those in our dotage, and those in our thirties, believe in the institution of marriage.

How many of us are not living our dreams? What's stopping us? And what does dedicating ourselves to closing the gap between what we wanted for our lives and how we are actually living them have to do with ethics?

Something worrying is happening to column readers. They are becoming rude. Menacingly rude - and just plain mean - when they don't agree with you.

Blink and you'd miss it. That's the fate of stories in the lead-up to Christmas, even explosive ones about the questionable withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from unconscious patients like Paulo Melo.

In our society, who best reflects Jesus' compassion and sense of justice?

Everyone's heard of the Mummy Wars. The debate that flies out of the box like a bat out of hell every time some dry academic study appears about centre-based childcare. Behind all the shouting about sample size, confidence levels and expert bias is a shrillness that can only come from women who feel accused of being "bad" mummies, or are defending their status as "good" mummies.

Ive been wanting to write this column all year, but dreading it, too. Because I don't want to be misunderstood and I don't want to offend. But the truth is that there is something horribly rotten going on in my personal world and _ because the personal is political _ this nation. The rot comes from the way we fund our schools. And it is making me so angry (or is it so grief-stricken and guilty?) that I can hardly breath.

Infertility sucks and IVF is worse. Yet women rarely talk about either, or make jokes, a truth Jodi Panayotov found out the hard way when aged 37 she struggled to get pregnant and to stay that way.

Sex work is back in the news. Having hardly been broached in polite conversation since the state government's "tolerance zone" policy for street sex work went down in flames five years ago, the West Australian government's decision to descriminalise and regulate indoor prostitution has refocused minds around the country on the best way to manage the world's oldest profession.

Ingrates. That's the word that keeps coming to mind when the Canberra lesbian case is raised. That, and some vital misapprehension of what parenting - at its core, and in its specifics - is all about.

It's far from over, with many still shouting. But as the conga line of those condemning Channel 7 for broadcasting the news that two AFL players had been referred for illicit drug use grows, we need to ask ourselves: are we shooting the messenger?

There's always a moment of truth. For me, it came a few weeks ago, on my return from the States. "You look wonderful!" an acquaintance gushed as we watched our sons tumble across the football field. "Rest and sunshine really suits you."

It's Time to Tell. The slogan is back, along with the second phase of the Infertility Treatment Authority's campaign to inform parents of how Victoria's infertility laws may affect their lives, and parenting choices.

I love Right to Life President Margaret Tighe. After years of dealing with anti-choice activists who pretend their feminists, researchers, and medical ethicists - anything but foot soldiers for God - her straight-talking misogyny is like a breath of fresh air. With Margaret, women who seek abortions know just where they stand.

The government is in trouble in the polls and the Prime Minister claims there's no rabbits in the hat. Maybe, but I'm skeptical. Both history and early policy signs - the reduction of benefits available to new migrants, the Federal government's consideration of a ban on HIV positive migrants - suggests that as polling day draws closer, there will be rabbits. The same ones that have been stewed before.

The Catch-Up is a weekday talk show premiering early in 2007. Covering news, entertainment, lifestyle, beauty, fashion and gossip, the show is pitched at Australian women. Leslie chatted about her book What, No Baby? with hosts Libby Gore, Ita Buttrose and Lise Oldfield.

Leslie talks to Richard Aedy on ABC Radio National's Life Matters about the Federal Government's "Pregnancy Support" measures.

The removal of the Federal Health Minister's veto over RU486 last February was hailed as a victory for women, and a portent of what could be accomplished if politicians and grass roots activists worked together across party lines. In the wake of the conscience vote, female politicians suggested the victory was a taste of things to come. In the future, they would join hands to deliver women things like paid maternity leave, accessible and affordable childcare and a more equitable tax system for families where both parents worked.

It is important we don't miss the forest for the trees. As the Michael Neal scandal rolls on, with the Health Minister Bronwyn Pike now admitting that the health department "bungled" the case, we need to consider whether the "better protocols" being mooted as the answer for protecting public health in the future are really the answer. Or does officialdom need to dig deeper to discover why transmission rates of HIV in Victoria are high and rising.

In an exclusive report in the Bulletin, Julie-Anne Davies speak to Meredith Magill and her three children about life on the other side of a paternity suit. Leslie gets to make a comment too.

The Catch-Up is a weekday talk show premiering early in 2007. Covering news, entertainment, lifestyle, beauty, fashion and gossip, the show is pitched at Australian women. Leslie spoke about The Abortion Myth with hosts Libby Gore, Mary Moody, Lise Oldfield and Zoe Sheridan.

I marched on the streets of Melbourne to express my opposition to the war and Australia's involvement in it. From the trumped-up and ultimately fictitious casus belli, the predicted unpreparedness of the invading forces to win the peace and the incompetent and corrupt reconstruction process, the war's prosecution has fulfilled - indeed exceeded - every gloom-and-doom prediction of the nay-sayers.

The hypocrisy of the Coalition government on issues of personal choice is breathtaking. While supporters of restrictions on junk food advertising to children or universal minimum workplace conditions are "nanny state" advocates, blanket prohibitions on the capacity of terminally ill Australians to control the time and manner of their own deaths are claimed to show adequate respect for individual choice.

Privacy, as Victorian Privacy Commissioner Paul Chadwick recently observed, is a freedom most noticed in its absence. Sadly, we only seem to appreciate what we had once it's gone.

As heard on ABC Radio National - Summer Breakfast

Fat camps, prohibitions on junk food advertising, bans on sugary drinks in school canteens, Medicare subsidies for private weight loss programs, chair-free classrooms, food pyramids. Bariatric surgery, school weigh-ins, public service announcements telling kids to take more exercise, public hospital weight management clinics for the young. Bulging childhood waistlines as risk factors for diabetes, heart disease, escalating health care costs and social exclusion. Childhood obesity as lifestyle choice, disease, biological destiny or the result of parental ignorance, sloth or permissiveness. And in 2006, a three-fold increase in the number of Melbourne children - some as young as 10 - admitted to hospital with eating disorders resulting from their morbid fear of fat.

As heard on ABC Radio National - Summer Breakfast

Do blogs spell the end of moderated opinion? As expected, internet enthusiasts say "yes". The destiny of the World Wide Web is to end hierarchical, corporate control over the content and dissemination of knowledge, and the glorious reality - as far as editorial and analysis is concerned - is nothing less than the liberation of the opinionated from the oppressive control of toady, petty and uncomprehending editors.

Once upon a time, there were two men.

The first, Gary, had a child in a shaky marriage. The couple separated, but then reconciled. When Patti discovered she was pregnant, both knew the child could be that of the lover she took during their time apart. Patti agreed to put Gary's name on the birth certificate, and Gary pledged to love and raise the child - Gary Jr - as his own. But when the marriage ended, Patti asked the court to deny Gary further access to the boy on the grounds that he was not the child's biological father. Gary fought back, seeking to maintain contact and both rights and obligations to the child. Ultimately, however, the court held that as "third parties" neither he - nor his parents - had any entitlement to a relationship with the small child.

It turned out to be a storm in a teacup. In response to calls for a recount from a Victorian ALP confident the Democratic Labor Party's number two man had cheated its own candidate of victory, the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) ran the figures again. On Thursday, the elevation of a third Green's candidate to the Upper House was announced.

The death of a loved one is always difficult. For parents, regardless of the age of the child, anger, blame, impotence and guilt may accompany more generally experienced feelings like shock, disbelief, confusion, sadness, resentment, bitterness, hopelessness and depression.

WILL the carping of stem cell opponents never cease? First they insist their opposition to liberalisation of the laws governing embryo research is grounded in concern about women being exploited for their eggs. Then, one by one, they misrepresent and then reject every scientific alternative proposed to find alternative sources for such eggs.

Is stem cell science really anti-woman? Can anyone who truly believes in the right of women to be treated as rational citizens deserving of the same rights and opportunities as men campaign against the science on the grounds that women lack the capacity to give informed consent to egg donation?

Has anyone been listening to the lyrics of Eminem lately? The man is obsessed about the sexual morays of his lady friends. And women just can't win with this guy. First he tells them that if they don't put out, he'd going to "put them out," while in the next breath he's dismissing them as beneath contempt for sleeping with him on the same day they met. The rap superstar is also pretty direct about his lack of respect for women who offer to worship at his alter (if you get my drift) when all they know about him is that he's lead singer of a band.

Should arguments stand or fall on their merit? Or is it critical that media consumers get full, accurate and relevant information about who is providing facts, or offering opinion, about matters of public interest?.

Here, there, women crying "rape" are everywhere. I worry about the sudden onslaught of rape charges. Of course, I support a woman's right to raise her grievances publicly and have them addressed in a legitimate forum, but I worry that others might not. The men being named are sporting heroes, and it wasn't all that long ago that author Helen Garner questioned the legitimacy of young women bringing charges of sexual assault, both because of serious damage the resulting publicity had on the man's reputation, and because she felt it was the job of young women to take responsibility for the effect their sexuality had on the opposite sex.

Women must play and active role in protecting their sexual and reproductive health

The challenge for feminists is to beat a system that still stifles them

Damaged children grow up to believe that only violence can change

Retiring sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward's parting comments on the unfettered capacity of the nation's religious institutions to practise gender discrimination were the most interesting - and contentious - of her tenure.

Airing a dream is to criticise and negate the opposing vision

Do multiculturalism and feminism mix? What about feminism and religious freedom?

People should have the right to make choices about their own deaths.

Last Thursday, a number of female scientists stormed out of the dinner of a government- funded conference on climate change. They were outraged at the choice of a scantily-clad, all-woman burlesque troupe that included one performer covered with balloons that conference participants were invited to pop - as entertainment.

For me, the news of Steve Irwin's death caused a Diana moment: the molasses, freeze-time moment of shock that sears whatever one was doing - going to lunch, cleaning the fridge, having a shower - on one's consciousness for ever. I sat at my computer and cried.

Leslie talks about the implications of the conviction of New South Whales Dr Suman Sood for unlawful abortion.

Since becoming Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott has demonstrated a casual, at times even antagonistic, relationship with facts that don't support his moral views. This week's performance on Insiders continued this lamentable tradition. The Minister claimed that non-Government politicians supported "human cloning", that the Government's own expert panel recommended the creation of "human animal hybrids", and that a private member's bill sponsored by Senator Natasha Stott Despoja would "force" pro-life organisations to "refer people to abortion services", and deny federal funding to those that didn't.

Hear Leslie discuss the lack of regulation prohibiting deceptive and misleading advertising from anti-choice pregnancy counselling agencies

Leslie joins Jo Wainer in a discussion of her book Lost, and contemporary challenges to women's freedom to choose.

It's enough to make you feel queasy. A recent Harris poll found that half the American public - up from 36% last year -believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the time of the US invasion. This despite the fact that final report of the Iraq Survey Group - experts handpicked by the CIA and Pentagon - concluded that Iraq had no deployable chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in 2003, and had not produced any since 1991.

Late last year, the Lockhart Legislative Review Committee - the Federal Government's own handpicked experts - handed down its recommendations on the fate of stem cell research in this country. Among other things, the Committee recommended lifting Australia's ban on so-called "therapeutic cloning". Having first shelved the report on the basis of a cabinet vote, a backbench revolt saw the Prime Minister agree to a broader discussion at the first party room meeting after winter break. That meeting - otherwise known as Stem Cell D-Day - is today.

Some called it Camillagate. The streaming of footage from the Big Brother household showing two men sexually dominating a woman, followed by a public outcry for the show to be taken off air. But was there something in the story most commentators missed? Leslie says "yes".

The recent "Camilla" incident streamed from the Big Brother house several weeks ago renewed controversy about the show's suitability for free-to-air TV.

Download an MP3 encoded recording of the event.

Leslie's letter to the editor on "Positive Family Planning" in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Book Review - Lost: Illegal abortion stories. Edited by Jo Wainer, foreward by Helen Garner. Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 2006. 214 pages. ISBN: 0-522-85231-9

Former footballer, broadcaster and TV fisherman Rex Hunt's entanglement in a scandal of his own making may not engage everyone's sympathy and interest. Tabloid-fodder, we might sniff, before returning to the more serious business of sipping lattes and cracking open expensive bottles of chardonnay.

Ethical dilemma from Virginia Trioli's ABC Australia Radio Program. Download an MP3 encoded recording of the interview.

Should children be told they were conceived by sperm or egg donation?

Leslie was interviewed by Henry Grossek (Viewpoints) on 3SER 97.7 FM. Download an MP3 or Ogg Vorbis encoded recording of the interview.

Pregnancy counsellors must declare their stance on abortion.

Crochet hooks, castor oil, slippery elm bark, syringes full of Lifeuboy soap and Dettol. Sepsis, gas gangrene of the uterus, hysterectomies on 12 year olds, deserted pregnant wives taking their children and jumping off the St Kilda pier and women waiting, scared and alone, on a dark windswept corner of Bourke Street for the stranger's car that would take them, huddled beneath a blanket on the floor of the backseat, to the backyard abortionist. And if they haemorrhaged on the kitchen table, the best they could hope for was to be dumped on the corner near the Royal Women's in the hope that someone would find them in time. Many died.

Ethical dilemma from Virginia Trioli's ABC Australia Radio Program. Download an MP3 encoded recording of the interview.

Pregnancies Don't Need Support, Women Do

ANYONE who followed the debate on RU486, and understood the complex politics surrounding it, knew it was coming: a quid pro quo for the Health Minister to soften the blow of losing his powers to deny Australian women access to RU486. It came last Thursday: a $51 million dollar package for two "pregnancy support measures": a new counselling hotline and Medicare rebate. Then came the story of a push in Victoria to remove abortion from the Crimes Act.

As I write, the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial Responsibility for Approval of RU86) Bill 2005 may be sliding towards defeat in the House of Representatives. Designed to undercut 1996 amendments to the Therapeutic Goods Act that have effectively banned RU486 and other abortifacient drugs from Australia, the Bill - having passed through the Senate last Thursday - is now the subject of an amendment that, if successful, will see the ban remain firmly in place.

What woman would want to have an unsafe, illegal abortion when she could have a safe and legal one? Health minister Tony Abbott (Opinion, 6/2) claims to be worried that making RU486 available in Australia would lead to backyard miscarriages and an internet-based black market.

A joint publication of Reproductive Choice Australia and the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance. Written by Leslie and launched at Parliament House Canberra on 8 February 2006.

In the next few weeks, the Australian parliament will debate a bill that would let the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) decide on whether RU486, the abortion pill, could be used in Australia. This has kick started a pretty feisty debate and a strong letter campaign from those who want to stop RU486 from being available in Australia in which Leslie was involved.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but those who'd hoped the giving spirit might have affected the Prime Minister when it came to the abortion drug RU 486 have found their stockings sadly empty. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister emerged from a Liberal party room meeting to inform the media that the vote expected by the end of next week was cancelled. The Coalition's pre-Christmas legislative agenda was crowded with issues far more important than women's health. Those hoping to find out whether Australian patients will finally get access to a pharmaceutical that doesn't just terminate very early pregnancies, but is used in the treatment of breast cancer and endometriosis, would just have to wait.

For those who have been watching the debate about RU486, this coming Tuesday is the moment of truth. That's because Tuesday is the day the Coalition party room meets to discuss whether they will support or oppose a promised Democrat's amendment to the Therapeutic Goods Act that will lift what has effectively been a ban on the "abortion pill" in Australia.

Motherhood is the latest in a long line of cri de coeur books by baby-boom women about what is claimed to be the incompatibility of "feminist" ideas about motherhood and female emancipation and their lived experience of motherhood. Like Manne, such authors breathed feminist assumptions - about the equality of men's and women's talents, women's need for economic independence and human flourishing - "as naturally as air". But when their children are born, such women find they conflict with the way they want to mother (or as Manne prefers, the way children need them to mother).

"Paternity Fraud" implies deceptive women cuckholding men into believing children are biologically theirs. But the truth is more complex, and more human.

There's only one thing I have to say about Queensland National's Senator Barnaby Joyce. I hope he's telling the truth.

It's a big year for books on prostitution, with Call Me Elizabeth and Callgirl only some of the volumes weighing down gender studies shelves across the nation. At the start of Callgirl Angell gives us an inkling as to the cause of the current obsession when she writes that "people look at me and get a little scared. I could be - I am - one of them. I am their sister, their neighbour, their girlfriend. I'm nobody's idea of what a whore looks like. Maybe that's why I'm scary. They want callgirls to be different, identifiable. That keeps them safe." Thirty-five years after second-wave feminism and in the midst of rising divorce rates, declining fertility and increasing numbers of women willing and able - should a suitable male fail to appear - to go motherhood alone, many of us are confused not just about what women want, but who women really are. Exposes of the secret worlds of women who appear average or even respectable on the outside tantalises us with the prospect of finding out.

Few academics would have slept through the long-running Australian history wars. Sparked by claims made by retired academic Keith Windshuttle that several prominent scholars - among them Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan - misrepresented or falsified data in order fabricate a version of Aboriginal history consistent with pre-existing political agendas, the debate threw a sharp and very public spotlight on the fallibility of scholars and scholarly methods.

We should not further restrict women's access to late abortions, writes Leslie Cannold. The charging of Dr Suman Sood for manslaughter and procuring an unlawful abortion in NSW is the first such prosecution in that state since 1971, though it was only seven years ago that two West Australian doctors were charged as criminals for providing terminations. Indeed, Australia has a long history of prosecuting women and doctors over abortions and, because of the consistent refusal of politicians to legislate progressively on the issue, common law rulings have had a profound impact on the development of abortion law.

Jesse Blackadder's first novel is an exploration of the physical and eclectic social terrain of Byron Bay: Sydney-sider holiday escape and stopover de rigour for the backpacker set. It follows the chain of events set into motion by Zac's near-death experience at a party given by the emotionally inscrutable Black Dragon. Over a three-week period, Zac, Black Dragon, her friend Madeline and Zac's girlfriend Kate roam between Sydney and Byron, searching and ultimately discovering important truths critical to unlocking their true vocation or potential for love.

There is no end in sight to the painful saga of the long-ago termination of a woman with a foetus diagnosed with dwarfism in 2000. Feeling it has no choice but to defend the principle of patient confidentiality, the Royal Women's Hospital has decided to seek leave to appeal against the Victorian magistrate's ruling at the end of last month. The ruling compels the hospital to hand over the medical records of the woman known to the public as Mrs X, despite that women's persistent refusal to consent to their release.

Once upon of time there was a tribe called the Very Smarts. The Very Smarts lived on a island where they planted, tended and then harvested trees from which they carved beautiful and much-sought after canoes. But while the Very Smarts were wonderful craftspeople, they had neither the interest nor the acumen to distribute or profit from their work. Instead, completed canoes were rowed by the Very Smarts to the Teleporting tribe on the mainland. There the Teleporters would put the final touches on the canoe and, with the Very Smarts help, rate each canoe for quality.

In his introduction to this collection of academic essays about different aspects and types of contemporary Australian masculinity or, as the authors prefer, masculinities, R.W. Connell notes that: 'It is now a familiar observation that notions of Australian identity have been entirely constructed around images of men.'

It's been driving me crazy for years, but John Howard's comments in Parliament early this week about the rectitude of mandatory detention and public support for it, tipped me over the edge. The time has come for some clarity in the minds of public figures and commentators about what public support for something does - and does not mean - in terms of morality.

By Virginia Haussegger, Allen & Unwin, $26.95

Start talking research methodology to journalists, and many will run screaming from the room. To be fair, the same might be said of some academics working outside the bounds of history, social or pure science departments. Yet, however technical and dry it seems, researchers working in methodology-driven disciplines know that valid methods aren't a detail, but at the heart of the most important question to be asked of any study: can you trust the results?

Workers are demanding better working conditions, and conditions for family life

Did unconscious sexism lead to a miscarriage of justice in the case of Karen Ellis? On Thursday, the Court of Appeals threw out the 22 month suspended sentence handed down in November by the County Court and re-sentenced the 37 year old school teacher to nearly three years, 6 months of which she must serve in jail. The ruling found the initial sentence had violated the principle of equality, including "equality of concern for male and female victims and equality in the sentencing of male and female offenders."

Over my (far too) many years of studentship and academic employment, I have bought (far too) many books, (far too) many of which have stagnated on my shelves, growing dusty and churlish from disuse. Amongst this unedifying lot have never been tomes edited or authored by Peter Singer. This is not because it is impossible to disagree with Singer, or to occasionally find his fearless exploration of the most complex, sensitive and interesting ethical issues of our times unsatisfying terse and one-dimensional. But rather because with the exception of de Botton, Singer is without peer when it comes to picking the right topic and penning erudite and accessible prose steeped in casual references to philosophical debates on similar issues dating back thousands of years. In The Moral of the Story, written in partnership with wife Renata, he does it again, compiling an anthology that students, academic philosophers and writers interested in ethics (and what writer isn't) will pull off the shelf to thumb through again and again.

For me, school holidays are like housework: highly demanding, ever-present and seemingly never done. My problem, in a nutshell, is while I'd be happy to have the kids at home, the demands of my work mean this only sporadically and occasionally possible. Most of the time, I need care. This means that every time those dreaded two weeks draw near, my "to-do" list looks like this.

Spritely, sure-footed, rich with colour and authentic understanding of place, The Catch by first-time author Marg Vandeleur maintains its innocence and light-heartedness on a potentially chin-dragging topic: the shortage of suitable men for desperately-ticking women.

Having found a lost a "son", the Minister should be less critical of others

Women academics under-achieving has nothing to do with biology or inclination

Motherguilt bills itself as a book in which Australian women "revel their true feelings about motherhood" and one that assists women to "deprogram themselves" from the powerful and unique "epidemic of guilt" experienced by today's mothers.

As Prime Minister John Howard put it: "You can't have a situation where every time somebody dares to express a view, they're jumped upon from a great height and it's said the issue is back on the agenda."

WINSTON Churchill said that a fanatic was a person who couldn't change his mind and wouldn't change the subject.

In the great debates about family/work balance and fertility rates, let's not forget men.

The Playboy symbol is enjoying a resurgence in popularity. What does this signify?

Most people are familiar with at least some of Bob Ellis's long and impressive resume. The author of seventeen books, including the bestselling Goodbye Jerusalem, Goodbye Babylon and First Abolish the Customer, he's also written and directed features and documentaries including The Notradamus Kid and Bastards from the Bush. He's won or been nominated for numerous honours, including the Premier's Literary Award.

British filmmaker Julia's Black's documentary My Foetus won't screen in Australia until August 8, but debate has already begun about whether the film should be censored, and the impact it will have on political debate about abortion.

The budget will encourage single working women to have children - but more needs to be done

WE still don't know exactly what sparked the terrible flurry of violence that cost David Hookes his life.

USUALLY he amazes, but this time we were appalled.

Who better than Anne Summers, a woman who lists among her achievements the best-selling book Damned Whores and God's Police, advisor to former Prime Minister Keating and Officer of the Order of Australia for services to journalism and women, to write about the most pressing social problem of our time: the tragic imbalance between work and family responsibilities, and the devastating impact it is having on women's well-being and the nation's capacity to reproduce itself?

Read Leslie's perspective on how St Kilda politics went wrong when trying to make the streets safer for prostitutes and residents.

Feminists expect fathers to do domestic work, so how can they tacitly exempt mothers from paid work?

Women don't turn to IVF lightly. Men are fleeing fatherhood.

Dated views about women and work are deservedly dying out.

She is pushed to have all the tests, then damned if she terminate late

BREASTFEEDING: what could be more simple? Best for mother, best for baby, the obvious and necessary feeding choice for all mums, and the only one ethical health professionals can support. Most women reading this would find such "facts'' familiar.

A woman-centred approach to birth includes the right to choose drugs.

HOW DOES this generation define a transcendent relationship, a perfect twosome, the ultimate love? In his construction of the relationship between Gen-X FBI agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, the Australian-born creator of The X-Files, Chris Carter, has taken a leaf from the Victorian era, and added a distinctive 21st-century twist.

Giving Sorrow Words, By Melinda Tankard-Reist, Duffy & Snellgrove, $17.95

Both new parents, not just mum, should get time off work.

A new ruling may end discrimination in access to donor sperm.

It's easier to talk about immigration than about why we're having fewer children.

I LOVE The Vicar of Dibley and Dawn French's vicar, Geraldine Granger. But after most episodes, my stomach hurts - figuratively, that is. Which may be better than the literal way the vicar's must feel. Because at some point in each episode of the show, Geraldine does some serious eating: a freezer's worth of icecream, a cupboard full of chocolate bars, an entire Yule Log. That sort of thing.

Working parents may not be able to rely on the women's movement to help them.

The latest theory out of America about rape is not just wrong, it's dangerous.

A lot has been said in the past two weeks about the devastation wrought on children by bullies. I wince when I hear the stories, wince through identification and with shame.

JENNY McCARTNEY'S hand-wringing about the preoccupation of the modern Western woman with vanity and consumption (on this page, 6/1) has a familiar ring to it. I am 34 now, and for as long as I can remember, responsible society has been exhorting me and my fellow female travellers to consider what we might have time to think about were we spending less time thinking about the shapes of our bodies.

Protecting our loved ones is only natural in a world of un-met misery.

Late abortions are emotive fodder for those who deny women moral agency.

Knowing the identity of their biological parents gives children a sense of who they are.

IVF advances may make the working lives of women harder, not easier.

Victoria's intellectuals are blind to the Premier's popular appeal. Here's why.

The issue: Will making women equal change anything?

Court and legislative battles have embroiled this nation in an uneasy search for the definitive answer to the vexing question: Who are dads anyway? The deliverers of DNA or the conveyers of care and concern? And if the answer is the latter, can the law insist each child have one?

Taking a tiny risk can serve overall community interests.

Reproductive technology will never provide the answer to inequality.

Just like John Howard, Martin Ferguson wants to take us back to the future.

Don't blame the movement, blame the system.

All workers, not just parents and not just women, need a life.

TO circumcise our sons or not? Before our first children were born, a Jewish friend and I argued the question. Our non-Jewish partners looked on, unsure what the fuss was about.

IN A new book, A Return to Modesty, 23-year-old American Wendy Shalit argues that women's problems spring from their lack of modesty - or, to put it more crudely, their inability to keep their knickers above their knees.

First Diana, now Monica. They became superstars, but that doesn't make them admirable.

THE evidence is everywhere. On the radio, where popular new group Cake sing "I need your understanding, I need your love so much/you tell me that you love me so, you tell me that you care/but when I need you baby, you're never there", and The Whitlams croon about the aphrodisiac effect of loneliness.

Why both women and men resent this modern parable.