News

Published: 20 August 2019

LGBT activist cracks down on freedom of conscience of bus driver.

A bus driver in the UK has been suspended for refusing to drive a bus emblazoned with LGBT propaganda.

The driver is reported to have told passengers that he is “not driving this bus because it promotes homosexuality”.

The driver asked passengers to “wait a minute” while he changed to a bus which did not feature the political LGBT “pride” colours.

A passenger lodged a complaint and subsequently took to Twitter to bemoan the driver exercising his freedom of conscience.

“Today I was waiting for the 501 bus to Thickthorn and we were told by the driver we had to wait for him to swap buses as 'this bus promotes homosexuality and I refuse to drive it' due to the multicoloured '501' sign. Norwich doesn't appreciate homophobia”, the woman tweeted.

Konectbus threw the driver under the bus, so to speak, replying on social media that: “As a company we do not condone any behaviour from our drivers that does not support this view. The driver involved in this incident has been suspended and a full investigation is underway.”

Christian Concern, a UK-based group which advocates for persecuted Christians, attacked the decision.

“The decision of the Supreme Court in [the] Ashers Bakery case has made it clear that everyone is entitled to refuse to promote a message they disagree with — be that by baking a cake, driving a bus, or in whatever other way”, said Andrea Williams.

“So long as the driver's objection was to the message, not to the messenger, he has not discriminated against anyone and has broken no law.

“If the driver's objection to the rainbow colours was based on his religious or philosophical beliefs, it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against him because of those beliefs,” said Williams.

Meanwhile, a petition defending the driver has received over 16,000 signatories.

Published: 13 August 2019

Lawmakers in Tennessee are looking to implement legislation which provides broader protection for the unborn than pro-life legislation passed in other states.

Earlier this year a Tennessee bill to protect unborn children once a heartbeat is detected failed to pass.

But now lawmakers are considering providing more comprehensive protection for the unborn.

If the new legislation passes, babies will be protected from the moment their mothers discover they are pregnant.

The move comes as a number of US states have passed legislation to recognise the rights of the unborn.

So far in 2019, six US states have passed “heartbeat” bills, which protect the right to life of the unborn once a heartbeat can be detected.  Those states are Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Ohio.

Missouri passed legislation which protects the unborn from eight weeks and Alabama has implemented an almost complete ban on abortion.

American pro-life advocate Lila Rose said that she is so proud of Tennessee “moving to protect the basic right to live of every child”.

Published: 09 August 2019

Suicide prevention campaigns are hypocritical when assisted suicide is pushed in today’s society by the regressive left, writes Caleb Stephen.

I was terribly sad to read that a Victorian mum has become the first person to fall victim to the state’s new retrograde euthanasia laws.

Kerry Robertson, 61, suicided by lethal poison at a nursing home in Bendigo on July 15 having battled breast cancer for almost a decade.

She was the first person to be granted the permit in Victoria, having visited her specialist the day legislation came into effect.

This is a tragedy, but it isn’t shocking. Especially when we consider the direction public opinion has been heading in recent times in relation to end of life matters.

You see, our culture has become used to the glorification of death. Many now believe that to assist a person to commit suicide is somehow an “empowering” experience.

What I find most illogical about the situation is that we have media promoting suicide prevention awareness campaigns at the same time they are actively promoting euthanasia.

As a society, we need to seriously question this glaring hypocrisy.

Back in 2017, I had the pleasure of interviewing US doctor William Toffler of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) when he touched down in Australia for a whirlwind speaking tour.

Dr Toffler is a practicing doctor in the state of Oregon where euthanasia has been legal for over 20 years.
I asked Dr Toffler whether he saw a conflict between suicide prevention and euthanasia.

He replied:

"There's clearly a conflict between suicide prevention which I'm not only entrusted to do, I'm empowered if I can’t keep a person safe from themselves to even put them in the hospital against their will to protect them.

"So here we now are empowering doctors to do exactly the opposite under the circumstances of labelling someone 'terminal'. I'm now empowered to give massive overdoses so they can kill themselves. I'm essentially a helper in suicides.

"In Oregon, this has clearly eroded the protection for people with suicidal ideations and desires and in fact, we have no money now going to suicide prevention programs.

"The suicide rate in Oregon has gone up. It was above the national average before passage of assisted suicide. And now it's going up at a rate even faster.

"Now I can't prove cause and effect. On the other hand, it's not reassuring if people think by legalizing assisted suicide that you somehow decrease non-assisted suicide rates.

"The states of Oregon and Washington both undermine that argument. And I've literally heard people espouse such an argument that somehow by legalizing and regulating it that you would have less of it.

"We actually have a phenomenon that news reporters here in Australia know very well. Suicide can be contagious. So at the end of the article about the tragedy of the three people killing themselves in Queensland, there's a note saying if you feel depressed and you need help, call this number. And of course we're doing that because we care and value lives and we don't want to encourage suicide as the solution to suffering.

"Never has the solution to suffering been to end the life of the sufferer.

"We need to redouble our efforts to help with pain management, we need to get consultation from palliative care, we need to invoke a transition from curative care to comfort care but care's always there. We should emphasize care, not killing."

Euthanasia, contrary to popular belief, is not purely a personal choice. By definition it requires at least one other person to assist and a social commitment not to prosecute those who do assist.

It goes without saying that euthanasia affects society as a whole. The bottom line is that it effectively turns doctors into killers, not caregivers.

It is very difficult to be a caregiver one day and a killer the next. Legalising euthanasia creates an insurmountable moral and ethical dilemma. As with forced abortion referrals in Queensland, many doctors will be forced to leave the profession when so-called “medical care” compels them to refer patients to their premature death.

This cultural push towards killing must be stopped in its tracks.

Caleb is in charge of Digital Communications & Media at FamilyVoice. 

Prior to working fulltime with FamilyVoice, Caleb was an investigative journalist, ghostwriter, commentator and editor for some of the largest news outlets in the United States, Israel and Australia.  

Outside of FamilyVoice, Caleb enjoys working with youth and the homeless and is an emergency services volunteer.

Published: 06 August 2019

Former Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce has slammed a NSW abortion bill, saying that “two doctors does not equal God”.

“Just because they’re doctors does not mean they have a right to determine whether a healthy person lives or dies,” he said.

The bill before the NSW Parliament would permit abortion on request up until 22 weeks. After 22 weeks, abortion would be allowed right up until birth with the consent of two doctors on the basis of very loose criteria.

There is no cooling-off period and doctors will be forced to refer a woman for an abortion, robbing them of their freedom of conscience.

Joyce has previously spoken out against the bill, invoking his new born son Tom.

“On 1 June Vikki's and my son Tom took his first breath,” Joyce said in a recent speech in parliament.

“This was not the start of his life. The reality is that he was part of this world for some time and was merely passing from one room to another.

“The hour of birth is an arbitrary point in modern medicine, within a range of two to three months. His birth, to Tom, did not endow him with greater meaning as a person. As parents we had no lesser responsibilities than when Tom left the hospital, being totally reliant on our nurturing and protection.

“Inside the womb, Tom kicked, punched, grabbed his umbilical cord, felt pain, slept and dreamed. With ultrasound, he was most certainly seen in real human form. To say he didn't have the rights of other human life is to say he must have been subhuman,” he said.

Religious leaders have also criticised the bill, including Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP.

“New attempts to make abortion even more widely available in NSW are deeply troubling,” he said.

“The measure of a society is how it protects its most vulnerable, be they unborn children, their mothers who are too often pressured emotionally, financially and even physically to choose against the life of their child, or the sick and frail elderly.”

»We urge NSW residents to defend unborn life by urgently​ contacting MPs and telling them to oppose the bill. It’s easy and will only take just a few moments of your time.