21 Feb: The Victorian Government will move to bring its euthanasia laws in line with other states by scrapping a “gag clause” that prevents doctors from initiating conversations about the option with their patients. This follows the release of a five-year review into the operation of the scheme, which commenced in 2019. Read the full article

20 Feb: Police in Scotland have made the first arrest of a protester who allegedly breached an exclusion zone around an abortion clinic, days after the US vice-president, JD Vance, spread inaccurate claims about Scotland’s rules. The arrest of the woman took place as anti-abortion campaigners funded by a Texas-based group announced a fresh wave of protests outside the clinic in Glasgow. Read the full article

Opinion / Analysis

Paula Gerber: Many people’s heads are spinning at the rapid rate that Donald Trump has been signing executive orders since becoming president – 70 in the 30 days since he took office. Several of Trump’s executive orders, directly or indirectly, target the trans community. Read the full article

Elizabeth Dangerfield: Democracy is difficult. Democracy is fragile. Democracy, in its most inclusive modus operandi, pushes the boundaries too far for many people. As Winston Churchill said, no-one pretends democracy is perfect or all-wise. “Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…" Read the full article

Hemant Mehta: Australia’s Bureau of Statistics conducts its census every five years, and it’s a valuable tool to understand the shifting religious demographics in the country. Unfortunately, because of the way the religion question is worded, the results will once again severely undercount the percentage of non-religious people. Read the full article

Eric Heinze: One of Vance’s key claims for the decline of free speech in Europe left many UK observers dumbfounded. He rebuked the Scottish government for sending out letters in October 2024 cautioning citizens that, in his words, “even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law”. Read the full article

George Browning: Trump has created what he calls a ‘Faith Office’ within the White House and appointed a Pentecostal pastor from Florida, Paula White, to lead it. Ms White, widely described in mainstream Christianity as a heretic, teaches a transactional faith. In other words, faith is demonstrated in prosperity. Read the full article

Trevor Cobbold: A stand-off between the Albanese Government and the NSW and Queensland Governments over public school funding has been going on for more than a year. The longer it lasts, the more public schools will lose. If it is not resolved, public schools in the two states could lose nearly $40 billion in funding over the next 10 years. Read the full article

Jordyn Beazley: The New South Wales government has passed controversial laws to crack down on hate speech and protests with the threat of hefty fines and jail time, including restrictions on protests near places of worship. Read the full article

Mario Peucker: Far-right extremism is not going away. To the contrary, it appears to be gaining momentum in Australia and around the world. The actions of far-right groups keep getting more emboldened. They increasingly claim public spaces and their exclusivist-nationalistic, white supremacist and often antisemitic agenda continues to attract more (and younger) people. Read the full article

Massimo Faggioli: Catholicism occupies a special place because it is at the centre of a reconsideration of the American project and the discovery of the theological and religious ambiguities of that project — at once victim and accomplice of the colonial project, first British and then American. Read the full article

Justin Ray: During slavery, faith provided both hope and a mechanism for survival, cementing religion as a cornerstone of Black culture. The church became a sanctuary, a source of education and a platform for activism most notably during the civil rights movement. Rejecting the concept of God is often perceived as a rejection of Black identity itself. Yet, this longstanding association is evolving. Read the full article

Lloyd Green: What happens to our liberal democracy if American Christianity is no longer able, or no longer willing, to perform the functions on which our constitutional order depends?” Jonathan Rauch asks in the opening pages of Cross Purposes. “The alarming answer is that the crisis for Christianity has turned out to be a crisis for democracy.” Read the full article

Shanti Das: Rachael Clarke remembers life before buffer zones. Almost every day, the head of staff at the UK’s biggest abortion provider would get emails from staff worried about protesters outside clinics – and women crying in the waiting room. Some of the protesters had huge placards with graphic images of foetuses. Others held candlelit vigils and said prayers. Read the full article