by Bill Fancher
WASHINGTON, DC (AgapePress) – The new budget submitted by President Bush discontinues a Clinton Administration practice of covering contraceptives for government workers through their health plan.
Concerned Women for America’s Wendy Wright welcomes the cutback. “This provision in President Bush’s bill is merely common sense,” she says. “People should not be forced against their own moral beliefs to pay for someone else’s contraceptive coverage.”
Wright says contraception is an elective choice one makes, and those who oppose such actions should have the right to say the money cannot be used for that purpose. She says making someone pay for another’s contraceptives is wrong.
“They are forced to fund someone else’s decision, and that decision may have the implications of killing a human life, because some devices that are considered contraceptives are actually abortifacients, which means that it kills a human life after that life has been conceived,” she says.
The pro-family activist called the action by the Bush budget planners a “moral decision.”
Aussie Anti-Porn Crusade Cinches Win Over Playboy
by Ed Vitagliano
(AgapePress) – The Australian Federation for the Family has ended a 17-year campaign against Playboy magazine in that country with an unprecedented and complete victory: the Australian version of the magazine has closed its doors.
AFF, which is affiliated with American Family Association, began the battle against Playboy in 1983. Founders Jack and Margaret Sonneman have never doubted they could prevail against the infamous Playboy. “When we began, many tried to convince us that we could not succeed,” Jack said. “We chose not to believe them. We chose to believe God.”
The fight against Playboy was won in a succession of smaller steps. For example, AFF targeted advertisers who would be more subject to consumer disapproval, and all the advertisers eventually canceled their contracts with the magazine.
AFF's activities against Australian porn in general also hurt Playboy. The ministry successfully lobbied legislators to raise the age in which girls could appear nude in pornography — from 16 to 18 years old. AFF also convinced legislators to pass laws restricting children's access to porn in the stores which sell such materials.
Jack Sonneman said AFF's next target will be Australian Penthouse, the Down-Under version of the U.S. porn rag. He said that, over the last two decades, Penthouse circulation has dropped from 400,000 to 78,000.
“Over the years we have declared this [fight against porn] a ‘winnable war' and we are winning it a battle at a time,” Sonneman said. “We will continue this war until all our children are safe from porn.”
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
