MATTERS OF SOCIAL CONCERN

SAO PAULO – Supermodel Gisele Bundchen stepped into the debate over birth control and sexual behavior in Brazil on Tuesday, saying Church opposition to condom use was ridiculous and women should have the right to choose on abortion.

Gisele is idolized by many young women in Brazil, the world's largest Roman Catholic country, where debate over sexual issues has intensified around a visit by Pope Benedict last month. The Pope stressed the Church's firm opposition to abortion and contraception and railed against sex outside of marriage.

The Brazilian beauty, one of the world's top models, told Folha de S.Paulo newspaper in an interview that when the Church made its laws centuries ago, women were expected to be virgins. "Today no one is a virgin when they get married ... show me someone who's a virgin!" she said.

Asked about abortion, she said a woman should have the right to choose what is best for her. "If she thinks she doesn't have the money or the emotional condition to raise a child, why should she give birth?" Gisele, who had just arrived from New York to take part in Rio de Janeiro's Fashion Week, also defended condom use. "It's ridiculous to ban contraceptives -- you only have to think of the diseases that are transmitted without them. I think it should be compulsory to use a contraceptive."

The Brazilian government has clashed with the church over anti-AIDS programs in which it distributes millions of free condoms and Health Minister Jose Temporao has called for a national referendum on abortion.

A succession of high-profile drink-driving cases has sparked concern that being a "bloody idiot" is no longer seen as such a bad thing. As Channel Seven news chief Peter Meakin joined a long list of well-known drink drivers, public health experts questioned whether being caught driving over the limit had lost its stigma.

"When you're seeing it so frequently and routinely, and these are people who have some sort of role-model impact in the community, then perhaps it is the case," Alcohol and Other Drugs Council chief executive Donna Bull said.

Alcohol dependency counsellor Wendy Perkins said the proliferation of drink-driving convictions against well-known people sent the wrong message to ordinary drivers. "People think: 'If it's good enough for them it's good enough for me,' " she said. "It's a very bad message that they are sending out, especially to young people. They might not know who Peter Meakin is but they know who Paris Hilton is."

Meakin, 64, was sentenced last week to 14 months' periodic detention and banned for driving for eight years after he was convicted of drink driving and dangerous driving. He accelerated past a random breath testing site on the northern beaches on October 4 last year when police signalled him to stop. Two officers had to leap to safety to avoid been hit by his car. After he pulled over, he recorded a blood alcohol reading of .10. It was his third drink driving offence.

Other high-profile Australians to make headlines in the past 12 months include former Socceroos coach Frank Farina, talkback host Steve Price, environmentalist Mimi Macpherson, Waratahs player Kurtley Beale and ARIA award-winning singer Sarah McLeod. Former boxing world champion Jeff Fenech allegedly blew .095 when stopped in Kings Cross in March. He said he would contest the charge in court later this month.

Overseas, actress Lindsay Lohan was charged with drink-driving last month after losing control of her Mercedes-Benz convertible. Paris Hilton was sentenced to jail last month, while her friend Nicole Richie will face court this year for an alleged offence in December. Other celebrities to traipse through the courts in past years include actor Mel Gibson and rapper Busta Rhymes.

In 2004, former NSW attorney-general and Supreme Court judge Jeff Shaw crashed his car near his Birchgrove home. His career ended after a scandal involving a missing vial of blood. Allegedly, he was so embarrassed that he hid the sample, which later returned an alcohol content of .225. An investigation is pending but the same sense of shame might no longer apply to other drink drivers.

Hard hitting advertising campaigns such as "If you drink and drive you're a bloody idiot" have deterred some drinkers, but not all. Dr Gordian Fulde, director of the emergency department at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, said: [The high-profile cases show] that it doesn't matter if you are pre-eminent in any profession or sport or anything. At the end we're dealing with human beings.

"All these people are like the person [we're] standing next to. We're all human, we all bleed when we're cut." Ms Bull said only an increase in random breath testing would reduce the number of drink drivers on the roads. "The factor that [has] the greatest impact in terms of people reconsidering their behaviour is visible police presence on the road," she said. "It's when people believe there is a real chance of getting caught, that's when they change their behaviour."

As a small girl, Ayaan Hirsi Ali's clitoris and labia were cut off with a pair of scissors. She was then sewn up with a piece of twine "to keep her chaste." In the world in which she then lived, Ali was not alone: the World Health Organisation estimated in 2000 the number of girls and women who had undergone genital mutilation between 100 million and 140 million.

The practice is widespread in Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. Islam is dominant in these countries, and Ali links the mutilation to Islam.

"Islam is a totalitarian doctrine that puts women in a position that no other totalitarian doctrine, not even Communism, not even Nazism, did," says Ali. "In Islam, women come off the worst."

People of some other faiths practise such mutilations, which predates Islam and Christianity, and most Muslims condemn the practice. The Somali author will give the final keynote address at the close of the Sydney Writers' Festival on Sunday.

Ali's formidable reputation precedes her: after fleeing Somalia and arriving in The Netherlands, she studied politics at Leiden University and became a member of the Dutch parliament. After her life was threatened by an Islamic fundamentalist for acts of "blasphemy," she left The Netherlands for the US, where she is a member of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington.

She is also the author of two best-sellers, a series of essays titled "The Caged Virgin" and "Infidel," her autobiography. In both works Ali unflinchingly attacks the Koran's outmoded "7th century … jihadi bullshit," Islam's refusal to engage with modernity and the nature of its profoundly disturbing sexism.

"Islam was founded in an Arab desert culture," she says. "The role that women had at that time in the 7th century was tribal in context. She was there only to reproduce. Women were viewed almost like camels, or perhaps, just as reproductive organs for the tribe. At the same time, they were viewed with suspicion for they could cheat, cause trouble. They were intrinsically attractive, they were enticing - why, even here, your imam still calls them a piece of meat, doesn't he?"