Tag Archives: Global: Sanctity of Life

“The U.S. will subsidize a new $500-million United Nations agency that conservatives say will likely promote an abortion agenda.”

Google News (Canadian Press): “Spain’s highest court has rejected suspending a new law allowing abortion without restrictions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy while it rules on an appeal filed by the conservative opposition.”

CNA: “’Let’s be clear: this law is not a law, although it is presented as such by some politicians and lawmakers. It is no law because nobody has the right to take the life of an innocent human being. For this reason it is not obligatory. Moreover, it demands direct opposition without distinction,’ the archbishop said in a letter.”

LifeNews: “The United States embassy in Kenya issued a statement today saying the administration of President Barack Obama is not spending taxpayer dollars funding a campaign to support a pro-abortion Constitution Kenya voters will consider at the polls next month . . . ”

Guardian: “Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani will not be stoned, the regime has said, but family fear she will be hanged instead.”

LifeSiteNews: “In a letter made public today, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development & Peace (D&P), the official development arm of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued an apology to Campaign Life Coalition (CLC). The letter comes in response to an April 20 CLC lawyer’s letter noting slanderous statements in a document produced by D&P and threatening legal action. D&P has now retracted the statements in question and apologized.”

LifeSiteNews: “Pro-life leaders in Poland are dismayed over the outcome of the country’s presidential election on Sunday. The Polish people elected liberal Bronislaw Komorowski to fill the spot left open after the late president Lech Kaczynski perished April 10th in a mysterious plane crash on Russian soil.”

UKPA: “Labour has failed in an attempt to make it compulsory for academies to teach sex education. Peers backed the Government’s stance on the issue by 245 votes to 156, a majority of 89, despite claims children may be ‘suffering’ because of a lack of good personal, social and health education (PSHE).”

The Christian Institute: “A leading doctor has warned that a Bill which would legalise assisted suicide would betray ‘Scottish values’ for the benefit of a vocal few. The End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, proposed by Margo MacDonald MSP, would allow the terminally ill and people who are “permanently physically incapacitated” to seek assistance in ending their lives.”

Catholic News Agency: “Despite suffering a legal setback, a group of 30 parents in the Philippines is pushing ahead in its appeal of the country’s implementation of a United Nations-backed sex education program, which is aimed at children as young as nine years old.”

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2010/07/06/german_court_allows_gene_diagnose_of_ivf_embryos

Inquirer: “Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin has filed another version of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill that includes mandated government care for those with HIV and AIDS, as well as those suffering from complications from abortion. Garin’s bill comes a few days after Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman refiled the controversial bill, which calls for government promotion of contraception and sex education despite objections from the Roman Catholic Church.”

The Catholic Weekly: “Public opinion may well be in favour of euthanasia but that still ‘doesn’t make it right’, said Archbishop Adrian Doyle, Archbishop of Hobart. Concerns have been raised about the Tasmanian Greens’ influence on the State Gov­ernment’s euth­anasia stance given that what is supposedly meant to be a private member’s bill on the issue has been raised in the Attorney-General’s Budget reply speech – and thereby ap­pears to be giving Govern­ment endorsement to legalising euthanasia.”

NY Times / World Briefing: “A new law allowing abortion without restrictions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy went into effect on Monday, but the Constitutional Court could intervene to suspend or change it.” | Bishops of Spain say new abortion law makes things worse

The Christian Institute: “Opposition to legalising assisted suicide remains strong, according to the results of the Royal Society of Medicine’s (RSM’s) debate on the subject. The debate, held after the RSM’s day conference on the ethics of assisted suicide, revealed that 60 per cent of those present were opposed to any relaxation of the law.”

TVNZ: “Labour MP Steve Chadwick wants to further liberalise the laws around abortion. The list MP who lost her seat in Rotorua during the last election is proposing a new law to legalise abortion on request up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. The need for two doctors to give their consent would be lifted, while abortions after 24 weeks would need medical support.”

Reuters: “The new body will be known officially as the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, although officials say it will be referred to as U.N. Women (www.unwomen.org). It will consolidate four separate U.N. divisions now dealing with women’s and gender issues.”

The Christian Institute: “Legalising assisted suicide will lead to vulnerable people being killed without their consent, a leading bioethicist has warned. Professor David Jones’ warning adds to concerns that any move to legalise assisted suicide in the UK could expose vulnerable people to danger.”

The Christian Institute: “In a shocking comment piece for The Times newspaper Antonia Senior explains how, despite her belief that life begins at conception, she is still a firm believer in abortion. … The commentator goes on to describe the pro-choice movement’s denial of the essential humanity of unborn children as a ‘convenient lie’. … ‘The single biggest factor in women’s liberation was our newly found ability to impose our will on our biology. Abortion would have been legal for millennia had it been men whose prospects and careers were put on sudden hold by an unexpected pregnancy’, she continued.”

C-FAM: “Elections to fill openings for half of the 23 seats of the committee charged with monitoring compliance to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) were held at United Nations (UN) headquarters this week. … The CEDAW committee’s next session will take place in New York later this month and already the committee has sent written question on abortion to more than half of the countries scheduled to be reviewed.”

C-FAM: “The Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial countries held their annual forum here last week and, following the lead of the Canadian government, launched a new global initiative on maternal and child health. … While the host government was successful in keeping references to abortion out of the final document, the initiative calls for G8 countries to ‘commit to promote integration of HIV and sexual and reproductive health, rights and services within the broader context of strengthening health systems.’”

Buenos Aires Herald: “The majority of citizens in Nicaragua (81.6 percent), Brazil (72.7percent), Mexico (70.8 percent), and Chile (66.2 percent) are opposed to legalizing abortion in their countries, where it is prohibited in almost all its forms, according to a survey by Flacso.”

U.S. Department of State: “Secretary Clinton (June 14, 2010): ‘The 10th annual Trafficking in Persons Report outlines the continuing challenges across the globe, including in the United States. The Report, for the first time, includes a ranking of the United States based on the same standards to which we hold other countries. The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America. This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it.’”

The Christian Institute: “Doctors in Scotland are giving women abortion-inducing drugs in hospital before sending them home to have the abortion in a scheme critics have described as ‘grotesque’.”

“Houben has biological offspring in Australia, Israel, Canada, Cyprus, Germany and Luxembourg, as well as at home in the Netherlands. His current tally of donor-conceived children stands at an eye-watering 62, with the 63rd on the way . . . ”

Associated Press: “Spain’s highest court agreed Wednesday to study whether a new abortion law allowing the procedure without restrictions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy is constitutional.”

Sunday Times: “Writing for wangle.com.au, Mr Abetz has defended his decision to promote changes to WA’s abortion laws, including a requirement that women view an ultrasound of their unborn child before going ahead with an abortion. ‘I thought that was hardly radical stuff. It still leaves women with the choice. But it will be a better informed choice. They will have seen with their own eyes, that it is disingenuous to refer to their unborn child as a ‘blob of tissue’.”

Christian Post: “The Methodist Church of Great Britain’s annual Conference voted in favor of a new briefing to clarify its position on issues related to abortion. The vote comes one week after the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published a review stating that fetuses in the womb could not feel pain before 24 weeks, therefore making it unnecessary to reduce the time limit for abortions.”

The Christian Institute: “A retired GP who helped a cancer stricken man kill himself will not face trial, despite there being enough evidence to ‘provide a realistic’ prospect of conviction.”

The Christian Institute: “David Cameron continues to support lowering the abortion time limit from 24 weeks of pregnancy. The declaration follows a report last week by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) which concluded that unborn babies up to 24 weeks old can’t feel pain.”

The Christian Institute: “Over 14,000 people have signed a petition against a Bill which would legalise assisted suicide in Scotland. The End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, proposed by independent MSP Margo MacDonald, would allow the terminally ill and people who are “permanently physically incapacitated” to seek assistance in ending their lives.”

Time: “Much of the debate has focused on church groups’ opposition to two things. One is the Muslim courts that rule in matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance for believers. They are also enshrined in both the current constitution and the new draft, leading to opposition from Christian church groups playing on the fears of greater Muslim dominance in Kenya. The other hot issue is that the new version of the constitution explicitly states that abortion is legal in cases where the life of the mother is endangered, a proviso that currently exists only in the country’s legal code. Church groups fear the clause could open the door to wider abortions. They have been encouraged by some American Evangelical groups, including the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), an antiabortion group founded by Pat Robertson.”

AP: “Traffickers who subject women and children to prostitution and forced labor are engaged in one of Europe’s most lucrative crimes – a euro2.5 billion a year, modern-day slave trade whose victims are growing by 50 percent annually, a United Nations agency said Tuesday . . . ”

“India has become a world centre for surrogate motherhood. Now the government proposes to legalise commercial surrogacy. The Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) [Regulation] Bill 2010 will allow unmarried women to act as surrogates for both couples and singles, including homosexuals. It is a radical measure in socially conservative India which could deliver big profits to the country’s aggressive IVF industry.”

BioEdge: “British researchers believe that they have found a way to communicate with people who appear to be in a vegetative state. Recent studies have shown that responses from some of these people can be detected with an fMRI scanner.”

Irish Times: “Germany’s federal high court in a landmark ruling has opened the door to limited euthanasia if a person requests explicitly not to be kept alive by artificial means. The federal court of justice overturned a conviction yesterday against a lawyer who advised his client to remove the feeding tube of her 72-year-old mother in 2002.”

Kate Orne writing at The Huffington Post: “Roaming the streets while their mothers earn their meager income, the children are easy targets to abuse, drugs and crime. Cheap glue is available through the local shoe factory, an easy high for many of the kids. Looking into their glassy distant eyes I witness myself at age 12 doing the same back in Sweden.”

The Christian Institute: “Millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money will continue to fund abortions in developing countries, after David Cameron ordered that the Department for International Development’s (DFID’s) budget be protected from any cuts.”

Christian Today: “Representing thousands of voters across Scotland who are opposed to the introduction of assisted suicide and euthanasia through the End of Life Assistance Bill, the Catholic Parliamentary Office, led by John Deighan, dispatched the first of many sacks of support for ‘Care Not Killing’.” | For more information see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/country-scotland+topic-euthanasia/

LifeNews: “Steven Mosher, the expert on the China one-child policy credited with exposing and bringing attention to the problem of forced abortions carried out under it, reminded the audience at the National Right to Life convention that the forced abortions on women continue. Moreover, Mosher says they are producing a male-dominated culture that is responsible for an increase in prostitution, sexual trafficking of women, and even the sale of young girls.”

CBC News: “Alberta’s controversial legislation that gives parents the option of pulling their children out of sexual education or religion classes they deem inappropriate or offensive will not affect how Catholic schools are run, board officials say. The specifics of Bill 44, which comes into effect this September, were indexed in the Education Department’s annual Guide to Education on Wednesday. The new legislation, which came about through changes made to the Human Rights Act last year, will give parents the option of excusing a child from class while those subjects are being taught. A school’s failure to comply with the new rules could result in a human rights commission hearing.”

Daily Mail: “A mother has told how she suffered such extreme morning sickness that she chose to have an abortion. Cheryl Harrison made the heartbreaking decision after her condition left her unable to walk or care for her young daughter.”

Associated Press: “British health experts say the human fetus cannot feel pain before the age of 24 weeks, so there is no reason to change the country’s abortion laws.” | Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Press Release | Summary and full report: “Fetal Awareness”

“Germany’s top criminal court issued a landmark ruling Friday legalizing assisted suicide in cases where it is carried out based on a patient’s prior request.”

ABC: “Tasmania’s Premier has defended his Attorney-General’s decision to use public money to develop voluntary euthanasia legislation. Lara Giddings is planning to use resources from her office and department to investigate and draft a Private Members Bill.”

The Christian Institute: “A retired GP who hastened the deaths of at least 18 of his patients remains defiant over his actions, despite the prospect of a police investigation. Last week the General Medical Council (GMC) ruled that Dr Howard Martin hastened the deaths of 18 of his patients by giving them excessive doses of morphine, and branded his conduct as ‘despicable and dangerous’.”

The Christian Institute: “The End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, proposed by independent MSP Margo MacDonald, would allow the terminally ill and people who are ‘permanently physically incapacitated’ to seek assistance in ending their lives. But a public consultation on the controversial Bill has revealed that a staggering 86 per cent of the consultations respondents, some 601 people and organisations, were opposed to the Bill.”

Zenit: “Doctors in Spain are warning against ‘dignified death’ counseling centers that are pushing euthanasia in the form of ideologically slanted living wills. Ignacio Pascual of the organizations Professionals for Ethics told ZENIT that these ‘citizens’ advice for a dignified death’ information offices aim to counsel the sick, elderly and their relatives on end-of-life issues.”

Financial Times: “Over the last few years, India has emerged as a big hub for infertile Western couples seeking young women willing to serve as surrogate mothers for their babies. … Yet the largely unregulated business has generated many concerns, including worries about practices that could risk the surrogate mothers’ health. Indian is now planning a draft law to clean up an industry which has been limited only by the ethics of local doctors – many willing to go to great lengths and push the young surrogates hard – to satisfy their affluent customers’ demands.”

ABC: “Tasmania’s Deputy Premier has announced she will help Greens leader Nick McKim reintroduce a bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia.”

Business Mirror: “Concerned parents on Monday went to court to stop the Department of Education from implementing its decision to integrate its reproductive health syllabus into that of both public and private elementary and high schools. They filed the petition in the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City after they found the modules for the program includes introducing ‘non-invasive sexual activities.’”

Click Liverpool: “A primary school has censored a section of a C4 sex education DVD after one furious parent branded it ‘cartoon porn’. The video – intended for children aged over seven – shows a naked cartoon couple, having a pillow-fight and chasing each other before having sex in different positions.”

Graphic Ghana: “The Minority Leader in Parliament, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has called for the criminalisation of abortion and urged the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to initiate measures in pursuit of that.”

“U.S. Vice President Joe Biden travelled to Kenya to personally urge the country to pass a new constitution that would legalize abortion – and to assure Kenyans that such a change would ‘allow money to flow’ from foreign aid treasuries.”

Dutch News: “The number of reported deaths by euthanasia rose 13% last year to 2,636, following an increase of 10% in 2008, the NRC reports, quoting figures due to be published at the beginning of July.”

AP: “A Japanese scientist who created the equivalent of embryonic stem cells from ordinary skin cells has won one of this year’s Kyoto Prizes and will receive a $550,000 prize.”

Daniel Sperling, Commanding the ‘Be Fruitful and Multiply’ Directive: Reproductive Ethics, Law and Policy in Israel (June 16, 2010). Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Vol. 19, pp. 363-371, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1625699

“The article provides an up-to-date overview of reproductive ethics, law and policy in Israel and discusses cultural and social factors explaining the fact that Israel has one of the highest fertility and birth rates in the World, especially within the developed countries. The article concludes with three observations on the future of reproductive law and policy in Israel.”

MetroNews.ca: “Members of Parliament are calling on the federal government to put $1.4 billion toward maternal and child health at the G8 summit — and to include access to safe abortion.”

C-FAM: “The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) launched a new campaign this week called ‘A Promise is A Promise,’ demanding that states implement policies and programs to achieve the controversial Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target 5b on ‘universal access to reproductive health by 2015.’”

The Christian Institute: “Five-year-olds should be taught about sex, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is controversially claiming. Only weeks after the previous Government failed in its attempt to force schools to teach Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) to children as young as five, NICE says sex education is important for children’s ‘wellbeing’.”

Kai Möller, The Right to Life between Absolute and Proportional Protection (June 4, 2010). LSE Legal Studies Working Paper No. 13/2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1620377

“One of the puzzles of human and constitutional rights law is whether there are any rights which are absolute. The question is important not only for practical purposes but also for the theory of human and constitutional rights: an absolute right presents a departure from what is now the ‘default’ in constitutional and human rights law around the world, namely the proportionality approach according to which an interference with a right is justified if it serves a legitimate goal and is proportionate to that goal. This paper tries to shed some light on the issue by focusing on the right to life. It proceeds by first presenting an account of the leading case in this area, namely the judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the Aviation Security Act case, where the Court held that shooting down an airplane which was likely to be used as a terrorist weapon was a violation of the right to life in conjunction with the human dignity of the innocent passengers aboard. It then offers a few thoughts on the Court’s reasoning, specifically with regard to what it has to say about the idea of absolute rights. Having concluded that the judgment offers little help in illuminating this problem, it presents some approaches to absolute rights from moral philosophy and applies them to human and constitutional rights law. The conclusion is that the right to life will under certain circumstances be absolute or near-absolute, but that these circumstances occur less frequently than is sometimes assumed.”

Catholic Culture: “Economy and finance are not ends unto themselves,” Pope Benedict XVI reminded a group of European bankers at a private audience on June 12. He stressed that economic systems must serve human persons and families, reminding the financiers that human capital is “the only capital worth saving.”

Christian Science Monitor: “The US State Department’s annual report on modern-day slavery cites greater determination worldwide to stamp it out. But 13 nations are on the list of sluggards neglecting the issue.”

State Department Report 2010

AFP: “Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged countries across the Middle East to end forced labour brought by visa sponsorships that the watchdog said have become a gateway for human trafficking.”

LifeSiteNews: “According to the largest study to date on the subject, children conceived by assisted reproductive technology (ART) are almost twice as likely to suffer birth defects compared to children conceived naturally. Dr. Géraldine Viot, a clinical geneticist at the Maternité Port Royal hospital in Paris, France, found that over 4% of children born through ART had some form of congenital deformity, compared to the rate for children conceived naturally of between 2% and 3% . . . ”

Inquirer.net: “If government is ready to teach children about sex, shouldn’t it be ready also to teach children about homosexuality so the gay community would no longer be a punch line to a joke?”

AP: “A group of anti-abortion Kenyan churches and Christian groups on Monday blamed Kenya’s government for involvement in two explosions that ripped through a packed rally protesting the country’s proposed constitution.”

AP: “The Obama administration is warning more than a dozen states, including perennial rogues Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Myanmar, of possible sanctions for failing to do enough to fight human trafficking.”

BioNews: “Political consensus in Denmark has resulted in an amendment to legislation governing IVF (in vitro fertilisation) funding. According to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), free public health services will no longer extend towards assisted reproduction treatments (ART).”

ABC: “The new guidelines mean people who receive a tattoo, piercing or acupuncture can now donate blood after six months, down from the previous waiting period of 12 months. But the guidelines have remained the same for sexually active gay men – with a 12 month ban after engaging in homosexual intercourse.”

C-Fam on LifeSiteNews: “Deep divisions with top United Nations (UN) officials and abortion activists on one side and maternal health researchers on the other became public this week during the Women Deliver 2 conference in Washington, DC. The dispute threatens to derail hopes of raising $30B for family planning at international development conferences in the coming months.”

Amnesty International: “Amnesty International has expressed great disappointment at the Nicaragua government’s decision to reject the recommendations made by 12 States urging a change to the country’s law imposing a total ban on abortion . . . Currently only four countries in the world have a complete ban on abortion: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile and Malta.” | More from the European Life Network’s Pat Buckley and SPUC director John Smeaton.

The Christian Institute: “Terminally ill patients in Belgium are being subjected to euthanasia without their consent, according to a shocking study . . . The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), suggests that almost half of Belgium’s euthanasia deaths may be carried out on patients who have not asked for their lives to be ended.”

Center for Reproductive Rights: “On June 4, 2010, during the 14th session of the Human Rights Council, the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Anand Grover, presented reports on Poland and India. The report called on both countries to improve the situation for sexual and reproductive health and rights. The Center proactively participated in the preparation of these two reports and intervened orally before the Human Rights Council in support of his recommendations . . . ”

Zee News: “UK’s crown Prince Charles has advocated greater adoption of birth control measures in developing countries, as he blamed ‘cultural pressures’ for resistance to such techniques and warned that it puts the planet at risk.”