News,

A scheme has started in which women who donate eggs to create embryos for research will be given discounted fertility treatment. It is the first time that women will effectively be paid for their eggs. The Newcastle National Health Service Fertility Centre [for] Life has picked 15 women out of 100 who applied to take part in the two-year scheme, which is being run by Professor Alison Murdoch of the North-East England Stem Cell Institute. [BBC, 8 January]

500 members of the Chinese communist party have been expelled by the government for breaching the country's one child policy. According to authorities in the central province of Hubei, 93,084 people defied the policy last year, including 1,678 officials. Mr Yang Youwang, director of the Hubei family planning commission, said: "More party members, celebrities, and well-off people are violating the policies in recent years, which has undermined social equality." [Independent, 8 January]

Mrs Win Crew, whose took her husband Reg to Switzerland to commit suicide five years ago, has called again for the law to be changed. It is not clear whether she is calling for euthanasia to be legalised or specifically for assisted suicide. [Liverpool Echo, 7 January]

Both men with no children and men with lots of children have a reduced risk of suffering from prostate cancer, according to Danish scientists. Researchers from the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen followed the lives of all men born in Denmark between 1935 and 1988, and found that childless men were 16% less likely to develop prostate cancer, but also that, among fathers, the risk of the disease declined as the number of children in the family increased. [Reuters, 7 January]

Twins in Britain who were born with a shared birth sac and placenta (a monoamniotic pregnancy) have survived against all the odds. Mrs Emma Canning gave birth to Hannah and Sophie on 27 December by caesarean section at Birmingham Women's Hospital after warnings that the odds of them both surviving was 140,000 to 1. [BBC, 7 January]

Pro-life campaigners in America have protested against Mr Barack Obama, who is hoping to be nominated as the Democrat presidential candidate. As he was speaking at a rally in Rochester, pro-life protesters began to chant "Abortion - Obama-ination" and continued to do so for several minutes before they were escorted out. [Guardian, 8 January]

To subscribe to SPUC's email information services, please visit www.spuc.org.uk/em-signup. The reliability of the news herein is dependent on that of the cited sources, which are paraphrased rather than quoted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the society. © Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, 2018