News,

Girls aged 12 have had abortions in Britain. For three years the Sunday Times newspaper had to press the government to release the information. Our source suggests between 10 and 15 such abortions annually in recent years. BPAS, which provides abortions, said the numbers were small and called for sex education. [Sunday Times, 27 April] John Smeaton of SPUC commented: "BPAS totally misses the point. This story is yet further evidence of the failure of the Government's policy of sex education and of provision to young people under the age of 16, without parental knowledge or consent, of abortion and abortifacient birth control services. In 1999 the British government launched its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy. It aimed to cut teenage pregnancies to 50 percent of the 1998 figure by 2010. The strategy relied on making birth control and abortion more easily available to underage children than ever before. It has received £150 million (c. €190 million) in public funds but shows no sign of success, having failed to meet its interim target of cutting under-18 pregnancies by 15 percent by 2004. Official statistics show a fall of only one percent in the under-18 pregnancy rate and six percent among under-16s while actual numbers rose."

SPUC supporters took part in demonstrations throughout Britain on Saturday. So-called pro-life chains were held in some 50 towns. [SPUC, 27 April, BBC, 26 April and BBC, 26 April] The Abortion Act came into force 40 years ago yesterday (Sunday). John Smeaton's blog describes how eight people spoke about their personal abortion experiences to hundreds of listeners and thousands of passers-by in Parliament Square, London, yesterday. SPUC supporters also joined a service at Westminster Abbey. [SPUC director's blog, 27 April]

President Bush says a culture of life is in American national interest. He told EWTN: "... the politics of abortion isn't going to change until people's hearts change, and fully understand the meaning of life and what it means for a society to value life in all forms - whether it be the life of the unborn, or the life of the elderly; whether it be the life of the less fortunate among us, or the life of the rich guy. I mean, it's a moral touchstone, I think, that will speak to a healthy society in the long run." [11 April] National Right to Life is reminding voters that Senator Barack Obama said last year that his first act as US president would be to pass a law which would legalise abortion, override states' bans on the procedure, and repeal laws against partial-birth abortion and state funding for terminations. [LifeNews, 14 April]

A bill in the US congress would ban animal-human hybrids. Mr Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican representative, introduced the measure after British scientists reportedly produced such an embryo. [LifeSiteNews, 25 April]

Laboratory-created human gametes could be used to produce babies within 15 years according to a group of 40 fertility experts. Dr John Harris, professor of bioethics at Manchester university and a member of the Hinxton group, called on government not to forbid such practices, which could be used for same-sex couples. Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat, seeks to amend the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill to allow the technique. [Telegraph, 15 April] The Hinxton group also said: "policy-makers should refrain from interfering with scientific inquiry unless there is a substantial justification for doing so that reaches beyond disagreements based solely on divergent moral convictions." [Independent, 15 April]

Teenage pregnancy seems to have reduced in America according to national statistics. In 2004, 12% of pregnancies were those of teenagers compared with 15% in 1990. More unmarried women in their 20s got pregnant in 2004 and, during that year, 1.22 million abortions were reported, representing 19% of recorded pregnancies. [Reuters, 14 April] Girls of 12 in Britain have sexually transmitted diseases. The director of a sexual health clinic blames alcohol-abuse. [Metro, 14 April]

A judge has decided that a law permitting abortion in the case of rape of a minor violates Brazil's constitution. The judge, in Rio Verde, was ruling in a particular case. [Catholic News Agency, 24 April] It is unclear from our source which law was ruled unconstitutional.

Searches on the web for material about suicide tend to yield pages which promote the practice, according to a study reported in the British Medical Journal. The leader of researchers from three UK universities called on search-engines to favour anti-suicide sites. [BBC, 10 April]

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