News,

The Catholic Archbishop of Kingston has criticised proposals to legalise abortion in Jamaica. The Medical Association of Jamaica has backed changes to the law, claiming that it will reduce maternal mortality. However, in an interview with the Sunday Observer, Archbishop Lawrence Burke said: "If a person wants an illegal abortion, it is public knowledge where they are done. So prosecute those people and that will decrease the maternal mortality rate." [Medindia, 8 January]

A study published in The Lancet has warned that sex selective abortion in India has resulted in the deaths of 10 million baby girls in 20 years. The number of girls being born in India continues to fall and sex selective abortion is thought to account for some 500,000 'missing' girls every year. [The Independent, 9 January]

The UK's National Health Service has admitted that girls as young as 13 are being given birth control injections, implants and the morning after pill. Figures for five primary care trusts released under the Freedom of Information Act suggest that last year around 400 13-year-olds received injections or implants and some 2,400 were given the morning after pill. [The Times of London, 9 January]

A study carried out at Christchurch School of Medicine, New Zealand, suggests that women who have abortions are at increased risk of mental health problems. Professor David Fergussen and colleagues noted that women who had abortions were more than twice as likely as those who had never been pregnant to suffer from major depression, and were 35% more at risk than those who carried their child to term. The increased risk persists after adjustment for 'confounding factors' such as a history of mental problems. [LifeSiteNews.com, 5 January]

British researchers have developed a new technique that will allow doctors to screen embryos for up to 6,000 genetic disorders, including those caused by a single gene, according to a report in the Times. Peter Braude of St Thomas' Hospital, London, said that the technique, known as multiple displacement amplification (MDA) will allow pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to be used to screen for a much wider range of inherited diseases. [The Times, 6 January] Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is done in order to identify and destroy those embryos who have undesired genetic factors.

The journal Science, which published the work of discredited Korean embryonic stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk, has announced that it will retract his paper, in recognition that much of it has found to be fabricated and to have involved unethical procedures. A spokesman for the journal said: "Science will finalize the retraction text and proceed with the final steps of the retraction process only after the SNU (Seoul National University) investigation is completed next week." [Reuters, 4 January]

An international panel set up by the EU's Commission has attacked a draft treaty between Slovakia and the Vatican which would allow staff in hospitals founded by the Catholic Church to refuse to perform abortions or to be involved in fertility treatments that destroy life. The panel says that the right of conscientious objection would interfere with the "right of all women to receive certain medical services or counselling without any discrimination". The panel, entitled the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, has announced that if Slovakia accepts the treaty, it will be "violating its obligations" as a member of the EU and said that it would discriminate against non-Christians who would find it more difficult to obtain abortions. [The Guardian, 5 January] Comment: The Guardian's report of this issue reflects its strong anti-Christian, pro-abortion bias, and its support for this campaign to promote abortion.

All criminal charges have been dropped against a mother and doctor involved in a so-called mercy killing in France. The state prosecutor has announced that he has dropped the charges against Marie Humbert and Dr Frédéric Chaussoy, who helped Marie's son Vincent to die in 2003. Vincent Humbert, 19, was left paralysed from the neck down, mute and almost completely blind after a car crash in 2000 and repeatedly expressed his wish to die, once writing to President Jacques Chirac. Mrs Humbert gave him an overdose of sedatives and Dr Chaussoy later switched off the life support machine and injected a lethal dose of drugs. Both faced imprisonment for their actions but the case has now been dropped after the prosecutor, Gérald Lesigne, said that he had considered the "moral aspects of the offence, not its material and legal aspects." [The Telegraph, 4 December]

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