The British prime minister has proposed plans to identify children who could be antisocial before they are born. In an interview with the BBC, Tony Blair said that teenage mothers, people in care and the mentally ill could face sanctions if they do not accept state help, such as parenting classes, before giving birth. He said: "If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early then there are children that are going to grow up in families that we know perfectly well are completely dysfunctional, and the kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society and actually a threat to themselves." [The Guardian, 1 September]
Those involved with the first legal abortion in Colombia should consider themselves to be excommunicated according to Mgr Fabian Marulanda of Colombia's Bishops' Conference. This applied even if no formal process of excommunication was followed. Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, stated, "Every Christian Catholic who submits to an abortion, whether it be directly or indirectly, will be excommunicated." [August 30, SignOnSanDiego.com]
An American federal court of appeals has ruled against pro-abortion activists who were seeking to block enforcement of a law in Oklahoma that requires doctors to notify parents or guardians of any minor seeking an abortion. The law also requires that women are informed of the medical risks of abortion and are given information about the anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child at different stages of development. The Center for Reproductive Rights brought a lawsuit arguing that the law violates girls' rights by not establishing guidelines for judicial bypass in cases of abuse or if the girl does not have parents. District Judge H Dale Cook decided not to issue a temporary restraining order and ruled that the law already makes sufficient provision for the health and safety of minors. [Medical News Today, 21 August]
A pro-life activist in Canada has said that murder-suicide pacts are not "mercy killings" and are rarely motivated by compassion. Alex Schadenberg, executive director of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said that the term "mercy-killing" was often used by the pro-euthanasia lobby in order to mislead the public into supporting legal euthanasia. He said: "These violent acts are based [on] deep depressive conditions, or they are the act of someone who has been a controlling person all their life, and that is their attempt to control the situation..." He was commenting after the case of John McCadden, 77, who shot his wife Lorna, 80, and then killed himself in British Columbia on Tuesday. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. [Life Site, 31 August]
The governor of Massachusetts has said that embryonic stem cell research is "Orwellian." The Department of Public Health in Massachusetts has this week issued regulations banning the creation of embryos for research purposes. Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, said: "I believe it crosses a very bright moral line to take sperm and eggs in the laboratory and start creating human life. It is Orwellian in its scope. In laboratories you could have trays of new embryos being created." [Reuters, 31 August]
The law banning abortion in South Dakota is set to be decided by a referendum in November. The law would ban abortion under all circumstances except those in which the mother's life was in danger and, in cases of rape, by use of the morning-after pill, (though the legislation is often cited as disallowing abortion after rape). The opponents of the law collected double the number of signatures required to put it on the ballot. Although pro-abortionists have had previous attempts to defy the US Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision struck down in the courts, on this occasion they are challenging it by referendum. Until then it remains suspended. [August 28, Washington Post]
A Brazilian bishop has made the strongest statement yet that the country's Catholics should do more to ensure they have pro-life politicians. Bishop Dimas Lara Barbosa said that it Brazilian Catholics could "no longer sit on the fence", that euthanasia and abortion were issues of such importance that they should demand their politicians oppose them. Bishop Lara Barbosa also stated that he believed their was a concerted international effort to bring down the population in Latin America in order to make the region less of a international competitor. As an example he gave Henry Kissinger's infamous 'National Security Study Memorandum 200', "that document is only the tip of the iceberg. Currently there are various population projects in Brazil, a lot of lobbying of the National Congress, and an enormous quantity of money injected in projects by powerful entities, such as the Ford and MacArthur Foundations". [August 30, LifeSite]
Recent surveys conducted in America have suggest that the majority of women would like to know the consequences, alternatives, and dangers of abortion. This survey contradicts what American pro-choice advocates have been stating in past years. "Doctors should anticipate that most women desire information on every potential risk, even risks that doctors may judge to be less serious or inconsequentially rare, and they will generally consider this information to be relevant to their decisions regarding elective procedures," the report states. [August 30, LifeSite]
A sixteen-week old fetus has been found at a sewage works in Scotland. Staff at water-treatment plant in Hamilton discovered the body of the unborn child and reported it to the police. Superintendent Ian Callander of Strathclyde Police said: "I am concerned that there is a young girl or a woman who may be in need of urgent medical attention following what appears to have been a miscarriage. I would urge her to contact her doctor or hospital if she has not already done so. I would stress she does not have to contact the police if she does not wish to do so." [Daily Record, 1 September]