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Good news for Irish culture of life as David Norris leaves presidential race

David Norris, the anti-life Irish senator, has announced that he has dropped out of the race for the Irish presidency. Mr Norris, who is also a high-profile homosexual, left the race following controversy about his attitude to child sex abuse. John Smeaton, SPUC director said that Mr Norris's withdrawal was "good news for the culture of life in Ireland, given [Mr Norris's] flippant, discriminatory views against the humanity of unborn children." [John Smeaton, 2 August] http://bit.ly/rowxbr

UK Christian doctor debunks latest poll commissioned by euthanasia lobby

A leading UK Christian doctor has debunked the latest poll commissioned by the UK's euthanasia lobby. The poll suggested that two-thirds of Britons support assisted suicide for the terminally-ill but only one-third supports assisted suicide for disabled people. Peter Saunders, head of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said that the poll failed to take into account the overlap between terminally-ill people and disabled people. He also said that the euthanasia lobby has failed to define 'terminally-ill' and 'disabled' convincingly. [Peter Saunders, 2 August] http://bit.ly/oFTvbY

UNFPA exploiting Horn of Africa famine to push population control

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which bankrolls population control internationally, is exploiting the famine in the Horn of Africa to promote so-called 'family planning'. Babatunde Osotimehin, UNFPA's executive director, said that "we need to...work with member states to ensure women and particularly young girls have access to education, including sexual education, and access to health services and reproductive health services including family planning." [Reuters, 2 August] http://reut.rs/nuocyQ Anthony Ozimic of SPUC commented: "So-called 'sexual education', 'reproductive health services' and 'family planning' are UNFPA's code-words for contraception, abortion and population control. UNFPA's main interest is preventing the poor from being born, not saving their lives."

Other stories:

Abortion

• Amnesty International asks Nicaragua to allow abortion [LifeSiteNews.com, 1 August] http://bit.ly/pO9Jph

Embryology

• London mother fights to know identity of IVF son's father [Evening Standard, 2 August] http://bit.ly/pTIfKn
• Profiles of 3 London sperm donors [Evening Standard, 2 August] http://bit.ly/mX20LG
• Japanese researchers grow mice teeth from adult stem cells [LifeSiteNews.com, 2 August] http://bit.ly/ncQ5EP

Euthanasia

• US Catholic bishop says gauging ‘quality of life’ an excuse to ‘pull up the hearse’ [LifeSiteNews.com, 29 July] http://bit.ly/obavs4

Population

• Indian pro-life groups opposing government push for male sterilisation [CathNews Philippines, 3 August] http://bit.ly/nefBuD
• North Carolina may compensate sterilisation victims [Reuters, 2 August] http://reut.rs/riq4Ai

Sexual ethics

• Colombia to legalise gay unions within 2 years [Pink Paper, 2 August] http://bit.ly/nxIlxZ
• 4,000 families threaten to leave Toronto Catholic schools over gay equity policy [LifeSiteNews.com, 29 July] http://bit.ly/pV4NaZ

General

• Students could pay off debts by donating kidneys, says UK academic [Telegraph, 2 August] http://tgr.ph/nG5Uf9

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