News,

Patients are dying of malnutrition in British hospitals. A survey for the Health Service journal found that insufficient important and attention was given to feeding patients and to the quality of hospital food. Figures reveal that 242 died of malnutrition in NHS hospitals in 2007. [Daily Mail, 6 May] SPUC has warned that patients are at risk of euthanasia by omission under the Mental Capacity Act [SPUC director]

Australian regulators have required an Australian website to remove a page linking to an American pro-life website. The Australian Communications and Media Authority threatened to fine the Australian website's hosting provider Aus$11,000 (£5,537). The American pro-life website contains pictures of aborted unborn children [Register, 7 May]

The Czech parliament has ratified the Lisbon treaty. Pro-lifers fear that the Lisbon treaty could undermine the domestic laws of European Union member-states which prohibit or restrict anti-life practices. Ireland is the only EU country to have rejected the treaty. [Guardian, 6 May]

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has called for greater provision of contraception and sex education for teenagers. The college said abstinence-only programmes were partly to blame for a recent rise in the teenage pregnancy rate. The college also praised the recent decision to make morning-after pills available to teenagers without a prescription. [Medical News Today, 6 May]

An American bishop has celebrated a Mass of reparation for the invitation by Notre Dame university to President Obama. In the homily during the Mass, Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Florida said: "We Catholics have become too complacent about the legal killing of unborn children in America and elsewhere ... We must always insist that the common good is never served by making wrongs -like abortion- into rights." The Mass was also celebrated in reparation for "the sins and transgressions committed against the dignity and sacredness of human life." [Catholic News Agency, 5 May]

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