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Top stories:

Pro-life pregnancy counsellors "doing an heroic job", says SPUC 

Pro-life pregnancy counsellors are "doing an heroic job", says SPUC. SPUC was commenting  the light of The Telegraph newspaper's attack, in concert with pro-abortion campaigners, on crisis pregnancy centres manned by pro-life counsellors. Paul Tully, SPUC's general secretary, commented: "In our experience, on the whole, crisis pregnancy centres are doing an heroic job, in the face of concerted and deceitful opposition from representatives of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and the avaricious abortion industry which the RCOG represents." [SPUC, 11 February]

John Smeaton, SPUC's chief executive, given major award

John Smeaton, SPUC's chief executive, has been given a major award. Mr Smeaton was given the 2013 Cardinal John J. O'Connor Pro-Life Award by the Pro-Life Commitee of Legatus www.legatus.org Legatus, founded in 1987, helps top-ranking Catholic executives become "ambassadors for Christ". The award was given in a ceremony at the 2014 Legatus Summit, held this past weekend in Orlando, Florida. The Legatus Pro-life Committee said that "John Smeaton’s long history of work with life issues dating back to 1975 provides him with a wealth of knowledge, experience and insight to effectively deal with present-day threats to human life". [SPUC, 11 February]

Other stories:

Abortion

• New guidance to warn abortion clinics that gender selection is illegal [Telegraph, 12 February]
• Assistant at Philadelphia abortion 'house of horrors' clinic gets 6-12 years [Mail, 12 February]
• Holy See UN rep calls for women's equality before birth [Independent Catholic News, 9 February]
• Planned Parenthood to pay $2 million for death in botched second-trimester abortion [Patheos, 8 February]
• Baby girl born with part of her brain outside her skull defies doctors to thrive [Mail, 5 February]

Embryology and stem cell research

• Grandfather with leukaemia given 18 months to live is saved by two babies'  umbilical cords [Mail, 12 February]

Euthanasia

• Protests as Belgium set to legalise euthanasia for children [Expatica, 12 February]
• Unable to guarantee medical care, the Quebec government turns to euthanasia [FinanzNachrichten, 12 February]

Sexual ethics

• Moscow bans adoptions of Russian kids in countries with same-sex marriages [Voice of Russia, 13 February]
• Have 800 women been killed by the Pill? The alarming dangers of taking so-called third generation contraceptives [Mail, 13 February]

General

• My message to US Catholic leaders was well-received [John Smeaton, 12 February]
• A range of tributes to Alison Davis [Alison Davis 1955-2013]
• Michael Coren, Fr John Zuhlsdorf and myself at the Legatus Summit, Orlando, Florida [John Smeaton, 8 February]
• Dublin's Divine Mercy conference defends invitation to Fr Timothy Radcliffe, dissenter from Catholic teaching on sexual ethics [John Smeaton, 7 February]
• Nigerian archbishop condemns Western pressure on Africa on pro-life/pro-family issues [Catholic News Service of Nigeria, 7 February]

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