News, Abortion The Spanish government has announced that the morning-after pill will be available in pharmacies without a prescription. The pill will be sold for under 20 euro (£18) without any age restriction. The Spanish health minister said the pill should only be used in emergencies. [Telegrap]...

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News, An analysis of Britain's 1967 Abortion Act published in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care has suggested that it is legally permissible for unsupervised nurses to perform abortions. Vincent Argent, a consultant gynaecologist and Lin Pavey, a former manager of a BPAS ...

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News, SPUC has condemned a decision by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to allow women to be paid £250 in "expenses" for donating their eggs for use in embryo experimentation. Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, commented: "For poorer women, this amount will be an ince...

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News, The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), Britain's largest private abortion provider, has said that nurses should be allowed to give the abortion pill to women without the consent of doctors. Ann Furedi, chief executive of BPAS, said: "We would like to see the restriction removed that ...

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News, UK pro-life group questions why assisted suicide isn't prosecuted. Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), has announced that he did not consider it to be in the public interest to bring a case against Michael Irwin, a former GP, for assisting the 2006 suicide of Ray Cutke...

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News, AbortionSPUC is calling upon supporters to lobby a committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in order to stop two radical pro-abortion reports. The reports, authored by Christine McCafferty, the veteran anti-life British MP, will be debated by the assembly's Social, He...

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News, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, is planning a meeting with Catholic MPs to discuss the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill currently before the UK Parliament, The Times newspaper reports. All 64 voting Catholic MPs have been invited to the meeting which will r...

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News, The Irish government has confirmed that it paid for a teenager to have an abortion overseas. The Health Service Executive (HSE) said that a girl of under 17 had been taken out of the country for an abortion. The HSE refused to discuss details of the case but it is likely that a court order w...

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News, The price of abortifacient morning-after pills is expected to fall by 12% after Mr Gordon Brown, the British finance minister, announced a cut in sales tax on birth control supplies. The reduction in value added tax from 17.5% to 5% will mean that morning-after pills will cost £22 instead of...

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News, The number of abortions in Scotland was the highest ever last year with more than 13,700 performed, nearly four percent more than in 2006. A quarter of abortions were repeats and terminations on under-16s rose. The Catholic church said the news was disheartening and the numbers "beyond the i...

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News, The House of Lords has rejected the requirement for consideration of a child's need for a father when offering IVF treatment. While debating the British government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) bill, peers agreed, without a vote, to replace references in the HFE Act of 1990 to "...

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News, Official figures show that the number of abortions carried out in Scotland is continuing to rise. There were 13,081 so-called therapeutic abortions in Scotland in 2006 compared with 12,603 in 2005. The rate is highest among women aged 16 to 19 (24.1 per 1000), and those aged 20 to 24 (23.6 p...

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News, A South Korean pioneer of human cloning has apologised and resigned from all his official posts after admitting that he used ova from paid donors and donated by women from his research team. Earlier in the month, a researcher from the University of Pittsburgh ended his collaboration with Hwa...

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News, The lower house of the UK parliament is expected soon to debate the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill, possibly the week after next. [LifeNews, 29 April] MPs will be lobbied on the bill at the House of Commons on 14 May and a guide to lobbying is available from SPUC ...

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News, The body which regulates human embryology research in the UK has launched a public consultation on whether scientists should be allowed to create human-animal hybrids for research. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has produced a consultation paper explaining future po...

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News, SPUC gives cautious welcome to reports that TV abortion advertising proposals have been shelved It has been reported that Britain's broadcast regulator BCAP (Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice) has shelved proposals for TV advertising by abortion agencies. BCAP's statement suggests...

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News, A newspaper predicts that more than 200 UK MPs could support a reduction in the time-limit for abortion of non-disabled babies. The change could be made by an amendment to the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) bill, with other MPs abstaining. Our source points out that, o...

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News, A report by UK MPs recommends that the requirement for two doctors to authorise an abortion should be abolished, while the 24-week upper time limit [which applies only to abortions for the weakest grounds] should not be reduced. The committee for science and technology also advocates that nu...

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News, The Mental Capacity Act has come into force in England and Wales, giving statutory authority to advance refusals of treatment (living wills). A leading lawyer in the field has warned that medical staff who do not follow so-called living wills could be disciplined, if not actually prosecuted....

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News, Britain legalised abortion just over 39 years ago. A group of physicians have drawn attention to research suggesting that abortion can increase the risk of mental problems in women. In a letter to the Times newspaper, the 15 doctors wrote that women should be warned about the psychological p...

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