40,000 people took to the streets of Paris to protest
against attempts to liberalise France’s abortion laws. The current law allows
abortions in the first 12 weeks if the mother is “in distress”; the proposed
changes will remove the ‘distress’ condition, effectively leading to abortion
on demand up to 12 weeks’ gestation. The proposed changes stand in contrast to
Spain which recently toughened its abortion laws; Spanish law now allows
abortions only in cases of rape or where the mother’s life is in danger, and
explicitly excludes abortions due to the foetus being deformed.
The ardently pro-choice mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio,
is clashing with the courts in his (promised) campaign against pro-life crisis
pregnancy centres. A new law required crisis pregnancy centres to post notices
and verbally advise clients that they “are not full service pregnancy care
facilities” (because they do not offer abortions) and to inform clients “that
the city recommends women who think they are pregnant to visit a licensed
provider.” A judge struck down both provisions, saying that “the law provides a
blank check for city officials to harass or threaten legitimate activity”;
however, he upheld another part of the law that required crisis pregnancy
centres to disclose whether they have a licenced medical provider supervising
the facility’s services.
A mother in Montreal has launched a campaign to remove
erotic books from elementary school libraries. After her 11 year old brought
home books with explicit descriptions of foreplay, she set up a website to warn
other parents of what their kids were reading. The school’s response was to
threaten to sue her for defamation and harassment; a spokesperson for the
regional School Board defended the books on the grounds that “many children in
the schools will have reached 12 years of age.” However, the mother still took
her story to a news agency, and some books have now been removed.
The debate over the new ‘secular’ promise for Girl Guides
has reached the General Synod of the Church of England. A motion has been put
forward to say that it cannot be right for Guide units which meet on church
premises to be banned from being able to say “I love my God” in the promise.
The Girlguiding Association continues to be intransigent on the issue; a Guide
group in Newcastle that decided to allow Guides to choose between the old and
new promises has been told that it will be expelled from the Association.
In sport, Manchester United’s dreadful season under their
new manager David Moyes became even worse when they lost the League Cup
semi-final to Sunderland. The contest went to a penalty shoot-out; Sunderland
scored only two of their five penalties, but United only managed one. United
have paid a club record fee of £37 million for Chelsea’s star player of last
season, attacking midfielder Juan Mata, in an attempt to change their fortunes.
And finally, a local councillor has been suspended by the UK
Independence Party after he claimed that his own daily prayers had convinced
him that the recent flooding was due to the passing of laws permitting gay
marriage in the UK. The councillor also spoke of his belief that homosexuality
can be healed. A UKIP spokesman said, “Everyone is entitled to his own
religious ideology [but] we cannot have any individual using the UKIP banner to
promote their controversial personal beliefs.” A number of spoof initiatives
have been set up in response, including sending married gay couples to
drought-hit areas, and trying to get the song “It’s Raining Men” to the top of
the pop charts.
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