It has emerged that the UK Government’s new liberalised guidelines
for abortion were issued to abortion clinics as ”interim guidance” six months before
they were put on Parliament’s website for public discussion. Under the Abortion
Act 1967, two doctors should authorise an
abortion; under the new guidelines, it is merely “good practice” that at least
one doctor should meet the pregnant woman before the abortion. The changes were
made when Andrew Lansley was Health Secretary;
Lansley tried (and failed) in 2008 to get a private member’s Bill passed to
dispense with the two-doctor requirement in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Lansley now stands accused of trying to implement an entirely nurse-led abortion
service, which contradicts the wording of the Abortion Act, without any discussion
in Parliament.
Steve Hill, the evangelist who sparked the Brownsville
Revival in Pensacola, Florida, has died of skin cancer. Hill was dramatically
delivered from drugs, alcohol and crime in 1975, and dedicated his life to
spreading the Gospel. After his preaching triggered the revival at Brownsville
Assemblies of God church on Father’s Day 1995, he stayed and preached there for
5 years; in that time over 4 million people from 150 countries visited the
church, and hundreds of thousands gave their lives to Jesus and/or repented of
sinful lifestyles.
A meeting of bishops from the Orthodox church has decided to
hold an ecumenical council (i.e. a meeting of Orthodox churches from various
countries) in Istanbul in 2016. This would be the first such council for 1200
years.
A Christian graphic designer sued a hotel for rejecting him
for a job because he is a committed Christian. The Essex hotel said the post
was given to a more experienced candidate, but the designer said that he was
told by the hotel manager during his interview, after reviewing some work he
had done for churches, that some of the staff were atheists who would never
work with a committed Christian. The
case was settled out of court with the hotel making an undisclosed payment to a
charity.
An Iranian-American pastor who has been in jail in Iran and
had been suffering medically, partly due to prison beatings, was moved to
hospital a week and a half ago to undergo tests and receive treatment. However,
yesterday he was shackled; an elderly relative was roughly expelled from the
hospital; and doctors have told him he must return to prison without treatment.
The timing of both events appears to coincide with the visit of Baroness
Ashton, a high level EU representative and human rights campaigner, to Iran; he
was moved to hospital when she arrived, but has been denied medical treatment
now she has left.
A security guard working for Planned Parenthood in Texas was
instructed to “keep tabs on” a pro-life charity, led by a former director of a
Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, which is dedicated to helping abortion
industry employees find alternative employment. However, he was so impressed by
what he saw that he asked them to help him find a new job. Planned Parenthood
have previously ‘warned’ their employees by email about this charity, which
also resulted in several workers contacting the charity and asking for help in
finding new jobs.
In sport, the Winter Paralympics are under way in Sochi. A
Northern Irish lady won Britain’s first ever gold medal in these games, in the
super-G slalom skiing for the visually impaired (where skiers have an
accompanying guide who communicates with them by headset). Her time was only
three seconds slower than that recorded by the winner of the event in the Winter
Olympics.
And finally, recent flooding in Romsey, Hampshire allowed two
fish to escape from an aquatic centre. A metre-long sturgeon named Steve has
been recaptured after being found in a
deep puddle at a car wash a mile away; the other fish, a koi carp, has
been sighted but is still on the loose.
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