In Poland, a doctor’s refusal to perform an abortion on a
woman pregnant with a deformed child has raised major issues. Abortion rights
are very restricted in Poland, but it is permitted (up to 24 weeks’ gestation,
or later at the doctor’s discretion) if the baby is too deformed or disabled to
survive. Polish law (like UK law) also has a conscience clause that permits
doctors not to perform abortions. In this case, a mother whose foetus was
deformed was rejected for an abortion by two doctors for reasons of conscience,
and referred to the director of the gynaecology department at a Warsaw
hospital. He examined a scan performed by another hospital which suggested to
him that the deformity that could be cured by surgery, and since the woman was
past 24 weeks, he refused the abortion. However, he also refused to refer her
to another doctor, and he put the reasons for his decision in writing. The baby was born with what proved to be
terminal abnormalities, and the doctor in charge of delivery gave a gruesome
description of the baby’s face to Polish media. The immediate fallout was that
the director was strongly criticised in the media, and his hospital was given a
punitive fine for his “misuse” of the conscience clause. However, the case is
raising disturbing issues about further bias: the director has apparently been
fired from his head of department post following an inspection of his hospital
by the city authorities; and at least one candidate for a director-level job in
gynaecology at another hospital was asked if he had signed an open letter on
“faith/conscience” that opposed abortion [that 3000 Polish doctors had signed]
– he replied that he had and he did not get the job.
Further reports from Mosul in Iraq show a tomb, which is reputedly
the grave of the prophet Jonah, being destroyed with a sledgehammer. However,
reports that an 1800 year old Armenian church has been burned are thankfully
false; pictures which apparently show the church burning are actually of
burning vehicles next to the church. All Christians in the city are reported to
have fled.
The Christian bakers from Northern Ireland who are being
pursued by the Equalities Commission have given an interview to a major UK
newspaper. Key points to emerge from it include their strong Christian
foundation (the bakery is named after Asher in the Bible, whose ‘delicacies
would be rich’); their generally non-discriminatory stance (they are proud that
they serve both Catholics and Protestants); their unhappiness that the
Commission “found them guilty without giving them the chance to put our side
across” and that the Commission “talks about discrimination on the grounds of
disability, race and sexuality but never against people’s Christian beliefs”;
and their need for financial support for the legal case. The newspaper article
also mentions a similar case last year in Northern Ireland where a Christian
printer refused to supply a quote to print a gay magazine; the Equalities
Commission eventually dropped their threat of legal action against the printer.
A Catholic cardinal in Peru has complained about
international pro-abortion and pro-homosexual organisations that try to reduce
foreign investment in Peru until Peru changes its laws to agree with them; he
called such actions “blackmail.” He also criticises the Peruvian media for
focussing the public’s attention on inconsequential subjects rather than
engaging in in-depth debate of the serious issues facing the nation; he
compared it to the 1990s when Peruvian media failed to highlight human rights
and other issues under the country’s supposedly reforming president Alberto
Fujimori. “I recognise the stench,” he said.
In technology news, a language school in Brazil has found an
innovative way to help its students of English: they created a Skype-based computer
application that enables the students to talk to people in retirement homes in
the USA, thus providing both parties with a welcome opportunity for conversation.
The application records a video of the conversation so that language school
teachers can assess it.
And finally, a legal decision has been made in Florida that
not only echoes the plot of a John Grisham book, but exceeds it. A widow sued
the makers of Camel cigarettes for the death of her husband through lung cancer
at the age of 36; due to previous court decisions in the state, she did not
need to prove negligence by the company, only that her husband was addicted to
cigarettes and that smoking caused his death. The jury awarded her and her
stepson nearly $17 million in damages and fined the company a massive 23 BILLION dollars in punitive damages. An appeal is anticipated.
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