The political fall-out over the actions of the Equality Commission in Northern Ireland, and the recent revelations that Sinn Fein is targeting its ‘enemies’ with complaints about them breaking equality law, has led to the Northern Ireland Assembly starting a consultation over a possible ‘conscience’ clause for businesses in the Province. The Bill would amend equality law to allow for ‘reasonable accommodation’ of religious and other beliefs in a limited set of circumstances. The Bill is similar in principle to the “Hobby Lobby” conscience legislation passed in the USA by the Supreme Court last year.
A judge in the UK has ruled that, for the purposes of criminal law, foetuses are not persons until they are born. The case related to damage suffered in the womb due to alcohol poisoning, and was brought under the Offences Against The Person Act 1861. The same judge had previously found someone guilty of manslaughter of a new-born baby due to injuries the baby suffered while in the womb, because the baby died after birth, and UK law allows pre-existing injuries that cause death to be included in prosecutions. It isn’t clear how the view that foetuses are not persons until they are born matches up to the principles underlying the Abortion Act 1967, which deem a foetus worthy of human rights once it is sufficiently developed to survive outside the womb.
A South African pastor and his teenage children, who were working for an education organisation in Afghanistan, have been killed after the Taliban launched a three hour attack on the compound believing that it was a secret missionary base. Meanwhile, a missionary couple in the Philippines who woke up one night to discover a masked gunman in their bedroom have told of their survival. The gunman had taken the local pastor hostage and had shot him in the foot, but when the couple began to pray loudly, the gunman became highly uncomfortable. The pastor ended up having a hand to hand struggle with the gunman and eventually disarmed him, but not before several bullets were fire, one of which hit the missionary man in the arm. However, neither of the two bullet wounds is considered serious.
When discussing family planning and abortion, one of the “elephant in the room” subjects – often significant but rarely discussed – is the (usually unspoken) pressure on women to delay or avoid motherhood for the sake of their career. Now two big Silicon Valley companies – Facebook and Apple—have decided to support women who want to delay motherhood by paying for them to have their eggs extracted and frozen for later use. A spokeswoman for women’s rights has welcomed the “freedom from the biological clock” that egg freezing provides. Most Christian and pro-life groups have yet to comment, although there has been some disquiet about the idea that companies can ‘engineer’ something that should be a personal choice.
It has been reported that when Angelina Jolie was making the film “Unbroken”, about the life of Olympic athlete, POW and Christian speaker Louis Zamperini, there came a moment when she needed sunlight to complete a particular scene, and a storm was in progress. Jolie said “OK, let’s do what Louis would do,” and dropped to her knees and prayed for a miracle in front of cast and crew. The sun came out, along with a rainbow; when she finished filming and said ‘Cut’, it began to rain again. Jolie became very close friends with Zamperini, who died in July this year at the age of 97; the story above comes from Zamperini’s daughter.
In technology news, Sony has been the most recent victim of a computer hack where passwords for its services, and personal phone numbers for some celebrities, were stolen. However, this incident differs from other recent hacking incidents for two reasons. Firstly, there is a rumour that the hack was perpetrated by the security services of North Korea in revenge for a recent film that mocked the country. And secondly, it transpires that, despite Sony being targeted before, they stored customers’ passwords in an unencrypted file called “password” -- a degree of negligence that may leave them open to legal claims.
And finally. a newspaper survey of Christmas cards sent by UK councils found that only one council in the whole of the UK – Banbridge in Northern Ireland -- is sending a card that mentions the birth of Christ. Of 182 councils who responded to the survey, 28% are not sending cards at all due to Government cutbacks; 56% are sending cards that mention Christmas; and 16% are sending cards with no mention of Christmas. It is hoped that the designs on the cards will improve on last year’s (unofficial) worst council Christmas card, from Corby council, which showed a snow-covered road with the council offices on one side and some bus shelters on the other. However, at least none of them have suffered the embarrassment of Clinton Cards who marketed and then hurriedly withdrew a card with “10 reasons why Santa must live on a council estate”; the reasons included “He has a serial record for breaking and entering”; “he only works once a year”; and “he gets lots of letters from people saying he owes them things.”
No comments:
Post a Comment