The UK Supreme Court has overturned a decision of the Scottish Court of Session regarding the conscience clause in the Abortion Act 1967. Two Roman Catholic midwives had argued that they should not have to supervise other nursing staff performing abortions, because the Abortion Act allows anyone not to “participate in” abortions for reasons of conscience. The Scottish appeal court had ruled in the midwives’ favour, but the Supreme Court ruled against them. The decision turned on the fact that the midwives’ duties did not require them to be present in the operating theatre and on the meaning of the word ‘participate’, which Baroness Hale said to her meant “hands-on involvement.” A spokesman from the National Secular Society welcomed the decision, saying that “had the case gone the other way it might have opened the door to the broadening of conscience clauses in many areas of life” which he claimed would be detrimental to those who don’t share religious views. But a Christian blogger who sometimes writes on legal issues said, “You only need a dictionary to realise that this case was wrongly decided. If Parliament had meant to restrict the conscience clause to hands-on involvement, it could have used the word ‘perform’, or ‘assist in performing’; if it intended a wide interpretation, what other word could it have used apart from ‘participate’?” And he added, “Imagine that a gun instructor has contracted to teach someone target shooting, and the trainee announces that he wishes to continue his training by shooting live humans, in a country where this is legal. If the instructor refused to supervise the trainee and assist him to kill people efficiently and effectively, would British law condemn his refusal just because he did not need to be present when the shots were fired? Because that is exactly the situation these midwives are being put in.”
The divorce rate in the UK reached 50% of all marriages in the 1980s and was predicted to keep rising. However, it has fallen in the past two decades to around 40% of marriages. The study that discovered this suggested three possible reasons, all connected with changing attitudes in society: first, the big change in the roles of married women between the early 1960s and 1980s caused a spike in divorces as couples who married the right person for the old roles discovered they were with the wrong person for the newer roles; secondly, the increased acceptability of living together before marriage allowed some ill-fated relationships to break up without ever getting to the altar; and thirdly, the increased acceptability of having children outside marriage reduced the number of shotgun weddings, which were never the most stable of relationships.
In a (perhaps inevitable) development of the “Christian bakers and gay marriage cakes” stories on both sides of the Atlantic, a US man has approached thirteen gay bakers asking them to bake a cake that said, “Gay Marriage Is Wrong”. All thirteen refused to do so; some accused him of being hateful merely for making the request. One baker even explained why the Christian bakers were wrong not to bake a pro-gay marriage cake because “you can’t pick and choose your customers” before declining to bake an anti-gay marriage cake just moments later.
A survey at Brent Cross shopping centre asked 5-12 year old children how much they knew about the Christmas story, using multiple choice questions. 20% of those asked thought that Jesus was a striker for Chelsea football club; 25% thought that Christmas Day was Santa’s birthday; 25% thought that the three wise men found Jesus’ birthplace using Google Maps; 10% thought Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was present in the stable when Jesus was born; and 15% thought that the gifts that the wise men brought were a wand, wings and a tiara. The most popular wrong answers concerned the location of Jesus’ birth; 30% thought he was born in a church and 35% argued he was born at the South Pole. Shopping centre staff have promised to try to increase children’s knowledge of the Nativity story, so that they enjoy the Christmas period more.
A new reality TV series in the USA called “Eight Minutes” will follow members of a California church who work with police to try to help prostitutes and escorts, some of whom are victims of human trafficking, leave their life of vice. Volunteers from the Orange County church, whose pastor is a former vice cop, go undercover to talk to the prostitutes; each intervention is limited to eight minutes for safety. The series will look at the dangers, precautions and training undergone by the church volunteers, some of whom are ex-prostitutes. It will also follow some of those who leave prostitution as they try to re-integrate into society.
In film news, Sony has come in for further criticism after deciding not to release the film “The Interview” following threats from North Korea, whose leader is mocked in the film. The criticisms centre around Sony’s moral cowardice, but since the North Koreans had threatened violent attacks on cinemas showing the film, Sony would probably have come in for equal criticism if it had distributed the film. The critics also ignore how modern technology can avoid this type of terrorist threat; the film will now presumably go straight to DVD or to Netflix, and will effectively become one of the most heavily advertised films ever in those formats.
In technology news, a church in Hackney has teamed up with some university researchers to explore “digital empathy”. It uses tablets and digital projectors to create a digital advent window; a “wi-fi candle”, where you type in your prayer into a tablet, and not only does the prayer and an image of the candle display on the tablet but the prayer is also beamed onto a stone circle on the church floor; and even a “holy water font” where you can type your worries into another tablet, then see them displayed in the red-coloured holy water, and if you touch the water the words will apparently be flushed away. The priest said “Half our congregation are under 45 and we hope they’ll appreciate this”; the researchers said they chose a church because it’s a place where people often share their deep feelings.
And finally, a New Zealand man who went suddenly blind when home-brewed vodka reacted with his diabetes medication had his sight saved after being treated with Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky. When he went to hospital he was rushed to the operating theatre, and the doctors suspected formaldehyde poisoning from methanol in the vodka. The standard cure for methanol is ethanol (pure alcohol), but the hospital didn’t have enough medical ethanol, so the Johnnie Walker was purchased and dripped gradually into his stomach. He woke up after five days with his sight fully restored.
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