The US state of California has shelved plans to introduce physician-assisted suicide after legislators conceded they could not gain sufficient votes to progress their Bill. The failure of the Bill, SB128, has been welcomed by opponents of assisted suicide in California, which includes doctors and palliative care professionals as well as Catholic groups and disability...
Pro-life demonstrators in the United States have been threatened in two separate gun incidents. In the first incident, police in Tennessee, moved to detain Derrick Doss outside the Bristol Women’s Clinic following reports he had waved a gun at demonstrators. According to witnesses cited in Lifesite News, Doss had earlier walked with a female companion...
Ireland was one of fourteen countries that voted against a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution called on countries to protect the family as the “natural and fundamental group unity of society”. Citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a sitting of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva voted 29 to 14, with four...
The Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2015, aimed at weakening the right of religious-run schools to protect their ethos from staff who would undermine it, has passed the final report stage. The Bill is designed to ensure that gay staff in schools can speak about their relationships in the same way as other staff. If subsequently passed...
The Australian state of Victoria is to allow all donor conceived people there to identify the egg or sperm donor involved in their birth. Having lifted some restrictions at the start of July to allow for people born as a result of sperm and egg donations after January 1, 1998 to fully access donor details...
A major shift in faith away from Catholicism in Latin America towards Protestantism is ongoing, according to a new survey. As Pope Francis began his official visit to Latin America, home to over 425 million Catholics, the Pew Research Centre on Religion and Public Life has revealed an ongoing surge of Catholics from the Church...
France is to officially recognise children born by surrogacy abroad following a landmark court ruling. Critics of the latest judgement in France have described it as a major step backwards for France and children, with one prominent opponent, Ludovine de La Rochère, president of La Manif Pour Tous, stating after the ruling: “The judges have...
A 70-year-old pro-life demonstrator has been hospitalised after an unprovoked assault in Australia. The victim, identified only as Greg and a member of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants group, was undertaking a peaceful protest outside the Fertility Control Clinic in Albury, New South Wales, when he was approached by a younger man who begins to argue...
Mexico’s Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez is facing a raft of criminal complaints launched by gay advocates following his outspoken defence of traditional marriage. In the wake of Mexico’s Supreme Court ruling that all states in the nation should legislate for same-sex marriage, Cardinal Sandoval addressed the move in a televised speech on Catholic television, denouncing...
Ireland now offers more ’emergency’ terminations per year than England and Wales, an analysis of new figures has revealed. An analysis by The Irish Catholic of new figures from the Health Service Executive shows more terminations for ’emergency’ medical reasons took place in Ireland last year than England and Wales in the last 10 years....
