BBC polling shows significant proportion of women report being given abortion pills without their consent, as over 600 medical professionals in the UK have called for an end to ‘DIY’ home abortion services in an open letter to the Government.

The Savanta ComRes poll commissioned by the BBC shows that 5% of women aged between 18 and 24 and 4% of women aged between 25 and 34 had been given “something (tablets/substance) to cause an abortion” without their consent.

The polling also shows that 15% of women experienced “pressure to terminate a pregnancy” when they did not want to and 5% of women experienced “physical violence with intention to force a miscarriage / end a pregnancy”.

Prior to ‘DIY’ abortion being allowed during the pandemic, women were given the first set of abortion pills in a medical abortion in person, making it much harder for third parties to influence, pressure, or coerce them into taking the lethal drugs.

The open letter from the medics requests that the ‘at-home’ abortion schemes in England, Scotland, and Wales be revoked with immediate effect.

The Department of Health and Social Care already confirmed that the temporary measure introduced for the COVID-19 pandemic will be wound down, but not until 30 August 2022.

An appeal has been made for moral principles to guide the legislation on the the practice of surrogacy in this country.

Writing in the Irish Times on Monday, former social worker, Margaret Lee, says the State has to find its moral compass in dealing with the complexities around surrogacy.

“It has to decide to either outlaw or regulate the manner in which one woman pays another woman to bear a child which she then will raise as her own. Whatever the outcome, it is important that the ethical issues be debated, she writes.

She mentions three morally dubious aspects of surrogacy that must be dealt with: “possible exploitation of the surrogate mother, transparency of the transaction that takes place between the parties, and potential for future conflict which could embroil all the three parties [surrogate, child, contracting client(s)/intending parent(s)”.

The State will pay rent to the Catholic Church for its schools that transfer to new patrons under new 40-year leases.

The arrangement forms part of a Department of Education deal with Catholic bishops aimed at speeding up the process of transferring patronage.

Under the deal, the Church would retain ownership of schools and receive “appropriate” rents which take into account the fact that schools may have benefitted from State capital investment in the past.

The insurance premium for school buildings also forms part of the leasing arrangement, as well as contributions to legal costs involved in securing any State interest in the property.

The department should, where possible, have the option of extending any leases or purchasing school properties if they are put up for sale in future.

The department said commercial rents are not appropriate due to the educational use of the properties and a “reasonable” rent should be agreed.

The decision by General Medical Council (GMC) in the UK to drop all sanctions against an Irish born doctor for successfully prescribing abortion pill reversal treatments, opens the possibility for the life-saving procedures to resume again very soon, according to the Pro-Life Campaign.

As a result of the complaint lodged with the GMC by pro-abortion group Marie Stopes, Dr Dermot Kearney has been prevented for the past 18 months from helping women who regretted taking the first abortion pill and who desperately wanted to try and save their baby.

Before the ban was imposed, Dr Kearney, who is an NHS consultant cardiologist, and consultant obstetrician Dr Eileen Reilly, were together responsible for saving 32 babies from certain death from abortion after they assisted mothers who requested help after taking the abortion pill.

Abortion Pill Reversal treatment involves prescribing the hormone progesterone to women. It has been shown to dramatically increase the chances of the baby surviving the effects of the first abortion pill. During a medical abortion, two pills are taken separately to induce the abortion.

Advocacy group, Irish Families Through Surrogacy (IFTS), said it had been advised that contracts between Ukrainian women and Irish families will become “null and void” if surrogate mothers give birth outside Ukraine. Only Ukraine, Russia and Belarus allow commercial surrogacy contracts because of the dangers of exploiting low-income women and commodifying babies.

Irish families are currently paying to send pregnant women from dangerous cities to the Ukrainian countryside, or helping them cross the border into Poland until they can find a solution, or are seeking legal advice about the possibility of contracts being upheld if the babies are born in the Czech Republic.

Cathy Wheatley, a campaigner with IFTS said Irish families are concerned about the pregnant women “traumatised” by what is happening in Ukraine.

“We have to advise them that if the babies are not born on Ukrainian soil, the contracts are null and void.

“Some of them want to stay, and in those cases, Irish families are paying to get them to the Ukrainian countryside,” Ms Wheatley said.

Ireland is fast becoming a ‘woke theocracy’ as legislators hammer out the details of new ‘anti-hate’ legislation, according to one independent senator.

On Thursday, Senator Sharon Keogan said that in Finland, a Member of Parliament was taken to court and faced up to two years in prison for anti-gay bigotry. “Her crime was tweeting a picture of the Bible. Finnish prosecutors stated that the use of the word ‘sin’ could be harmful and said that people are allowed in their minds to agree with the Bible, but cannot state that in public”.

Addressing the Seanad, Senator Keogan asked: “Is that how we want Ireland to be too? I am sure some people will say “Yes” to that question, those who would have our country be more like a woke theocracy which punishes citizens who dare to contradict the secular progressive dogma of the day, but my answer is a resounding ‘No.’”

She added: “The free speech we are entitled to serves to better this country and its people as ideas can be freely debated and forged in the crucible of public opinion. If an idea is hateful or repugnant, our sensibilities will allow it to die and arguments against it will show it to be false. Rather than mandating consensus, let us keep speech free and have ideas live or die by their merit”.

European bishops, both Catholic and Russian Orthodox, are pleading for the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, to ask Vladimir Putin to stop the war against Ukraine.

The president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich addressed a letter to Kirill, a former KGB agent, on Tuesday asking him to issue an urgent appeal to Russian authorities to immediately stop the hostilities against the Ukrainian people.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan of the Archdiocese of Orthodox Churches of Russian Tradition in Western Europe, “our very unity is threatened” by the situation that arose following Russia’s “military intervention” and “violent attack” on Ukraine.

Archbishop John of Dubna made a direct appeal to Kirill “to raise your voice as Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church against this monstrous and senseless war and to intercede with the authorities of the Russian Federation so that this murderous conflict, . . . will cease as soon as possible”.

He then criticized Patriarch Kirill’s March 6 homily in the Patriarchal Cathedral of Christ the Savior. During his remarks, the patriarch implied that this “war of cruel and murderous aggression” is justified as a “metaphysical battle,” in the name of “the right to stand on the side of the light, on the side of God’s truth, of what the light of Christ reveals to us, his word, his Gospel.”

With all the respect “due to you, and from which I do not depart,” but also “with infinite pain,” the metropolitan writes, “I must bring to your attention that I cannot subscribe to such a reading of the Gospel.”

Nothing, he wrote, can ever justify that the “good shepherds” of the Church should cease to be “artisans of peace,” no matter the circumstances.

In Russia, activist groups are reporting that an Orthodox priest who gave an anti-war sermon on Sunday has been arrested and found guilty of breaching a new law censoring criticism of the war in Ukraine.

The priest from the Kostroma region has to pay 35,000 ₽ for his preaching.

BBC Russia journalist Andrey Zakharov reported that Father Ioann Burdin was detained shortly after he made a sermon to a small congregation in the village of Karabanovo.

He’d preached against the war, described to locals the ongoing shelling and destruction in Ukrainian cities, and also shared anti-war images and a petition on the parish’s website.

Police charged him with ‘discrediting the use of the Armed Forces’ -a criminal offence established by Russia’s state duma just last week.

Since the start of the war, there’s been a brutal crackdown on protest activities in Russia, where despite the risks thousands of people are still taking to the streets in dozens of cities to protest.

More than 13,000 people have been arrested so far, including over 4,600 on Sunday, local NGO trackers say.

A group of 286 priests and deacons of the Russian Orthodox Church has launched a strong appeal for an end to the war in Ukraine.

They have described the situation as “fratricidal” and called for reconciliation and an immediate cease-fire. They mourned “the ordeal to which our brothers and sisters in Ukraine were undeservedly subjected”.

Recalling that each person’s life is a priceless gift from God, the signatories stress that the Last Judgement awaits all. “No earthly authority, no doctor, no guard,” they read, “will protect us from this judgement. . . . Let us remember that the blood of Christ, shed by the Saviour for the life of the world, will be received in the sacrament of Communion by those who give murderous orders, not for life, but for eternal torment”.

The Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has recently delivered two sermons in which he departed from a neutral stance and conveyed a clear pro-Russia position in line with that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Bill would make it illegal to “influenc[e] a [person seeking an abortion], whether directly or indirectly” within “safe access zones”. If it became law, it would effectively make it impossible to offer assistance, advice or even to pray in “safe access zones” outside abortion clinics and hospitals offering abortions in Northern Ireland. It would be one of the most draconian policies anywhere in the world.

 A report on the consultation released by the Northern Ireland Assembly in January states: “Of the 6,412 submissions from individuals, the overwhelming majority stated their opposition to the Bill, with only thirteen submissions from individuals affirming their support”.

This means that there was only 0.2% support for the Bill among the general public who made submissions to the consultation.