People with learning disabilities have been given ‘do not resuscitate’ orders during the second wave of the pandemic in the UK.

This comes in spite of widespread condemnation of the practice last year and an urgent investigation by the care watchdog.

Mencap said it had received reports in January from people with learning disabilities that they had been told they would not be resuscitated if they were taken ill with Covid-19.

The Care Quality Commission said in December that inappropriate Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) notices had caused potentially avoidable deaths last year.

DNACPRs are usually made for people who are too frail to benefit from CPR, but Mencap said some seem to have been issued for people simply because they had a learning disability. The CQC is due to publish a report on the practice within weeks.

The disclosure comes as campaigners put growing pressure on ministers to reconsider a decision not to give people with learning disabilities priority for vaccinations.

Among other things, the lobby group want to end the 12-week limit for abortion on request, an end to the mandatory three-day waiting period; telemedicine (allowing people to order and take all abortion pills at home) to continue permanently after the pandemic emergency period ends; repeal of conscientious objection; a ban on protests or vigils outside centres where abortion takes place.

As part of the campaign, they have initiated an online survey to gather information from people who have had, or tried to have, an abortion in Ireland since January 2019, when abortion here was legalised. In 2019, 6,666 abortions took place here. The data gleaned from the survey will be used to influence the review.

Assisted suicide reflects a “failure of compassion on the part of society” the Catholic bishops have warned in their submission to the Oireachtas committee reviewing legislation that, if passed, would legalise euthanasia.

Good palliative care not assisted suicide “offers terminally-ill people the best possibility of achieving ‘a dignified and peaceful end of life’,” the Church leaders said in the document.

They insist that assisted suicide “is a failure to respond to the challenge of caring for terminally-ill patients as they approach the end of their lives”.

The bishops also pointed to the fact that the legislation as drafted would “coerce the consciences of objecting healthcare providers in order to facilitate something they know to be gravely immoral and utterly incompatible with their vocation to heal.

“This burdening of conscience is unnecessary, disproportionate and seriously unjust,” the submission added.

A letter from three United Nations monitors, including Gerard Quinn, the special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, sent to the Canada’s Liberal government last week said a new euthanasia bill would have a potentially discriminatory impact on persons with disabilities and older people who are not at the end of their lives.

If adopted, the bill will violate the right of persons with disabilities to live that’s protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the letter said.

It would also “risk reinforcing (even unintentionally), ableist and ageist assumptions about the value or quality of life of persons with disabilities and older people with or without disabilities,” it continued.

Bill C-7, which passed in the House of Commons and is now being debated in the Senate, would allow Canadians to access so-called “medically assisted death” even if they’re not already facing “reasonably foreseeable” natural death.

The bill is in response to a 2019 Superior Court of Quebec ruling that found it unconstitutional to deny assisted suicide to people who aren’t already dying.

Commentator Fr. Matthew P. Schneider says the new law will push euthanasia on the disabled. “Canada has already had two particularly troublesome issues since approving ‘Medical Aid in Dying.’ First, the law was presented as assisted suicide, but 99.95% of cases were euthanasia. Second, they pointed out how killing off the sick saved millions of dollars, as if that is a good thing”.

It would be “difficult to justify” a ban on public worship again this year for Holy Week and Easter, according to Catholic Bishop of Meath Tom Deenihan.

“I think that it would be difficult to justify closing churches for Easter and quite unpopular,” he said as Covid-19 rates continue to fall and the vaccine is rolled-out.

Bishop Deenihan described the current restrictions as “understandable and necessary” saying they “enjoy public support” in the context of the number of cases.

Noting that public worship was not permitted last Easter, Bishop Deenihan said that “Priests and parishioners are now quite concerned that we will not be allowed to celebrate the Easter ceremonies this year either.

“As numbers decline and as vaccines are rolled out, particularly amongst those who are most vulnerable, that would be difficult to justify,” he said.

“Our churches are probably safer than shopping malls and supermarkets – there is less movement and more social distance. I think that it would be difficult to justify closing churches for Easter and quite unpopular,” he said. Easter Sunday falls on April 4 this year.

A pro-life group have taken a German town to Court over a ban on silent prayer on the streets.

The “40 Days for Life” group in Pforzheim, Germany were prohibited by the local authority from gathering to pray peacefully near a pre-abortion advisory center. The case will be heard in national court.

“I want to be there to pray, not for myself, but for the vulnerable women contemplating abortion, and for their unborn children,” says Pavica Vojnović, who with the support of human rights organization ADF International is seeking justice in court to restore her fundamental rights to freedom of religion, assembly and speech.

“This topic really touches my heart, as I know the pain of losing a child. Our society must offer better support to mothers in difficult situations. Every life is valuable and deserves protection. Surely a simple prayer for the vulnerable cannot be banned?”

Midwives have been told to say “chestfeeding” instead of “breastfeeding” and to replace the term “mother” with “mother or birthing parent” as part of moves to be more trans-friendly.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is the first in the country to formally implement a gender inclusive language policy for its maternity services department, which will now be known as “perinatal services”.

Staff have been instructed that “breastmilk” should be replaced with the phrases “human milk”, “breast/chestmilk” or “milk from the feeding mother or parent”.

Other changes include replacing the use of “woman” with “woman or person” and “father” with “parent”, “co-parent” or “second biological parent”, depending on the circumstances.

The French government is seeking to strengthen laws against an adult having sex with a child under the age of 15, after prominent cases of sexual abuse led to a national reckoning about sexual violence against children.

Unlike other countries, the French do not have a crime of statutory rape.

A sexual act with a child under the age of 15 is an offense of sexual assault of a minor with a lighter penalty than rape: six months to five years in jail as opposed to the 20-year jail term that is the maximum for offences of rape. But, where an act of sexual penetration occurs “under violence, duress, threat or surprise,” it is defined as rape regardless of age.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti announced this that he would seek new criminal sanctions for any “act of sexual penetration” by an adult of a minor under the age of 15.

This is still a narrower definition than other countries, as prosecutors would need to prove that intercourse took place.

The proposed bill also includes the necessity of an age gap of at least five years, in order not to criminalise sexual relationships between teenagers where one is older than 15 and the other is not.

Two recent books have helped spark debate – one writer describing her abuse while an underage teenager at the hands of prize-winning writer Gabriel Matzneff and the other alleging sexual abuse of a step-son by high-profile political commentator Olivier Duhamel.

In both cases, the writers say that the abuse was known about in the intellectual and social circles in which the men moved. Psychologist Muriel Salmona told the BBC, “in France there is a current that tolerates sexual violence against children.”

In Ireland, the age of consent is 17. On Tuesday, a man was sentenced to two years in prison with the second year suspended for having sex with a 16 year old boy when he was 21.

A leading Vatican cardinal has called the death toll due to the COVID-19 pandemic a real “massacre of the elderly”, and appealed for the world to re-think the way it cares for old people.

Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, on Tuesday cited research by Tel Aviv University showing a direct proportional relationship between the number of beds in nursing homes and the number of elderly deaths in Europe whereby, in every country studied, the higher the number of beds in nursing homes, the higher the number of elderly victims.

French Father Bruno-Marie Duffè, Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said the fact that children and young people cannot meet their elderly leads to “real psychological disorders” for both young and old, who without being allowed to see one another, could “die of another virus: Grief.”

The officials were speaking at a presentation of the document, Old age: our future. The elderly after the pandemic.

The document calls for a reform of the health care system and urges families to try to comply with the wish of the elderly who request to stay in their homes, surrounded by loved ones and their own things whenever possible.

The Government will extend access to medical cards for people with a terminal illness from those who have one year to live to those with two years to live.

The proposal has been brought to Cabinet by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.

Last year he voted for a bill to legalise the assisted suicide of terminally ill patients with no time limits.

This means someone could be deemed eligible for assisted suicide, but not eligible for a medical card.

At present, about 1,800 people with a terminal illness have medical cards on compassionate grounds. This would increase to about 3,600 under the new Government plan.

The scheme is expected to assist people with a number of different conditions including motor neurone disease, neurological disease, advanced cancer and heart failure.