The UK’s advertising authority has rapped clinics for misleading claims that exaggerated the accuracy of their pre-natal testing and banned the offending advertisements.
Three clinics had marketed their screenings as 99% accurate for Downs syndrome. While the Advertising Standards Authority did find the tests provided false-negatives only 1% of the time, indicating no abnormality even when one is present, the ASA also found the tests provided false positives, indicating Downs syndrome is present even when it is not, up to 18% of the time.
The clinics also marketed a test for Patau’s syndrome as 93.8% accurate, even though it provided false positives up to 51% of the time.
Testing for Edwards’ syndrome provided false positives 63% of the time.
The ASA said: “We understood that a systematic review of the performance of non-invasive prenatal testing in general found that it had a Positive Predictive Value (PPV) of 82% for Down’s syndrome, 37% for Edwards’ syndrome and 49% for Patau’s syndrome, meaning out of all the foetuses with ‘positive’ results, 82% would ultimately have Down’s syndrome, as opposed to the 99% detection rate figure that consumers would understand from the ad.”
The Liberal Democrats in Britain have deselected one of their candidates in the British General Election because he has traditional Catholic views on issues like marriage and abortion.
According to The Tablet, “Robert Flello was ditched as for the Stoke-on-Trent South constituency just 36 hours after the party named his as the prospective parliamentary candidate.”
A party spokesperson said: “We do our best to screen candidates in our approval process. In this case it only really became clear over the past few hours how greatly his values diverge from ours.”
Two years ago Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, stepped down because his Evangelical Christians views had put him at odds with the party.
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/12218/lib-dems-deselect-catholic-as-election-candidate
Almost half of abortions performed in Britain last year were repeat terminations, according to new figures obtained by Sky News. The figures also show that five teenagers had at least a sixth abortions in 2018 and that 140 women had at least eight terminations.
Each year in Britain, almost 200,000 abortions take place – amounting to one abortion for every four births- and 84,258 were repeat terminations, meaning women who have previously had an abortion.
Pro-life campaigners say the 7pc rise in the number of repeat abortions could be due to a change in the law permitting women to take the abortion pill at home.
New Zealand will hold a referendum next year on euthanasia. If it passes, the country will permit euthanasia when a patient is deemed to be terminally ill with less than six months left to live.
The New Zealand parliament voted by 69-51 in favour of the legislation which will be put to the people on the same day as a scheduled General Election next year.
The referendum is not required, strictly speaking and there will no nothing in the future to stop parliament passing more liberal legislation. The original form of the law would have permitted euthanasia/assisted suicide for ‘severe’ and ‘incurable’ conditions.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50408033?ocid=socialflow_twitter
A Carmelite monastery in Malahide was vandalised in broad daylight this week while the Carmelite nuns were at prayer. The nuns were verbally attacked and insulted by the assailants.
The incident happened at Star of the Sea Monastery Center.
Fr. Jimmy McPartland, co-parish priest at the nearby St. Anne’s Church in Portmarnock, announced the incident to parishioners during a morning Mass, according to Catholic News Agency.
Fr McPartland said the vandals had “desecrated” the chapel. The gang had shouted “very horrible things” about the nuns after the vandalism.
The attack is only the latest in a series of similar attacks on churches in recent times.
Churches in Chile have been vandalised, desecrated and looted as part of continuing violence and unrest in the South American country. The protests are partly against economic conditions there but churches are now being targeted by extremist activists as well.
In one incident “protesters broke into Santiago’s La Asuncion parish, hauling out pews, confessionals, and statues – which they defaced – to build a barricade. They set the barricade on fire before clashing with police, and sprayed anti-Catholic graffiti on the walls, pillars, and altar of the church”, Angelus News reports.
Chilean bishops have appealed for calm.
Women must be given full and proper details of the true accuracy of tests designed to screen for fetal abnormalities, including life-limiting conditions, maternity hospitals and units around the country have been told by the HSE’s head of women and infants health programme, Dr Peter McKenna.
Dr McKenna sent a letter to the hospitals and units after it emerged that a couple were incorrectly told in the National Maternity Unit earlier this year that their unborn baby had a life-limiting conditions only for it to emerge after the termination that the baby was perfectly healthy.
Dr McKenna draws attention in his letter to a document from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in England which has been challenging the claim made by some doctors that early pregnancy blood tests are 99pc accurate when screening for fetal abnormalities.
A wheelchair-bound man who was arrested and prosecuted for peacefully praying outside a London abortion clinic has seen the charges against dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.
The arrest and case raise the question of whether praying in a public space now constitutes ‘harassment’ and whether ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics breach freedom of expression, religion and thought.
Christian Hacking, 29 and wheelchair-bound after breaking his back in a climbing accident, was arrested by police in August 2019 for failing to comply with a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) outside a Marie Stopes abortion clinic in Ealing.
Police were initially called after a member of staff reported two men praying on the grass outside.
Police warned Christian and his friend that merely being on the green outside of the clinic was a breach of the PSPO.
Two separate announcements were made yesterday to enable both partners of female same-sex couples to be recorded as parents of children conceived through donor conception or surrogacy.
First, the Department of Health is considering giving to Courts the power to resolve parenthood in surrogacy cases, particularly those involving same-sex couples. This would involve a court declaring the intended parent or parents of a child born through assisted human reproduction to be the legal parent(s).
In addition, Minister for Health Simon Harris signed regulations to commence Sections 2 and 3 of the Children and Family Relationships Act which will now come into effect on May 5th, 2020. Under the Act, the mother of a donor-conceived child will be allowed to name the second parent, regardless of that person’s sex. The child will have a birth cert naming both parents.
A new secondary school is to have gender-neutral toilets in order to accommodate pupils who do not identify with their biological sex. “What we push on our students is acceptance”, said the school principal.
The Limerick Educate Together Secondary School to be built in Castletroy and cater for 1,000 students said the facilities would be installed before it opened in September 2021.
Principal Eoin Shinners confirmed the introduction of what are called “universal” toilets.
“What you will have is stand-alone cubicles,” he said. “The only part of the student toilets which are communal are wash-basins.
“Parents might ask how you supervise boys and girls entering the same toilet block. But they’re set up where washbasins are back-to-back and there’s a screen visible from the corridor,” Mr Shinners explained.
He said there were students “who identify differently” from the point of view of gender.
“It’s very much part and parcel of the school and reflective of the society we live in,” he said. “What we push on our students is acceptance. Accept them for who they are without drawing particular attention on an aspect or an issue.”
Five soon-to-be-built secondary schools had also requested permission from the Department of Education to introduce such facilities.
