Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk has acknowledged that he does not have the support in parliament necessary to change the country’s strong pro-life protections for unborn children.

Currently, abortions can only be performed if a pregnancy threatens the life or health of the mother, strictly understood, or in cases of rape. In practice, this results in very few terminations.

Tusk took power in December at the head of a coalition that spans a broad ideological divide, with lawmakers on the left who want to legalise abortion and conservatives strongly opposed.

Changing the law to allow abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy was one of his campaign promises.

“There will be no majority in this parliament for legal abortion, in the full sense of the word, until the next elections. Let’s not kid ourselves,” Tusk said during an event on Friday where he was asked about the matter.

Tusk said his government is instead working on establishing new procedures in the prosecutor’s office and in Polish hospitals in order to ease some of the de facto restrictions.

“This is already underway and it will be very noticeable,” Tusk said.

The move was part of an attack on civil society with the closure of 1,500 nongovernmental organisations.

Announced last week, the increasingly totalitarian regime of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, further eliminated civic spaces beyond their control, while further attacking freedom of worship.

The latest closures especially targeted evangelical congregations, many of which were described as modest by independent media.

Catholic Churches have long been spied upon, according to sources, with priests having to watch their words, even during homilies. The regime has also forbidden expressions of faith, shuttering Catholic media outlets, cancelling church charitable projects and halting processions and patron saint celebrations outside of church property.

The Scottish Bishops’ conference has warned a parliamentary committee of the “chilling” economic incentives that could result in assisted suicide and euthanasia becoming law.

MSP Liam McArthur, introduced a bill earlier this year that would allow terminally ill adults in Scotland to lawfully request assistance to end their own lives.

Responding to the proposed legislation, the bishops highlighted that even the Bill itself admits that assisted suicide has an economic advantage in terms of being cheaper than measures such as palliative care.

“This [concern] is supported by claims in Mr. McArthur’s proposal for a Bill, which chillingly conceded that it is cheaper to end life than to provide care,” the bishops said in their submission to the committee. “The focus must be on providing care, not providing a cheap death.”

They added: “Palliative care is an authentic expression of the human activity of providing care, the tangible symbol of the compassionate remaining at the side of the suffering person,” while concluding that the proposed legislation “to be blunt, provides a quick, cheap alternative to palliative care”.

A biological male who identifies as a woman, experienced ‘unlawful discrimination’ when prevented from joining a female-only app called ‘Giggle’, a court in Australia has ruled.

Roxanne Tickle sued on the basis that, being “legally permitted to identify as female” and having had his birth certificate amended, he should be permitted into spaces reserved for biological women. The defence maintained that women have a right to single-sex spaces, both online and offline.

The court was told that Tickle has lived as woman since 2017, takes female hormones, has had surgery and “feels in her mind that psychologically she is a woman”.

But opposing Counsel said biological sex is what matters and that cannot be changed.

In the judgment, federal court justice Robert Bromwich said, “on its ordinary meaning sex is changeable”.

He added: “…sex is not confined to being a biological concept referring to whether a person at birth had male or female physical traits, nor confined to being a binary concept, limited to the male or female sex…”

The “entire Jewish community stands fairly and squarely” behind a London-based rabbi who came over to Ireland to perform a number of infant circumcisions and was arrested. Rabbi Jonathan Abraham is allowed to conduct circumcisions in Britain, but not in Ireland and was arrested by Gardai. Three non-Jewish families had hired him to circumcise their babies. Circumcision of baby boys is universal among Jews and Muslims and is also widely practiced in much of Africa. Non-religious circumcisions are also commonplace in some countries including the US.

Ireland Chief Rabbi, Yoni Weider, is concerned that it may soon become impossible for Jewish families to access religious circumcision in Ireland. No rabbi is believed to have been arrested for carrying out a circumcision anywhere in Europe since World War II.

Rabbi Abraham, 47, was arrested in Dublin on July 30 for carrying out circumcisions without being a registered medical practitioner. In countries like Britain it is enough to be trained in the practice. He appeared in court this week.
There were three babies, including a set of twins, aged between three and six weeks, in the house, but only one circumcision had taken place.

The babies present when Gardaí arrived were from Muslim and Christian backgrounds.

The court heard Rabbi Abraham’s fees were £70 for travel, £350 for each child with a €70 discount for twins.

47-year-old Claire Elyse Brosseau struggles with bipolar disorder while 83-year old John Scully, a former journalist and war correspondent, is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.

Their challenge was launched in response to the Trudeau government’s decision to delay expansion of the program to include those whose only reason for wanting assisted is for reprieve from struggles with mental illness.

“They think it’s begging for death, which it is, but it’s begging for my life, to please, please, please, just let me be free and take it away. Make it stop,” Brosseau told the National Post.

According to the challenge, the exclusion infringes on sections 7 and 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which says every person is guaranteed “the right to life, liberty and security.”

More than 70 Nigerian Christians were killed and another 20 Christian medical students were kidnapped in separate violent attacks in the southeastern Nigerian state of Benue over the past few weeks, according to reports.

The attacks have renewed calls from religious freedom advocates that Nigeria be placed on a watchlist of countries responsible for severe violations of religious freedom.

The Nigerian newspaper The Sun reported that herdsmen, with the assistance of local bandits, attacked the predominantly Christian village of Ayati in the Ukum Local Government Area, killing at least 74 people earlier thid month.

In another incident, at least 20 Nigerian Medical Association students were kidnapped in Benue state while traveling to a conference organised by the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students in Enugu.

Secondary school pupils want more religion in their classrooms and not less, according to a survey by the Children’s Ombudsman.

The survey revealed that 34% of 1,036 young people surveyed desired more religious education in schools while also indicating that only 3% wished to see religious education removed entirely from the curriculum.

A leading figure in Catholic education, Alan Hynes of the Catholic Education Partnership (CEP) welcomed the results of the survey. And said that the young people’s responses need to translate into a new appreciation for religious education.

Mr Hynes, CEO of the CEP, told the Irish Catholic: “I found it very interesting because these were the voices of young people,” he said. “It’s positive from our point of view. This idea that young people are interested and intrigued by these things and why wouldn’t they be?

“The downplaying of religion in the education system that’s becoming vogue, not just among the patrons but you would commonly see people arguing that religion shouldn’t have any place in schools. I think that’s a mistake.”

Assisted suicide could be encouraged by doctors to ease pressures on the public health system in the UK, the public fears.

A survey has found more than four in ten (43 per cent) believe the practice could be used in that way.

The public also feared, by 56 per cent to 27 per cent, that it could lead to a culture where suicide became more normalised.

The finding has emerged in a major poll of the public on euthanasia and assisted suicide which found most people supported legalising it but believed it would backfire in practice.

The survey of just over 2,000 adults revealed 60 per cent backed legalising “assisted suicide” where a doctor handed a patient lethal drugs so they could end their life. Only 11 per cent opposed it.

But nearly half of the public (46 per cent) believed there were too many complicating factors to make it a practical and safe option to implement in Britain.

A Christian charitable volunteer who was arrested twice for praying silently in the vicinity of an abortion clinic has received a payout of £13,000 from UK Police in acknowledgement of her unjust treatment, and breach of human rights.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce issued a claim against West Midlands Police for two wrongful arrests and false imprisonments; assault and battery in relation to an intrusive search of her person; and for a breach of her human rights both in respect to the arrests, and to the onerous bail conditions imposed on her.

The news comes days after reports that Britain’s new Labour Government will intensify a crackdown on silent prayer near abortion facilities by expressly criminalising it in upcoming “buffer zones” legislation.

Commenting on the news of the settlement and payout from West Midlands Police, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce said: “Silent prayer is not a crime. Nobody should be arrested merely for the thoughts they have in their heads – yet this happened to me twice at the hands of the West Midlands Police, who explicitly told me that ‘prayer is an offence’.”

“There is no place for Orwell’s ‘thought police’ in 21st Century Britain,” she added.