Plans to appoint a State guardian for every child in Scotland have finally been scrapped. It was attacked by campaigners as a huge attack on parental rights and an unacceptable expansion of State power and intrusiveness.
The Scottish Education Minister, John Swinney, said he would repeal the legislation after an expert panel he appointed to try and salvage the plan concluded it was unworkable.
In a statement to MSPs, he said the authorities would instead use “existing voluntary schemes” to identify vulnerable children in need of support, along with further training and guidance.
But he refused an invitation to apologise to parents and teachers, whom the Tories said have endured six years of “endless bureaucracy” as the SNP tried to introduce the policy.
The SNP’s Named Persons scheme had endured withering criticism. The Law Society of Scotland said it could potentially breach European human rights laws on privacy and family life.
The Schoolhouse Home Education Association warned the legislation was “open to abuse and misinterpretation and many parents could fall foul of overzealous agents of the State or people who are just plain busybodies”.
And the Scottish Daily Express warned: “If this sinister aspect of the Bill were to be passed, the guardian could take official action if the child was not being raised in government-approved fashion.”
Pro-life students at a University in Scotland were forced to remove a stall of literature from a university freshers’ fair, in the latest episode of a long running campaign of campus censorship.
Activists had been displaying anti-abortion posters, leaflets and bookmarks, some of which featured a logo of an unborn child with the words “life is precious”, at the University of Strathclyde.
Members of the students’ union argued that the material exhibited by the Strathclyde Students for Life Society was too graphic and breached their safe-space policies.
Last year, after a protracted legal case, the university’s student association lifted a long-running ban on prolife groups affiliating with the union, which had prevented the group accessing funding. Despite that, union officials introduced a policy requiring all affiliated societies to adhere to pro-choice rules.
Catherine Deighan, 18, president of Students for Life, said that the group had no choice but to pack up and leave. “We have been entirely discriminated against and censored,” she said. “Receiving that policy was very intimidating, given that we recognised the names of those who had approved it and they are extremely hostile to our view.”
The Master of the National Maternity Hospital has said the hospital is not an abortion clinic. He was speaking as a voluntary group, 40 Days for Life, are set to begin a focused 40 day campaign of prayer, fasting and peaceful witness from next Wednesday.
Abortions are taking place in the hospital under the terms of the new abortion law. Earlier this year, a healthy baby was aborted late in the second trimester when the parents were wrongly told the child had a fatal abnormality.
Writing in the Irish Catholic, 40 Days for Life member Marie Cummins said the purpose of the vigil is to turn hearts and minds from a culture of death to a culture of life and thus bring an end to abortion.
The campaign is a cross-denominational, faith-based effort involving prayer and fasting, and standing for life through a 40-day peaceful, prayerful, public witness across the road from the National Maternity hospital from 7am until 7pm.
She said that “all participants are asked to sign a statement of peace in which they pledge to conduct themselves in a Christ-like manner. Only signs provided by 40 Days for Life will be permitted during the campaign.”
However, the Master of Holles Street has objected to the planned pro-life witness. “This isn’t an abortion clinic, this is a maternity hospital and the vast, vast majority of patients who are accessing the hospital from one day to the next are giving birth, having joyful occasions,” said Professor Higgins.
The campaign has also sparked renewed calls from the National Women’s Council for exclusion or ‘censorship’ zones outside GP clinics and hospitals facilitating abortion, and a new commitment from Minister for Health Simon Harris to bring forward proposals for ‘safe access zones’.
Very few countries operate such zones on freedom of protest grounds.
The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the city of Phoenix cannot use a criminal law to force two Christian artists to design and create custom wedding invitations expressing messages that conflict with their core beliefs, including same-sex weddings. Such coercion, the court held, would violate the fundamental principle that “an individual has autonomy over his or her speech and thus may not be forced to speak a message he or she does not wish to say.” The court ruled in favor of Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio, who were under threat of up to six months of jail time, $2,500 in fines, and three years of probation for each day the city would find them in violation of the law.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Duka and Koski filed suit against Phoenix because it interprets its law in a way that illegally controls artistic expression and disregards religious liberty. The court agreed and found that the law violates the freedom of Duka and Koski to express messages consistent with their religious beliefs through their custom wedding invitations.
Pro-life groups in New Zealand have made submissions to a parliamentary committee tasked with reviewing a radical abortion bill which has passed the early stages of the legislative process.
Voice for Life said the Bill would enable women to have abortions on demand, with no restriction up to 20 weeks, and from then until birth if a Health Practitioner “reasonably believes the abortion is appropriate in the circumstances, having regard to the woman’s physical health, mental health and well-being”.
Criticising the proposals, the group said the Bill makes abortions only about a mother’s health and “does away with any recognition of the value of the unborn child”. They recommend rejecting the bill entirely, or at least moderating its most egregious elements.
Another pro-life group, Family First, said that abortion is both a health issue and a legal issue involving both mother and unborn child. They added that “New Zealanders don’t want an extreme abortion law – they want a law that works best for women’s health and well-being, and which considers all human beings involved in a pregnancy.”
People could be permitted to choose their own sex on the upcoming census of England and Wales, if a controversial draft wording is approved.
In proposed advice for the “What is your sex?” question, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) allows people to give their preferred option instead of biological reality.
It is trialling the question and advice, along with voluntary questions on sexual orientation and gender identity, in four local authority ‘rehearsals’ this autumn.
The advice has been met with a chorus of criticism. University professor Rosa Freedman described it as “ludicrous”, saying, “if people could just pick a race or disability, we would all be up in arms”.
She added that the purpose of the census is to understand what the population is and plan for those demographics. “The census is not there to validate someone’s gender identity.”
Dr Julie Maxwell, an NHS paediatrician, said the change may affect national statistics and health provision. She added that her “biggest fear” is that children do not get “appropriate health services allocated for their needs because of messing around with statistics”.
In Scotland, there was a recent U-turn on the census with a non-binary option being shelved. It followed criticism from politicians who said the consultation process on the question had “serious deficiencies”.
Two Scottish politicians have spoken out about the existential threats to their careers from their own political party for cleaving to their Christian principles.
Dr. Lisa Cameron, a Scottish Member of Parliament (MP) faced deselection for her vote against legalising abortion in Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, an SNP councillor, Chris McEleny of Inverclyde, has claimed party bosses told him to “curtail” his Catholicism if he wanted to be a parliamentary candidate, a claim deny by the Scottish National Party.
Ms Cameron, a clinical psychologist and devout Christian, was one of just two SNP MPs to vote against lifting Northern Ireland’s abortion ban in Britain’s House of Commons in July. After that vote, she said, “the local activists and officials who vet and select candidates said I wasn’t suitable to be an MP for the party because of my views. There were two calls to stand down from my position from local officials”.
Until Saturday, she was the SNP’s only sitting member of the Westminster Parliament not to have been approved as a candidate for the forthcoming general election.
Parents are encountering difficulties opting their children out of religion classes despite a legal right to do so, campaigners have claimed.
Atheist Ireland says it is aware of dozens of cases where parents have been told the subject is a core subject and the right to opt-out should not arise.
One secondary school in Waterford is the subject of a formal complaint from a parent regarding their policy on religious education. However, it says that although religion is “an integral part of our programme”, it accommodates those who wish to opt out. It offers to parents the option of removing their child from the school premises for the duration of religious education. Alternatively, a child may stay within the classroom following an “educationally appropriate activity” but cannot include study or homework.
Meanwhile, a Catholic primary school has made the front pages of the Irish Times for giving out homework passes to students who attend communion choir practice, and none for students who don’t.
A new report detailing China’s crackdown on Christianity was launched in Dublin yesterday, followed by a call on the Irish Government to do more for those persecuted for their faith.
Complied by the advocacy group Church in Chains, it was launched by Dr Bob Fu, a former Christian prisoner in China.
The report documents President Xi Jinping’s “Sinicisation” policy – which aims at the creation of a Chinese version of every religion that conforms with and is subservient to the Chinese Communist Party.
Dr Fu said the persecution has increased dramatically in the last year such that it is now the worst since Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution.
He also called on the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, to specifically raise the matter of Christian persecution. Speaking to Spirit Radio, Dr Fu said: “We urge the Minister for Foreign Affairs to publicly express concern about the way Christians are being mistreated by the Chinese regime. And we also urge the Irish Government to raise the matter with the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland here. And the Irish Embassy to China to actively engage with the Chinese Government”.
The remains of more than 2,200 medically-preserved aborted foetuses have been discovered at the home of a former abortion doctor who died last week.
Police said they were contacted by an attorney for the family of Dr Ulrich Klopfer on Thursday after they discovered the remains at the former doctor’s home in northeastern Illinois.
Authorities found 2,246 preserved remains, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office, but there was no evidence that medical procedures had been performed at the property.
Klopfer, who died on 3 September, performed hundreds of abortion procedures at a clinic in South Bend, Indiana, over decades.
His license was suspended in 2016 for failing to exercise reasonable patient care and violating documentation requirements, according to local reports.
Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter issued a statement to say he was “horrified” when he learned about the discovery last Friday, September 13th.
“This gruesome news underscores that abortion is not an issue in theory, it is an issue of life and death for unborn baby girls and boys. To think of these children being preserved, for whatever purposes, is simply sickening. This discovery opens a flood of questions that must be answered.”
He added: “We cannot just shake our heads at the horror of this discovery, and then walk away. The time for investigation is now.”
