The last three remaining CASA abortion clinics in the Netherlands closed their doors for good this week. The abortion chain which operated seven clinics in the Netherlands was revealed to be involved in extensive fraud in a landmark investigation earlier this year. CASA clinics, which are responsible for nearly half of the 31,000 abortions carried out in the Netherlands each year, are alleged to have committed fraud worth a massive €15 million to date. The clinics have been accused of irregular billing practices for public subsidies, including claims for deep sedation and overall anesthesia that were never performed.

The bankruptcy of the abortion chain means women are having to wait longer and travel longer distances for an abortion. Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Maastricht no longer have a specialist unit. Women are now travelling to Roermond, Utrecht and Groningen for the operation as waiting lists double to up to two weeks in places.

PS. The linked article says that the rate of “abortion compared to live pregnancies” is 8.6. That’s is not correct.     8.6 is the number of abortions per 1000 women of fertile age.   The number of abortion per 1000 pregnancies is 181.2.

The UK Parliament is set to pass a law that will enable single people become the legal parent of a child born through surrogacy. The right of a child to a mother and father will not be considered. The practice of surrogacy in the UK is legal but there are some restrictions. Surrogacy contracts cannot be enforced, so in the UK, as also in Ireland, the woman bearing the child is the legal mother at birth (and her partner the father, if she is married or in a civil partnership) and remains so unless and until she signs away all rights over the child. This occurs when those who contracted the surrogacy apply to a court for a parental order which requires the consent of the birth mother. If the Court grants the order, the parental rights of the birth mother are extinguished, legal parenthood is transferred, the existing birth cert destroyed and a new birth certificate, reflecting the new legal parents, is drawn up. Currently, however, only couples may apply for parental orders, so even though single men or single women could arrange a private surrogacy, they may be denied legal parentage after the fact. This happened to a single man in 2016, who was refused a parental order because he was single, but the High Court decided that this law was discriminatory and in breach of the European Convention on human rights. In a comment that entirely overlooked the child’s natural parentage, Sir James Munby, president of the family division, explained the importance of having the correct legal parent(s): “Section 54 goes to the most fundamental aspects of status and, transcending even status, to the very identity of the child as a human being: who he is and who his parents are… A parental order has an effect extending far beyond the merely legal. It has the most profound personal, emotional, psychological, social and, it may be in some cases, cultural and religious, consequences.”

In response to that judgement, parliament is now set to give single people equal rights as couples in claiming legal parentage of the children they have acquired through their private surrogacy contracts.

The Irish Catholic Bishops have expressed their concern about repealing the pro-life amendment from the Constitution as its removal would have “no effect other than to expose unborn children to greater risk”. In a statement released after their winter meeting, the bishops appealed to each member of the Oireachtas to consider “how society can best respond to the personal needs of women within a legal and constitutional framework which acknowledges the right to life of the unborn, together with the equal right to life of the mother”. The Bishops affirmed that “Article 40.3.3 has a particular vision based on respect for the life of every person and that its removal can have no effect other than to expose unborn children to greater risk”. The bishops said that every human life has sanctity and innate dignity from conception to natural death and this is a value that is rooted in reason as well as faith and should be capable of being embraced by all in society.

Midwives all across Australia have rejected a draft new code of practice that replaced references to “woman-centred care” with “person-centred care”. The new code was proposed by the country’s Nursing and Midwifery board, but submissions flooded in from the profession, academics and individuals, rejecting the change, and forcing the board to reverse itself. Midwifery professor Mary Steen said “Midwife means with woman,” and added, “The woman is at the centre of a midwife’s scope of practice, which is based on the best available evidence to provide the best care and support to meet individual women’s health and wellbeing needs.” Dr Caroline Homer, from the Centre for Midwifery at Sydney’s University of Technology, wrote that, “Person-centred care also removes the woman from the central role in her child-bearing experience and renders her invisible”.

Australian College of Midwives spokeswoman Sarah Stewart acknowledged there were “individual instances” of people who were physically female but identified as male, but added “I personally feel at this stage the absolute, vast majority of people we care for are women”. She said midwifery has to be about women, as otherwise, “we lose women’s identity — that fundamental essence”.

“Women are struggling to have their voices heard enough as it is. It’s another chip at women’s identity”.

The Pro-Life Campaign has asked abortion committee Chairman, Senator Catherine Noone, to identify which witnesses were not pro-women’s health in comments she made on Sunday. Responding to criticism that the committee initially issued invitations to 24 pro-abortion advocates and only four pro-life witnesses, Senator Noone rejected the description and said the vast majority of witnesses were “pro-female health” and that “this pro-life and pro-choice polarising argument needs to become more nuanced in this debate.”

In response, Cora Sherlock of the Pro Life Campaign said: “Ms Noone says the vast majority of witnesses were simply ‘pro-female health’. This implies she thinks some of the witnesses were not pro-women’s health. Would she care to name who they might be? Will she clarify that it’s not pro-life witnesses she is referring to?” Ms Sherlock further questioned why numerous experts on the adverse effects of abortion on women were rejected: “When Senator Noone talks about inviting witnesses that were ‘pro-female health’, how come the committee never intentionally set aside any time to seriously look at all the peer reviewed evidence that clearly points to adverse after effects of abortion for women. Is Senator Noone suggesting the more than ten international pro-abortion groups and individuals her committee invited at taxpayers’ expense fit in with her definition of ‘leading health professionals’?” Ms Sherlock concluded with a damning assessment of the committee: “Irrespective of what Senator Noone says, the tragedy remains that this committee will be remembered as one of the most skewed and incurious committees ever to convene in the houses of the Oireachtas.”

A pro-life conference has been told that any liberalisation of the country’s abortion laws would inevitably lead to a radically liberal regime equivalent to that of the UK. Lord David Alton, a long-time anti-abortion campaigner and a member of the British House of Lords, said the “law of unintended consequences” which had seen Britain move from a restrictive abortion regime when legislation was introduced 50 years ago to one which sees “an abortion carried out every three minutes” would be replicated in the Republic. “It was a law that was only supposed to be is used in very extreme circumstances but of course it is now an open-ended law and is it has led to massive destruction and loss of life,” he said. His comments were echoed by Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign. “If we were to look at changing any other law we would look and see how it has affected other countries. But when we look at abortion, when you look around the world, what you find is that when you introduce abortion in any way it settles down to generally one in five pregnancies ending in abortion.” She said she had frequently been asked about her preferred wording for a referendum but said “the reality is the wording doesn’t matter to people who want to see the baby protected and mothers protected. Because we have no doubt that when the wording is announced by the Government it will be presented as something very restrictive, very attractive to voters but that’s what happened in England.”