A proposal to oblige religious schools to prioritise locally-based children has emerged as a front-runner in plans to reform the admissions policies of faith based schools reports the Irish Times. At present, publicly funded schools which are oversubscribed may prioritise children of their own faith-community ahead of other children who live closer to the school. A consultation process to consider reforms of this policy was launched by Minister for Education Richard Bruton last January. The options that were examined included allowing schools to favour children of their own religion only when those children live within the school’s catchment area, or when that school is their nearest one; a quota-based system; and an outright ban on using religion as a factor in admissions. The Catholic Primary School Management Association, which represents the boards of management of the more than 2,900 Catholic primary schools, said the catchment-area proposal was the “least problematic” of the options. However, it says reforms to admissions policies will do nothing to alleviate the shortage of school places and only extra school places will remedy this.

Women should be able to have abortions simply because their unborn child is the ‘wrong’ sex, a leading ethics expert at the British Medical Association has said. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Professor Wendy Savage called for the law banning such terminations to be scrapped. Her comments will cause shockwaves as she is an influential member of the BMA’s 18-strong medical ethics committee. They also come amid concerns that British parents are seeking abortions based on the gender of babies – which has led to some NHS hospitals refusing to tell parents-to-be that information. Fears that British women are undergoing abortions based on the gender of their babies have grown since a 2014 study found that Britain had up to 4,700 fewer girls than would be statistically expected. And undercover journalists have secretly filmed doctors appearing to agree to carry out abortions for reasons of gender alone. This led the Department of Health to issue new guidance clarifying the law, which stated: ‘Abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal.’ Pro-life campaigners reacted with dismay and described her demands as ‘utterly abhorrent’. Conservative MP Mark Field said: ‘Suggesting that women should be able to abort babies solely because they happen to be either male or, much more usually, female, is utterly abhorrent. ‘To have someone like Wendy Savage with her extreme views at the heart of the BMA is a very worrying sign. The majority of people in this country, even those who support abortion, think sex-selective abortion is a step too far.’

A pro-choice US Senator has urged her colleagues to reject a nominee to the US Supreme Court because he believes “the intentional taking of a human life by private persons is always wrong.” Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, made the remarks during the first day of Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Although the writings in question regarded euthansia, Senator Feinstein fears the Judge would apply the same principle to life before birth and thereby vote to overturn the Roe v Wade case that made abortion legal throughout the USA. “President Trump repeatedly promised that his judicial nominees would be pro-life, and ‘automatically’ overturn Roe v. Wade,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, said to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Judge Gorsuch has not had occasion to rule directly on a case involving Roe. However, his writings do raise questions. Specifically, he wrote that he believes there are no exceptions to the principle that ‘the intentional taking of a human life by private persons is always wrong.’ This language has been interpreted by both pro-life and pro-choice organizations to mean he would overturn Roe.”

A University in the UK has received permission from the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority to begin creating embryos with three parents. The purpose of creating embryos this way is to attempt to modify them to not have certain genetic diseases. The embryos will have DNA from two mothers and one father, Dr. David A. Prentice, vice president and director of research at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told LifeSiteNews. “The type of technique they’re using actually involves destroying two embryos to then re-combine [their] parts for a third constructed embryo with genetics from two women and one man,” said Prentice. “This technique starts with death of young human embryos.” He added: “They are literally using human beings – creating human beings – as experiments, . . . It’s not experimenting on human beings where you might be doing something to them. They are the experiment. They’re the creation.”

A US Supreme Court Judge has warned that America’s commitment to religious freedom is under attack. Justice Samuel Alito said that the Supreme Court’s decision in 2015 to impose same-sex marriage on all 50 States in the US was already being used to “vilify those who disagree, and treat them as bigots”. While religious freedom has been recognized in Congress and in the courts, there have been numerous, recent cases testing its limits especially as it applies to Government mandates concerning abortion and contraception. “We are likely to see pitched battles in courts and Congress, state legislatures and town halls,” he said. “But the most important fight is for the hearts and minds of our fellow Americans. It is up to all of us to evangelize our fellow Americans about the issue of religious freedom.”