An Australian court has cleared the way for a five-year-old boy to undergo surgery in order to become more female. The parents of the child, identified only as Carla, had argued before the court that their child has always exhibited “stereotypically female” behaviour and never wanted to be referred to as male. The court ruled that Carla’s parents need no permission to arrange surgery for the boy, accepting medical arguments that without it, Carla’s physical and mental health would suffer.
A pro-life television advertisement showing Down’s syndrome children living full and happy lives has been banned in France to ‘protect the consciences’ of women who have undergone an abortion after that foetal diagnosis. The ban, originally imposed on ‘Dear Future Mum’ by the French Broadcasting Council, has now been upheld by the country’s highest court, the Council of State which ruled the advertisement “inappropriate”. Renate Lindeman, spokesperson for Downpride, the international lobby group for people with Down’s said: “Our kids are banned from public television because their happy faces make post-abortion women feel uncomfortable. What’s next? Will kids with Down syndrome be banned from school? Will they be segregated from society and placed in institutions like in the old days, because their presence upsets post-abortion parents?”
A fresh attempt to have the Northern Ireland Assembly legislate for abortion has been introduced at Stormont. The move has been initiated through a Bill tabled by Alliance Party member and former NI justice minister David Ford, who is calling for abortion in cases where an unborn baby is terminally ill. Mr Ford previously tried to have such legislation voted through while serving as Justice Minister. Members of the Legislative Assembly have been lobbied repeatedly since 2013 to introduce abortion in Northern Ireland, an issue last voted on in February of 2016 when the measure was rejected by 59 votes to 40. Mr Ford’s Bill is expected to be examined and debated in 2017 as Stormont brings for its own proposals on abortion, arising from a Belfast High Court ruling of 2015 that the North’s abortion ban may be incompatible with human rights law.
A combination of a growing incidence of cohabitation and increasing age at first marriage is believed to be responsible for divorce rates in Britain reaching a 40-year low. According to a new report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the overall divorce rate has fallen to 9.3 per thousand married males and females, the lowest rate since 1974. The ONS report said: “Changes in attitudes to cohabitation as an alternative to marriage or prior to marriage, particularly at younger ages, are likely to have been a factor affecting the decrease in divorce rates since 2003; levels of cohabitation increased over this period while the married population declined. Age at marriage is also considered to be closely linked to the risk of divorce with those marrying in their teens and early 20s being at greater risk of divorce; our marriage statistics show that the average age at marriage has increased steadily since 1970 for both men and women.”
A massive 300,000-strong petition against any change to abortion laws in Northern Ireland has been presented to the Stormont Assembly. In what is believed to be the largest ever petition on any issue placed before legislators in Northern Ireland, the petition was compiled by the pro-life group Precious Life in answer to an earlier Amnesty International initiative which saw a petition of 45,000 signatures backing wider availability of terminations in the region. Presenting the latest petition, Democratic Unionist MLA Jim Wells pointed out that eight million babies have been aborted in the rest of the United Kingdom since the introduction of the 1967 Abortion Act, and added: “I am absolutely convinced the people of Northern Ireland do not want that law to extend to this part of the United Kingdom.”
A new report in Britain insists that more protections for religious believers are needed in the country. The document, issued by the independent think tank ResPublica, is calling for reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs in any forthcoming legislation on a British Bill of Rights. It goes on to point out that existing rights, once used to bolster diversity in Britain, are now used to “erode difference and enforce a uniform and unwelcome conformity on society”. By way of example, ResPublica highlights the current reality in which the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation trumps that of religious liberty. A truly pluralist society, it argues, should “protect difference and ensure equity between those of different dispositions”.
The Government will refuse to offer the United Nations Human Rights Committee a commitment to altering Ireland’s abortion laws in the wake of an opinion by the Commitee that a woman has suffered “cruel and inhuman treatment” because she could not abort her terminally ill child in Ireland. The State has offered €30,000 to the woman, Amanda Mellet. However, in an expected formal reply to the UN, the Government will give no undertaking to change the law and instead will refer to the ongoing work of the Citizens’ Assembly on the issue and the fact that a constitutional amendment passed in a referendum would be necessary before any legislative change takes place.
Britain’s Prime Minister Teresa May has said that Christians should be able to speak openly of their faith in the workplace. Ms May’s comments came during Prime Minister’s Question Time in Parliament when MP Fiona Bruce raised concerns that Christians are reluctant to mention their faith in public due to a raft of cases in which believers were sanctioned for expressing their beliefs, not least in work settings. In reply, Ms May insisted that Britain has a “very strong tradition” of “religious tolerance and freedom of speech”, and added that the nation’s “Christian heritage is something we can all be proud of”. Agreeing that the ability to “speak freely, respectfully and responsibly about one’s religion” should be a “jealously guarded principle”, she added: “I am sure we would all want to ensure that people at work do feel able to speak about their faith, and also feel able to speak quite freely about Christmas”. The parliamentary exchange follows a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) which criticised organisations which suppress Christianity for fear of causing offence or breaching equality legislation.
