Three leading internet search engine companies have agreed to block ads promoting sex-selection abortions in India in an effort to assist with that country’s fight against ‘gendercide’. After an initial reluctance – until threatened by India’s Supreme Court – Microsoft (which owns the search engine Bing), Google and Yahoo have agreed to block searches based on 22 key words which will have the effect of denying access to abortion providers advertising sex-selective terminations. The rate of abortions based on gender in India is now at epidemic levels, with figures from 2011 revealing that there are 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under age 7 – the most unbalanced gender ratios in the world.

Poland’s Parliament is set to consider a new Bill towards tightening the nation’s abortion laws. While current legislation allows for termination in cases of rape and incest, where the life or ‘health’ of the mother is at risk, or in cases of severe foetal deformity, the new Bill proposes to forbid abortion except when the mother’s life is in danger.  Mariusz Dzierżawski, the head of Poland’s Stop Abortion committee, said 58% of Poles backed the proposed new law, adding that it was necessary because “about 1,000 unborn children are legally killed in Poland each year”. He added: “Being suspected of having Down’s syndrome is enough to be killed. It must change.” In the UK the vast majority of the country’s 180,000 abortions annually take place on the so-called ‘health’ ground.

For the first time in Belgium, a minor has died by assisted suicide. The youth, described in reports as a terminally ill 17-year-old became the first to successfully gain permission to seek death by physician assisted suicide since Belgium removed age restrictions two years ago. Belgium is currently the only country where assisted suicide legislation has no lower age limit for the procedure. Neighbouring Netherlands has a limit to 12 years of age. Elsewhere, patients must be 18 years of age. Under the terms of Belgium’s no-limit arrangement, a child seeking assisted suicide must be experiencing unbearable suffering through a terminal illness and make repeated requests for the procedure.

A US Bishop has criticised claims made by the chair of the country’s Commission on Civil Rights that religious freedom is an excuse to discriminate. In a statement, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore said of the claims made by Martin Castro: “Statements painting those who support religious freedom with the broad brush of bigotry are reckless and reveal a profound disregard for the religious foundations of his own work.” He further commented that the notion that people of faith are “comparable to fringe segregationists from the civil rights era” was a “shocking suggestion.” Mr Castro had made his contentious comments as part of the commission’s launch of its annual report Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Non-discrimination Principles With Civil Liberties.

Religion contributes more to the US economy than tech giants Facebook, Google and Apple combined, a new study – extract here – has found. According to a report in The Washington Post, researchers at Georgetown University examined ways in which religion contributes financially – churches, hospitals, schools, charities and even gospel musicians and halal food makers – to find a staggering $378 billion benefit to the economy. The figure does not include the spending surge prompted by the Christmas period. The largest portion of that $378 billion comes from faith-based health-care systems. Religious groups run many of the hospitals in the United States; Catholic health systems alone reportedly account for 1 in 6 hospital beds in the country.

Pope Francis has described as “a martyr” Fr Jacques Hamel, the elderly French priest murdered in his church by Islamist terrorists. At a Mass offered for the late cleric, the Pontiff said: “Today there are Christians murdered, tortured, imprisoned, and slaughtered because they do not deny Jesus Christ. In this history, we come to our Père Jacques. He is part of this chain of martyrs…Father Jacques Hamel had his throat slit on the Cross, precisely as he was celebrating the Sacrifice of the Cross of Christ. A good man, meek, fraternal, who always sought to make peace, was murdered as if he were a criminal.” The Pope went on to state that “to kill in the name of God is satanic”. The Pope’s description of Fr Hamal as a martyr has strengthened the belief that the priest will ultimately be canonised.

Former sex workers have called for the Government to criminalise the purchase of sex. As part of the Turn Off the Red Light campaign, which sees 70 organisations lobbying for the passage of the Criminal Justice (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015, a group of women who had previously worked in prostitution met with legislators to explain how enforcement of the Bill would tackle the sex trade by penalising buyers, as is the practice in Sweden and other Nordic countries.

Turn Off The Red Light estimates that on any given day, between 800 and 1,000 women, men and children in Ireland are advertised online for sex. It says that between 87% and 98% of them are migrant women and many are from impoverished backgrounds.

Scientists in Britain have reportedly found a way to create ‘motherless children’ following experimentation involving DNA from two men. While the building blocks of life naturally arise from sperm and egg, researchers believe they have found a method by which embryos could be created from any cells in the human body. Thus far, scientists have created mice from early experiments and will now look to using human skin cells. The experiments raise the possibility of single men and gay couples having their own children through sharing DNA, though at this point a woman would still be required to act as a surrogate for the developing infant.

The Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio in Texas has condemned the publication of a full-page ad in a daily newspaper claiming that “public funding for abortion is a Catholic social justice value”. In a statement reacting to the Catholics for Choice ad in the San Antonio Express-News, the archdiocese said it “misrepresents the truth and what the Catholic Church believes and teaches”. “This misrepresentation is demonstrated by their statement that ‘Public funding for abortion is a Catholic social justice value,’” the statement continued. “Nothing could be further from the truth…It is our hope that one day Catholics for Choice will take the time to acquaint themselves with basic Catholic teachings, and acknowledge the truth of the Catholic faith, and not choose to misrepresent her teachings with false and inaccurate information and ads that only work to confuse and mislead the public.”