A new report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has revealed that religious freedom around the world is under a “serious and sustained assault”, citing both state and non-state actors for a deterioration of religious rights. “From the plight of new and longstanding prisoners of conscience, to the dramatic rise in the numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, to the continued acts of bigotry against Jews and Muslims in Europe… there was no shortage of attendant suffering worldwide,” the report states.
The teen birth rate in the United States is at its lowest level in nearly 75 years, while teen abortion rates are falling steadily, a major new research project has revealed. Undertaken by the Pew Research Centre, the report details the falling birth rate since records began in the 1940s to a low of 25 teen births per 1,000 females in 2014 from a high of 96 per thousand in 1957. Meanwhile, the abortion rate, once at 40.3 per 1,000 in 1990, currently stands at 16.3 per 1,000. The report acknowledges that some of the decline is linked to modern contraceptive medication and abortion, but also that fewer teens are having sex or marrying young.
The American Civil Liberties Union has joined with the largest abortion provider in the United States in a legal action aimed at forcing the state of Indiana to repeal newly enacted legislation to protect unborn children with Down Syndrome. The new law was signed in March by Governor Mike Pence and contains a host of protective measures including the requirement for abortion facilities to annually renew hospital admitting privileges. In addition to Down Syndrome, the law bans abortion based on race and gender.
The Catholic Church’s education chief in Scotland has warned that a vote for the Green Party in forthcoming elections is a vote to close Catholic schools. Michael McGrath, director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service, said the party wanted to “close schools, and end Catholic schools in Scotland”. “They don’t want Catholic schools and it’s important the electorate know that voting Green means you’re voting to end Catholic schools,” he said. The Greens have acknowledged that they desire greater integration of the Catholic and non-denominational sectors in Scottish schools.
A leading priest-sociologist has accused anti-Catholic media commentators of damaging public opinion towards the Church. Speaking to The Irish Catholic newspaper, Fr Micheál Mac Gréil SJ said he believed that “proselytising is now not on the side of religion but on the side of atheism and humanism. People are becoming compulsively alienated to what they were in the past and they are transmitting that alienation to others”, he said. He was speaking ahead of Census 2016.
The “glaring inequalities” evident in faith school funding must be addressed by the incoming government, an education chief has stressed. Faith schools in the second-level sector receive less funding per capita than non-faith schools. Speaking to The Irish Catholic newspaper, John Curtis, General Secretary of the Joint Managerial Body, said that previous administrations had gotten education “on the cheap” due to the input of the Church in the sector. “It is a bit of a concern that the amount of money as a society we spend on education would be less than in most developed countries,” he said.
The Netherland’s Health Minister, Edith Schippers, has announced public funding for research into the viability of offering euthanasia to children in the country. The move comes following a request last year from the Dutch Association of Pediatricians for the decriminalisation of so-called ‘mercy killing’ of children between one and 12 years.
A same-sex couple has won a custody battle in Thailand for a surrogate baby born to a woman who changed her mind on the arrangement when she discovered the couple was gay. The Bangkok Family Court ruled that US-born Gordon Lake, the biological father, has legitimate guardianship of the child, which was born before Thailand banned commercial surrogacy. Thailand does not recognise same-sex marriage.
The Catholic Bishops of Northern Ireland have told Catholic voters ahead of the Assembly Election there that “the social and moral teaching of the Church is clear, that it is never morally acceptable to support any policy that undermines the sacred inviolability of the right to life of an innocent person in any circumstances”. They make the comment in a Pastoral Reflection on the forthcoming elections. The document offers 10 questions “which Catholics are encouraged to ask candidates who are standing in the Assembly elections”.
Lord David Steel, the British former MP who introduced the Abortion Act in 1967 has described Northern Ireland’s ongoing protection of the unborn as “simply ridiculous”. The peer was speaking during an interview to mark the 48th anniversary of the Abortion Act. Criticising Northern Ireland politicians for what he claimed is discrimination against women, Lord Steel said: “I think they’ve got to face up to the fact the law in Northern Ireland is simply ridiculous…It is time they came up at least to 1967, if not to 2016.” When David Steele introduced his Bill in 1967 he admitted later he never anticipated it would pave the way to almost 200,000 abortions in the UK each year.
