A judge in the US state of Mississippi has struck down a law which offers protection for those who, through religious belief, object to participating in same-sex marriage ceremonies. The Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act was signed into law in April to allow judges and clerks of deeply held beliefs to opt out of such ceremonies, but after a legal challenge mounted by the American Civil Liberties Union, District Judge Carlton Reeves set the legislation aside one day before it was due to come into effect. Reacting to the judgement, the state’s Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves said: “I hope the state’s attorneys will quickly appeal this decision…to protect the deeply held religious beliefs of all Mississippians.”

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has agreed to afford ministers a free vote on abortion. Just days after insisting on “collective Cabinet responsibility” on the forthcoming Bill on legislating for terminations due to so-called ‘fatal foetal abnormalites’, Mr Kenny said he is prepared to allow Independent ministers their demanded free vote. The move now allows Cabinet members Shane Ross and Finian McGrath, as well as junior minister John Halligan, to vote in favour of the Bill. The rest of the Cabinet will vote against. The row over voting comes despite advice from the Attorney General, Máire Whelan, that the abortion Bill is unconstitutional.

Brothels should be legalised in England and Wales, a parliamentary group has said. The Home Affairs Committee has called for legislative change in the area of prostitution, urging both an end to the criminalising of prostitutes and the relaxing of laws around brothels, in line with similar moves undertaken in New Zealand. However, the move has been criticised by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) which said decriminalising prostitution “empowers” the people who exploit them. The group pointed out that the New Zealand changes had done nothing to stem the flow of trafficked women, a trade which is still “thriving”.

A Christian dating website in the United States must allow for same-sex relationship searches, a judge has ruled. To now, ChristianMingle.com required users to specify if they were a man seeking a woman, or a woman seeking a man. This position was challenged by two gay men who filed a legal challenge in California, where Spark Networks Inc., the owners of ChristianMingle, has its headquarters. The pair argued that the limited search criteria breached discrimination legislation in the state. A judge agreed with that argument and ordered that all sites owned and operated by Sparks broaden their accessibility to include same-sex relationship searches.

Twenty-six terminations were carried out in Ireland in 2015, newly released figures have shown. Compiled by the Department of Health, the figures report that three women were granted abortions on risk of suicide grounds, 14 terminations were based on risk to life posed by a physical illness and nine terminations for cases of immediate medical emergency. The Department’s report, the second annual gathering of termination figures since legislation on the issue – the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act – reveals similar termination figures to the first report.

A Catholic nursing home in Belgium has been fined by a court for refusing to offer residents euthanasia. The ruling stemmed from a case taken by the family of a resident who requested euthanasia under Belgian law in 2011, but was refused on the grounds of the home’s ethos. However, the court in Louvain ruled that that “the nursing home did not have the right to refuse euthanasia on the grounds of conscientious objection” and fined the home €6 in “moral damages”. While the fine was a tiny amount, the ruling is, however, of major significance for religious-backed institutions, which are now effectively debarred from conscientious objection to euthanasia.

It has been reported that more women in Britain are using abortion as a form of birth control after figures showed that 4,905 women in 2015 had procured at least their fourth abortion. The figures were gained by a daily newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act and add to an earlier finding this year made by The Daily Telegraph that older women are turning in increasing numbers to abortion as an accepted method of birth control. Over the last decade in Britain, abortion rates have fallen in all age categories except for women in their 30s and 40s.

Independent members of the Cabinet are continuing to press for a free vote on abortion. TDs are expected to vote this week on TD Mick Wallace’s Bill to allow for abortion on grounds of ‘fatal foetal abnormality’ even though the Attorney General has said the Bill is unconstitutional. But Independent TDs still insist that a free vote is necessary on the issue, with junior jobs minister John Halligan stating that anything less is “unacceptable”.  A number of Independents have already signaled their backing for the Bill, arguing that there is nothing in the Programme for Government to prevent them in this.

 The Supreme Court in Mexico has ruled against legalising abortion in the country. In a three to one ruling, justices opted to maintain the current law that protects the unborn except in cases of rape or where there is a threat to the life of the mother. The justices further ruled that a proposal on the abortion issue should be drawn up for a national debate. Though abortion is legal in Mexico City up to three months, across the country a woman procuring an abortion can face criminal charges in 18 of the 31 states.