Northern Ireland’s newly issued abortion guidelines will “make doctors more conscious of their obligations” and make procuring a termination harder, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has said. The new rules, SPUC, added clear up the ambiguity of the previous ones where abortion as a legal option was “open to a wide spectrum of interpretation”.
Christians in the Islamic State stronghold city of Raqqa are being prevented from leaving and are now forced to study Islam, an observer group has revealed. It is believed that there are 43 Christian families remaining in Raqqa, having survived thus far by paying the non-Muslim tax levied by Islamic State.
A Christian man in Britain whose role as a magistrate was terminated by the Lord Chancellor after he expressed support for adoption by traditional family units over same-sex couples has now been removed from a National Health Service Trust where he held a non-executive position. Richard Page has been informed the NHS he is suspended while the body “considers whether it is in the interests of the health service” for him to remain in his post.
Christian groups in Northern Ireland have welcomed newly published guidelines on abortion which offer no change in laws regulating terminations there. Despite some concerns over the affording of a more liberal approach to interpreting the new guidelines, issued in the wake of a legal challenge, both the Christian public policy charity CARE and the Evangelical Alliance have expressed support for them.
The US state of Georgia has vetoed a bill aimed at protecting the religious freedom of groups unwilling to facilitate same-sex weddings. The ‘Pastor Protection Act’ fell after major corporations such as Disney, and leading Hollywood figures said they would boycott the state if the bill was passed. The failure of the bill now opens the door to legal actions against individuals and groups opposed to same-sex unions on the grounds of faith.
A student union in Australia has threatened to de-register a Christian grouping for students because it believes the group’s requirement that members accept the divinity of Jesus Christ amounts to discrimination. The University of Sydney’s student union has demanded that the on-campus Evangelical Union drop this requirement by the end of March or be barred from the campus.
