Cardinal Vincent Nichols has decried the “deeply flawed process” to legalise assisted suicide as a bill makes its way through the UK Parliament.
Catholics have a “principled objection” to the change in law as every human life is sacred, said Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster.
But he added that there is a fundamental duty to ensure that legislation is “properly scrutinised”.
He said the Bill would “fundamentally change” many of the key relationships in the way of life in Britain, “within the family, between doctor and patient, within the health service.”
“Yet there has been no Royal Commission or independent inquiry ahead of its presentation. It is a Private Member’s Bill. The Bill itself is long and complex and was published just days before MPs voted on it, giving them inadequate time to consult or reflect upon it. The time for debate was minimal. The Committee examining the Bill took only three days of evidence: Not all voices were heard, and it comprises an undue number of supporters of the Bill. In short, this is no way to legislate on such an important and morally complex issue,” the cardinal said.
The Trump administration has warned the UK Government that it is closely “monitoring” the case of a pro-life campaigner who is being prosecuted for carrying out a peaceful protest near an abortion clinic.
The 64-year-old was charged with infringing a public spaces protection order after holding her sign reading “here to talk” near an abortion facility in Bournemouth, which breached a designated buffer zone. A similar law exists in Ireland.
The US State Department took the unusual step of issuing a statement expressing concern about her treatment.
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, & Labour (DRL) said, “US-UK relations share a mutual respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms”.
“However, as Vice-President Vance has said, we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.
“While recently in the UK, DRL senior adviser Sam Samson met with Livia Tossici-Bolt, who faces criminal charges for offering conversation within a legally prohibited ‘buffer zone’ at an abortion clinic.
“We are monitoring her case. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.”
A new study claims that by stressing themes of marriage and family during 16 visits to the region between 1979 and 1996, St. John Paul II was responsible for boosting fertility rates across Latin America, resulting in a quarter-million extra births.
The University of Notre Dame research finds that in the two to five years following each of those trips, an additional 220,000 to 251,000 births occurred in the 13 countries analyzed in the study.
The results also suggest that the measurable impact of his teachings was actually greatest in non-Catholic, wealthy and highly educated households. Effects were also greater in countries secularized more recently.
The paper, titled “Religion and Demography: Papal Influences on Fertility,” argues that beyond the usual economic and cultural reasons given for falling fertility rates across the world since the 1950s, social norms and, specifically, religious values also can play a role.
The outcome suggests that pro-family papal messaging helped cut against over the overall dramatic decline in fertility rates on the continent, which fell from an average of 5.9 births per woman in 1960 to 2.2 in 2010. In many Latin American countries the fertility rate has now gone well below the replacement level of 2.1.
Supreme Court justices from across the ideological spectrum expressed deep concern yesterday about the denial of a state tax exemption for a Catholic charity on the grounds that the nonprofit is not “operated primarily for religious purposes.”
At issue is whether religious freedom extends only to bodies engaged in worship and converting people, or whether it includes a church’s charitable works such as feeding the poor without any requirement to believe or convert.
Defending the narrow interpretation, attorney Colin T. Roth told the justices Wisconsin State limits religious exemptions to those organisations engaged in “distinctively religious activities like worship, ritual, teaching the faith, or spreading a religious message.”
But religious liberty scholars backing Catholic Charities told the justices in a court filing that the Wisconsin Supreme Court “has told Roman Catholics that two commands of their religion are not religious at all — to serve those in need, and to do so regardless of whether those in need adhere to the same religious beliefs”.
During oral arguments on Monday a majority of Judges, including Obama-appointee, Elena Kagan, appeared ready to back the expansive definition of what counts as religious and is entitled to religious exemptions.
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has issued a call for Canada to roll back its expansion of euthanasia, or “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD).
The Committee says Track 2 MAiD, which is for people with disabilities whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable, is “based on negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities,” and warns it is having disproportionate effects on marginalised Canadians.
The news has been welcomed by Canadian groups.
Rebecca Vachon, Program Director for Cardus Health, said the committee rightly noted that MAiD lacks federal oversight and that it been expanded in Canada without enough consultation with Indigenous communities or adequate protections and supports for people living with disabilities.
Krista Carr, CEO of Inclusion Canada, said the UN “is clear that our country must do better in upholding the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities”.
A parliamentary bill that would unleash medically assisted suicide on England and Wales might not be implemented for another four years amid growing concerns about the proposed system.
It was originally thought that the bill might take two years to implement, but Member of Parliament (MP) Kim Leadbeater, sponsor of the bill, said the delay might be as long as four.
Her spokesperson said the bill now contains even stronger safeguards than when it was first tabled, with a new judge-led voluntary assisted dying commission and multidisciplinary panels to examine every application and this would delay the process.
However, the bill has been mired in controversy with prominent media outlets calling for it to be abandoned.
The Times editorialised: “The thankless task of scrutinising this sinister and half-baked proposal has fallen to a few brave MPs on the committee … Thanks to them its flaws have been fatally exposed. It remains only to administer the coup de grace and kill this bill.”
The natural increase in population in the third quarter of last year, that is births over deaths, was almost half what it had been ten years ago, according to the latest figures from the CSO.
Births exceeded deaths by 5,243 in Q3 2024, which was down by 48.6% when compared with the same period in 2014.
There were 39 fewer births registered in Quarter 3 (Q3) 2024 compared with Q3 2023, or a fall of 0.3% to 13,809 births.
The Total Period Fertility Rate (TPFR) was 1.5 which was below the replacement level of 2.1. That’s down significantly from ten years ago when the TPFR stood at 1.9.
A large cohort of people never returned to regular religious worship since the Covid lockdowns, new figures from the CSO show.
Of those who regularly attended religious ceremonies in person prior to March 2020, more than half (55%) still regularly attend in-person, 8% say they only attend online, while more than one-third (37%) say they no longer frequent religious ceremonies on a regular basis.
Older respondents are most likely to still attend religious ceremonies either in person or online. Nearly seven in ten (69%) respondents aged 70 and over who attended religious ceremonies in person before the onset of the pandemic say they still regularly attend in person while one in eight (12%) of those in this age group opt to attend online instead. Conversely, two-thirds (67%) of younger respondents, i.e. those aged 18-29, say they no longer attend religious ceremonies regularly in any form. Three in ten (31%) say they still attend in person with only 2% saying they attend online.
Two cases alleging that an unborn baby was wrongly diagnosed with a so-called “fatal foetal abnormality” leading to an abortion have been lodged with the State Claims Agency.
The parents allege they received the incorrect pre-natal finding that the foetus had a condition likely to lead to a death in utero or within 28 days of birth. This is because of the inaccuracy of some of the screening tests.
The number of babies wrongly diagnosed and then aborted could be much higher because many parents might not have had their children tested again for a genetic abnormality post-abortion.
Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill was responding to a question from Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín who commented that he was not surprised. He said that Aontú was calling on the minister “to examine all notifications of abortions she has received – as mandated under section 20 of the Act – to ensure that the law is being adhered to. It is extremely worrying to learn that there are multiple cases of abortion following misdiagnosis”.
Hungary’s fertility declined starkly last year reaching a low of 1.38, down from a figure of 1.51 in 2023, according to preliminary data from the country’s Central Statistical Office (KSH).
A rate of 2.1 is needed for a population to sustain itself.
Annual births dropped to a historic low of 77,500, a decline of 9.1pc, or 7,725 fewer than the previous year.
Marriages also declined with only 46,550 couples tying the knot in 2024, down 7.2pc or, 3,589 compared with 2023.
The figures come despite years of extensive tax and economic benefits designed to encourage child-bearing.
Despite the apparent failure, the Government has doubled down on the policy by announcing new laws under which mothers with one child will be exempt from income tax until they turn 30, while those with two or more children will pay no income tax for life.
Mothers with four or more children are already totally tax exempt.
