French authorities are to ban the wearing in school of abaya dresses, which are long and loose-fitting and worn by some Muslim women, the education minister has said, arguing the garment violated France’s strict secular laws in education.

A law of March 2004 banned “the wearing of signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation” in schools.

This includes large crosses, Jewish kippas and Islamic headscarves.

Unlike headscarves, abayas occupied a grey area and had faced no outright ban until now.

“It will no longer be possible to wear an abaya at school,” education minister Gabriel Attal told TF1 television, saying he would give “clear rules at the national level” to school heads ahead of the return to classes nationwide from September 4.

“Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school,” Mr Attal said, describing the abaya as “a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must constitute.

“You enter a classroom, you must not be able to identify the religion of the students by looking at them,” he said.

Thousands of Muslims in a city in Pakistan have set fire to at least four churches and vandalised the homes of multiple Christians over claims that two men desecrated the Quran, police say.

Residents said up to a dozen buildings connected to churches in Jaranwala, in eastern Punjab, were also damaged.

Police have detained more than 100 protestors and launched an investigation into the violence.

Authorities say the situation remains tense, but say no deaths were reported.

Police have also filed a case against two local Christian residents for violation of the blasphemy law, which carries the death sentence.

Even though Pakistan has yet to sentence anyone to death for blasphemy, a mere accusation can result in widespread riots, causing lynchings and killings.

The US Food and Drug Administration must restore critical safeguards for chemical abortion drugs and disallow their shipment by post, according to a US Court of Appeals, a practice that also takes place in Ireland.

Four medical associations and four doctors experienced in caring for pregnant and post-abortive women had taken up the case.

“The 5th Circuit rightly required the FDA to do its job and restore crucial safeguards for women and girls, including ending illegal mail-order abortions,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley, who argued the case before the court.

“The FDA will finally be made to account for the damage it has caused to the health of countless women and girls and the rule of law by unlawfully removing every meaningful safeguard from the chemical abortion drug regimen. The FDA’s unprecedented and unlawful actions did not reflect scientific judgment but rather revealed politically driven decisions to push a dangerous drug regimen without regard to women’s health or the rule of law. This is a significant victory for the doctors and medical associations we represent and, more importantly, the health and safety of women,” she said.

For years the communist nation had a controversial “one-child” policy that involved forced abortions and sterilisations. Once authorities realised that the rate of population growth was falling precipitously, they reversed the policy, but the momentum against child-bearing appears irreversible.

The latest fertility rate figure, which indicates the number of births per woman, is likely to rattle authorities.

The state-backed Daily said that the figure from the Population and Development Research Centre means that China now has the lowest fertility level among nations with a population of more than 100m.

It already ranks as one of the world’s least fertile countries alongside South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

This year, China’s population shrank for the first time since 1961, when there was a widespread famine caused by ‘the Great Leap Forward’.

The falling fertility rate and aging population have prompted the authorities to implement an array of measures aimed at lifting the birth rate, including financial incentives and improved childcare facilities.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0816/1400079-china-fertility-falling/

Irish families continue to fly to war-torn Ukraine to avail of commercial surrogacy despite repeated pleas from the Government not to do so. Ukraine is one of the only countries in Europe that allows commercial surrogacy, but even they are considering legislation to outlaw international visitors from using it.

It is understood a small number of families — about 20 — are engaged in the process, with some having embryos stored in the war-torn country and at least one couple being in Ukraine.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs said any travel to Ukraine was advised against due to the ongoing war with Russia. The department said part of the reason people were asked not to travel is due to limits on the ability of the Irish State to provide consular assistance to those in Ukraine.

Fine Gael senator Mary Seery Kearney who is promoting legislation to legalise surrogacy in Ireland said her first advice was not to travel to the country. She added there are “other countries which do international surrogacy and the embryos can be shipped there”.

Ukraine has signalled it may end the practice of foreign surrogacy. President Voldomyr Zelenskyy’s government has drafted a piece of legislation that would outlaw the use of international surrogacy through Ukraine.

That move was followed by Georgia, which in June moved to do the same.

Pro-life groups cannot be arrested for chalking a pro-life message on a footpath while other groups are allowed to write other political messages, according to a US court ruling.

A lawsuit was filed after Washington, D.C., officials clamped down on the pro-life speech even though the city allowed other groups to paint messages on the city’s streets.

“Washington officials can’t censor messages they disagree with. The right to free speech is for everyone, and we’re pleased the D.C. Circuit agreed that the Frederick Douglass Foundation and Students for Life should be able to exercise their constitutionally protected freedom to peacefully share their views the same as anyone else,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley.

In June 2020, the D.C. mayor commissioned a mural reading “Black Lives Matter” in permanent yellow paint. Protestors quickly added their “Defund the Police” message to the mural and painted other permanent protest art on D.C. streets and private property. The city left these favored messages in place for months. Yet when pro-life groups sought to use chalk to display a different message—“Black Pre-Born Lives Matter”—on a public street outside of the D.C. Planned Parenthood facility, police arrested them.

The number of new cases seeking judicial intervention in the care of a child has increased by 46 per cent since 2019, new figures show.

Last year judges made care-related orders in respect of 14,985 incoming cases, a rise of 4,694 from four years prior and a rise of 791 since 2021.

New data from the Courts Service record consecutive annual rises since 2019 (the oldest available comparable year) in the number of new childcare cases.

The vast majority of the requests came before the District Court, but 71 were brought to the High Court.

Last year, the courts granted 201 emergency care orders sought by Tusla — the Child and Family Agency — for the removal of a child still at home or who was removed by gardaí. That was down from 233 the year before.

About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data.

The largest increases were seen in older adults. Deaths rose nearly 7pc in people ages 45 to 64, and more than 8pc in people 65 and older. White men, in particular, have very high rates, the CDC said.

Commenting on the news, sociologist Brad Wilcox pointed to family breakdown as a cause: “Dramatic declines in marriage, childbearing & community mean millions of Americans are disconnected from the social ties that protect us from ultimate act of hopelessness, he said.

Nearly 180,000 women got the morning-after pill or other ’emergency contraception’ on free drugs schemes during the past three years at a cost of nearly €15.5m, figures have revealed. The morning-after pill can have an abortifacient effect.

More than 60pc of those who availed of the morning-after pill were medical card holders, while 28pc received drugs and devices under the Drugs Payment Scheme (DPS). The remaining patients qualified under the Free Contraception Scheme.

Meanwhile, the Government faces growing pressure to roll out paid fertility leave for workers as it prepares to launch its first free IVF scheme next month. IVF works for only around 25pc of those who use it and costs about €5,000 per cycle in Ireland.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has announced full funding for one round of IVF or ICSI treatment from September.

A Department of Children spokesperson did not give a direct response when asked if new laws to entitle workers to statutory leave are being considered.

Due to the lack of a statutory entitlement, the Labour Party drafted a bill that includes a provision for up to 10 days’ leave for those seeking IVF treatment.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/calls-for-government-to-offer-fertility-leave-for-employees-undergoing-ivf/a414978123.html

There will be no requirement to give medical care to neo-nates who survive abortions in New Zealand after MPs rejected a special amendment to legislation.

The move came after news from Australia that 700 babies have been born alive and left to die after failed abortions in Queensland and Victoria from 2010 to 2020, according to data from Queensland Health, and Victoria’s Consultative Council on Obstetrics and Pediatric Mortality.

In New Zealand, National MP Simon O’Connor put forward to a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to amend Labour’s extreme Abortion Legislation Act 2020 that would have made it a legal requirement to provide “appropriate care and treatment” to a baby born alive after a failed abortion in NZ.

This proposed amendment was put forward to ensure that the question of what to do when babies are born alive after failed abortions in New Zealand was put beyond all legal doubt.

Simon O’Connor’s amendment was voted down by 80 to 37. Those who voted against the amendment included Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister.