Displaying items by tag: abortion

Adam Smith-Connor has pleaded not guilty to charges related to breaking a local ‘buffer zone’ around an abortion clinic and praying silently outside the medical facility. He was approached by police outside the clinic earlier this year. He thought he would not be prosecuted, as the statutory time-limit for pressing charges had elapsed. At his hearing on 9 August he said, ‘We are standing in the nation of the Magna Carta, the nation which has championed democracy and freedom. We have a history of upholding human rights we can be proud of and a respect for freedom that I fought to uphold when I served this country for twenty years in the army reserves, including in Afghanistan. Yet here I stand before you, being prosecuted for a thought crime.’ His legal team contend that freedom of thought is protected absolutely through the Human Rights Act and therefore, the local council has no power to prohibit silent prayer.

Every week in Australia, babies survive abortions and are left to die without medical assistance or even pain relief because it has been decided by adults that they do not deserve to live. In response to this, three senators have presented a bill to parliament calling for legal protections to ensure that babies born alive after a termination procedure are given the same medical treatment and pain relief as other babies born at the same gestational age and clinical condition. The Australian Christian Lobby has drafted an email to the prime minister and the federal senate, requesting their support for this bill and are encouraging people to add their name to the document.

The Christian legal organisation ADF UK says local authorities fined army veteran Adam Smith-Connor as he ‘stood still and silent’ on a street for a few minutes before being approached by community safety officers. He had his back toward the clinic to be mindful of the privacy of staff and people attending the facility. But a buffer zone preventing prayer in the area of the clinic is established. He told the officers he was praying for his son, who is deceased. He said, ‘Twenty-two years ago I paid for my girlfriend to have an abortion. The consequences of this grieves me years later as I realise I lost my son Jacob to an abortion I had paid for. I stood outside a similar facility and prayed to God for my son Jacob. In my army medical training, I assisted in abortions, but now I pray for those who perform abortions. Adam is challenging the fine.

It is estimated that on 24 September the ten millionth child would have been killed under the Abortion Act.. Last week the media reported that at 14 weeks’ gestation a child can demonstrate their sense of taste. But this child has no meaningful protection in law for another ten weeks. Babies at 23 weeks, which could be delivered and go on to lead healthy lives, can be killed at the mother’s discretion. Leading abortionists would like this to be offered all the way to birth. There are signs of encouragement for pro-life activists. The morals of abortionists like BPAS are being exposed. Fresh young pro-life campaigns are springing up. March for Life UK had record attendance. Each landmark, each record, each year is a painful reminder that we have not come far enough.

The US's overturning of women’s rights to abortion is reverberating globally, with activists on both sides of the debate responding. In 1978 Italy legalised abortion. The current rise of politics, closer to the Catholic church, has brought it back into focus, and the US decision is rumbling in Italy. A former foreign minister said it showed the risk in Italy of moving backwards and ‘losing achievements that seemed permanent’. But on the right, ‘A great victory’, declared Simone Pillon, hoping Italy and Europe would follow suit. In Ireland, America’s ruling triggered a swift, passionate response, stirring deep emotions where abortion was only recently decriminalised. Many vocal Irish campaign groups and activists still exist on both sides. A pro-abortion rights' activist in El Salvador, where abortion is banned in all cases said, ‘This will embolden the most conservative groups in our countries who consistently deny women rights.’ In Canada and India similar loud debates are being discussed in the media, Twitter and online.

Abortion was made legal across the US after a landmark legal ruling in 1973, often referred to as the Roe v Wade case. However, a leaked document claims that the Supreme Court - the nation's most senior legal body - is now in favour of overturning that right. Abortion could instantly become illegal in 22 states. A decision is expected in late June or early July. Currently many states have restrictions such as requiring young pregnant women to involve their parents or a judge in abortion decisions, or waiting periods between the time a woman first visits an abortion clinic and the actual procedure. Sometimes women have to travel across state borders for an abortion and pay more for them. According to the pro-choice movement, poor women are penalised most by these restrictions. There are nine judges on the Supreme Court; six were appointed by Republican (pro-life) presidents.

Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019 after Westminster acted during the absence of devolution. Delays in implementing Northern Ireland's abortion laws have been a ‘deeply troubling exercise in finger-pointing’, a court has heard. Stormont is under pressure to establish a permanent, central abortion service; it has not happened yet and is being challenged in a high court judicial review. The Human Rights Commission is taking the case against the NI Executive, the Department of Health, and the NI secretary Brandon Lewis. Currently health trusts only operate a ‘skeleton service’ for medical abortions up to ten weeks of pregnancy. Women seeking a termination beyond that gestation travel to England. Arlene Foster’s party, which opposes abortion, said that abortion proposals were not going to be passed by the executive or the incoming leader, Edwin Poots.

An open letter from ‘Don’t Screen Us Out’ has been sent to Arlene Foster, Edwin Poots, and other leading politicians. It was written on behalf of people with Down’s syndrome and their families, who are asking for their parties to support a bill which has been introduced to the NI Assembly. The bill seeks to amend the current abortion regulations, to no longer allow unborn babies with a ‘serious foetal impairment’ to be aborted to term. This bill would not amend the law in cases of ‘fatal foetal abnormality’. Currently NI abortion is legal up to birth if the foetus has Down’s syndrome, cleft palate, cleft lip, or club foot. This new bill proposes that non-fatal disabilities should not be grounds for abortion, and the current law is discriminatory against those with such disabilities. 90% of babies diagnosed with Down’s syndrome are aborted.

Over 600 medical professionals signed an open letter to the Prime Minister and the first ministers of Scotland and Wales, calling for the revocation of ‘at home' abortion schemes immediately, becausen of the risks to women's health and welfare. Each government has been in consultations whether to make the temporary policy permanent. Carla Lockhart MP said that the permissions granted by the Government without adequate parliamentary and public scrutiny have put women's physical and mental health at risk. 7% of British women reported being pressured into an abortion by a husband or partner. It is greatly concerning that the department of health saw fit to remove the routine in-person consultation before an abortion. Lack of sufficient ID checks over the online consultation process also poses the threat of pills being falsely obtained for another person, which raises particular concerns regarding cases of underage sexual abuse and trafficking.

China orders hospitals to abort, kill new-born babies of religious and ethnic minorities

Hospitals in Xinjiang were ordered by China’s Communist government to abort and kill all babies born in excess of its mandated family planning limits — including new-borns born after being carried to full term — or face hefty fines, claims a new report.

Hasiyet Abdulla, a Uighur obstetrician who worked in multiple hospitals in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region for 15 years, told Radio Free Asia that maternity wards implemented strict family-planning policies intended to restrict Uighurs and other ethnic minorities to three children.

Abdulla told RFA that babies were aborted even if their mothers were “eight and nine months pregnant,” adding that in some cases, medical staff would “even kill the babies after they’d been born.”

Babies who had been born at the hospital outside of family-planning limits weren’t safe either, she said, adding doctors would “kill them and dispose of the body.”

“They wouldn’t give the baby to the parents — they kill the babies when they’re born,” she said.

“It’s an order that’s been given from above, it’s an order that’s been printed and distributed in official documents. Hospitals get fined if they don’t comply, so of course they carry this out.”

In June, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom argued that the forced sterilization of Uighur Muslims is “evidence of genocide.”

“It’s evident from the Chinese government’s own data that the Communist Party’s policies are clearly designed to prevent population growth for the Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Turkic Muslim peoples,” USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel said in a statement.

“We urge the State Department to investigate whether the Chinese authorities’ deliberate and systematic attempt to genetically reducing the Turkic Muslim population in Xinjiang meets the legal definition for genocide as contemplated in the Genocide Convention.”

In a statement to Fox News, Morgan Ortagus said the U.S. State Department is “extremely concerned by reports of forced abortions and sterilization in Xinjiang.”

"These reports are consistent with an overwhelming and growing body of information that exposes the Chinese Community Party’s campaign of brutal repression targeting Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. We reiterate our call on the PRC [People's Republic of Chinahttps://www.christianpost.com/news/xinjiang-hospitals-forced-to-abort-kill-newborn-babies-born-outside-family-limits.html">https://www.christianpost.com/news/xinjiang-hospitals-forced-to-abort-kill-newborn-babies-born-outside-family-limits.html

Pray: for this ruthless and inhumane killing of unborn and newly born babies by the Chinese government to be stopped.

Pray: for an immediate cessation of the forced sterilisation and population control.

Pray: wisdom, authority and protection for those who are campaigning and advocating for the Uighur people and other ethnic groups.