I have been pro-life for as long as I can remember. My family were not culture warriors: We never picketed, and I'm not sure we ever discussed the subject at home. My only memories of anything close to activism are of occasional appeals to our church to donate diapers to a local crisis pregnancy center. I was impressed by the urgency of the requests, which focused almost exclusively on the burdens disadvantaged single mothers faced and the opportunity we had to aid them. That somewhat idyllic approach impressed on me the vague but definite intuition that life in the womb was worth preserving and the woman who bore it worth supporting. This impression that being pro-life means supporting the people whose wombs bear life as much as the life itself has never left me.
In the News
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February 3rd, 2017
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February 3rd, 2017
The Archbishop of York has criticised reductions in pastoral time for children at school because of pressures to obtain academic results.
Dr John Sentamu made the comment in an article for schoolsweek.co.uk.
In it he said children are increasingly missing out on Christian mentoring and care, as well as creative or extra-curricular activities, because schools are packing in more lessons in order to get kids achieving certain grades.
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February 2nd, 2017
The chaos of the refugee order. The bombshell of Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court. They are like a flash of direct sunlight to the retina: they fill your eyes with light while distracting your attention and leaving everything else in your field of vision spotted and blurry.
You miss things after such a spectacle. This week many Americans have been so distracted that they barely noticed a massively important piece of news that came out Monday. President Trump has decided to keep a President Obama executive order that established special workplace privileges for LGBT people.
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February 2nd, 2017
A booklet published by the British Medical Association suggests that its staff should use the phrase "pregnant people" instead of "expectant mothers" in order to show sensitivity towards intersex men and trans men who get pregnant. The BBC's Siobhann Tighe spoke to one trans man for his view on the BMA's guidance.
It's impossible to get figures about how many trans men in the UK want to be pregnant, or go through pregnancy. The handful of gender identity clinics in the UK won't give out statistics, although one consultant psychiatrist says the figure is "tiny".
Only one transgender man in the UK, Hayden Cross, has spoken publicly about his pregnancy. Cross had hoped to freeze his eggs before completing his transition, but when the National Health Service refused to pay he decided to get pregnant with donor sperm and temporarily put gender reassignment surgery on hold.
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February 2nd, 2017
There has been a sharp rise in the number of young people calling Childline about LGBT issues.
7,729 counselling sessions about gender and sexuality were carried out by the charity between 2015 and 2016, the most recent year figures are available for.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), who run the children’s helpline, say it marks a 47% increase from the previous year’s figures – now the highest ever reported.
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February 2nd, 2017
The NHS has confirmed it does not record instances of discrimination against its staff because of their religious beliefs.
Minister of State at the Department of Health, Philip Dunne, said his office did not keep notes when NHS workers reported mistreatment on the basis of their faith.
He was responding to a question from Christian DUP MP Jim Shannon.
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February 2nd, 2017
Attainment is important for young people, but exams have to be seen in a wider context as part of an education that allows young people to flourish, says John Sentamu.
Up and down the country, there are great examples of schools achieving fantastic results for some of the most disadvantaged pupils – results that give them that important piece of paper at GCSE or A-Level, but also equip them to be active agents for change in our society. My Youth Trust’s citizenship resource has to date reached over 48,000 young people who are transforming their communities, across the North of England.
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February 2nd, 2017
The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.
Such a change would reflect Trump's election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase "radical Islam" in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries.
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February 2nd, 2017
A transgender teenager is taking legal action against his former school for discrimination.
Aidan, 16, who was born female, claims he was effectively excluded because Hereford Cathedral School refused to let him wear a boy's uniform.
This was despite the support of his mother and the family's GP as he began his transition.
The action is being taken under the 2010 Equality Act. The school said it would defend its position.
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February 2nd, 2017
Life is deeply concerned at a new report from the Care Quality Commission revealing a BPAS abortion clinic placing the health and safety of women at risk
In its report last Thursday the CQC said it investigated BPAS Merseyside after concerns raised by the NHS Trust following 16 serious incidents over three years in which BPAS patients needed to be transferred to the hospital for emergency treatment. Eight of these serious incidents occurred between January 2015 and February 2016. It said when asked to supply the full root cause analysis investigation reports on the incidents, the registered manager was not clear on who had completed the investigation reports, had not been involved in their production and had not seen them in full. She was unaware that staff did not have sight into the outcomes of the serious incident reviews. Staff were unaware of what constituted a major incident and were uninformed of their roles and responsibilities during a major incident.