Over the past few days the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and I, as its chief executive, have been in the middle of what has been described as a media frenzy. If you have not yet seen any of the often distorted media coverage, it is because the RCM is supporting a campaign to decriminalise abortion. According to some coverage, the RCM is campaigning to legalise abortion on demand, at any time during pregnancy, for any reason.
In the News
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May 18th, 2016
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May 18th, 2016
Abortion rates among women in London are higher than the rest of England, new figures reveal.
Barking and Dagenham had the highest overall abortion rate, at 29 for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44.
Health bosses from the east London borough said they had worked hard to bring down teenage pregnancy rates.
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May 18th, 2016
Embattled midwives’ chief Cathy Warwick yesterday gave the first sign of backing down after enlisting her members to a pro-abortion campaign without asking them first.
She pledged she might now consult midwives – but added only ‘if necessary’.
The chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives sparked a mutiny by signing up its members to a drive to scrap the 24-week cut-off for abortions.
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May 17th, 2016
Life was already organising itself into large communities of cells more than a billion years ago, according to evidence from China.
The centimetre-scale life forms were preserved in mudstones from the Yanshan area in the country's north and are dated to 1.56 billion years ago.
Fossils big enough to be seen by the naked eye became common between 635 and 541 million years ago.
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May 17th, 2016
Belmarsh maximum security jail is 'like a jihadi training camp' where extremists 'brainwash young prisoners to spread the terror message across the whole prison system', a former inmate claims.
The source revealed that a group of jihadists who call themselves 'the brothers' or 'the Akhi (Arabic for brother) appear to 'almost have the run of the prison'.
Not only that but 'governors, prison officers and imams all know about this', according to the whistleblower, a Muslim university graduate recently been released from a sentence for bank fraud.
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May 17th, 2016
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has called for the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage, announcing that he had signed initiatives proposing that marriage equality be written into the country’s constitution and federal civil code.
The announcement, which coincides with the National Day Against Homophobia in Mexico, came after Nieto met at a roundtable with representatives of LGBT groups.
In a series of tweets, Nieto wrote, in Spanish, that he had “listened to their ideas and proposals”, adding that he had “reiterated the commitment of [the government of Mexico] to combat all forms of discrimination, including sexual preferences.”
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May 17th, 2016
A young woman is begging her mother to allow her to die every day, following an 11-year mysterious illness that has ruined her life.
Kirsty Keep, 23, is thought to have Lupus, a condition where her immune system attacks healthy cells and organs. She has suffered the condition since the age of 12, when she was bitten by a tick in her garden.
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May 17th, 2016
A group of 51 Muslim states has blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from attending a high-level meeting at the United Nations next month on ending AIDS, sparking a protest by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Egypt wrote to the president of the 193-member General Assembly on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to object to the participation of the 11 groups. It did not give a reason in the letter, which Reuters saw.
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May 17th, 2016
The number of abortions carried out in England and Wales last year was the highest in five years, driven by growing numbers of women in their 30s and 40s who are terminating a pregnancy, official figures show.
More women are having multiple abortions, according to the annual statistics released by the Department of Health. Almost four in 10 terminations are now carried out on women who have undergone the procedure before. Fifty women had each had eight terminations, the figures revealed.
In all, 185,824 abortions were carried out on women and girls in England and Wales last year. That was 1,253 (0.7%) more than the 184,571 performed in 2014, and the largest number since the 189,931 carried out in 2011.
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May 17th, 2016
For centuries the key Christian sacraments of baptism and communion have symbolised people coming together in one place.
But under potentially radical plans being considered by the Church of Scotland, the rites could be administered online for the first time in a move to redefine the idea of a congregation in the internet age.
The suggestion, to be debated by members of the Kirk’s decision-making General Assembly which meets in Edinburgh next week, stems from initiatives such as streaming services to enable housebound parishioners to join in despite being unable to be physically present.