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In the News

  • Guardian: Italian couple win same-sex adoption case
    April 30th, 2016

    Two gay Italian women have won the right to adopt each other’s children in a legal first for the country. All previous verdicts in Italy in favour of lesbian women being legally recognised as the parents of their partner’s children are at the appeal stages.

    In its judgment on Friday, Rome’s juvenile court said Marilena Grassadonia, president of the Rainbow Families association, could adopt her wife’s twin boys. In turn, her partner adopted Grassadonia’s son. All three were conceived by artificial insemination.

  • CIPD: Don’t shy away from religion in the workplace
    April 29th, 2016

    Employment lawyers warn of rise in cases; organisations must understand distinction between penalising beliefs and conduct

    Organisations are running significant risks if they shy away from tackling inflammatory situations relating to religion in the workplace, according to employment lawyers who have warned of a potential growth in contentious – and expensive – cases.

  • National Review: Doctors want protection to 'opt out' of assisted suicide: 'I just don’t feel killing them is compassionate'
    April 28th, 2016

    Over her last few years of practice, Dr. Nancy Naylor helped the dying of the small Ontario town of Strathroy leave this world without pain.

    The 39-year-old woman with ovarian cancer. The man with such severe mouth and tongue cancer he could barely swallow. The colon cancer patient Naylor arranged to have put on methadone, the drug used to treat heroin addicts, when nothing else could touch her pain.

    Naylor’s goal was to give her patients “a good death.”

    But she drew the line at killing them.

    “The whole idea of basically sending them to their death,” she says, “I abhor.”

    That’s why, after 37 years in practice, the last three devoted to making house calls to the terminally ill, the family doctor has decided not to renew her medical licence in June.

    Read more.

  • Premier: DBS checks delays threaten summer church camps
    April 7th, 2016

    Church summer camps risk being put off due to long delays in the police criminal record checking process for youth leaders.

    Screening for Sunday school teachers, youth workers and other volunteers are taking up to seven months according to the body that helps process up to 55,000 checks each year.

    Read more.

  • Times (£): Labour may scupper spy law over privacy
    March 14th, 2016

    Labour will attempt to derail the new surveillance bill unless it is amended to protect individuals’ privacy, the shadow home secretary has warned.

    The party’s MPs will abstain in a vote after the second reading of the Investigatory Powers Bill tomorrow, Andy Burnham said. He insisted that there would be "no blank cheque" for its passage through the Commons.

    The bill introduces a new power to allow the government to collect the web-browsing histories or internet connection records of individuals. It also clarifies and codifies several surveillance powers derived from outdated legislation.

  • Independent: Male contraceptive pill 'a step closer', scientists say
    March 14th, 2016

    Scientists believe they have taken a step closer to making a safe contraceptive pill for men, according to a report.

    Fifty years after the female pill, researchers have yet to find a way to render men temporarily infertile without significant side-effects.

    However, academics at Minnesota University told the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting on Sunday that they had made a significant advance, The Times reported.

  • BBC: Gay canon Jeremy Pemberton employment appeal granted
    March 13th, 2016

    A gay clergyman who lost an employment tribunal against the church said he has won the right to appeal the decision.

    Last year it was ruled Canon Jeremy Pemberton was not discriminated against when he was stopped from taking up a new post as a hospital chaplain after marrying his partner.

    Mr Pemberton said the Employment Appeal Tribunal will hold a two day hearing.

  • BBC: JP sacked over same-sex adoption views plans legal action
    March 13th, 2016

    A Christian magistrate is planning to take legal action after he was sacked over comments he made on television against same-sex adoption.

    Richard Page, 69, who served as a magistrate in Kent, told the BBC last year it would be better for a man and a woman to be the adopted parents.

    The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office deemed this serious misconduct.

  • BBC: School chief bans use of the term 'Trojan horse'
    March 12th, 2016

    Birmingham's education commissioner says he has banned the use of the term "Trojan Horse" to describe alleged attempts by groups to take over schools and covertly impose a Muslim ethos

    Sir Mike Tomlinson, appointed in the wake of the controversy, says the phrase was "not helpful" to attempts to improve Birmingham's schools

    He said that it could have an adverse impact on teacher recruitment.

  • BBC: Sierra Leone abortion bill blocked by President Bai Koroma again
    March 12th, 2016

    Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has again refused to sign a bill legalising abortion, saying it should be put to a referendum.

    It was unanimously passed by MPs in December, but Mr Koroma refused to sign it after protests by religious leaders.

    After consultations, MPs returned the bill to him last month, unaltered.