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In the News

  • Telegraph: 'Shocking' end of life care in NHS boosting support for assisted suicide – MPs
    October 29th, 2015
    “Shocking” standards of end-of-life care in the NHS are fuelling support for the legalisation of assisted dying, the chairman of an inquiry by MPs into palliative care in the UK has warned.
     
    Bernard Jenkin chairman of the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee said a fear of “finishing up on some hospital trolley, dying in some forgotten corner” was helping drive support among the public for a change in the law.
     
    The committee is calling for an urgent overhaul of training and the working culture in hospitals to address “systemic” failings in caring for people in the final days and hours of their lives.
     
    It follows a highly critical report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman earlier this year which concluded that too many people in Britain are being forced to die without dignity because staff are too busy or unsure of how to care for dying people.
  • Mail: Britain the first country to sanction the creation of children with two genetic mothers and a father
    October 29th, 2015
    Doctors are close to making the first baby with three parents following a historic change in the law.
     
    Legislation that comes in force today makes Britain the first country to sanction the creation of children that effectively have two genetic mothers and a father.
     
    It allows doctors to use a complex form of IVF to prevent devastating illnesses caused by faults in mitochondria – the tiny ‘engine rooms’ that power the cells in the body.
     
    The technique, which was developed at Newcastle University, involves swapping a mother-to-be’s diseased mitochondria with healthy ones from an egg donated by another woman. 
  • Christian Today: US House panel vows to 'dig deep' into abortion industry following shocking revelations in sting videos
    October 28th, 2015
    A US House committee will soon start investigating the abortion industry and organisations that receive organs from aborted babies.
     
    Republican House Speaker John Boehner announced the committee would be headed by Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn.
     
    "We want to look at the procurement organisations, the selling of baby body parts, and big abortion and see what the relationship is between the two and look at the abortion practices involved with the abortion providers and then look at the business practices of the procurement organisations," Blackburn said, according to WND.
     
    She vowed to dig deeper into issues.
  • BBC: Nigerian army rescues 338 captives
    October 28th, 2015
    Nigerian troops have rescued 338 people from Boko Haram Islamists, local officials say.
     
    The captives, mostly women and children, were being held near the group's Sambisa forest stronghold in the north-east.
     
    They have since been moved to a camp for displaced people in Mubi, the army said.
     
    It is unclear if any of the 200 Chibok schoolgirls - also thought to be in the forest - were among those rescued.
  • New York Times: Since Caitlyn Jenner, renaming ceremonies gain visibility
    October 28th, 2015
    Earlier this year, Patricia King was presented with a prayer shawl by the Vista Grande Community Church in Colorado Springs that is typically given to women at their baptism. But this wasn’t a baptism; it was a Christian renaming ceremony signifying Ms. King’s spiritual passage from Peter to Patricia.
  • BBC: The Syrian Catholic priest who escaped IS captivity
    October 28th, 2015
    A Syrian priest who was held by Islamic State (IS) militants for nearly three months and threatened with execution has for the first time spoken about his ordeal. Fr Jack Murad was abducted from the central Syrian town of al-Qaryatain in May along with Botros Hanna, a volunteer at the ancient Mar [Saint] Elian Monastery.
     
    Fr Jack told BBC Arabic what happened.
     
    Fr Jack remembers how he and Botros Hanna were blindfolded and had their hands tied, before the car they were forced into sped away to an unknown destination "in the mountains around al-Qaryatain".
     
    After four days, the two men were blindfolded and handcuffed again, before being forced on a much longer journey.
     
    They ended up in a cell somewhere in Raqqa, IS' stronghold, where they were kept for 84 days.
  • Guardian: Remembrance Day terror plotter tells court he was trying to be 'one of the lads'
    October 27th, 2015
    A man accused of plotting a Lee Rigby-style knife murder in the run-up to Remembrance Day has told a court he made exaggerated claims in online chat groups with other Muslims in order to appear “one of the lads”.
     
    Haseeb Hamayoon, 28, said a claim he made about being thrown out of Australia by the country’s equivalent of MI5 had been untrue and was made to increase his standing among the group.
     
    He admitted buying a vest with an Islamic State-style logo but told the jury at Woolwich crown court he wore it only once while living in London.
     
    Hamayoon said buying it was “not clever at all” and he had only done so as a way of showing off to the group. He also admitted posting images and videos on group chats on Whatsapp and Telegram.
     
    He told the court: “I got sucked into it. I joined in to be one of the lads … There was a sort of exaggeration of the sort you might get among young men, not to be taken at face value. It’s like the talk you might get at a bar, you are not meant to take it literally.”
  • Evening Standard: New Ofsted boss Mike Sheridan cannot rule out 'Trojan' schools in London
    October 27th, 2015
    A senior Ofsted director says he cannot rule out a Trojan Horse-style plot happening in London schools.
     
    Mike Sheridan, Ofsted’s new regional director for London, said one of his biggest challenges was keeping children safe from extremism and sexual exploitation.
     
    However, he said he “doesn’t know” if there was a co-ordinated plot by extremists to seize control of state school governing bodies, as is alleged to have happened in Birmingham.
     
    Mr Sheridan, a former headteacher and Ofsted inspector, took over as London head of Ofsted last month and is responsible for Ofsted’s performance in the capital.
     
    Speaking to the Evening Standard, he said it was vital that schools did not “bury their heads in the sand” about extremism, radicalisation and child sexual exploitation and they must try to identify children at risk.
  • Federalist: Planned Parenthood abortionist admits to illegal, partial-birth abortions in new video
    October 27th, 2015
    A new video from the Center for Medical Progress catches one of Planned Parenthood’s abortionists revealing that she regularly alters abortion procedures in order to harvest more viable, and more valuable, organs from the aborted babies.
     
    Amna Dermish, an abortionist for Planned Parenthood in Austin, Texas, explains in the video that she will sometimes use ultrasound guidance to position the baby to come out feet first, or what’s called “breech presentation,” in order to keep more of the child’s organs intact for prospective buyers.
     
    Altering an abortion procedure in the manner that Dermish describes is considered to be a partial-birth abortion, which is illegal in all states.
  • Christian Today: Unborn baby inside mother's womb not yet a 'person', New York court rules
    October 27th, 2015
    The Court of Appeals in New York has ruled that an unborn child still in the womb of its mother is not yet considered a person.
     
    The court made the ruling as it overturned the conviction of Jennifer Jorgensen, who was charged with manslaughter after her unborn child and two other individuals died due to the injuries they suffered during a vehicular accident in 2008.

    Jorgensen, who was eight months pregnant during the time of the accident, was found to be driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, according to Christian News. After she crossed oncoming traffic, she got into a collision with another vehicle driven by couple Robert and Mary Kelly.

    The Kellys died because of the accident, while Jorgensen suffered injuries. When she was rushed to the hospital, doctors decided to perform a C-section to save her unborn child. However, after six days, her child died because of injuries suffered during the accident.
     
    She was indicted for aggravated vehicular homicide because of the Kellys' death, driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, manslaughter in the second degree for the death of her unborn baby, and endangering the welfare of a child in 2009.