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In the News

  • Guardian: Women 'are being given false hope' over freezing eggs
    October 25th, 2015
    Women in their late 30s and in their 40s are being given false hope that freezing their eggs gives them a good chance of having children, according to leading fertility experts.
     
    The concerns come as thousands of women are believed to be considering “social freezing” – having eggs frozen for non-medical reasons as they grapple with declining fertility that could wreck any hope of a family later in life.
     
    Some women going through the freezing, thawing and implantation process can pay as much as £15,000, with clinics claiming up to a 60% pregnancy rate. But a growing number of experts are becoming concerned that the regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, isn’t doing enough to make it clear to women what their chances are of success really are.
  • Herald Scotland (£): Free Kirk pleads with MSPs to reject LGBTI appeal
    October 25th, 2015
    A religious leader has appealed to MSPs to reject a call for schools to teach pupils about the issues affecting lesbian, gay and transgender people.
     
    The Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) has launched a petition calling for young people to be given the chance to learn more about the gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community (LGBTI+).
     
    The petition in the name of Jordan Daly, co-founder of TIE, will be considered by MSPs on Holyrood’s Public Petitions Committee on Tuesday.
  • Washington Examiner: Press takes Planned Parenthood's word that videos were 'edited'
    October 25th, 2015
    More than a dozen reporters who have covered the Planned Parenthood fetal tissue scandal have declined to say whether they have watched all of the undercover footage released by the activist group responsible for bringing the controversial practice to light.
     
    These same journalists, some of them writing for the largest newsrooms in the United States, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and the Associated Press, have repeated the claim that the videos have been selectively edited.
     
    The Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life activist group, released 10 short videos this year showing Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing reimbursement for procuring organs salvaged from the remains of aborted children. The videos come after a nearly three-year-long investigation organized by the group's founder, David Daleiden.
  • BBC: Germaine Greer defends trans comments in wake of petition
    October 24th, 2015
    Transgender women are "not women", Australian-born academic and writer Germaine Greer has said.
     
    Her comments were made in response to a petition asking Cardiff University to cancel the author's lecture.
     
    Ms Greer is due to speak in a lecture called Women & Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century.
  • Live Actions News: Abortionist in leaked tape aborted baby same age as her own preborn child
    October 24th, 2015
    Leaked undercover video footage from the Center for Medical Progress, received this week by GotNews.com and put online by a hacker, shows an undercover CMP representative speaking with a Michigan Planned Parenthood abortion doctor about harvesting baby body parts for research. This abortionist, Lisa Harris, once described doing a late-term abortion while pregnant, has admitted that abortion procedures are violent (and that abortion victims really do look like pro-lifers’ photos), and has said that re-assembling fetal body parts often elicits “feelings of awe” in abortionists.
  • Telegraph: Could meditation be bad for your health?
    October 24th, 2015
    I have a confession: meditation seriously stresses me out. I’ve downloaded apps like Headspace, Digipill and Calm. I’ve been to meditation seminars. I’ve attended retreats.
     
    The outcome is always the same: when I try to zone out, my brain zones in… on hopes, dreams, or things I haven’t done. Within minutes, I’m making to-do lists in my head, daydreaming about writing a trashy spy thriller, or wondering what type of boyfriend Headspace’s founder Andy would be.
     
    I inevitably wind up cursing my brain and its runaway thoughts, because 20 minutes of fidgeting won’t deliver the promised fruits of meditative labours: a serene disposition, increased mental clarity and a compassionate soul. By the time I crossly tear off my headphones or shove the yoga mat in the corner, these rewards have never felt further from my reach.

    I’ve wasted precious time that could have been spent on something I love, and I’ve failed, again, at something seemingly everyone else finds both effortless and effective. I’ve given it my best shot, but mindfulness and me are not working out.
     
    And 2015 is a lonely time for dropouts like me, when my friends are Headspacing happily on the tube to work, celebrities rave about meditation in interviews, and mindfulness-based training is being rolled out in offices, schools and the emergency services.
  • Mail: Mother forced by judge to hand her baby to gay father wins the right to tell her story
    October 24th, 2015
    A mother whose baby was removed on the orders of a judge and given to a gay couple has won the right to tell her story in a victory for free speech.
     
    The woman was left devastated by the judge’s decision earlier this year – and was then banned from giving her side of the story by a draconian court order.
     
    Justice Alison Russell ruled in April that the mother should not be allowed to keep her 15-month-old child after an alleged surrogacy deal she had struck with two gay men – one of whom is the biological father – broke down.
     
    The judge declared that the mother was ‘homophobic’ and had tried to smear the gay father. She also accused the woman of breastfeeding her daughter in a way calculated to ‘frustrate’ contact between the child and her father.
     
    But yesterday another High Court judge overturned the decision to gag the mother after she mounted a legal challenge – and described the order as ‘unusually restrictive’.
  • UN News Centre: Children's right to freedom of religion or belief must be protected, says UN expert
    October 23rd, 2015
    The United Nations expert on religious freedom is calling on all Governments represented at the UN General Assembly “to respect religious practices by children and their families and support families in fulfilling their role in providing an enabling environment for the realisation of the rights of the child.”
     
    “Every individual child is a rights holder in his or her own capacity as recognised in Article 14 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, recalled while presenting his new special report on the rights of the child and his or her parents in the area of freedom of religion or belief.
     
    “Violations of freedom of religion or belief often affect the rights of children and their parents,” he said in a press release. “Children, typically girls, from religious minorities for example, are abducted and forcibly converted to another religion through forced early marriage.”
     
    The rights expert also urged religious communities across the world to ensure respect for the freedom of religion or belief of children within their teaching and community practices, bearing in mind the status of the child as a rights holder.
     
    “Religious community leaders should support the elimination of harmful practices inflicted on children, including by publicly challenging problematic religious justifications for such practices whenever they occur,” he stressed.
  • Telegraph: Paedophiles working as teachers a 'social good' - psychologist
    October 23rd, 2015
    A prominent psychologist has drawn fury from children’s charities after suggesting it can be a “good” thing if paedophiles find jobs teaching or social work.
     
    Dr Glenn Wilson, a consultant psychologist, claimed some paedophiles “gravitate” into such professions to “enjoy the company of children” but would not necessarily abuse them.
     
    He said this enabled them to channel their sexual desires towards “social good”.
     
    His remarks, in an article published on The Independent newspaper’s website, under a headline reading “Not all paedophiles are bad people”, were condemned by the NSPCC as “naïve and dangerous” and by the child welfare campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen as “barking mad”.
  • Christian Today: Did a leading theologian call for a Christian caliphate?
    October 23rd, 2015
    There are certain words that have almost nuclear potential in an argument. If you use them – and particularly if you accuse the other side of being responsible for one of them – you're making a very bold call.
     
    'Theocracy' is one of these words. It conjures up images of terrifying religious leaders controlling the status quo. Their arbitrary power is used to persecute minorities, quash opposition and make life miserable for everyone.
     
    In historical terms maybe we think of Oliver Cromwell's joyless protestant rule over England, or indeed Bloody Mary's Catholic reign of terror.
     
    Perhaps our minds drift to the present, where the Iranian regime headed by Shia spiritual leader Ayotollah Khameini has executed over 700 people this year alone – or their Sunni rivals in Saudi Arabia, where beheadings and even crucifixion are carried out as punishments for simply exercising free speech.
     
    With this in mind, surely no sensible Christian theologian or apologist would suggest that Christians in the 21st Century should be seeking a theocracy?