In the News

When last we reported on Vincent Lambert, doctors at a hospital in the northern French city of Reims announced , in an unexpected turn, that they had postponed withdrawing food and water from the severely brain-damaged Lambert. He’d been gravely injured in a motorbike accident in 2008.

 

It was the latest twist in a story whose climax had seemed depressingly inevitable. His wife and six of his siblings would prevail over his parents and the 38-year-old Frenchman would be starved and dehydrated to death.

 

The parents, Pierre and Viviane, adamantly deny he is in a so-called “persistent vegetative state” but is, in fact, responsive.

 

The most recent development came last week, according to a Radio France Internationale (RFI) story, when an unnamed French court upheld the hospital’s life-affirming decision.

Even though it swore up and down for weeks that it did nothing wrong, Planned Parenthood claimed today it will stop accepting payment in exchange for aborted baby parts harvested by its abortionists:

 

"In order to completely debunk the disingenuous argument that our opponents have been using – and to reveal the true political purpose of these attacks – our Federation has decided, going forward, that any Planned Parenthood health center that is involved in donating tissue after an abortion for medical research will follow the model already in place at one of our two affiliates currently facilitating donations for fetal tissue research. That affiliate accepts no reimbursement for its reasonable expenses – even though reimbursement is fully permitted under the 1993 law. Going forward, all of our health centers will follow the same policy, even if it means they will not recover reimbursements permitted by the 1993 law."
 

Despite its previous claims of innocence, Planned Parenthood’s announcement today suggests that the organization knew its activities were almost certainly illegal.

David Cameron will today announce that he wants to build a “national coalition” against extremism and hate crime in Britain at the first Community Engagement Forum to be held in Downing Street.

 

The forum, which will include some 30 multi-faith representatives from across the UK, will enable the Prime Minister to hear directly from those leading the fight against extremism as he prepares to publish later this month the UK Government’s Counter-Extremism Strategy.

 

New funding is to be made available to improve security at faith establishments and for the first time police forces south of the Border will be asked to record anti-Muslim hate crimes.

Three Islamic State supporters arrested days before Remembrance Sunday last year were plotting a terror attack at the commemorations to emulate the killing of soldier Lee Rigby, a court has heard. They were acting on a “truly chilling” fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Isis to “rig the roads with explosives” and to cut off the heads of members of the public, police officers or security services, said the prosecution.

 

“This fatwa ... inspired the defendants to plan their own attack in this country, emulating the attack on Lee Rigby,” Max Hill, QC for the prosecution told the court.

 

The prosecution alleged that the three men, who were “unnaturally interested in murders and beheadings”, were plotting an attack around Remembrance Sunday with a self-made phone video showing their alleged contempt for the poppy as the symbol of war commemoration.