He was one of 12 students from the Asia-Pacific region who shared young people's concerns with the Pope during the online "Building Bridges" forum.

Organised by Loyola University Chicago, the forum was designed to enable Pope Francis and young people to meet and discuss their concerns.

New Zealand's youth

Lohrey represents a group he has been meeting with in New Zealand as part of the Building Bridges initiative.

He told Francis his student group is concerned with the Church's failure "in fully respecting and acting in accord with human dignity".

Because humans are created in God's image and likeness, we should be treated as full and valued members of society, he said.

The Church is inconsistent regarding human dignity, he said.

Abortion example

Lohrey told Francis his student group sees the Church offering insufficient dignity to the most vulnerable in our societies.

"We expect people to meet our rules, which turns people away from a relationship with Christ and makes the Church unattractive," he said.

"For example those who procure abortion are some of the most spiritually, emotionally and physically vulnerable people in our societies, yet the Church responds with an automatic excommunication.

"These people, desperately in need of unconditional love, must meet our requirements before we fully minister to them. This is a contradiction of the word unconditional.

"So how can young people be the change we need?" he asked.

Parishes also an issue

Lohery also expressed concern about the number of people who call themselves Christian but do not go to Church.

For instance he said that although 33 per cent of New Zealanders are Christian, only nine per cent go to Mass.

He suggested that the people not attending church were not necessarily at fault.

"Other organisations would believe a drop in attendance like this to be a result of their own doing.

"But in my experience, the attitude of clergymen and parish administration is that these people who do not attend Mass are simply not disciplined in practising their faith," he told the Pope.

A call to Pope Francis

At the end of his address to Pope Francis, Lohery asked for guidance.

"Pope Francis, you have been a revolutionary leader in making the church bring Christ's love to where people are.

"However, how can you ensure that the rest of our Church will follow your lead?

"What can be invested in ensuring there's education in recognising the dignity of all people, not just regular Mass attendees?"

Francis responds

Lohrey was one of three students in the video segment speaking with Pope Francis.

Chieh Hsuan Huang from Taiwan and Helen Vyanessa Ribca Oroh from Indonesia also joined the conversation raising concerns their own groups had discussed.

Francis thanked all three participants.

He did not address Lohrey's concerns directly but, speaking in a more general context, he focused on the importance of bearing witness.

In a time of automation, it is people and their witness that are most attractive, he said.

Belonging to groups, families, cultures and societies with good and strong values is helpful, as is witness.

The Pope encouraged the young people to develop and have their own identities.

"You must always bear witness, bear testimony for life and carry on.

"And I would insist on this very aspect.

"Focus on this ability of having your own identity.

"To move on, forward, working with others, helping one another, always. "

Abortion, reconciliation, absolution

Although Francis did not comment about abortion during the meeting, the Church's view on absolution for abortion is different from Lohrey's understanding.

During the Holy Year of Mercy in 2015 - 2016, Pope Francis extended the authority to absolve the sin of abortion to all priests.

He later indefinitely extended this faculty, which continues to this day.

Sources

• Building bridges across Asia Pacific: A synodal encounter between Pope Francis and university students (YouTube)
• CathNews NZ

The Project Hope initiative was established in 1999. It has since spread to most Latin American countries, offering help to those who seek "reconciliation and forgiveness" and to experience God's mercy.

Its goal is to help the parents work out their grief "with the help of trained professionals and through an approach of acceptance, understanding and confidentiality, which seeks to facilitate the encounter of the mother and father with their child who was the victim of an abortion".

Calling the members "angels", Francis noted they accompany the "other victims of abortion" - those who have decided to end the lives of their children.

Suffering is ‘indescribable'

At the audience, Francis spoke of his "indescribable" joy at receiving the group, because of their work over the past 25 years in accompanying people suffering from choosing abortion.

"The arrival of each newborn is often synonymous with a joy that overwhelms us in a mysterious way and that renews hope" he said.

"It's as if we perceived, without knowing how to explain it, that every child announces the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, of God's desire to make his dwelling in our hearts."

The Lord "wanted us to share in a pain that, because it is the antithesis of that joy, shocks us brutally" he said, referring to scripture.

"A cry is heard in Ramah, sobbing and bitter weeping: Rachel is weeping for her children, and she refuses to be consoled for her children — they are no more!"

Francis explained the first cry "referred to children, the holy innocents, and their pain ceased with death, while the bitter weeping was the lament of mothers that is always renewed when they remember".

He also referred to the Holy Family's flight to Egypt because of Herod's order to kill newborns. This explains "that such a great evil drives Jesus away from us, prevents him from entering our home, from having a place in our inn".

Evil does not have the last word

Francis is firm that no one should lose hope.

"Evil does not have the last word, it is never definitive. Like the angel in St Joseph's dream, God announces to us that, after this desert, the Lord will return to take possession of his house."

Those involved in Project Hope are like "that angel".

"I truly thank you for it" he said.

Francis also invited them to trust "in the firm hand of St Joseph so that these sisters of ours can find Jesus in their desolation".

"With him they will reach the warm and safe home of Nazareth, where they will experience inner silence and the peaceful joy of seeing themselves welcomed and forgiven in the bosom of the Holy Family" he concluded.

Source

• CNA

Last month, Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, alleging it illegally refused to provide emergency abortion care to a woman who was 15 weeks pregnant and haemorrhaging.

According to the stipulated agreement released tonight, St Joseph agrees to fully comply with the state's Emergency Services Law, which prohibits hospitals from denying patients emergency care.

The hospital will allow physicians to terminate a patient's pregnancy if not doing so would seriously risk the patient's health.

Read More

Sheridan was referring to a speech by Joe de Bruyn, who used three examples to reflect on how to live a Catholic life. Joe de Bruyn is a retired trade unionist, Labour figure and Campion College board member.

Sheridan says that "at the first mention of the word 'abortion' a walkout began, which included a majority of graduands and a majority of university staff present".

"A serious vice-chancellor would have attended the speech himself" wrote Sheridan.

He is calling on the vice-chancellor to apologise to de Bruyn for the rudeness shown him and reiterate ACU's commitment as a Catholic institution to Catholic teaching.

University offers counselling

However, the university later offered counselling to those affected by the speech.

It said it was "deeply disappointed the speech was not more befitting of a graduation ceremony" and that it would refund ticket fees for graduates.

de Bruyn was being presented with an honorary degree by the Australian Catholic University.

In the speech, de Bruyn claimed abortion was the "single biggest killer of human beings in the world" and referred to is as a "tragedy that must be ended".

Living a Catholic faith in the public square

However Monica Doumit, writing in the Catholic Weekly, says that media reports were wrong to characterise de Bruyn's address as an inappropriate, self-indulgent rant about issues of life and human sexuality that had little relevance to a graduation ceremony.

Contrary to how it was portrayed, Doumit says de Bruyn's speech was not just a rehashing of the Catholic position on contentious issues, but a reflection on how to live one's Catholic faith in the public sphere.

De Bruyn told the graduands that for more than 40 years he had worked in a union that covered warehousing, retail and fast-food companies, fighting for the rights and wages of some of the lowest-paid workers in the country.

He explained that bringing these aspects of his Catholic faith to his work and advocacy was not controversial, but that bringing other aspects of his Catholic faith was contentious.

To illustrate his point, de Bruyn offered three examples: abortion, IVF and marriage. His point was summed up in his concluding remarks:

"As happened to me, you will be faced with issues in your professional and personal lives where the general opinion of the majority of the population is at odds with the teaching of the Church.

"My experience is that many Catholics cave in to peer pressure. They think their professional lives will be harmed if they promote the teaching of the Church. My experience is that this is not so.

"Despite my view on some issues being at odds with the views of my contemporaries over the past 50 years, it never affected my career at all."

Listening Church

Australia's new cardinal-designate, Mykola Bychok, has backed de Bruyn's anti-abortion speech.

"Freedom of speech is an important pillar of our society, so is freedom of religion'' he said.

"We must be free to say that which we believe to be the truth as passed to us by Our Lord. Jesus says to us ‘Be not afraid'.

"I grew up at a time when my church was banned and persecuted in Ukraine. A church of martyrs and confessors.

"We survived this persecution because people loved God and their church. They were courageous and passed on the faith to their children and grandchildren.''

Cardinal-designate Bychok said he did not believe there was any division within the Church on the sanctity of life.

While Pope Francis told the Church to be a "listening Church'', that did not mean others did not have to listen to Christ.

Sources

• The Australian
• ABC
• The Catholic Weekly
• The Australian

The private member's bill wants the law reformed to refuse to terminate pregnancies after 28 weeks.

Touted by its supporters as a "world-first", Ben Hood's bill aims to ensure pregnancy terminations after 27 weeks and six days are achieved through the early induction of labour.

The infant would then be offered for adoption.The bill's supporters say about 1000 people attended a rally on the steps of state parliament last Wednesday afternoon when the bill was introduced.

The bill's aim

Hood says his proposed legislation would amend an existing 2021 state law allowed terminations in limited circumstances after 22 weeks and 6 days, subject to the approval of two doctors.

It would address an "unintended consequence" of the 2021 law, he says.

That unintended consequence meant between July 2022 and December 2023, 45 out of 57 terminations beyond the 22 week and 6 day threshold were approved for the "physical or mental health of the pregnant person".

Not one was performed to save the life of the mother. Twelve late-term abortions were performed because of foetal anomalies.

"This bill aims to carefully balance the rights of both pregnant women and the child, particularly after 28 weeks of gestation" Hood says.

It "provides a responsible and considered compromise - protecting the child's right to life while respecting the mother's choice to end her pregnancy".

University of Adelaide law professor, Joanna Howe, says the proposed law change would strike an "effective balance between the competing interests of a mother and her viable child through ensuring that foeticide is banned and the child is delivered alive".

Hood's bill was drafted by a team of eight women who were "legal and medical experts with specialities in neonatology and obstetrics" Howe says.

Abortion advocate and retired obstetrician Brian Peat said babies born alive at 28 weeks would represent a "great impost on the system".

He attacked the bill, saying its true purpose was to encourage mothers to carry a child to term.

House divided

Hood's bill divided the South Australian Liberals.

Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia says it does not reflect Liberal policy. The party has agreed to grant a conscience vote to MPs.

Source

• The Australian

"By getting rid of Roe v Wade, I was able to get it back into the states, and now I've given it back to the people, the people are voting and frankly, the people are voting in many cases quite liberally," he said.

He added, "They can vote the way they want. It's not a federal issue, and it will never be a federal issue again."

In the interview, Trump was questioned about his stance on Project 2025, a policy agenda published by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

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Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government is promoting a "maternity income" bill that proposes aid of 1,000 euros (about NZ$1,800) for five years to Italian women who reject abortion.

Meloni (pictured) says payments would target women who could not otherwise cope financially with their pregnancy or their child's needs in the early years.

The bill is scheduled to be introduced next week.

Goal - to reduce abortion

Abortion was legalised in Italy in 1978 under Law 194.

Senator Maurizio Gasparri says his bill aims to reduce abortions motivated by the financial hardships of pregnant mothers, based on Article 5 of Italy's Law 194.

He says his bill offers "not only moral but also financial support" for pregnant women who are struggling financially..

"Let's defend life!"

While Meloni has pledged not to change Italy's abortion law, she says her pro-life measures aim to "guarantee women the possibility of choosing an alternative, offering an active role by public institutions in order to remove the financial causes that can push a woman to abort".

In April this year she approved a package of measures to curb abortion.

Among these measures, the Italian Parliament allowed volunteers from pro-life associations access to abortion centres.

The volunteers guarantee assistance to mothers who wish to abort their unborn children.

What's on offer

Mothers who wish to apply for the support must have an Indicator of Equivalent Economic Situation (ISEE) of less than 15,000 euros (about NZ$28,000).

They must also be Italian citizens and reside in Italy.

In addition to the sums allocated for the first pregnancy and the child's first five years, the bill provides for an increase of 50 euros (about NZ$90) per month starting with the second child.

The bill also proposes an additional 100 euros (about NZ$180) up to the age of 18 in the event that the child has a disability.

Finance for the proposed income support would come from a maternity income fund. Meloni says that from this year the fund would receive 600 million euros annually.

Source

• CNA

Speaking at the General Synod in York, Welby explained that his daughter Ellie had dyspraxia; a condition affecting movement and coordination.

Hospital staff suggested abortion if a disability test returned positive results, highlighting the financial burden of raising a disabled child.

Ellie is now 32.

"Before [Ellie] was born, during the pregnancy there was some concern and a test was ordered.

"But it was made very, very clear to my wife that if the test was taken and proved positive, it would be expected that we ask for a termination.

"It was not a neutral process, because they said it's expensive."

He described Ellie as "precious because she's wonderful, she's kind, she is someone who gets cross and gets happy and gets sad. She's not that severely disabled."

Welby has previously stated he does not pray for Ellie in relation to her disability. He regards it as part of who she is.

Support for parents needed

The comments of Welby follow a motion by Ven Pete Spiers, an archdeacon from Liverpool who challenges the notion that raising children with disabilities is a tragedy.

Spiers' motion called for healthcare providers to provide better support for parents of disabled children. He also pressed for unbiased information about conditions diagnosed during pregnancy.

The motion passed unanimously at the Synod, with 312 votes in favour and none against.

The Church of England opposes abortions based on disability and, at a 2013 parliamentary debate, called the law allowing such terminations "discriminatory".

The 1967 Abortion Act permits terminations up to 24 weeks. There are exceptions to the Act for severe disability or risk to the mother's life beyond that period.

The General Synod, established in 1970, is the national assembly of the Church of England. It approves legislation affecting the Church and debates matters of national and international importance.

Sources

Daily Mail

The Times

CathNews New Zealand

Milei - a far-right populist and libertarian economist who was prone to brandishing a chainsaw on the campaign - got down and dirty with name-calling.

Despite the nasty labels the new president has hung on him, Francis phoned Melei to congratulate him on his presidential victory.

Milei, who when the pope's call came through was recording a television interview, interrupted the report to talk with the Holy Father.

Milei's office also responded respectfully.

"We are pleased to announce that His Holiness, Pope Francis, spoke with our future president to congratulate him and to express his wishes for the unity and progress for our country" Milei's office said in a statement.

The office said Francis has promised to send a rosary gift to the new president and added they hoped to host a visit from Francis "very soon".

Slum priests and dwellers "afraid"

Slum priests and slum dwellers say they are feeling ‘afraid' as a result of the Argentine election result.

Some had held masses on the Pope's behalf after hearing the names Milei was calling him during his campaign.

"We don't know what to expect from a man who said so many contradictory things during the campaign" says Fr Lorenzo de Vedia.

Milei plans to replace the Argentine peso with the US dollar, reduce the number of government ministries from 18 to eight, and "progressively" remove social benefits.

Fr Francisco Olveira, from the progressive clergy group An Option for the Poor, said he was "very afraid about what will come.

"We don't know what will happen and we don't want to live in a country like that - Milei's country."

Bishop Oscar Ojea, president of the Argentine bishops' Conference, expressed himself prayerfully on social media regarding the weekend's presidential election result.

"We value the democratic day we experienced yesterday and pray the Lord will enlighten the new elected authorities and that they may work for the common good of our people" he wrote.

Vice President-elect Victoria Villarruel

Pro-life law change

Several days before the election, Argentina's Victoria Villarruel, now newly elected vice-president, stressed that she and Milei "are both pro-life".

Milei has said he plans to hold a plebiscite to overturn Argentina's 2020 law legalising abortion.

She said "there has to be a discussion ... on a scientific basis and serious arguments and not as ideological as those that coloured the promulgation of the law."

The abortion law "unfortunately ends up being stretched to infinity" she says.

"Today you find women who are aborting children at term. It seems to me that that's not the way it ought to be."

The Vice President-elect is a practising very traditionalist Catholic, pro-life, and opposed to same-sex marriage. She is the daughter of a soldier and fights for the victims of terrorism.

Source

• The Tablet
• La Croix
• CNA
• Reuters

Tamaki's focus was the election result and the state of Kiwi society.

The outspoken Bishop began his address with an apology for being late, attributing it to watching the All Blacks.

Still, his speech quickly turned political and confrontational as he addressed the election outcomes.

"So did National win last night on the back of the fact is that we're so anti-Christ that a person (Simon O'Connor former Tamaki MP) can't any longer stand up for their Christian faith?

"Just to say: I agree with the abortion changes in America?

"What sort of Christians are we breeding? ... Gutless Kiwis ... gutless Christians!"

Despite Tamaki's fervour, the Destiny Church-affiliated Freedoms NZ umbrella party managed to secure only 0.31 percent of the total votes, totaling 7031.

Hannah Tamaki, wife of the Bishop also shared her thoughts on the election results during the gathering.

"I'm actually quite glad that the prime minister of the day is a married man who has a beautiful wife and children because the exiting one told everybody last night that 'a lot of you don't know my partner Toni.' Well, we knew, but we didn't know," Hannah said.

This impassioned gathering highlighted the ongoing debates and divisions within New Zealand society over issues related to faith, politics, and societal values.

Source

• Stuff

Francis defined bad compassion as the law not to let the child grow in the mother's womb or the law of euthanasia in disease and old age."

Clarifying, he added "I am not saying it is a faith thing, but it is a human thing."

Francis remained adamant that life should not be toyed with "either at its inception or its conclusion."

The Pope's remarks came as he was en route from Marseille to Rome, following a two-day visit to the southern French city.

France on verge of legalising assisted suicide

Francis' comments were made against a background that France is on the cusp of potentially legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia through a contentious legislative proposal.

The parliamentary vote on the matter was been deferred to September 26-28, coincidentally following the Pope's visit to the country.

While Francis did not discuss euthanasia directly with French President Emmanuel Macron during their recent meeting, he emphasised that he had made his stance "unambiguously clear" during Macron's visit to the Vatican last year.

Belgian model

Macron, who had pledged to reform end-of-life care as part of his election campaign, expressed his inclination towards the Belgian model of euthanasia in April 2022.

The Belgian model of 'integral' end-of-life care consists of universal access to palliative care and legally regulated euthanasia.

It was legalised in Belgium in 2002, and permits euthanasia for adults and minors in exceptional cases.

In the ensuing years, euthanasia choice in Belgium has become more liberal.

Earlier this year, a 56-year-old Belgian mother who murdered her five children was euthanised at her own request.

In 2020, the Vatican stripped 15 of the Belgian Brothers of Charity psychiatric institutions of their Catholic status because euthanasia was permitted on their premises.

Advances in pain manaagement

During the course of the plane interview, Pope Francis highlighted the advancements in medical science that allow for effective pain management, reiterating his belief that life is sacrosanct and should not be trifled with.

On May 13, during the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, he lamented the legalisation of euthanasia in Portugal, describing it as "a law that sanctions killing."

Pope Francis has consistently advocated for palliative care as a humane approach to treating those with severe illnesses, stating that while it is essential to accompany people towards the end of their lives, it is not ethical to hasten their death or assist in their suicide.

He has been equally forthright on the topic of abortion, likening it back in 2018 to contracting a "hitman" to dispose of an inconvenient individual.

Sources

• CNA

Starr requested training after discovering that Southwest Airlines had not followed a court order in a lawsuit involving a flight attendant who was terminated due to social media posts related to anti-abortion. The court had ordered Southwest to inform its attendants that it cannot discriminate based on religious practices and beliefs. Read more

Sanford police arrested the former boyfriend, Donovan Faison, on Tuesday, Aug 29, for the November 2022 killing. He was charged with two counts of felony homicide: one for the death of his 19-year-old girlfriend, Kaylin Fiengo, and the other for the death of her preborn child, with whom she had been pregnant for about 12 weeks.

According to police, Fiengo planned to meet with Faison on the night of the homicide at Coastline Park in Sanford. An officer patrolling the area found Fiengo dead in her vehicle in the parking lot. The police said she died from an apparent gunshot wound while sitting in the driver's side of the vehicle.

Read More

He happens to be Catholic.

So why did Abbott put razor wire and a floating barrier in the Rio Grande? Do migrant children not have heartbeats?

There is an angry selectivity when it comes to life issues.

Abortion is certainly a tragic reality in too many places in the world.

Without denying the ability of the polity to allow or disallow abortion legally, the better course is to make it unnecessary.

To respect life means just that: the unborn, yes, and the elderly and the stranger, the migrant, and the homeless individual. Respect life includes the "other," no matter how defined — by gender, skin colour, language, ethnicity — the list is endless.

Yet too many so-called pro-life advocates demonstrate an abject denial of others' right to life.

The task of religion is to expand the conversation, model good behaviour and call out the frauds.

On abortion, for example, the leading candidates in the United States' presidential race exhibit distinct approaches to the question. One has said women who suffer abortion should be legally charged; the other supports legalized abortion.

We could call the first a "pro-lifer," but does he in fact respect life?

He has bragged about molesting a woman and has been found guilty of sexual assault. He currently faces 91 felony counts in four different jurisdictions.

He does not pay his own legal bills, including those from one of his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani. (He complained that Giuliani lost. Recall his comments about the former Vietnam POW, Sen. John McCain.)

Since the federal right to abortion was overturned by a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, the other candidate has worked to circumvent the resulting patchwork of state laws.

The complicating factor is his Catholicism, and it is hard to reconcile his position.

Still, he seems to be a decent man. While in the U.S. Congress, he took the train home each night to Delaware. He is said to call his children every day.

So, what to do? The U.S. bishops say not to vote on any candidate because of one position on one issue.

Abortion is important, and Catholic opposition is well known. But what happens when you expand the conversation? What happens when you look at other life issues, and how they fare inside the Catholic Church?

The church has stepped up to house immigrants, and there are some places for unwanted children. But here and there is not everywhere.

Too many questions linger.

Does the pastor pay women employees on the same scale as the men? Or are women workers part-timers without benefits or vacation pay? Does he snicker at the thought of ordaining women deacons? Is he capable of informed discussion? Is he an autocrat, a dictator?

Did the bishop move the pederasts, and cover up his — and their — tracks?

Has he drained diocesan bank accounts to fight rather than settle with the victims? Does he tweet against Pope Francis? Has he paid lip service to the Synod on Synodality? Does he answer letters of complaint?

These are real questions for the Catholic Church, as it continues to bleed money and adherents while it seems to focus only on abortion.

If clerics preach against abortion, they must also preach against the razor wire. If they preach about the value of life, they must respect the people of the church.

Immigration? The death penalty? Workers' rights?

Too many clerics have replaced the Gospel with their personal politics. Until they demonstrate respect for all life, they will continue to be ignored.

• Phyllis Zagano is an American author and academic. She has written and spoken on the role of women in the Roman Catholic Church and is an advocate for the ordination of women as deacons.
• First published in Religion News Service. Republished with permission.

A peer-reviewed study by the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute found that "nearly 70 percent of women with a history of abortion describe their abortions as inconsistent with their own values and preferences, with one in four describing their abortions as unwanted or coerced."

Far from what pro-abortion advocates would have us believe, many women resort to abortion because they believe there are no other options available to them, whether because they lack financial or social support.

Read More

In a recent statement, the pro-life advocacy group Right to Life argues that while taxpayers have a moral obligation to contribute their taxes, they should not be obligated to fund "the murder of the innocent."

The group asserts that while the government upholds the killing of the unborn as a "reproductive choice for women," it denies taxpayers the right to choose not to finance abortions.

The comments come in a Right to Life budget statement about abortion as healthcare.

Right to Life says the government should abandon the notion that abortion is a healthcare service. It should also cease using taxpayers' funds to support the termination of innocent lives.

The organisation calls for greater consideration of the sanctity of unborn life and the moral implications associated with allocating public funds towards abortion.

The group's comments respond to the New Zealand government's 2023 "Wellbeing Budget".

The budget claims to support the present while building for the future. However, Right to Life argues the government's future well-being focus does not align with safeguarding the welfare of unborn children.

The organisation states that since 1977, when abortion was declared a core health service by a National government, subsequent administrations have consistently classified abortion as such, granting the "health service" unlimited funding and eliminating waiting lists.

Highlighting that $13 million has been allocated in the budget to support an estimated 13,000 unwanted unborn children, the group argues that the government is not prioritising the wellbeing of unborn children.

Drawing attention to the significant increase in healthcare spending since 2017, with the vote health budget nearly doubling from $76 billion to $136 billion, Right to Life points out the incongruity in the health service, where essential healthcare services struggle to meet their objectives while the termination of unborn children receives unfettered financial support.

While Right to Life commends the government's aim to reduce child poverty, it implores the administration to recognise what it calls "the greatest poverty" - the denial of life for unborn children.

The organisation questions how the well-being of future generations can be effectively promoted when approximately one in five unborn children's lives are prematurely terminated, representing a significant proportion (20%) of the unborn population.

Source

• Supplied: Right to Life

Heidi Crowter says the current legislation discriminates against people with disabilities. It allows abortion up to birth if the foetus has a condition such as Down syndrome.

"I am taking this case to Strasbourg because it is downright discrimination that people with disabilities are treated differently," she says.

Crowter, a 27-year-old mother, has been actively campaigning against the legislation on social media to no avail.

She is preparing to appeal to the ECHR this week because England's Supreme Court refused to hear her case.

Crowter has campaigned for a law change since 2018. It was then she joined a legal challenge brought by a mother whose son has Down syndrome.

She argues the law's message is that people with disabilities are not valued equally and that it violates their human rights.

"In 2023, we live in a society where disabled people are valued equally after birth but not in the womb," she says.

The UK government defends the law as a balance between women's and unborn children's rights.

Abortion is a personal choice and women should have access to safe and legal services, the government argues.

The Court of Appeal ruled last November that the law was not unlawful and did not interfere with the rights of those who live with disabilities.

Growing support for Crowter

Disability-rights groups and pro-life organisations support Crowter's case.

Ross Hendry, CEO of CARE, a Christian charity that advocates for life issues, has this to say:

"It is completely wrong that disability is a ground for abortion up to birth. Would we accept a law allowing babies to be aborted to term based on their sex, or their race? The current approach sends a message that the lives of people with disabilities are worth less than others."

Lynn Murray, spokesperson for Don't Screen Us Out has a daughter with Down syndrome.

"It's inspiring to see that Heidi is now going to be taking her landmark case all the way to ... Strasbourg. As a mother of a 23-year-old daughter who has Down syndrome, I see every day the unique value she brings to our family and the positive impact she has on others around her."

Increasing statistics

There were 3,370 disability-selective abortions in 2021 - a nine percent increase from 3,083 in 2020.

Late-term abortions at 24 weeks' gestation or over where the baby had a disability increased by 20 percent from 229 to 274.

The law

In England, Wales and Scotland, there is a general 24-week time limit for abortion.

If the baby has a disability, including Down syndrome, cleft lip or a club foot, abortion is a egal right up to birth.

If Crowter wins her case at the ECHR in Strasbourg, it could have implications for all 46 Council of Europe countries as they are bound by its rulings.

Crowter hopes her case will inspire others to stand up for their human rights and dignity.

The ECHR decision is expected to be issued sometime in 2023.

Source

• Catholic News Agency

The past ten years has also seen a downward trend in abortions, according to the latest Abortion Services Aotearoa New Zealand annual report .

The stats

Newly released figures from Stats NZ on Tuesday show that in 2022 there were 1,719​ births registered to 13 to 19 year-olds. They accounted for about one in every 34​ births that year.

In 2012, there were 3,786​ births registered to teenage mothers: roughly one in 16​ births.

These are very different numbers from those recorded back in 1972.

That was the year teenage births in New Zealand peaked. Statistics report 9,150​ teenage women gave birth, accounting for about one in every seven​ births.

Two years later, in 1974, the Auckland Medical Aid Centre Abortion Clinic opened.​

Teenage births "generally dropped" post-1972 - save for a "small peak" in 2008​. That year, one in every 12​ births (5,223​ births) was registered to under-20 year old mothers.

Stats NZ estimates and projections manager Michael MacAskill​ says teen births had generally decreased since then.

Why the decrease?

For every 1,000 women in New Zealand aged 15-19, there were 11​ births in 2022 - down from 25​ in 2012, a decrease of 55 percent.

Family Planning chief executive Jackie Edmond​ says the drop in teenage births mirrored global trends. It can be attributed in part to an increase in education and access to contraceptives.

It is very clear people need multiple contraceptive options, she says.

Increasing the range and choice in Aotearoa seemed to have made a difference, she notes. Today there are more reliable, readily accessible forms of contraception which have a lower failure rate than other forms.

However, there are still barriers, including cost, limited awareness of the range of contraceptives and health literacy of patients and practitioners.

There will always be unplanned pregnancies because no-one and nothing is perfect, she says. At the same time though, "this shows things have changed - and hopefully it continues".

Improved education also made a difference, with schools offering a range of relationship and sexuality programmes in their curricula, Edmond says.

"But we also know this is patchy. The quality and amount [of such education] is patchy as well."

There are "lots of great teenage parents out there" and many young people did "an awesome job".

At the name time, pregnancy at a young age could have long-term impacts on people's lives, so the downturn was "good to see", she adds.

Source

• Stuff

We can also sympathise with good and decent people who have become victims of a culture that is not given to thinking deeply, is impressionistic and easily led.

Contributing factors to this culture include the pressing demands of family life and work, leaving little time for careful reading, reflection and processing information; bombardment by head-lines and sound-bites that can diminish people's ability to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time; the gradual dumbing down that comes from relentless light entertainment and trivialisation.

In this context, it is easy to be carried along by second-hand opinions, superficial impressions and misinformation.

This is the context in which people can talk about abortion as if it didn't involve the taking of a life.

In our country, we have even passed legislation based on that assumption.

It has been a long time since the sciences established that the embryo is human life in its own right, not just a part of its mother's body - already her child's body!

On top of the pressures already mentioned, people's sympathies are more easily directed towards the people they see than to the embryos they don't see, and "what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over."

However, that is not quite true: the reality of post-abortion trauma suggests there was at least an oblique awareness that a child was involved.

This unthinking and non-scientific culture is also a problem and closer to the problem I am addressing.

A sharp incongruity

But there is a deeper problem, involving views that are doctrinaire and even anti-scientific.

It involves the highly politicised and much-publicised clamour for a so-called right to choose abortion for whatever reason, even just personal convenience.

There is dramatic incongruity in the fact that people who have the most to say about an individual's "right to choose" never seem even to mention those who are most affected by abortion - the ones whose lives are being terminated (whether by dismemberment or by medication).

The silence is as stunning as the clamour.

• Is this incongruity due to simple ignorance of well-established scientific data?
• Or is it due to wilful ignorance, through fear of what the truth might be?
• Or, something deeper still and more dangerous?

I make no judgement of the people involved. But the incongruity they are caught up in involves denial, which is never healthy: and that is the subject of this article.

The individual's "right to choose" has become a kind of stand-alone value, so absolute that it trumps every other consideration.

The act of choosing means more than what is chosen.

According to a statement by the U.S. Supreme Court, "at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life".

So

• Where does this cult-like status of the individual's freedom come from?
• Can choice make something right regardless of all else?
• Does the democratic majority override the need to enquire any further?
• How come public service media feel entitled to give "pro-choice" such one-sided publicity?

The incongruity is rooted in an understanding of freedom that goes back a long way.

A main achievement of classical liberalism was its vindication of the rights, equality and freedom of individuals, over against the authoritarianism, class privilege and obscurantism of earlier times.

This required restricting the role of the State to maximising the conditions that enable individuals, with all their diversity, to live together with dignity, equality and freedom. (This now includes allowing for subsidiarity, partnerships and ‘power sharing'.)

Less positive consequences arose when the status of individuals came to be expanded in far-reaching ways - to meet social, cultural and economic interests. Both right-wing and left-wing movements would expand the status of the individual beyond that promoted by the Enlightenment.

Francis Fukuyama traces these developments further back to Jean-Jacque Rousseau for whom autonomy meant the recovery of one's authentic inner self by escape from the social rules that imprisoned it; (Liberalism and its Discontents; Profile Books 2022, p. 51).

Right-wing movements pushed the rights of individuals in favour of greater market freedom. State regulations, social welfare legislation and the redistribution of wealth were not in their interests.

They still push in the direction of unregulated markets and unregulated exploitation of resources, regardless of the inequalities that this causes. Not to mention the highly developed techniques for brainwashing developed by right-wing media in USA - and their success in generating doubt, fear, falsehood and anger.

Left-wing movements pushed in the direction of ever-expanding claims for personal autonomy and self-actualisation over against various social norms and traditions.

They, too, resent legislation that restricts personal choice and freedom.

For some, self-actualisation repudiates anything that appears to limit that ‘inner self' Rousseau spoke of. E.g."The gender paradigm sees "truth" and "reality" as exercises of social power. Our bodies are blank slates; they do not carry any intrinsic meaning, and we should use technology to overcome any supposedly "natural" limits that impinge on our autonomy". (Prof. Abigail Favale PhD, Interview in The Catholic World Report, July 12, 2022).

Favale's critique obviously refers to the ideology of gender fluidity, with its gratuitous spurning of any ‘natural limits' - using technology/medication if necessary to remove them.

This would make sexual identity and gender identity simply matters of personal choice.

But the critique applies also to the question being addressed here: abortion - at any stage of pregnancy - comes to be thought of only as the means we use to remove an obstacle to complete personal freedom.

Further, if personal freedom is the basis of a person's rights and personal worth, this is bad news for those whose ability to exercise their freedom is still developing or diminished by age or illness.

Alas, however, freedom that is not bound by "truth" or "reality" or any of the order inherent in nature is ultimately freedom for make-believe - because the world is not like that.

"Human beings are not free-floating agents capable of reshaping themselves in any way they choose; this only happens in online virtual worlds…

"Our experience of the world is increasingly mediated by screens that allow us to easily imagine ourselves in alternative realities or as alternative beings. …

"The real world, however, continues to be different: wills are embedded in physical bodies that structure and also limit the extent of individual agency…" (Fukuyama, 153)

In other words, our true self is not some inner self waiting to be liberated from every requirement of nature or society; our true self is our whole self in right relationships with all else.

Not the heirs of classical liberalism

The liberal agenda benefits us all where it fosters the development of personal responsibility, moving away from social patterns and leadership styles that were more typical of feudal societies and that prolonged over-dependence on others.

The problem is with the excesses and exaggerations of individualism.

The further these movements slip away from reality into the realms of subjectivism, the more they begin to look like a return to the obscurantism that classical liberalism would have spared us by its respect for the reality of an objective world, the importance of scientific method, and acknowledgement of objective truth and knowledge.

To regard objective reality and truth as "exercises of social power" which inhibit one's "inner self" implies willingness to accept unreality and untruth.

And so, the difference between right and wrong becomes just a matter of public opinion.

In debate with Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas argued for the primacy of democratic choice over whatever the choice led to. Lincoln's response was that there were more important principles at stake than democracy, namely the premise that "all are created equal" - and on that premise, slavery was wrong, whatever about any democratic majority; (Fukuyama, p. 123). (President Biden could learn from his predecessor.)

Classical liberalism was right to affirm the rights, equality and freedom of individuals. But, ironically, it is precisely these values that are put in jeopardy by exaggerated claims made in the name of individual rights and personal autonomy. All the more because, unlike classical liberalism, which promoted tolerance, the more extreme left and right-wing ideologies have become intolerant, even aggressive, in pursuing the interests of the self.

Of course, if there is no meaning to life and the universe beyond what the individual decides to make of it, then there is no point in talking about a common good to which the individual has any obligation.

Right-wing movements need to learn that "if economic freedom to buy, sell, and invest is a good thing, that does not mean that removing all constraints from economic activity will be even better." (p. 154).

The left needs to learn that "if personal autonomy is the source of an individual's fulfilment, that does not mean that unlimited freedom and the constant disrupting of constraints will make a person more fulfilled." (p. 154)

The pursuit of exaggerated claims has been facilitated by the widespread assumption that what we can do with nature, we may do.

However, perhaps that kind of thinking has had its hour.

A new ecological awareness cogently reminds us that there are purposes built into nature, including human nature, that cannot be ignored with impunity; that everything is connected, and that there is still a difference between using nature and abusing it.

And in real life, there are life-giving ways of relating and caring that completely transcend individualism's narrow horizons.

• Peter Cullinane was the first bishop of the Diocese of Palmerston North. Now he is "finding retirement more like being re-cycled."

Finlayson says he has vigorously chided church leaders who try to intervene in politics.

On one occasion the Archbishop of Wellington, Cardinal John Dew, invited him to a picnic on Parliament's lawn.

Finlayson says Dew wanted to demonstrate that through the sharing of food collectively we have sufficient resources to ensure all New Zealanders a moderate standard of living.

Appalled, Finlayson declined in writing, saying the picnic was almost as "gimmicky" as the antics of the Anglican leadership.

Quoting a Thatcher Bible favourite, 1 Timothy 5-8 Finlayson says St Paul warns that people who do not provide for their own families were disowning their faith. The former Cabinet Minister's letter also said he deplored Catholic teaching being used "as a cover for extreme left-wing redistributionist views."

He says that former Prime Minister John Key later said he'd had complaints from some bishops that Finlayson had been rude to them.

"I didn't think I'd been rude - rather, I was attempting to tell them how to do their jobs," he says.

Finlayson says it makes him cringe when other politicians discuss their faith publicly.

In fact he advised one new MP, Paulo Garcia, "not to talk about Jesus" in his maiden speech.

"He did.

"It's not New Zealand, is it?

"I just think it jars in this country.

"Often it doesn't seem authentic," he says.

Finlayson says that New Zealand is a secular country and when dealing with matters that impact on religion it's important to find a secular response.

Asked by The Spinoff's Ben Thomas whether it is really possible to ring-fence belief from politics, Finlayson says politicians have to.

"I mean, my view on abortion is that I don't know when life begins and I don't know when life ends because there are these blurry periods.

"I acknowledge that my views, which come from mainstream Catholicism, are in many respects out of place in a secular New Zealand.

"And so I can't go around imposing my views on people.

"This is where I think the United States have got it completely wrong.

"On the one hand, you have people who would be in favour of partial-birth abortions, and then there are those who say nothing from the moment of conception.

"I would have thought sensible people could get together and work out some kind of compromise which would get the damn topic out of the headlines."

A former Cabinet minister's memoir - Yes, Minister - is now out on the shelves.

Subtitled "An insider's account of the John Key years," Finlayson's book makes positive comments about his former boss and nice things about other politicians too - not all of them on the same side of the House.

Sources

• NZ Herald
• The Spinoff