Taiwan promotes larger families
Peru weakens protection for unborn
Call to end spermicide use
Guernsey moves toward euthanasia
Taiwan promotes larger families
TAIPEI – The Taiwanese ministry of the interior and the council for cconomic planning and development have proposed incentives to encourage couples to have more than two children. The inducements include payments of about $855 to couples with at least two children for every further child they have, and extended annual leave for women with children under six. Unfortunately, it is also promoting more children by encouraging infertile couples to undergo IVF treatment. Taiwan’s fertility rate is 1.16, significantly below the replacement level of 2.1. The abortion rate is extremely high in Taiwan.
Peru weakens protection for unborn
LIMA – The Peruvian congress has approved a proposal removing protection of unborn life from the country’s constitution. The amendment reads, “Abortion is prohibited but for the exception permitted by the law.” The move would make Peru the first Latin American country in which abortion was permitted in the constitution and will violate the American Convention on Human Rights, which explicitly affirms the right to life from conception.
Call to end spermicide use
LONDON – An international coalition of scientists and “sexual health” groups has called on makers of condoms and lubricants to remove the spermicide Nonoxynol-9 from their products because it can increase the risk of HIV. “There is no basis for the use of Nonoxynol-9 as an anti-HIV agent … in fact it is liable to increase the possibility of transmission,” said Lisa Power of the Terrence Higgins Trust, a British HIV/AIDS advocacy group supporting the campaign against N-9.
Guernsey moves toward euthanasia
SAINT PETER PORT – Legislators in Guernsey, a British territory in the English Channel, voted 38-17 to launch a study into voluntary euthanasia. Legislator Pat Mellor, whose mother died of Alzheimer’s, had advocated the study and said she is confident the vote to legalize assisted suicide after the study is released would pass by similar numbers. The London, U.K-based Voluntary Euthanasia Society applauded the move, calling it “forward-thinking,” while Dr. Michael Howitt Wilson, chairman of the British Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life, criticized the euthanasia movement gaining force across Europe. Howitt Wilson noted, “Voluntary euthanasia doesn’t stay voluntary, and that is one point we will try to get across.