International news

British doctors coerced

green paper denounced

LONDON – The British medical newspaper Hospital Doctor says young British doctors are being coerced by their superiors into performing abortions. Junior doctors told a British Medical Association conference they were harassed by senior staff who said abortion was part of their training. Conference delegates responded by urging hospitals to discipline senior doctors who force juniors into performing abortions, and to develop policies to stop harassment.

Meanwhile, British pro-life activists are launching a campaign to alert people to the dangers of a new government consultation paper, which contains proposals to allow sick people to die of thirst. Dr. Tony Cole, a leading Christian doctor, told a committee of the House of Commons recently that the plans must be opposed. “If I were a person with a long-term strategy to introduce euthanasia, I would introduce these recommendations,” he said.

PARIS – Almost 12,000 of France’s mayors have signed a petition against the socialist government’s plans to legalize homosexual marriages. The mayors would be asked to officiate at the contract signings if the measure goes through. “In our sick French society, the two things that are still healthy — the family and the town council — are now being threatened by a catastrophic weakness,” said Michel Pinton, mayor of the central French village of Felletin.

Pinton has been threatened with lawsuits by homosexual activists over his position. The French government is indicating it wants to bring in a “contract for social union” that will give heterosexual or homosexual couples living together the same legal rights as married people.

NASSAU – About 300 demonstrators from a group called Save the Bahamas crowded Nassau’s Prince George Wharf recently to protest the arrival of yet another gay “Love Boat” on its shores. The cruise ship Seabreeze arrived and docked with 800 lesbian passengers on board. The passengers responded to the protesters by kissing each other in full view.

Save the Bahamas has been lobbying for stricter laws on sodomy and a ban on the arrival of gay cruise ships. A group of church ministers, meanwhile, has called for the resignation of Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, who is insisting on permitting the cruises.

LISBON – President Jorge Sampaio has called a referendum for June 28 on a move to liberalize Portugal’s abortion law. The vote would decide on whether abortion should be available virtually on demand during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. It will be the first time a referendum has been used in Portugal.

The country’s parliament has approved a law allowing abortions during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, but after vociferous protests, the ruling Socialist government agreed to put the question to a vote. Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, a practising Roman Catholic, has publicly opposed the easing of existing restrictions on abortion.

BEIJING – As China’s top demographer suggests that his country’s one-child policy is more a slogan than a reality, the country’s Communist party is reported to have been forced by popular resistance to back off from the policy in rural areas, says Atlantic Monthly magazine. Enraged peasants are said to be going as far as attacking and killing party leaders and their families. But that isn’t stopping the governing regime from pushing onwards. A high-ranking Chinese government official recently unveiled a mobile abortuary at an international family planning conference.

“We plan to make 600 of these buses, to travel around the countryside,” said Zhou Zhengxiang. Although it was stated that the mobile abortuaries were to be used for “voluntary” abortions, every effort was to be made to pressure women to terminate “unauthorized” pregnancies.

Coerced abortions and sterilizations have been widely reported since China’s government began implementing its one-child policy in the early 1980s.