Speaking to an International AIDS Conference in South Africa, Maria Minna, Canadian Minister for International Cooperation, promoted condoms as the solution to preventing the disease. Quoted yesterday on CBC’s The National she said, “that means the use of condoms. That means making condoms available. It means having distribution problems which exist resolved.”
The Portuguese Government has voted to decriminalize the consumption of illegal drugs such as cannabis and heroin. Drug users will now be treated as sick people in need of medical help.
A British newspaper has suggested that social workers took a 12-year-old pregnant girl away from her parents and into care because the father was a Catholic and disagreed with abortion. The parents of the girl, who has behavioural problems, had vowed to support their daughter when they discovered she was pregnant, and Cardinal Winning’s Pro-Life Initiative offered the family financial support. However, a few days after the girl and her parents again refused the option of abortion at 24 weeks’ gestation, the girl was taken away on the basis that she was beyond parental control and that there were concerns about the father’s behaviour. The girl had her baby, but it was taken away five months later against her wishes and is now being put up for adoption by the local council. The newspaper report by Anne Atkins concludes: “Because of their mainstream Christian beliefs, they are at odds with the society around them … for this they have lost their child and grandchild.” (The Mail on Sunday, 9 July reported by SPUC)