Mention of God, Bible readings and prayers have been banned by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) from all official events.

A new directive from Military Personnel Command instructs all CAF members not to use “religious specific language” if called upon “to deliver a spiritual reflection in the military setting”.

The policy applies to all events connected to official Government business and military ceremonies, including graduation parades, ship commissioning, mess dinners and Remembrance Day.

A Labour MP says that end-of-life care must be fixed ahead of any debate about the legalisation of assisted suicide, echoing comments made by the Prime Minister last month.

Just weeks before Second Reading of the new assisted suicide Bill on 11 September, Adam Jogee, the Labour MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, has argued that poor access to high-quality end-of-life care, which many people experience, could lead to individuals ending their lives by assisted suicide due to a lack of care.

“If even one person feels driven to choose an assisted death because suitable care is unavailable, or because they worry that their family cannot cope because support is inadequate, then we will have failed to be the compassionate society that we think we are”, Jogee said. 

The Member of Parliament asked whether individuals could have a real and meaningful choice at the end of their lives if proper care is “too often inaccessible, inconsistent and overstretched”. 

Jogee pointed to numerous examples of the care crisis to explain why legalising assisted suicide in this context would be disastrous, including referring to a report from Hospice UK that revealed that approximately two-thirds of people who live in rural areas are unable to access palliative and end-of-life care close to home, which could make them feel pressure to end their lives by assisted suicide if the practice were to be legalised. 

He added that many people only realise that accessing such vital end-of-life care is difficult only when they need it, and stated that data has shown that almost 60% of hospices in England have made or are considering making cuts to frontline services, meaning that unless drastic changes are made the situation will likely get worse rather than better.

Jogee reiterated that this “broken system” also leaves those who work in care services feeling “undervalued and underpaid”.

“That cannot be the foundation upon which we ask Parliament to make one of the most profound life-and-death decisions of our time”, he said. 

More than 140 doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers in Yorkshire have called on MPs to reject the new assisted suicide Bill at its Second Reading on 11 September, calling it “unsafe”. 

The healthcare professionals, including GPs and consultants, have signed a letter urging MPs and the Government to reject the legislation. 

In the letter, they state, “Whatever individuals’ views on the principles of assisted dying, we are united in our analysis that this bill is not safe for patients”. 

The healthcare professionals reveal that they are “deeply concerned” about the return of the assisted suicide Bill, referring to many of the concerns that have been raised about the proposals by medical professional organisations, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Physicians, and the British Geriatrics Society. 

Referring to the current crisis in health and care services, the signatories state that the “NHS is fragile, under immense pressure, and palliative care access is inequitable and woefully inadequate”.

“Without national focus and funding reviews to bolster palliative care provision in each of these areas, we risk palliative care services becoming ever-more stretched”, they said.

The doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers explained how marginalised communities, including rural patients, people with dementia and people from minority backgrounds, “face pronounced inequities in access to palliative care, and therefore poorer outcome[s]”.

“At present, too many people do not [have access to high-quality compassionate care]. We are failing our society by denying them that care, and we would fail them again by offering an assisted death before ensuring that proper end-of-life care is available to all”, the signatories added.

A recent poll of likely voters found continuing broad rejection of left-wing activists’ extremes on life and gender policies ahead of what is shaping up to be a tight and grueling midterm congressional election for U.S. Republicans.

Concerned Women for America (CWA) commissioned Zogby Analytics to poll 1,003 likely voters on a range of issues facing the country. 

It found 67.6% “definitely or probably” favour ending the mail-order abortion regime by restoring the requirement for in-person doctor’s visits before dispensing abortion pills; 63.9% oppose gender “transition” chemicals or surgeries for minors; and 69.3% consider it “very or somewhat” important to their vote that a candidate keep males out of female lockers and athletic programs.

More than 60% of respondents named grocery prices, crime and public safety, national security and foreign policy, and religious liberty and freedom of expression as important to them as voters; 59% named protecting children from gender ideology, education and parental rights in schools, and border security and immigration as important. 53.1% said protecting the unborn and reproductive policy was important to them.

Another Labour Party MP has said that Andy Burnham is right that the care sector needs to be fixed before any debate around legalising assisted suicide should take place.

Just weeks before Second Reading of the new assisted suicide Bill on 11 September, Douglas McAllister, the Member of Parliament for West Dunbartonshire, has argued in support of the Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s latest statement on assisted suicide, in which he expresses serious reservations about making assisted suicide legal when end of life care is in such a poor state.

McAllister, who voted against the last, almost identical, assisted suicide Bill, said his “concerns have not gone away”.

McAllister’s article came after the Prime Minister said that the debate around introducing assisted suicide should not take place in a context where palliative and social care remains poorly funded, confirming “that’s the position I will stick to”. 

“I take the view that that debate – and I don’t say that there shouldn’t be a debate at some point about those issues – personally, I think there’s something that needs to happen first. That is the fixing of the funding of palliative care and social care”, Burnham said.

McAllister argued that it is correct that Parliament should “first aim to provide the care that [terminally ill people] need to live out their last days well” before any possible legalisation of assisted suicide were to take place. 

The MP explained that the assisted suicide Bill brought forward in the last session of Parliament by Kim Leadbeater underwent many months of scrutiny in the House of Lords. The recent Bill brought forward by Lauren Edwards is an almost identical copy of the Leadbeater Bill, meaning that, if MPs vote it through at Second Reading on 11 September, “we once again face months debating the same issue that dominated headlines and divided colleagues and communities last year”, McAllister observed. 

America's Democrats seem to be gripped by the cult of death. Massachusetts Democrat Gov. Maura Healey signed a new law Monday eliminating the need for specific medical justifications for abortion past 24 weeks, establishing effectively unlimited abortion up to birth in the state.

Under previous state law, an abortion may only be performed past 24 weeks if a physician deems it “necessary to preserve the life of the patient”; “necessary to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health”; “warranted because of a lethal fetal anomaly or diagnosis”; or “warranted because of a grave fetal diagnosis that indicates that the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside of the uterus without extraordinary medical interventions.”

Such exceptions, pro-lifers have long warned, give abortionists ample wiggle room to authorize late-term abortions under false pretenses. But H. 5595 would do away with even those conditions, replacing the language with “an abortion may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician.” It would also add language that “no medical review process shall override the professional judgment of a treating physician and a patient or the patient’s health care proxy to provide an abortion consistent with the new section.”

The state’s radically pro-abortion governor signed the law in a ceremony Monday surrounded by women (some wearing white doctors’ coats) who clapped their hands in celebration.