Retired pastor Clive Johnston has been convicted on two charges under the Abortion Services Act in Northern Ireland for the crime of preaching on John 3:16 on the edge of a buffer zone across from Coleraine’s Causeway Hospital, which commits abortions, in 2025. Johnston called it a “dark day for Christian freedom.”

John 3:16 reads: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

On May 7th, a district judge at the Coleraine Magistrates Court found the former president of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland guilty. The Christian Institute, which is supporting him, noted that Johnston “now faces a criminal record and £450 in fines,” and that he will likely appeal his conviction.

Johnston, a 78-year-old grandfather, delivered the open-air sermon in July 2025. He did not mention abortion in his message, which focused exclusively on the Gospel. There were also no pro-life signs present during the Sunday morning event attended by about a dozen people.

He was prosecuted on two charges under the 2023 Abortion Services Act for the sermon, which makes it criminal for people to be “impeded, recorded, influenced or to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress” within the 100-150-meter zones (328-492 feet) around abortion facilities or hospitals that provide abortions.

“We held a small, open air Sunday service near a hospital,” Johnston said after his conviction. “We made no reference whatsoever to the issue of abortion. And yet the buffer zones law is so broad that holding a Sunday service has been found to be a criminal offence. And at 78 years of age, I find myself, for the first time, convicted of a crime.”

“If someone is out there causing trouble, stirring up violence, harassing or verbally attacking people, then, absolutely, go ahead and prosecute them,” he continued. “But I wasn’t doing any of those things as the police video shows and as everyone involved in this case accepts. So we are going to go away now and discuss what to do next with our legal team. I am obviously keen to find out what options there might be for me to appeal.”

Israel, a nation with a forceful and fiercely anti-Christian religious lobby and a far-right prime minister, has some of the most liberal abortion coverage in the world.

Among the many additional treatments to be offered to Israelis in the country's coprehensive 'health care' package since 2014 are free-of-charge abortions for women ages 20-33.

Israel has always had a liberal stance on abortion, allowing women facing medical emergencies or those who are victims of rape or abuse to receive subsidies to help them terminate their pregnancies. Outside of those regulations, women can apply for abortions for reasons ranging from an emotional or mental threat caused by the pregnancy or for not being married to the baby’s father. All women who seek to end a pregnancy must appear before a three-member committee to state their case, but 98 percent of requests are approved. Women under the age of 20 or over the age of 40 are eligible for subsidized abortions regardless of the reasons.

The rate of abortion in Israel has, however, steadily declined since 1988, and compared to much of the rest of the world, abortion rates in Israel are moderate. At around 9 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age, the rate is much lower than England (around 16) and the United States (around 13). 

A Canadian priest has twice been offered an assisted death while recovering from a hip fracture, despite being known to be opposed to euthanasia.

According to reports, the 79-year-old priest, Father Larry Holland from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, said he was not dying then or now, but that medical professionals raised the prospect of ending his life by euthanasia on more than one occasion.

“I think I was very shocked. It is such a sensitive subject”, he said, describing his reaction when a doctor raised the topic of euthanasia and assisted suicide with him.

The medical professionals’ mention of this topic left him “kind of silent” for a moment. “There are some things you just don’t talk about to some people”, said Holland.

After the Catholic priest explained to the doctor that he was morally opposed to euthanasia, the doctor said “he just wanted to make sure that, if a [terminal] diagnosis came up or not … I knew of the different services I had access to”.

Despite making his views clear, just a few weeks later, the priest was offered euthanasia a second time. The offer came from a nurse whom Holland believed to be uncomfortable raising the topic with him.

A spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health, which operates the hospital in which Holland was cared for, said “staff may consider bringing up MAID [medical assistance in dying] based on their clinical judgment, provided they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do so”.

The archdiocese’s pro-life chaplain, Father Larry Lynn, said “This must surely be among the most appalling examples of Canada’s coercive and insensitive euthanasia regime”.

Lynn said it was disturbing when a medical professional raises euthanasia with any patient, but it is particularly bad when the patient is explicitly known to be morally opposed to the practice.

Amanda Achtman, founder of the anti-euthanasia project Dying to Meet You, and ethics director of Canadian Physicians for Life, said that medical professionals initiating euthanasia discussions in a medical setting is a form of coercion that attacks patients’ deepest convictions when they are vulnerable. She described it as a form of “torment” for someone who has deeply held beliefs and “an attack on their identity”.

Professional pro-life dissatisfaction with the state of the national Republican Party hit a possible turning point over the weekend, with one prominent movement leader going so far as to declare, “Trump is the problem.”

The fight over the interstate mail distribution of abortion pills intensified last week when the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Louisiana and temporarily blocked a Biden-era rule change, defended by the Trump administration, that allows mifepristone to be prescribed and dispensed without an in-person appointment. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently put a stay on that order while the justices consider the matter, allowing the pills to resume.

It was against this backdrop that the Wall Street Journal published a report on May 3 with the provocative headline, “The Antiabortion Movement Is Turning on Trump,” primarily concerning the Trump administration’s refusal so far to restore the in-person dispensing requirement or enforce a federal law banning distribution of abortifacients via the postal service.

“Trump is the problem. The president is the problem,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser told WSJ. “It’s shameful that the Trump administration’s inaction has forced pro-life states to take their battle to the federal courts,” she went on. “It’s very clear that the issue is perceived as the third rail, and you just have to stay away from it. You cannot utter the A-word.”

A psychiatrist has warned of a social contagion of death as Canada considers euthanasia for mental health conditions.

Giving evidence to the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), Dr John Maher explained that social contagion for suicide is a “well-established phenomenon”, and raised concerns that if MAID is expanded for mental health conditions it will legitimise suicide as an option.

In Canada, euthanasia is the sixth leading cause of death. The Government is expected to expand MAID provisions to include those suffering only from mental illness in 2027.

Maher, who is also the editor of the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health, told the committee how earlier that day he had seen a patient with schizophrenia “very, very cavalierly saying, if he didn’t get a job and a girlfriend, he’s going to request MAID”.

He warned that MAID has already had a profound impact on the mental health sector, despite it still being restricted to those with physical ailments, and that, if made available, patients whose conditions are treatable “will doctor-shop until dead”.

The doctor accused MAID providers of being “happy to assist with suicides while people are on wait lists for effective treatment,” and said that MAID was “undermining our efforts to maintain hope and to provide treatment for recovery. It gives people the message we’ve given up.”

He accused some providers of murder by illegally approving people with mental health conditions for euthanasia: “People are getting MAID for psychiatric reasons under the guise of flimsy medical excuses.”

Last week, a healthy 56-year-old mother from the UK died by assisted suicide at a Swiss clinic.

Wendy Duffy from the West Midlands tragically lost her son four years ago and had struggled to come to terms with his death. She paid £10,000 for help to kill herself.

The slippery slope starts with the hardest of tragic cases, but - just as prolofe advocates have always warned - it's all downhill from there. A Canadian woman has been offered state assistance to end her own life after presenting to the emergency room with back pain, before she was offered any other treatment. 

84-year-old Miriam Lancaster explained that, in April last year, she woke up one day in excruciating pain. Her daughter called for an ambulance, and Miriam was taken to Vancouver General Hospital. 

Moments after Miriam was brought into the emergency ward, a doctor offered to aid her in ending her life under Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide regime, known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). 

“Moments after they wheeled me into the emergency ward, a young female doctor approached my bed”, Miriam said. “After running through the usual questions about what was hurting and how much, she said, as casually as one might offer a cup of tea: ‘Do you want MAID?’”

“I was stunned. No one had even told me what was wrong with me. All I knew was that I was in tremendous pain and that a stranger had just suggested I might want to end my life”, she said.

“I was taken aback. That was the last thing on my mind, I just wanted to find out why I was in pain — I did not want to die”, Miriam stated. 

After Miriam had declined to consent to the ending of her life, she was then diagnosed with a fractured pelvis, in an area that cannot be operated on and which must be allowed to heal on its own. She was transferred to the University of British Columbia’s hospital, where she remained for three weeks while she recovered. 

Almost immediately after leaving the hospital, Miriam packed her bags again to set off on an adventure holiday to Cuba.

“It’s funny to think that not so long ago, a doctor stood over my hospital bed and offered me a way out. It scares me to think what might have happened. In another version of events, perhaps I would have been alone, or more frightened, or more exhausted. Perhaps I would have paused to consider it”, she said. 

Unborn babies in Ireland face an even more dangerous future if the leader of the Social Democrats gets her way and further liberalises Ireland’s abortion law amid “skyrocketing” figures.

Deputy Holly Cairns has introduced the Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill 2026 into Dáil Éireann, aiming to abolish the mandatory three-day reflection period and allow all babies deemed to have a “fatal condition” to be aborted. Presently, it must be certain that they would die within 28 days of birth.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that the Government will “engage constructively with the legislation”, but Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín urged TDs to oppose the Bill.

Tóibín highlighted to his colleagues that there were 10,850 abortions in 2024, the “highest on record, since the legislation was changed”.

In contrast to Cairns’ claim that the reflection period is “patronising”, the Aontú leader emphasised that abortion is “often one of the biggest decisions that any woman could make in her life. It is an irreversible decision.

“We believe it is compassionate to provide a period of time for a woman to reflect in relation to proceeding to an abortion or not.”

Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign added: “It is not only sad but disgraceful that Holly Cairns is introducing a bill today to do away with the life-saving three-day wait before an abortion and that would expand the grounds for late-term abortions even more.”

“Micheál Martin and Simon Harris have a huge responsibility in all of this too. They were the driving force behind the repeal campaign in 2018 which promised voters that abortion would be ‘rare’ if they voted for it. Now they’re adopting a ‘nothing to see here’ approach to Ireland’s skyrocketing abortion numbers and are doing nothing to push back against making the law even more extreme.”

The Bill is based on barrister Marie O’Shea’s review of Ireland’s abortion legislation, but Mulroy noted that O’Shea “publicly admitted that before making her recommendation she never consulted any of the thousands of women who attended an initial abortion appointment but chose not to proceed after the three-day waiting period.

“For the Chair of the Review to make such a radical proposal without engaging those it affects most is, frankly, an astonishing omission that completely discredits the recommendation she made.”

The proposals, which will be debated at Second Stage during Private Members’ Time, would decriminalise doctors if they “intentionally end the life of a foetus otherwise than in accordance” with the abortion law.

In addition, medics’ right to “conscientious objection” would be undermined by a “legal duty to provide prompt and appropriate medical assistance to any person in a medical emergency”.

A 75-year-old woman has been acquitted after a judge dismissed charges against her for offering conversation within an abortion censorship zone.

Rose Docherty, who is a Roman Catholic, was arrested last year for holding the sign: “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want” outside Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow. She did not approach anyone, or speak about abortion.

Sheriff Stuart Reid ruled that the prosecution “failed to disclose an offence known to the law of Scotland”, but noted that the case can be brought back if the prosecution provides evidence that she had ‘influenced’ any person within the 200-metre zone.

Responding to the ruling, Docherty stated: “I was arrested, charged and prosecuted for nothing more than peacefully inviting consensual conversation in a public space that I was permitted to be in. When I was arrested, I was handcuffed, placed in the back of a police van and placed in a police cell for over two hours, without a chair to sit on.

“Simply for being available for the lonely, the afraid and the coerced, I have been treated like a violent criminal. But thankfully, today the charges have been dismissed. The judge ruled that the charges were irrelevant and that they were a breach of my Article 10 free speech rights.”

Jeremiah Igunnubole of Alliance Defending Freedom International, which supported the case, added: “No one should ever be criminalised for peaceful speech, least of all for making a peaceful and consensual offer to speak.

“It is bad enough to be prosecuted for exercising a fundamental right; it is far worse that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service brought these charges without conducting even the most basic investigative inquiries, such as establishing whether anyone had been criminally influenced by Rose’s conduct within the ‘buffer zone’.”

Under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act, people risk an unlimited fine for handing out pro-life literature, speaking to anyone about abortion or praying silently within 200m of an abortion centre.

Growing public unease about assisted suicide in Britain is matched not only by the Fierce resistance of the house of Lords, but also now by increasing concern among MPs.   

New polling has suggested that more MPs would oppose the assisted suicide Bill than could be relied upon to back it if the Bill were revived in the next parliamentary session.

The polling, which was carried out by Whitestone Insight, found that only 41% of MPs surveyed can definitely be relied upon to vote “Aye” again, while 45% said they would continue to vote no, suggesting that if the legislation were put to a vote today, it would likely be rejected by the House of Commons.

Only 12 MPs need to change from supporting the previous Bill to opposing the new Bill for the new Bill to fail, and the poll suggests that any MP considering bringing back the assisted suicide Bill after the King’s Speech would likely be destined to fail.

In addition, a majority of MPs surveyed, approximately 61%, recognise the authority of the House of Lords to amend, block or reject the legislation if safeguards are deemed inadequate. Only 28% of MPs do not recognise this. 

According to the polling, 47% of MPs believe that such a rejection of the assisted suicide Bill by the House of Lords would not trigger a “constitutional crisis”, while only 41% believe that it might. 

The polling also revealed that many MPs have serious concerns about the safety of the assisted suicide Bill. Almost half (49%) of MPs polled expressed a fear that the assisted suicide Bill, if legalised, would lead to systemic pressure on elderly people and people with disabilities to opt for assisted suicide, when they otherwise would not have considered it. 

Only 43% of MPs surveyed believe that the current safeguards in the assisted suicide Bill are sufficient, while a majority of them, 52%, are not certain that the legislation would prevent coercion or error from occurring. Additionally, 43% of MPs stated that they knew of someone who voted in favour of the assisted suicide Bill with the expectation that the House of Lords would work to “make it safe”.