The shape of the Nathaniel Centre 's submission (below) was defined by the questions the Ministry formulated.

Access to assisted dying

Do you think changes are needed to the eligibility requirements for a person to receive assisted dying?

i. An assisted death must remain a voluntary choice.

There are those who seek to broaden the parameters of eligibility to include persons who will not be competent at the time of administration, for example those with dementia. This would represent a major shift and a challenge to public perceptions of the safety provisions of the current Act.

ii. We do not wish to see removal of the current requirement that death must be within six months.

Removing this requirement so that, for example, only ‘grievous and irremediable suffering' was required, would lead to a significant expansion in the numbers eligible for assisted death, as has happened in other jurisdictions.

While there are ‘hard cases' currently not eligible, doing away with this requirement would put at risk much larger numbers of sick, disabled, and dying people whose lives may be seen as ‘not worth living' or, even more worryingly, who may come to see themselves as a burden to family and society. This is particularly risky in the current ‘ableist' environment that defines our society.

Safeguards

Do you think the Act provides sufficient safeguards to ensure that people only receive assisted dying if they are eligible, actively seek and consent to it, are competent to consent and provide their consent free from pressure from others?

i. We are concerned that no more than one percent of all applications for an assisted death are referred for a psychological or psychiatric assessment. An independent assessment by a suitably qualified person should be a requirement for every person who applies for an assisted death.

ii. There is currently no requirement for a ‘cooling off' period to ensure that the decision for an assisted death is not hasty or impulsive. Overseas jurisdictions do allow for this, e.g. 15 days in Oregon, 9 in Victoria, or 10 in Canada.

iii. There is currently no requirement in the Act for the person's competence to be assessed at the time of the administration of medication.

iv. There is currently no requirement for medical practitioners to undertake a formal assessment for coercion. (Refers to Clause 11 of the Act). Coercion can be informal, subtle, and difficult to detect.

Those requesting euthanasia/assisted death may be frail, powerless and vulnerable.

There needs to be a system of formal assessment of the possibility that the person seeking the end of life may be responding to pressures from family, or to notions about the ‘burden' they may think they place on others by continuing to live.

v. There is no requirement for independent witnesses to be present at any stage of the process. Other jurisdictions include the need for independent witnesses to be present when the request is made (Victoria), and at the signing or the written request (Oregon, Victoria and Canada).

Process to receive assisted dying

Do you think any changes are needed to the process to apply for and receive assisted dying?

The Act does not require applicants to be screened for depression or other mental health issues. The opinion of a psychiatrist is required only if the attending or independent medical practitioners consider the applicant is not eligible.

Depression and mental health issues can be difficult to recognise and diagnose, something that is well understood in the justice system when a psychiatric examination may be demanded.

Practitioners providing assisted dying

Do you think changes should be made to the requirements for medical practitioners and nurse practitioners to provide parts of the assisted dying process?

i. Doctors must not be able to suggest the option of assisted death to their patients.

At a time of significant personal upheaval, fear, and vulnerability, for a doctor to raise the ‘option' of assisted dying creates a risk that it will be interpreted by their patient as a ‘suggestion' that it is the most desirable way forward - ‘Why else would the doctor talk about it?'

ii. the right to conscientious objection for Health Practitioners must not be weakened.

Under the current Act, an attending medical practitioner who has a conscientious objection must tell the patient and inform them that they have the ‘right to ask the SCENZ Group for the name and contact details of a replacement medical practitioner'. There should be no change to this requirement.

iii. Some practitioners may not object in principle to assisted dying but may be concerned that the Act is unworkable (e.g. when it says they must give a definite prognosis or try to ensure the patient's request is not affected by pressure from others) and therefore may want to exercise their conscience
right to opt out of involvement in assisted dying on professional grounds.

Any expansion of the current eligibility criteria may also create new conscience issues for doctors who don't currently object.

iv. The current ability for Institutions to exercise conscience must be protected.

While the EOLC Act is silent on institutions, it has been ruled ‘that organisations like hospice services, aged care facilities, or GP practices can object to assisted dying, as set out in the End of Life Choice Act, taking place on their premises or with the assistance of their staff', under the right to freedom of conscience under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Access to assisted death has been described as ‘working well'; there is no need to force institutions such as hospices or hospitals or rest homes to provide assisted death on their premises; such a change could bring about a significant impact on the atmosphere of these places and on the ability of the staff there to work in ways that support their approach to healthcare.

Oversight of assisted dying

Do you think changes are required to the roles and responsibilities of the entities established under the Act to oversee assisted dying?

i. Reporting and data are inadequate in New Zealand. The recording and reporting required by the Act is minimal.

The Review Committee is given only very basic information about things like the place, date and time of death, the method used (e.g. ingestion or injection), and any problems that occurred in the administration of the medication and how they were dealt with.

Other jurisdictions, for example, the Netherlands and Oregon, collect much more detailed data.

Oregon records and reports patients' reasons for requesting assisted suicide, the time between ingestion of the medication and death, the types of complications observed and their frequency, and the length of the relationship between the patient and the doctor who prescribed the medication.

ii. To fully understand the application of the EOLC in New Zealand, to ensure it is applied correctly, and, in particular, to ensure that all the appropriate restrictions are observed, it is essential that more extensive data, such as that collected in Oregon and other jurisdictions, is collected and made publicly available.

In particular, there must be detailed reporting on the reasons people are applying for an assisted death.

iii. We also have serious concerns about the robust operation of the Review Committee, including long periods with key vacancies and insufficient data to be able to review the safe operating of the Act.

Alignment with the wider health system

Do you think the assisted dying process aligns with other parts of the health system?

Providing an assisted death is not part of healthcare. It is, in fact, the antithesis of ‘healthcare' since it means the end of healthcare.

It is not a medical procedure, and doctors should play no role in its practice. If we wish to continue to provide assisted dying as a legally permissible activity, it should be set up outside of medicine.

Many Medical Associations around the world hold that physician assisted suicide and euthanasia are unethical, even if they are made legal.

Is there anything that could be improved?

While, as argued above, assisted dying is distinguishable from the provision of healthcare (and should not be described as an act of medical care), its safe operation within Aotearoa must be evaluated from a systems perspective - it does not operate in isolation from, or without being influenced by, the broader healthcare environment that currently exists. This means:

i. The Aotearoa New Zealand health and care systems are widely described as ‘in crisis' at present.

Expanding access to assisted death to those who may suffer from dementia, disability, or who have difficult or long-term health care needs, in the current crisis situation, is unsafe.

This represents a strong reason NOT to broaden eligibility.

ii. Palliative Care needs to be properly funded. An assisted death is fully funded while quality palliative is neither fully funded nor equitably available throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

True autonomy requires the ability to have a choice among options.

Currently many people in this country are unable to access quality palliative care.

It is of deep concern that the June 2024 Annual Report from the Registrar shows one in four applicants (22.4 percent) for assisted dying were not receiving palliative care, without detailing why this is the case. There needs to be more transparency around what lies behind this disturbing statistic.

Other feedback

Do you have any other feedback related to the Act?

Use of honest, clear language: We note the frequent use of the term "assisted death" in the Review document - a total of 38 times.

This is a more honest reflection of what takes place than the legal term employed in the Act - "assisted dying".

We regard the term assisted dying as (i) a euphemism and (ii) as confusing the intentional premature death of people with what all good health-carers, especially palliative care staff, have done for centuries and continue to do - looking after people and assisting them to have a pain-free dignified death without intentionally hastening their death.

• The Nathaniel Centre - the New Zealand Catholic Bioethics Centre - is an agency of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference. It seeks to bring the light of the Gospel and the moral tradition of the Catholic Church to issues in bioethics.

His comments come as the Ministry of Health is conducting a mandated review of the End of Life Choice Act within three years of its implementation to assess its effectiveness and determine whether amendments are needed.

The current review will be finished by November.

Kleinsman was speaking on 1 News.

Changes needed

Kleinsman say the current legislation needs changing as it lacks:

• a formal assessment for coercion
• a requirement for an independent witness during the assessment phase
• adequate screening for depression and other mental health issues
• no cooling-off period after a request is made

He recognises that the case for assisted death is motivated by a desire to show mercy to those suffering.

While individual cases may appear justified without immediate harm, concerns arise about the cumulative impact of cases and shifting public perceptions, he says.

Kleinsman warns that the growth of habits and attitudes of mind gradually reshapes public perceptions of what is happening and what assisted dying means.

He points to several international examples that cause concern.

Countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain now permit assisted dying for mental illness, with several other countries also allowing it for minors, infants and individuals with dementia.

Then, in a related development, a 2023 Canadian poll revealed that 28 percent of respondents supported assisted dying for individuals experiencing homelessness, while 27 percent were in favour of those living in poverty.

The findings have fuelled further controversy as stories emerge in Canada of patients opting for assisted dying due to inadequate social support and healthcare rather than an autonomous choice driven by their medical condition.

"This shows us a glimpse into our own future if we loosen our eligibility criteria - the price could involve "severe unintended consequences" Kleinsman said.

He adds that we must continue to protect the integrity of palliative care and have AD-free spaces. Many people want this, and it's essential for upholding real choice.

He says that to replace the requirement for a terminally ill patient's life expectancy to be under six months with a clause like "grievous and irremediable suffering" would be wrong.

Forbidding doctors to raise the option of assisted dying with a patient must not change, he says.

Pro assisted dying changes

Social Justice NZ CEO Jackie Foster says she voted "no" at the referendum but has changed her mind.

Foster said, after losing her mother to cancer and having a close friend aged 51 die from a degenerative disease, it is often difficult for doctors to determine if people will die within six months, so she wants the removal of that time restriction.

She wants two changes to the legislation -

• the removal of the words "within 6 months" from section 5(1)(c)
• inserting a new sub-section 5(1)(g) into the Act that says "suffers from a degenerative disease that will ultimately end their life"

Foster believes that the first three years of this legislation have brought the country closer on the issue.

In 2020, 65 percent of voters said "yes" to the legislation but she believes that number would be higher today.

Source

• 1News

Donating, volunteering in hospice shops and asking members of Parliament and the Government to make palliative care a priority are some options.

NZ Catholic Bishops Conference Secretary, Bishop Stephen Lowe, says hospices provide a free service to 20,000 palliative care patients and their whanau each year.

To do this they have to fundraise almost half the $176 million cost.

"The Government is providing just $88 million, meaning hospices are having to raise the other $87 million through fundraising events and sales from hospice shops and the like, which have been affected by the various pandemic responses," Lowe says.

"When the public was asked at the 2020 election to support the euthanasia legislation ... they were led to believe palliative care would be a priority choice.

"Instead, hospice funding has been virtually capped at a time of high inflation and it was recently revealed that the Ministry of Health has at least seven staff devoted to supporting euthanasia, but none devoted to palliative care."

Lowe says bishops regularly hear from parishioners worried about the survival of palliative care services.

The bishops conference recently received a letter highlighting the inequity of government support between those who choose to end their life by euthanasia and those who would like to die in God's time with palliative care.

The letter said: "As a country we should be expanding palliative care, not cutting back because we can't pay for it. As individuals we have little voice, but as a community, we could make a difference."

Lowe says the bishops wholeheartedly support that message.

"We need as the Catholic community to be vocal and practical in our support for palliative care and hospice facilities.

"Parishioners should consider contacting their local members of Parliament to state support for the hospice movement and palliative care.

"Palliative care helps many people with life-ending conditions including multiple sclerosis, lung failure, cancer, motor neurone disease and dementia.

"We need to remember and emphasise that palliative care is not just undertaken in hospices, but in people's homes.

"It also helps families and whanau before and after their loved ones die. It is an essential service which should be supported as such."

Source

• NZ Catholic Bishops Conference

The speculation comes from a late-2021 three-day seminar convened at the Vatican by the Pontifical Academy for Life.

An essay titled "Rileggere l'etica teologica della vita" ("Re-reading the theological ethics of life") was published on June 30 in La Civilta' Cattolica. The essay provides an overview of a 528 page book published after the seminar.

"It is legitimate to ask if Pope Francis will give us a new encyclical or apostolic exhortation on bioethics that might be called ‘Gaudium Vitae.' [‘The Joy of Life']," said Jorge José Ferrer SJ, the essay's author. He is a priest and professor of moral theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico.

If a papal document were published, it would ignite a wide-ranging reflection on the ethics of human life. This could lead to a new and definitive papal teaching document on issues as polarising as contraception, assisted procreation and palliative care.

Twenty theologians from Europe, Latin America, Africa and the United States attended the seminar, including lay women and men. They gathered to listen, study and reflect on theological ethics, and bioethics in particular, from the teachings of Pope Francis.

"We followed a path of study and reflection that led us to see the issues of bioethics in a new light, starting with the role of discernment and the formed conscience of the moral agent," said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, in an interview about the book with Vatican Media.

"We did this not only in an atmosphere of parrhesia [a bold and courageous freedom of speech] that stimulates and empowers theologians, academics and scholars. But also with a procedure similar to the quaestiones disputatae: to pose a thesis and open it up to debate."

Pope Francis has revitalised the Catholic Church's understanding and approach to theological ethics and moral theology by empowering dialogue without repercussions.

It is Francis's influence on how theology is taught in Catholic universities and seminaries worldwide. Allowing scholars the freedom to explore Catholic theology affecting the real-life issues of the faithful.

In four of his landmark papal documents - "Evangelii Gaudium" (2013), "Laudato Si'" (2015), "Amoris Laetitia" (2016) and "Veritatis Gaudium" (2018) - Francis encouraged the dialogue of an individual's informed conscience and the role of discernment in moral decision-making.

It remains to be seen whether Pope Francis will publish an exhortation or encyclical on theological ethics that addresses these and other urgent topics in our human history.

Sources

America Magazine

On March 17, scientists reported that they had taken fertilized eggs of mice and grew mouse embryos in an artificial uterus for 11 to 12 days.

This was longer than had ever been previously recorded.

The experiment's lead researcher suggested that human embryos should eventually be studied in an artificial womb. Suggesting this be as late as 40 days post-fertilization.

Dr Jacob Hanna led the embryo experiments for the Weizmann Institute of Science research team in Israel. He wrote that his experiments could help fellow scientists study the development of mammals.

The experiments could possibly help understand how miscarriages and gene mutations can occur, the New York Times reported.

Hanna also hoped the research could extend to human embryos in the future.

"I hope it will allow scientists to grow human embryos until week five," as reported in the MIT Technology Review.

Hanna added that he is pushing for research labs to study human embryos, growing them in an artificial womb for 40 days before disposing of them.

"I do understand the difficulties. I understand. You are entering the domain of abortions," Hanna said, the MIT Technology Review reported. "So I would advocate growing it [the human embryo] until day 40 and then disposing of it."

The hypothetical practice could replace the fetal tissue research market, he said.

"Instead of getting tissue from abortions, let's take a blastocyst and grow it," he said.

In response, a Catholic ethicist told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly that the Church opposes experimentation on human embryos except for direct, therapeutic, non-harmful treatments for the embryos themselves.

"The Church has already spoken to this issue," said Dr Joseph Meaney, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly. He cited the Vatican's 1987 document Donum Vitae, "Instruction on respect for human life."

In the document, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) taught that only direct therapeutic experiments are licit on human embryos.

Meaney added, "nothing that would put their lives in danger could be acceptable."

"The Church is very pro-science," he emphasized.

"We always put the human person at the center of science, not to be experimented upon. But to be actually helped."

In Donum Vitae, the Vatican CDF stated "[t]he human being must be respected - as a person - from the very first instant of his existence."

"No objective, even though noble in itself, such as a foreseeable advantage to science, to other human beings or to society, can in any way justify experimentation on living human embryos or foetuses, whether viable or not, either inside or outside the mother's womb."

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• EWTN Pro-Life Weekly

The proposed reforms have just passed the National Assembly on first reading and should be passed into law by early next year.

They will allow assisted procreation to be available to single and lesbian women and push back the deadline for a legal abortion.

Lining up the proposed reforms with Pope Francis's recently-released encyclical Fratelli Tutti, the bishops ask:

"Can a society be fraternal when there is nothing better to offer mothers in distress than the elimination of the child they bear?"

"Can a society be fraternal when it organises the birth of children who will not have a father but, at best, a sperm donor?"

"Our society must not allow itself to be surreptitiously drawn into a dangerous path for the future of humanity."

The proposed abortion legislation pushes back the deadline for legal abortions from 12 to 14 weeks. One of the reasons given for the extension is because the overworked state health system cannot always meet the current deadline.

The hanges to the assisted procreation law are significant, as unlike most other European Union countries, it is available only to heterosexual couples in France.

Fratelli Tutti is "a great text" that "calls our globalised world not to limit itself to the horizon of economic or political mechanisms but to choose fraternity with the poor," the bishops say.

Their statement stresses their desire for more fraternity in relations between the secular and spiritual spheres in France, where attacks against religious symbols occur regularly, the bishops say in their statement.

Noting that Christian places of worship, mosques, synagogues and Jewish cemeteries are increasingly subject to degradation and sometimes even desecration, the French bishops say: "People are mocked and sometimes attacked and even killed, because of their real or perceived religious affiliation."

Last week France's Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin promised to find and prosecute those who attack churches, mosques and other religious edifices after an attempted arson strike on a Catholic church near Lyon.

Darmanin said, "Catholics had nothing to worry about," after Paris declared it would change some regulations on faiths to better combat Islamist extremism.

Changes in regulations on religion must address all faiths, even if, as in this case, the real target is radical Islam.

Non-Muslim faiths sometimes oppose changes because they fear the changes could result in increased state interference in their activities.

Last weekend there were small demonstrations against the reforms throughout France. Although organisers included the same group that mobilised large protests against same-sex marriage in 2012-2013, protest numbers fell far short of that turnout.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: Ruptly

They made the decision following the passage of a controversial bioethics law despite mass church-backed opposition.

Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort who is the French Catholic Bishops' Conference president, "wants to change how our plenaries function and highlight themes common to both church and society," a spokesperson for the conference says.

"There's a lot of discussion about clericalism in today's France, and when it comes to issues affecting everyone, the bishops have realized they need to reflect with laypeople, not just among themselves."

Lay representatives will be invited to the next conference assembly in Lourdes in November.

They will be asked to offer the assembly their "experience and inspiration" at a debate on ecology.

The bishops will then resume "normal plenary functions" and prepare their final message.

"This is an experiment. We'll see which ideas and conditions emerge for more regular participation by baptized laypeople," the conference says.

The bishops' permanent council says bringing lay people into the plenary assembly is an "exercise in synodality."

The council has become "rapidly convinced" that social changes have challenged "habits of thought and life" and offered "a great opportunity to shine the light of God's revelation."

It is expected that laypeople would be invited to plenaries over the next three years "to promote mutual listening" and "bring the church in France closer to citizens again."

The bishops' conference decision to involve laypeople coincided with the the passage of a revised bioethics law in the National Assembly last week.

The revised bill allows state-funded medically assisted procreation for single mothers and lesbian couples.

The measure was condemned by the French church.

Fify-six prelates urged Catholic to oppose it.

Opponents of the bill, supported by hundreds of organizations, organized a mass protest in Paris at the beginning of October.

Msgr. Thierry Magnin, secretary general of the bishops' conference, says "various philosophical and religious groups" had spoken out during the bioethics debate in a "fine testimony to democracy."

However, the bishops believe "everything was prejudged from above," he says

The key "consequences for children to be born" under the new legislation had barely been considered before the assembly vote, says Magnin.

He claims attention was given "only to the hankering and desires of contemporary society," and what "current science and technology made possible."

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: CNN

The purpose of the lab - a $10 million joint venture between the University and government - is to get New Zealand industry using 3D printing in a better way.

In the course of his career, Diegel has developed over 100 new products for companies in New Zealand and worldwide.

Several home health monitoring products, security and marine products, and lighting products are among the items he has produced.

3D printing body parts
Researchers have already made a start on "bioprinting" - printing organs such as bladders and tracheas Diegel says.

He predicts the ability to print more complex organs such as livers and kidneys could come in the next decade.

Ethical questions

Diegel says this development would create some ethical and social questions:

• People could live to 150
• Would 3D printed organs would be available only to the rich?
• Should you be able to print yourself a spare body to keep in the refrigerator at home just in case?
• Should you be able to print better organs than your original ones?
• What happens if you hack a 3D printer while it's printing and it creates a bad part - but you wouldn't know about it until it potentially causes some harm?
• If people could print 3D food, what would they do with all the time they would have spent cooking?
• The advent of 3D printing could also make spare parts obsolete. If manufacturers no longer needed warehouses of spare parts, global business models would need to change.

Source

• auckland.ac.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

France's highest bioethics body, the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE), sees the issue differently.

Under the current law, technologies such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and artificial insemination are restricted to heterosexual couples, and surrogacy is illegal.

President Emmanuel Macron has promised to change this law.

French media say a bill is likely to be introduced in Parliament in 2019.

In a document by Archbishop Pierre d'Ornellas (who is the head of a working group on bioethics of the French bishops' conference) signed by all French bishops, the bishops outline their concerns.

They say their purpose in intervening in the proposed law change is because they wished to offer an ethical perspective on the forthcoming debates, based on reason and in the spirit of dialogue.

The bishops predict liberalising the law would lead to the social acceptance of surrogacy, the rise of eugenics and the notion that children were commodities to please adults.

Furthermore, if the law were changed, society would be harmed because the treatment would enable fatherhood to be removed from the lives of children.

The CCNE, however, says "artificial insemination should be available to all women" regardless of relationship status or sexual orientation, reasoning that the inability to have children constituted a real "hardship."

However, it still upholds France's current policy on surrogacy, ruling that the practice is unethical no matter the "motivation," medical or otherwise.

According to a recent study for La Croix newspaper, 60 percent of French people support expanding the law to include single women and lesbian couples, as opposed to just 24 percent in 1990.

Source

• Crux Now
• France 24
• Image: CNN

Dr Willem Lemmens, who is a bioethicist, spoke out last weekend after a symposium which looked at the ethics surrounding suicide and euthanasia, psychiatry and mental health care.

"In just a few years, requests for euthanasia in psychiatry [have] became more and more ‘acceptable' and common in Belgium," he said after the Oxford-based symposium.

He says euthanasia requests are made despite the fact that even pro-euthanasia doctors say "the law was intended for somatic terminal diseases, not mental suffering caused by psychiatric diseases."

"So, the moral climate has changed drastically, in the sense that euthanasia is called by some a ‘fundamental right' and death a ‘therapeutic solution.'"

Pro-life advocates should raise their voices "in a dignified manner and listen to the critical testimonies and voices in Belgium and the Netherlands," he suggests.

Lemmens says legalised euthanasia is affecting the field of psychiatry. Psychiatrists are often put under pressure to ‘grant' euthanasia, sometimes even by the family of a patient.

"Some psychiatrists - clearly a minority - think they should at all costs respect the autonomy of the patient."

He says they are prepared to do this, "even though they acknowledge the subjective dimension of a euthanasia request for mental suffering only and also the difficulty to determine that there are no treatment options left.

"All this has created a sphere of mutual distrust among psychiatrists, also because worrisome cases were revealed in the press about which some want to keep silent."

Lemmens says "worrisome cases" include testimonies by families who say loved ones suffering from mental disorders "have been given euthanasia without their consent or against the advice of certain physicians."

Source

• Crux
• LifeSite
• Image: YouTube

Nichols says children will find their "greatest joy" by accepting their biological sex rather than selecting a gender of their choice.

They are not "single, self-determining individuals," Nichols told the teachers.

"At a time of great confusion about the rules of sexual behaviour, about exploitation and abuse in every part of society, some firm points of reference that are already built into our humanity at its best are of vital importance."

He said Catholic moral teaching in areas of friendship, relationships, family life and human sexuality rested on the foundations of the church's vision of common humanity rather than on individualism.

These foundations are important in today's world, he added.

Nichols told the teachers their students need help to develop a sense of justice grounded in an "innate understanding of human nature and its dignity," not ideology.

"The Christian faith, more than any other, takes the reality of sin seriously, not pretending that we live in a utopia or on a pathway of endless progress, but rather in a world marked by limitations and distortions."

His comments followed a briefing paper by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in response to Scottish proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

The Centre is an academic institute serving the Catholic Church in the UK and Ireland.

The reforms, which are likely to be copied later this year in England and Wales, will permit any person to change their gender by law simply by self-declaration.

If passed into law, the reforms would remove legal provisions involving assessments for "gender dysphoria" undertaken by doctors over a period of at least two years.

The proposals envisage the right of children to self-declare into a new gender at age 16 when they cease to be minors.

Younger children will also be able to change their gender without parental consent if they appeal to the courts.

The transgender advocacy group, TG Pals, said Nichols's remarks were "not helpful" and "a religious bias should not have any impact on a transgender child's needs".

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales will consider its response to transgender issues next month.

Source

• Catholic Philly
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: St Ethelburga's

The 45 mainly male appointees include several former members as well as new ones.

Experts chosen by Pope Francis for the Academy (which is his bioethics advisory board) include:

The Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher; an Indian Missionary Society priest and former director-general of the Catholic Health Association of India; a Japanese Nobel Prize-winning stem cell researcher; two prominent U.S. ethicists; a neurologist in pain and palliative care; Muslim and a Jewish scholars and well as world authorities on paediatrics, genetics, bioethics and pharmaceutical law.

Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus is included in the new team, as is an appointee many of the world's media have been focusing on - Professor Nigel Biggar.

Biggar is an Anglican professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford, who has in the past supported legalised abortion up to 18 weeks and has expressed qualified support for euthanasia.

Last year, the pope reaffirmed the church's commitment to defend human life "from conception to natural death," which usually refers to the church's opposition to contraception, abortion and euthanasia.

He also condemned what he has described as the "culture of waste" in the medical sector, referring to human embryos, the sick, and the elderly as disposable material.

The Crux website says past members absent from the new list include Christine de Marcellus Vollmer, president of the Alliance for Family and of the Latin American Alliance for Family; Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a Belgian and professor emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain; and Luke Gormally, a former research professor at Ave Maria School of Law.

Source

• The Washington Post
• Sojourners
• National Catholic Register
• Vatican Radio
• Vatican Press
• Image: Pontifical Academy for Life

The 60-year-old has been cleared by health experts to take her daughter's eggs to the US for IVF treatment.

There she hopes to use donor sperm to conceive her daughter's child after she died aged 28 from bowel cancer.

The woman claims her daughter, who was single, asked her to carry her babies but failed to complete a consent form.

She sparked a five year legal battle and last year the High Court refused permission but that was overturned by the Court of Appeal in July.

If the treatment is successful the woman, known only as Mrs M, will give birth next year - six years after her daughter died. Read more

Two teams of researchers in the United Kingdom and the United States grew embryos until they were 13 days old.

The embryos were kept alive and active beyond the stage when they would naturally implant in a mother's womb

The longest that human embryos had previously been grown in the lab was nine days.

The latest research comes close to the 14-day limit for growing donated embryos that is long-established in law in many countries.

After the 14-day point, such laws usually state that the embryos must be destroyed.

In response to the latest research, L'Osservatore Romano published a front-page article in its May 10 edition by bioethicist Laura Palazzani.

The bioethicist lamented the use of human embryos as "guinea pigs of progress".

Arguing that the 14-day limit is arbitrary, Palazzani said that some researchers could find pretexts for far later limits, whether prenatal or postnatal.

All human beings are in a state continuous development from the moment of fertilisation, she continued, and embryos of whatever stage, without expressing consent, are being "destined to death" for the sake of scientific research.

The 14-day stage marks the point when the individuality of an embryo is assured, because it can no longer split into twins.

At about the same time, embryo forms what is called the "primitive streak", a faint band of cells that starts to distinguish the head from the tail.

Introduced in Britain 30 years ago, the 14-day rule aimed to give scientists room to study human embryos, while respecting wider views on embryo research.

Some scientists have called for an end to the 14 day limit in many countries.

Sources

• Catholic World News
• The Guardian
• Image: Caerus Art Residency

Vincent Lambert became a quadriplegic and was left in a comatose state after a motorcycle accident in 2008.

In 2013, Lambert's wife and six of his eight siblings asked courts to rule that his hydration and nutrition be disconnected.

In response, his parents, who are Catholics, initiated a legal fight to protect their son's life.

The case went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, which approved the removal of hydration and nutrition.

French end of life law allows the suspension of treatment in futile cases.

The Catholic Church in France has protested that Lambert is not undergoing any treatment, but is simply receiving food and water via a feeding tube.

He is not in a vegetative state as such, given that his body reacts to certain stimuli and is able to feel pain.

The hospital in Reims said it did not intend to switch off the machine sustaining the patient.

"This procedure cannot go ahead given the current lack of calm and certainty," doctors explained.

They referred the issue to the health ministry last Thursday.

Doctors had reportedly feared that there could be plot by pro-life activists to abduct Lambert from the hospital and kidnap members of his medical team.

Lambert's nephew said the doctors' decision to continue hydration and nutrition was due to intimidation.

Public prosecutors have been asked to look at the case.

The row over Vincent Lambert is similar to a legal fight over Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who suffered brain damage in 1990 and was left in a vegetative state.

Eventually her husband won a protracted court case to have her feeding tube removed and she died in 2005.

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• Catholic News Agency
• The Telegraph
• Image: Paris Match