Pro-Life News in Brief.

Council of Europe Urges Abortion "Right" in Member States

The Council of Europe passed a resolution April 16 insisting that every one of its 47 member states should legalize abortion. Passed on a 10269 vote by the Parliamentary Assembly, the resolution calls on the countries to "decriminalise abortion within reasonable gestational limits" and "guarantee women's effective exercise of their right to access to a safe and legal abortion."

European pro-lifers, especially in countries that have laws protecting the rights of unborn babies, condemned the assembly's action. Catholic bishops in Poland quickly issued a statement against the resolution. "The bishops express their firm opposition to this attempt to impose administratively principles opposed to the basic sensitivities of the human conscience," the bishops said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"The resolution represents an attack on the sovereignty of member states, by attempting to impose a policy on abortion, something for which the Assembly has no legal or legitimate justification," Pat Buckley of Britain's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said in a press release. "That a committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe even proposed this resolution damages the Council of Europe's credibility."

European countries that restrict abortion include Andorra, Ireland, Malta, Monaco, and Poland, according to AFP. Although the resolution is nonbinding, it gives pro-abortionists a weapon they can use to lobby for a change in those countries' laws, the Daily Mail reported.

Indian Practice of Aborting Female Babies Is a "National Shame"

For the first time, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a speech about the alarming disparity in the ratio of girls to boys that is the result of widespread abortion and infanticide. Singh spoke April 28 at a national conference dedicated to "saving the girl child," according to the New York Times.