News, 11 May 2000
At 12.56 PM today, India's population will officially reach one
billion. However, a digital population counter set up in New Delhi by
the United Nations Population Fund to promote their concern of
controlling population growth has stopped just hours before it reached
the momentous total. They have since been battling to set up a new
clock in time. [Metro, 11th May]
Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, has warned that by
2025 nearly a third of Europeans will be collecting pensions as a
result of falling fertility rates and consequently ageing populations.
The United Nations has reported that 61 countries, including all of
Europe, have fertility rates below replacement level and that this year
another 19 countries are expected to be added to the list. The average
rate in Western Europe is now 1.6 children per woman, and in Eastern
Europe it is even lower at 1.3. Italy's population is on course to fall
by 28 percent to only 41 million before 2050. The figures come after
years of over-population scares and population growth control
programmes. [Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, 4th May]
The National Abortion Campaign in America will today hold a 'public
service campaign' in Boston, Massachusetts, which will attempt to
refute information contained within advertisements placed by Project
Rachel. Speakers will include Rev Dr Katherine Hancock Ragsdale of the
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and a Harvard medical
student who will explain why she is committed to becoming an abortion
provider. [U.S. Newswire, 9th May] Project Rachel is a Catholic service
for men and women touched by an abortion experience. It operates a
confidential telephone line and one of its websites describes its
purpose as "post-abortion reconciliation and healing for the 'other
victims' of abortion".
To subscribe to SPUC's email information services, please visit www.spuc.org.uk/em-signup. The reliability of the news herein is dependent on that of the cited sources, which are paraphrased rather than quoted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the society. © Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, 2010