Updated Saturday night
Like the official press release, press reports on the agenda for next month’s meeting of the Church of England General Synod concentrate on one item.
Olivia Rudgard The Telegraph Church of England set to lobby Government over rising Down’s Syndrome abortions
Harriet Sherwood The Guardian Down’s syndrome test could see condition disappear, C of E warns
Madeleine Davies Church Times C of E report seeks neutral approach to new Down’s test
More heavyweights wanted on the Bishops’ bench
Harry Farley Christian Today CofE to consider call for women pregnant with Down’s syndrome babies to get ‘unbiased’ information
Church of England braced for ‘controversial’ next step in ending 200-year split with Methodists
Cara Bentley Premier Valuing people with Down’s Syndrome on Church of England’s General Synod agenda
Anglican Communion News Service Anglican Communion primates invited to Church of England’s General Synod
Update
Olivia Rudgard The Telegraph Church of England braced for ‘controversial’ vote on using Methodist ministers
So the dioceses of the CofE are going to be encouraged to enter into companion relationships with dioceses in the Communion. Our diocese did that. Both sides greatly benefited for several years. But then the Archbishop of Uganda decided that dioceses in the US were not fit to associate with his dioceses and all contact was forbidden. To continue our shared ministries we had to secretly work through an English priest who had contacts in the area. Gradually everything fell apart. It was worth the doing, but be aware that you may face an uphill battle, especially in the Global… Read more »
“It’s difficult to say [to people with Down’s syndrome] that we will continue to value you if people like you are going to disappear.” There are good moral and ethical arguments about abortion in the face of conditions which are manageable. For clarity, my wife and I declined all ante-natal Downs testing for both of her pregnancies: by sheer happenstance, we had each independently been influenced by powerful campaigners for the rights of people with Downs when we were in our separate teens. This isn’t true for Downs, but for many genetic conditions there is now accurate pre-conception screening which… Read more »
I think it probably does make a difference to a group of people whether you’re saying “we recognise your condition makes things harder and we’d like our children not to have to deal with that” vs “we think your condition makes your life worse than death so we’ll kill our child rather than see them born with your condition”.