CNE’s podcast: Abortion in the German election campaign; polarisation between Jews and Muslims in Denmark; and an EU ban on conversion therapy
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NewsRound Europe is CNE’s news podcast. It has a bulletin with some remarkable news topics from the European continent. And at the end, we have a Question & Answer with a colleague about an article.
Abortion gets central place in German election campaign
Within two weeks after the government crisis in Germany, abortion has a central place in the election campaign already. The two parties on the left, the Greens and the Social Democrats, are debating for a complete liberalisation of abortion until week 12.
One of the Green party leaders, deputy chancellor Robert Habeck, said that self-determination should be the leading principle for legislation. For this reason, abortion should not be part of the criminal law.
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At the moment, abortion in Germany is still in the Penal Code, in the controversial paragraph 218. In practice, however, abortion is more or less free already. The current Traffic Light coalition already abolished a ban on advertising for abortion.
Within the parliament, a group of Social Democrats and Greens has tabled a proposal already for changing the Penal Code too. Technically, it is possible for the German parliament Bundestag to finish this legislation before the elections in February.
The Christian Democrats (who are leading the polls at the moment) are against this liberalisation.
Danish authorities fear polarisation between Jews and Muslims
Denmark is afraid that religious polarisation will threaten the cohesion of the society. Especially after the Gaza war since October 7th 2023, the relationships have become sharper. Last week, there was a meeting of the Society for Religious Dialogue and the Danish parliament in Kopenhagen.
The dominant idea was that there was growing polarisation between Jews and Muslims. But during the meeting, there was a feeling too that there was polarisation between politicians and Muslims. Many Muslims feel that they are under suspicion and that the Islam is seen as the source of much conflict in the world.
From other research that was published last week, half of the Danes would be very unhappy if their child would marry with a non-Western migrant with a Muslim background. Only on in ten people would fully support such a relationship.
Von der Leyens instructs for EU ban on converstion therapy
The new European Commissioner for Equality, Hadja Lahbib, has the task to come up with rules around conversion therapy. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has given this instruction to the Belgian candidate for the Commission.
In the hearing with Lahbib in the European Parliament, she stressed that homosexuality is no illness that could be cured. For this reason, she said, she would take “all necessary measures” to fight against conversion therapy, According to Lahbib, those are “traumatising and vicious”, she said.
The European Parliament asked for an EU wide ban on conversion therapy already last year.
During the hearing in the European Parliament, Lahbib was asked to “define precisely, what is a woman”. But she resigned to answer this question.
French court agrees with surrogacy from Canada
The French Court of Cassation ruled positively about a surrogacy case with a child that had come from Canada. The court considers it possible to recognise the parenthood of French intended parents over a child with whom they do not share a biological link.
The judges decided this in the case of a single woman. Surrogacy as such is prohibited in France. The Canadian justice system, however, had declared her the “legal mother of the child”. And the only thing that had to be done was to get a French confirmation of that Canadian decision.
Bible Society Norway has to reduce staff
The Norwegian Bible Society had to tell its personnel last week that the financial situation of the organisation is very negative. The only solution is to reduce on staff.
If the Bible Society chooses for a positive budget, it has to scrap six man-years. That is 20 per cent of all the staff.
This year, the society published a new Bible Translation in Norwegian. That was a product that came after years of investment. The board still supports that, but in the long term, the costs are too high.
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