US pro-life activists hold a rally opposing federal funding for Planned Parenthood in front of the Capitol. “We are the pro-life generation,” Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, said to a pro-life rally in Washington, DC, on March 2. “We are here to stand up for the rule of law. We are here to defend Texas. We do not want the Supreme Court to overturn a very common-sense law.”
The Catholic speaker’s brief exhortation boosted the crowd who had gathered while the court was hearing oral issues on abortion for the first time in almost a decade, it not having issued a major ruling on abortion since 1992.
Under scrutiny is a Texas law requiring that abortions only be performed by doctors with admitting rights within 30 miles of their clinics. Pro-life supporters say that this law serves to protect women as well as children, but pro-choice advocates claim it places an “undue burden” on women who might want an abortion but live a long way from a hospital.
Suspect in Boko Haram church Christmas attack arrested
Nigerian police have arrested a person suspected of helping prepare the Christmas 2011 attack on the church of Saint Teresa of Madalla, near the capital Abuja. 44 people were killed in the attack, which is regarded as the most serious attack perpetrated by Boko Haram on a Christian place of worship. 200 people died in similar attacks on churches at the same time.
Victor Moses, charged with having supplied information necessary for the bomb attack, was arrested in Alkaleri, a town in the state of Bauchi in Nigeria’s northeast. He had gone to a local mosque claiming he was a Christian who wanted to convert to Islam.