| Weekly briefing: Man dies after feeding tube removed, Amazon pulls more books, court lets abortion funding ban stand |
 (Photo: REUTERS/Eric Thayer)People attend the March for Life rally in Washington, U.S., January 19, 2018. |
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We've compiled the top stories of the week. Here's what you need to know: |
French man dies after feeding tube removed |
Vincent Lambert, who was in a vegetative state for over 10 years after a car accident, died Thursday in France after his feeding tube was removed. |
Doctors at Reims Hospital had begun removing life support last week after France’s highest appeals court allowed doctors to do so. |
Lambert’s parents, who are Catholic, were in a years-long battle to keep him alive while his wife and some of his siblings argued that he should be allowed to die. |
Amazon pulls books by former homosexuals |
Days after Amazon stopped selling books by the late Joseph Nicolosi, a prominent practitioner of reparative therapy, the online retail giant also removed the works of two authors who formerly identified as gay. |
Joe Dallas’ Desires in Conflict: Hope for Men Who Struggle with Sexual Identity and Anne Paulk's book, Restoring Sexual Identity: Hope for Women Who Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction, are no longer available on Amazon. |
"Amazon's decision is no surprise since today's culture is caving to the goals of the LGBTQ political movement, which have always included the silencing [of] any disapproval of homosexuality.” — Joe Dallas |
Court rules in favor of abortion funding ban |
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Multiple lawsuits had been filed after the Department of Health and Human Services announced in February that it finalized a federal rule banning Title X funding of abortion. |
“Abortion is not family planning. This rule draws a bright line between family planning and abortion.” — National Right to Life President Carol Tobias |
State Dept. launches Commission on Unalienable Rights |
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that international human rights agencies have “drifted from their original mission” and that some human rights claims “have come into tension with one another.” |
The commission consists of human rights experts, philosophers, and activists, including those from various political parties. They have been tasked to re-examine how to determine whether something is a human right and to advise Pompeo on human rights grounded in the nation’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. |
Christianity declines to lowest proportion in Britain |
The proportion of Brits who identify as Christian has reached its lowest point in over three decades of polling, according to the 36th annual British Social Attitudes report. |
Only 38% identify as Christian (down from 66% in 1983) and 52% said they do not belong to any religion (up from 31% in 1983). |
“To put it another way, religious decline in Britain is generational; people tend to be less religious than their parents, and on average their children are even less religious than they are.” — British Social Attitudes report |
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 Entertainment StudiosBethany Hamilton and her son appear in the film "Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable," July 2019. |
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