• Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos signed a bill November 18 to ban all abortions, even when they could save the life of a mother. No legislator in this largely Roman Catholic nation voted against the ban on October 26, though 9 abstained and another 29 did not show up. Nearly all Latin American countries restrict abortion; Chile and El Salvador ban them altogether.
• Kingsway International Christian Center (kicc), which lost its land to London’s preparations for hosting the 2012 Olympics, announced in October plans to build an 8,000-seat megachurch in east London. The new structure, patterned after American arena-style megachurches, would dwarf Britain’s next largest church, Liverpool Cathedral, which seats 3,000. The British government paid kicc about $22.5 million for its current home, a former factory.
• Westmont College announced in late October that an anonymous donor contributed $75 million, the second-largest gift ever received by a liberal arts school with no graduate students. Administrators at the Christian school in Montecito, California, said they plan to use the money for buildings. Some neighbors have opposed the school’s expansion in an affluent neighborhood of the Santa Barbara area.
• The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in November about the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Anti-abortion advocates argued that the procedure amounts to infanticide. The Court voted 5-4 in 2000 to strike down a similar ban passed in Nebraska. But Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have joined the Court since then. Abortion-rights advocates expressed hope that Justice Anthony Kennedy would switch sides from 2000, when he dissented.
Related elsewhere:
The New York Times and The Boston Globe reported on the abortion ban in Nicaragua.
Kingsway International Christian Centre’s Vision 2010 has more details about the church’s plans.
Westmont College announced the gift in October. The Los Angeles Times ran an article on the donation and its possible effects.
Christianity Today’s special section on partial-birth abortion is available on our site.
NPR’s Morning Editionreported on the court case.
