A Private Members’ Bill permitting Assisted Suicide has been introduced to the Dail today by Gino Kenny TD. Some media reports say the Bill has strong safeguards and is limited in scope. This is totally false. Its definition of ‘terminal illness’ is incredibly broad, a person does not have to be within a few months...
A Private Members’ Bill seeking to permit assisted suicide will be debated in the Dáil next week. It is proposed by Solidarity-People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny. The last time when this issue was discussed in Leinster House, three years ago, some of the strongest opposition came from the members of the medical profession and...
The debate about assisted suicide is heating up in Ireland again with a Private Member’s Bill due to come before the Dail that seeks to permit the procedure under certain circumstances. At the core of this debate is the very dangerous assumption that death by a form of suicide is compatible with human dignity. Dignity...
Marriage continues to change and decline in Ireland as the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show. Fewer marriages are taking place, fewer are taking place in churches, more are taking place between people who were married before and are now divorced, and couples are older when they marry. Same-sex marriage is now permitted....
This week, the final parts of the Children and Relationship Act 2015 have come into operation. This legislation has changed profoundly the legal arrangement of family relationships but in a way that downgrades the importance of the natural ties. Part 2 and 3, which were delayed because of technical mistakes in the original Act, contain...
The Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality met again last weekend. Regrettably, the sessions on “The family in the constitution and law”, amounted to a prolonged attack on the special status of marriage in the Constitution. Prof. Siobhan Mullaly from NUI Galway explained how the special status of marriage appears to impinge on the rights of...
Was the nuclear family more trouble than it was worth? The headline on a piece in the prestigious American monthly, The Atlantic, would give the impression that it was. More surprising is that the headline is over an article written by New York Times columnist, David Brooks who, despite writing for that newspaper, is on...
Over the New Year, the BBC ran a new three-part version of Dracula. It was unusual to say the least. Dracula was played as ironic, post-modern, cynical and smart-alecky. Van Helsing, his nemesis, was no longer a man but (wait for it), a nun. And not just any old nun, but an atheist nun, at...
The Department of Justice has invited submissions to a review of Ireland’s law against hate speech. It is considering changing the present law so as to make it easier to charge someone with ‘hate‘. The Iona Institute has made a submission of its own to the review and raises concerns that any change to the...
A new scientific paper says that so-called ‘designer babies’ could be only two years away. David Quinn discussed the ethics of this on Newstalk Breakfast. You can listen to the item here.
