A major new paper criticises so-called “comprehensive sexuality education”, raising concerns about its content, effectiveness, impact on parental rights, and psychological effects on young people. Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) focuses on the broader concept of ‘sexuality’ rather than just ‘sex’. It is promoted by international institutions such as the UN, the World Health Organisation (WHO),...
June 2024 Introduction: We have two concerns about the draft curriculum for primary schools that we would briefly like to draw attention to in our submission. One is the treatment of religion and spirituality in the draft and the other is the increase in political content in the draft. We believe the current curriculum...
The Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) Bill, currently under consideration in the Seanad, has sparked some debate primarily around the issue of surrogacy. However, the Bill raises numerous other ethical issues that merit urgent attention, particularly with regard to embryo research and screening. Although the AHR Bill prohibits the creation of embryos specifically for research purposes,...
Press release from The Iona Institute Government introducing commercial surrogacy by another name “Reasonable expenses” can easily amount to commercial surrogacy June 19, 2024 – A Bill that will allow surrogacy is currently before the Seanad. The Government tells us the Bill will not recognise commercial surrogacy, but in fact it will do so by allowing big payments...
A Bill that will allow surrogacy is currently being debated in the Seanad as it reaches the final stages of approval. The Government tells us it will not recognise commercial surrogacy, but in fact it will do so by allowing big payments to surrogate mothers under the heading “reasonable expenses”. The Assisted Human Reproduction Bill...
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), an advisory body for the Minister of Education, is currently tasked with reviewing the 1999 Primary School Curriculum. One of the proposed changes is the almost complete removal of spirituality and religion as an aspect of human existence from the ‘wellbeing’ course. In this blog I will...
The Irish Medical Council recently dropped from its ethical guidelines the prohibition on doctors deliberately killing their patients. It is hard to believe they are not paving the way for euthanasia. However, they made this change without properly consulting their members. However, most of the bodies representing the medical profession in Ireland remain firmly opposed....
While the number of Catholic marriages in Ireland is steeply declining, new data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) highlights the rise of ceremonies belonging to “other religious denominations”, to use the CSO’s term. Now, you might think this means Muslim ceremonies, or perhaps those that take place in African Pentecostal churches, but these...
The introduction of euthanasia in Ireland could lead to the closure of care homes and have an ill effect on the healthcare system, according to the minority report from the members of the Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying. A government seeking savings in the healthcare system could favour assisted suicide over comprehensive end-of-life medical treatments,...
The Vatican has just released a new document on the topic of human dignity. Among other issues, it addresses the ethical problems of surrogacy—including the commodification of babies and the financial exploitation of low-income women who are contracted to be surrogates. Ireland is in the process of adopting one of the most permissive laws in...
