Two leading abortion providers in Britain have called for US-style ‘buffer zones’ around clinics to ‘protect’ staff and visitors from pro-life advocates. Pro-lifer campaigners say it is an attack on the right to protest. Maries Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) have launched a campaign, ‘Back Off’, to persuade legislators to enact laws...
A member of the Northern Ireland Assembly has unveiled a ‘conscience clause’ Bill after a Christian bakery was sanctioned for refusing an order for a cake supporting same-sex marriage. Democratic Unionist MLA Paul Givan is seeking support for an amendment to current equality legislation to take account of ‘deeply held religious beliefs’ after the bakery,...
British schoolchildren are being denied lessons on the true meaning of Christmas by teachers frightened of offending other faiths, a BBC broadcaster has said. In an arrticle penned for the current edition of the Radio Times, Roger Bolton, presenter of Radio 4’s Feedback programme states that a combintaion of fear and reluctance within a PC...
Two years after the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar and her unborn child, a review of the hospital at the centre of her case has concluded there is still “room for improvement” in patient care. Galway University Hospital became the focus of attention after October 28, 2012, when a raft of deficiencies were identified as...
The Catholic bishops in Ireland have launched a new pastoral statement outlining and explaining the Church’s vision of marriage. Bishop Liam McDaid, chairman of the Bishops’ Council for Marriage and Family, and Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin launched the 16-page letter “The Meaning of Marriage” in Maynooth yesterday. The bishops say in the document that...
A major study of family life for ‘millennial children’ in Britain has discovered a massive increase in marital breakdown in a single generation. Seeking to replicate a study conducted from 1969, the Centre for Longitudinal Studies and the Institute of Education launched the Millennium Cohort Study based on around 13,000 children born in Britain between...
Video footage of the cutting down of the cross on Kerry’s Carrauntoohill mountain has emerged online. The short film segment, which was sent to journal.ie, shows an unidentified figure felling the cross with an angle grinder. It also asks those who agree with the action to share the segment. Those responsible for the video claim...
Irish families who have lost children to life-limiting conditions such as anencephaly and trisomy 18 have called on medical, legal and media professionals to stop using the term “incompatible with life” to describe unborn children. At the launch of the ‘Compatible With Love, Compatible With Life’ campaign by the support group Every Life Counts last...
Moves underway to reform Ireland’s adoption laws could result in 2,000 children transitioning from long term foster care into permanent family structures. The Irish Times reports that under draft legislation drawn up by the Government, a more flexible approach to domestic adoptions will be introduced. The figure of 2,000 potential adoptions represents a major increase...
Being raised by married parents helps to protect children from the socio-emotional problems associated with poverty, the latest report from the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal study has found. The new report also finds that more families than ever are now economically vulnerable, mainly as the result of the recession. It reveals that children were...
