The Government’s proposed abortion Bill would be “a dramatic and morally unacceptable change to Irish law”, the Catholic bishops have said. In a statement responding to the Government’s publication of the Heads of the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013 this week, the bishops said that it would “make the direct and intentional killing...
Fianna Fáil has delayed taking a decision on whether to support the Government’s proposed abortion legislation after a meeting of the parliamentary party yesterday. Reports suggest that the party leadership wished to see the party support the legislation, but that a majority of the party opposed this option. The party leadership wants to support...
The Pro Life Campaign (PLC) has slammed the Government for “systematically ignoring all of the expert psychiatric evidence presented at the recent Oireachtas hearings on abortion”. In a statement following the Government’s publication of the heads of an abortion Bill on Tuesday night, it said that the Oireachtas had heard “unanimous expert evidence that abortion...
Eleven medical experts have rejected the suggestion made by Dr Peter Boylan that the death of Savita Halappanavar was probably caused by current Irish law. In a letter in yesterday’s papers, the consultants, including Professors John Bonnar, Eamon O’Dwyer and Stephen Cusack, said that Dr Boylan’s view was a personal one, “not an expert one”....
Long promised plans to give a modest tax break to married couples could be published by November, according to sources close to Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Cameron has promised yet again that he would recognise marriage in the tax system before the general election in 2015 on the campaign trail last week, the Daily...
The Supreme Court has said that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide. In a ruling yesterday, the court rejected an appeal by a woman with multiple sclerosis against a High Court judgement from earlier this year which had said that assisted suicide was not a right under the Constitution. The Iona Institute welcomed...
The Northern Ireland Assembly has defeated a Sinn Féin motion to legalise same sex marriage. It is the second time the issue has been defeated in the Assembly. In October, another motion to permit same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland was defeated by a narrower margin. The motion was defeated by 53 votes to 42. Last...
The UK Government has failed to deliver on its promised agenda of strengthening families, and its delay in doing so is fuelling social breakdown, according to an influential think-tank. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), founded by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, have said that, despite “a host of commitments to tackle family breakdown”...
Teachers should be aware that “not all pornography is bad” when taking sex education classes, according to guidance made available to schools. In advice reminiscent of the controversy generated in Ireland about the HSE-sponsored “SpunOut” website which tells teenagers that threesomes “can be fun,” TheSite.org tells teenagers that “porn can be great” and aims to...
The Minister of State for Europe, Lucinda Creighton, has called for a “reasoned and rational” debate on abortion, and has slammed comparisons between our Constitution and the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan. She was responding to remarks made on RTE Radio by Olivia O\’Leary on Tuesday in which she said that Ireland needed to...
