According to a recent newspaper report, an IVF clinic in the Netherlands may have impregnated up to 26 women with a stranger’s sperm due to a mix-up. The question is, in an age when we are told that the natural ties don’t matter, why we should be concerned about this? As we reported in an...
Each Christmas we celebrate the birth of Christ. Even if we leave aside the claim that he was God made Man, his birth, argues David Quinn in his Irish Independent column this week, “was the start of an immense, culture-changing series of events that have resonated through history, and in almost all parts of the...
What is the status of a frozen embryo? This is the question at the heart of a dispute between actress Sofia Vergara (pictured), star of the hit TV show, ‘Modern Family’, and her former-fiancée Nick Loeb. Has an embryo the rights and dignity of a human being, or should it be regarded merely as a...
There was always a danger that the trial of Bernadette Scully for the manslaughter of her severely disabled daughter, Emily, would lead to calls for euthanasia and so it has happened. The fact that Bernadette was acquitted of the charge has made no difference to this. Writing in The Sunday Independent yesterday, Donal Lynch, usually...
A new law has been passed in Ontario that strikes the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from the law and replaces them with the word ‘parent’. This places a lie right at the centre of the law because every child without fail has a mother and a father or could not exist. But this is what...
A conference in Vienna on the persecution of Christians worldwide earlier this month heard that Europe has shown a worrying rise in State-sponsored hostility to freedom of religion. “Concern for overt persecution should not blind us to more subtle forms of hostility and, yes, of persecution” said Gudrun Kugler, the founder of the “Observatory on...
A new opinion poll commissioned by the Iona Institute looks at people’s ideal work-life choices. It finds that most people, given the financial freedom, would not work full-time, but if also finds marked differences between the sexes, differences feminists such as our Children’s Minister, Katherine Zappone (pictured), ought to carefully note. In the recent Budget,...
The persecution of Christians and religious minorities has risen to the level of genocide, and far more needs to be done by Governments around the world to counteract it, a recent conference in Vienna was told. EU Special Envoy for Religious Freedom, Jan Figel, said Christians are the most persecuted group in the world. “More...
Today on Twitter I said that the media ought to pay as much attention to Irish women pressured by doctors into having abortions as they do to stories of rogue pro-life agencies giving inaccurate advice. The tweets in response engaged in either denial or deflection even after I provided several examples. The denials are too...
British PM, Theresa May, stood up in the House of Commons this week and told MPs, “our Christian heritage is something we can all be proud of”. It is very hard to imagine any senior Irish politician saying that, never mind Taoiseach, Enda Kenny. May was responding to a question from MP Fiona Bruce about...
