The Pew Research Centre in the US has produced a new headline grabbing study which says that in 40pc of American households, the woman is the main breadwinner. At face value that figure of 40pc seems to indicate that a huge social revolution is taking place in family life and that is indeed the case,...
Exactly how large should the State loom in the lives of children? In Scotland the answer is, very large. A new piece of legislation has just been unveiled called the ‘Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill’ and under it, every child in Scotland will have an overseer appointed by the State to see to their...
The issue of childcare is now firmly under the spotlight again, after RTE’s Prime Time expose of mistreatment at a number of creches in Dublin and Wicklow. Much of the commentary has focused on weak inspection levels by the HSE, a lack of training among childcare staff and breaches of regulation. But in a searching...
At the weekend Paris saw the third massive demonstration in just a few months against same-sex marriage and for the true and authentic rights of children. Last weekend’s demonstration, attended by hundreds of thousands of people, took place only days after the French government legalized same-sex marriage. However, opponents have shown they will not go...
In an article in the Irish Times, VEC teacher Sheila Maher has a piece argues against Catholic-run schools because they make children from non-Catholic backgrounds feel ‘excluded’. She takes her cue from the fact that children in primary schools up and down the country are making their First Communions this month. This ceremony, she says,...
Some of our Catholic politicians who are preparing to vote in favour of abortion are trying to square their consciences by pulling what amounts to the ‘John F Kennedy defence’. That is, they are trying to separate their consciences from their faith because they think this is what Kennedy did, even though it’s not, in fact,...
Tuesday’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of Gross v Switzerland was both astonishing and disturbing. The court found that Switzerland’s law, which allows doctors to prescribe drugs to allow patients to kill themselves didn’t provide sufficient “clarity” and as such breached the plaintiff’s right to respect for private...
The family diversity or family equality argument is perfectly expressed today in The Irish Times by Karen Kiernan of One Family. The essence of her argument; the family in Ireland is changing, all families are equal in esteem and marriage shouldn’t be held in higher esteem. Therefore change the Constitution and remove the special status...
Those who favour allowing same-sex couples to marry argue, in public at least, that they seek only to extend marriage, and it is not their intention to destroy it. Some same-sex marriage advocates publicly disagree. One of them is Russian-American lesbian activist and author Masha Gessen. In a recent interview at a writers’ festival in...
During the course of the abortion debate there have been frequent calls on us to have a calm and rational debate and to keep it emotion-free. Despite this we have had leading commentators like Olivia O’Leary comparing Ireland with its pro-life laws to the Taliban’s Afghanistan and then in yesterday’s Irish Times we had an...
