There is a mounting pressure in Ireland to have foreign commercial surrogacy arrangements recognised here. Today the matter is being considered by a Special Oireachtas Committee, but ahead of that meeting, the Attorney General’s office produced a document highlighting the ethical pitfalls with commercial surrogacy. It also challenges the recommendations on the matter of the...
The right of parents to choose how to educate their children has been upheld by the Supreme Court in a major ruling published on Monday. It unanimously dismissed the appeal of the Minister of Education against two home-schooled students who were excluded from the Leaving Cert calculated grades scheme. Their exclusion interfered with the constitutional...
The Government has announced the setting up of a special committee on surrogacy to discuss couples (or individuals) who make use of surrogacy arrangements overseas and then have difficulty when they come back home being recognised as the legal parents of the child. At the same time, the Government is passing legislation to make it...
The ‘culture of death’ continues to tighten its grip on Europe. In Austria, a law that went into effect on January 1 allows not simply those who are terminally ill to avail of assisted suicide, but also the chronically sick. In a particularly grisly twist, pharmacies are now authorised to give lethal drugs to those...
In many countries, Christian women and girls suffer abduction, rape, forced conversion and forced marriage, according to a new report. But social stigma and fear of reprisal from perpetrators keep their stories mostly unheard. The “Hear her cries: Kidnapping, forced conversion and sexual victimization of Christian women and girls” report addresses the appalling problem of...
During the pandemic, Ireland prevented worshippers attending religious services longer than any other country in Europe, but at least we haven’t gone so far as to force people to show vaccine passports before attending. Some countries have imposed this requirement, and shockingly, Church authorities are sometimes willing to comply. In Quebec, for example, the provincial...
Prenatal tests are a vital part of the thriving eugenics industry whereby unborn children with genetic defects are not considered fit for life and are aborted instead. But a report in The New York Times (not a pro-life paper) confirms that the tests for certain foetal abnormalities are often unreliable as they give too many...
The College of Psychiatrists in Ireland has come out strongly against the proposal to legalise Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (PAS-E). In a new paper released just before Christmas, they say it is “contrary to the efforts of psychiatrists, other mental health staff and the public to prevent deaths by suicide.” It will place vulnerable...
A new ERSI report examines the lives of 20-year-olds in Ireland. Among other things, it finds that about half of them are currently in a romantic relationship and that the vast majority became sexually active from their late teens on. Almost 30pc of girls believe they should have waited longer to have sex for the...
By Mark Hamilton Each Covid variant rings new emergency alarm bells, resulting in parts of society having to retreat again to the bunker. The fear is never ending, as with the climate crisis. Action stations! We have no time to lose. Meanwhile, the principles on which our society are based are being substantially eroded and...
