The use of vaccines that have some connection with abortion poses serious for the Christian conscience. In two other blogs (here and here) I have explained why it is morally permissible to avail of them if they are medically necessary and if there are no alternatives. Nonetheless, the problematic origin of those vaccines remains and...
I will take the Covid-19 vaccine, when available, because on balance I believe I have a moral duty to do so. I also understand why some people have reservations about its safety, its efficacy and its morality. (I have already discussed here and here the morality of using vaccines using cell lines derived from abortions.)...
Some of the most important medical bodies in the country have now declared to be against Ireland legalising assisted suicide. Several have sent submissions to the Oireachtas Justice Committee and expressed opposition to far-left TD Gino Kenny’s ‘Dying with Dignity’ Bill. We must hope the voices of some of the country’s most distinguished doctors will...
The Iona Institute has asked a number of Catholic moral theologians and philosophers to respond to a number of questions about whether there is a moral duty to take one of the Covid vaccinations when offered one, whether they should be a legal compulsion to do so, and finally whether companies such as airlines should...
As mentioned in the previous blog, a document in support of euthanasia and assisted suicide has been submitted the Oireachtas Committee on Justice by a small group of Irish doctors. That blog examined how the document’s reasoning illustrates the existence of a slippery slope even while denying it. This blog will look at its ambiguous...
A new group called ‘Irish Doctors supporting Medical Assistance in Dying (IDsMAiD)’ has made a submission to the Oireachtas Justice Committee that is examining Deputy Gino Kenny’s ‘Dying with Dignity Bill’. The submission denies that a slippery slope exists once you legalise the measure, while at the same time confirming its existence by opening the...
Today is the deadline for submissions to the Oireachtas Justice Committee concerning Gino Kenny’s ‘Dying with Dignity Bill’. What is happening in other countries that have gone this path becomes more relevant than ever. Euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalised in Canada in 2016 and, since then, the number of patients killed in hospitals and...
Thanks to prenatal screening, far fewer babies with Down Syndrome are being born than was once the case. A recent study shows that across Europe as a whole, the reduction is in the order of half, but in Ireland prior to the introduction of abortion two years ago, it was ‘only’ 8pc, whereas in Spain...
Among the many other things it examines, the report on the Mother and Baby Homes published last week looks at how other countries in the past treated unmarried mothers. It throws a spotlight on how various countries in the first part of the last century promoted eugenics, which frequently targeted unmarried mothers, labelling them ‘feeble-minded’,...
In 2020, New Zealand had great success in protecting its people from Covid-19, a naturally-caused infection, but in a seeming paradox it opened the door to euthanasia, and further liberalised its abortion law, both of which allow for the deliberate killing of human beings. New Zealand was the first country to put euthanasia to a...
