By Margaret Hickey In its magazine section at the weekend, The Sunday Independent published an article entitled ‘A letter to the first woman to have a legal abortion in Ireland’. The writer was novelist, Mary O’Donnell. The letter acknowledges how difficult it can be to decide to have a termination but nonetheless presents abortion as profoundly...
The primary function of religion isn’t to make you happy. It is to draw you closer to God and make you a better person. In addition, every spiritual writer, every great novelist, every thinker worth their salt knows that sometimes we only become better people through suffering, which anyone who has ever cared about someone...
Earlier this week the Joint Committee on Education presented a report on Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE). This report has two main flaws: it undermines the role of the school ethos in RSE and it fails to address the question of what the purpose of RSE should be. Both of those flaws are based on...
The Oireachtas Education Committee has published a report on Relationships and Sexuality Education recommending big changes to how it is taught. One recommendation is that religious ethos be barred from exercising any influence over the teaching of RSE, even in religious schools. David Quinn discussed the matter with Dr Ciara Kelly on Newstalk this week...
In a foretaste of the next big right-to-life debate in this country, a major conference was held in Dublin last week on end-of-life issues. Many of the speakers present had no qualms about defending the so-called “right to die”, often on very broad grounds. The conference was called “Medical Ethics and Law at the End...
A case has come to light from the Coombe hospital involving a woman who was told she could have not an abortion – not yet at any rate – because her unborn baby’s abnormality did not appear to fall within the definition of ‘fatal’ that is contained in the new abortion law. The reaction of...
The American Psychological Association released a report in the last few days which criticised ‘traditional masculinity’ saying it contributed to mental health problems among men. But the same report nonetheless had a fair amount to say about the value of fathers to their children, something rarely acknowledged here in this country. The report said that...
The Iona Institute released a report last week further highlighting the big marriage gap that exists between middle class and working class people. CSO data show that professional workers are twice as likely to be married, and only a third as likely to be divorced or separated as unskilled workers. Breda O’Brien turned her attention...
During the referendum debate pro-life campaigners were accused of ‘scare-mongering’ when they warned that babies could be left to die following botched late-term abortions, and that unborn children with Down Syndrome would be disproportionately targeted if the law was changed. A story from Germany starkly illustrates what we were warning about, unfortunately. A few days...
Minister Simon Harris has promised to introduce “exclusion zones” to prevent protests outside hospitals, clinics and GP surgeries where abortions take place or abortion pills are prescribed. This would make us the only country in Europe to have such a law, as Lawyers for Choice themselves effectively admitted in a blog recently. Legislation already exists, here...
