The Iona Blog

New FG childcare proposal means stay-at-home parents lose out again

By Patrick Fitzgerald

The hopes of stay-at-home parents to get the support and recognition they deserve were again dashed as new Fine Gael childcare proposals aim to help working parents who employ childminders, but not parents who give up work to mind their own children themselves. This is despite opinion polls showing a big majority of voters believes...

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The ‘Wrong’ Kind of Constitutional Complexity

By David Mullins

A common argument put forward by those who advocate the repeal of the pro-life amendment is that the Constitution is no place to deal with the ‘complexities’ of abortion. Better by far to leave all of that to the wisdom of the legislature, so the reasoning goes. While not entirely unsurprising, the fact that this...

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Committee on abortion wants sex ed that is ‘independent’ of school ethos, or parents

By David Mullins The Oireachtas Committee of the Eighth Amendment has published its final Report. While its recommendation to advocate ‘Repeal Simpliciter,’ or the total abolition of the Eighth Amendment is deeply disturbing, it was well flagged. The same cannot be said for some of the other less ‘controversial’ recommendations that have slipped quietly below...

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We predicted in 2015 that two straight male friends could marry. We were right

In the run-up to the marriage referendum of May 2015, The Iona Institute predicted that under the proposed redefinition of marriage two straight male (or female) friends would be permitted to marry as a way of avoiding inheritance tax. The Referendum Commission confirmed to us that this would be permitted, and now it is happening,...

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Oireachtas Committee already considering next attack on right to life

As Ireland prepares for an abortion referendum next year, the Oireachtas Justice Committee is already considering assisted suicide. One of the experts to appear before it was gerontologist, Professor Des O’Neill. He flagged to the committee what he called ‘gero-eugenics’ that is, the deliberate elimination of the elderly. He also warned of the assault on...

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Amnesty, the law and media bias

By David Mullins Last Friday Amnesty International Ireland confirmed that the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) had found it to be in open breach of these laws with respect to how it had used a grant of €137,000 for Irish abortion reform from billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Amnesty is defying SIPO by...

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In Denmark 97pc of babies found to have Down Syndrome were aborted last year

In Denmark in 2016, 133 out of 137 babies found before birth to have Down Syndrome were aborted. That is 97pc of all diagnosed cases. Carsten Sondergaard, the Danish ambassador to Ireland, has written to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment to tell them Denmark does not have an official policy to eradicate...

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Ironic ‘Christmas present’ from the Committee on the 8th must be rejected

By David Mullins

It has now been confirmed that subject to sign off on a final report, the recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment will be published on Wednesday 20th December. We can safely predict that it will call for abortion on widespread grounds, and this only days before Christmas, which celebrates the birth...

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Making contraception cheaper does not reduce a country’s abortion rate

By Dr Angelo Bottone

You would think that there would be a correlation between the affordability of contraception and the abortion rate of a country. That is to say, the cheaper contraception is, the lower the rate of abortion should be. Not so, a new study from the Nordic countries suggests. The aim of the study, which was published...

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What does the National Women’s Council believe a woman to be?

By David Quinn

I wonder what the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) believes a woman to be? There used to be a very easy answer to that; you’re a woman if you’re biologically female and a man if you’re biologically male. The question is prompted by the fact that at its #femfest at the weekend, the NWCI...

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