It is now official. Marriage is about adults first and foremost. Last week, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of a Muslim man who wanted his marriage to a second woman recognised under Irish law. The Court recognised only the validity of his first marriage as that marriage still existed. In her...
We know that the number of Down Syndrome babies who are aborted annually in the UK is shockingly high, but it turns out that the figure given by the Department of Health in Britain is a gross underestimate. The Department of Health (DH) puts the figure at about 700, but the true total is more...
Abortion statistics for England and Wales in 2016 were published this week. There were 190,406 abortions carried out in 2016, slightly lower than in 2015 (191,014). Of those women, 3,265 had an address in Ireland and 724 in Northern Ireland. The abortion rate for residents in England and Wales is 16.0 every 1000 women aged...
Regular international surveys of student performance have become a feature of the world of education in recent years. The two best-known such surveys are TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study – run by the IEA) and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment – run by the OECD). The former measures the performance of...
The recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London prompts a writer in The Irish Times to ponder not the nature of Islam, as would seem natural given the stated motivations of the attackers, but to accuse modern Christianity of being an “exercise in cherry-picking”, one that leaves out the more difficult passages in the Bible....
One of the arguments we used in the marriage referendum of two years ago was that a change to the constitutional definition of the family would take away the natural right of a child to a mother and a father. This was strongly denied by the Yes side, but an article by a law lecturer...
David Quinn and Dr Peter Boylan appeared on The Last Word on Monday 29th May to discuss the decision by the Sisters of Charity to quit their hospitals. David said that Ireland as a society had to decide whether in the future we would authorise doctors to kill their patients under certain circumstances (via abortion or...
A ‘Forum on the Role of Religion in Primary School Admissions’ was held in Croke Park on Monday. A notable feature was the strong presence of Church of Ireland representatives at the meeting, there to defend the rights of their community. The event was organised by Education Minister, Richard Bruton. It brought together parties that...
By Dr Angelo Bottone An article in The Irish Times this week presents Italy as an example of how granting doctors the right not to perform abortions can harm women. However, the writer bases her case on some very erroneous information, never mind the substance of her argument. Laura Fano Morrisey, an Italian pro-choice activist,...
The Sisters of Charity have just announced that they are quitting their three Dublin hospitals. They say from now on the hospitals will be governed by “national and international best practice guidelines on medical ethics and the laws of the Republic of Ireland.” (What does this imply about what is happening now?) This begs a...
