The Iona Institute has launched a new national billboard campaign to promote the right to life of the unborn. The billboards show an image of the unborn baby at 11 weeks with the simple message ‘one of us’. The posters show how unmistakably human the unborn child is at 11 weeks, how unmistakably the baby...
Minister Simon Harris has pledged to allow doctors to conscientiously object to providing abortion pills, in the event of the pro-life amendment going. But how much protection is he willing to allow? For example, will doctors opposed to abortion be forced to refer women who doctors who don’t oppose abortion, which is a form of...
Simon Harris, it appears, will say anything that comes into his head to justify stripping the unborn of the right to life, even if what he says today contradicts what he said yesterday. His comments on the aborting of children with Down Syndrome is a case in point. Last week, our Health Minister declared that...
The big reveal this week in abortion politics is not that we would finally have a referendum to repeal the Eighth amendment, but rather that another provision would replace it. Yet, by the end of the week, we are no closer to knowing exactly what that text might be or what it is meant to...
Tax individualisation worked, declares a new paper from the Economic and Social Research Institute. Well, it worked if the aim of policy should be to increase the number of women in the workplace as distinct from giving parents a real choice between home and work. Tax individualisation was introduced to huge controversy in Budget 2000....
The issue of Down Syndrome (DS) and abortion is obviously going to loom large in the referendum debate with justifiable concerns raised that in a growing number of countries a large majority of babies are aborted once DS is diagnosed in the womb. The concern is that more Irish women will opt to do this...
Following the Dail debate last week on the issue of abortion, Maria Steen of The Iona Institute appeared on Prime Time where she debated Labour’s Senator Ivana Bacik. The item can be watch here. Maria was also on Today with Sean O’Rourke where she debated Senator Catherine Noone, Chair of the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment. It is here. Senator...
The movement toward the provision of genetic based ‘therapies’ with a clear eugenic intent has moved one step closer to becoming a reality in this State. As the Irish Independent reports, the proposal is being introduced under the guise of permitting the sex selection of an embryo in fertility clinics setting, prior to implantation, “where...
The issue of illegal abortion pills was raised a number of times in recent debates following the publication of the Report of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. How spread is this phenomenon? Even if some Irish politicians seem to have discovered only recently the availability of abortifacients, those pills have...
A debate is taking place in the Dail today and tomorrow over the issue of abortion. Here are some points TDs should keep in mind as the debate begins. The real issue is repeal of the 8th amendment. Any legislation that is enacted, however permissive, will only be the starting point. If the pro-life amendment...
