Church attendance in Ireland is one of the very many things tracked by the European Social Survey, one of the biggest polls of its kind anywhere. It has been conducted every two years since 2002. The 2016 edition came out last week and one of things it has found is that while the numbers attending...
Are you or have you ever been a member of the Iona Institute? Are you or have you ever been associated with The Iona Institute? These were basically the questions hurled at Katie Ascough in two student papers hailing her ‘impeachment’ last week as President of the Students’ Union at UCD. Need I labour the...
The 50th anniversary of the passage of the 1967 Abortion Act in the UK came and went last week. Since then, almost 9 million abortions have taken place. A number of programmes were aired to mark the event. One was ‘Abortion on Trial’, presented by Anne Robinson. In fact, abortion wasn’t on trial at all....
Two doctors, one of them being Peter Boylan, told the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment last week that when a country’s abortion law is liberalised, abortion rates decline. This is not true. Abortion rates and trends vary considerably by geographic region. In discussing Ireland, we should look at countries that are socially and culturally...
A conference on the topic of ‘Abortion, Disability and the Law’ was held in Athlone last Friday. It was jointly hosted by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Britain, and the Consultative Group on Bioethics of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference. The subject matter could hardly have been more topical because it is precisely the lives of...
The Masters of the two biggest maternity hospitals in the country have both declared their support for abortion where a child suffers either from a fatal or a non-fatal foetal abnormality. If implemented, this would mean that unborn children suffering from conditions such as Down Syndrome could be aborted in Irish hospitals. In the UK,...
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution is hearing from experts and witnesses. A disproportionate number of them favour repealing the pro-life amendment. In fact, the pro-repeal witnesses outnumber pro-retain witnesses by a massive six-to-one. It is any wonder that Mattie McGrath TD, and Senator Ronan Mullen are considering resigning from the...
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) is a statutory body of some importance. In terms of framing the public debate on what constitutes human rights, it has achieved a remarkable level of ‘market share’ and influence. It has now decided that there is a ‘human right’ to an abortion and the human rights...
Professor William Binchy appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on abortion yesterday. Professor Binchy, an expert in constitutional law, is one of the main architects of the pro-life clause of our Constitution. In his testimony to the committee, he defended the right to life of the unborn and challenged the idea that under our international law...
The most horrific surrogacy case is making its way to the US Supreme Court. It is a perfect storm of practically all of the terrible ethical violations that bedevil the practice, even when it is non-commercial. Health Minister, Simon Harris (pictured), should study the case carefully as he prepares legislation to regulate the whole area...
