The Oireachtas committee on ‘assisted dying’ has met three times in the last two weeks. As usual, the hearings offered useful insights into the thinking of both sides of the divide. What follows are some highlights from the meetings. Session One The first session held on Tuesday 3rd October was dedicated to ethics. Dr Thomas...
In February 1994, St John Paul II founded the Pontifical Academy for Life for the study and defence of human life in all its stages. Christian pro-life groups globally looked to the Academy for inspiration and guidance as it became a very influential organisation. However, the original purpose of the Pontifical Academy for Life has...
The Oireachtas Committee on ‘assisted dying’ continues to hear expert testimony on the matter. Last week it heard from a Dutch academic who was once a supporter but has now turned into a critic. He spoke of how insurance companies in his country are already funding the procedure for one provider, which is a chilling...
Some people find the evidence that on average the two-parent family is best for children highly unpalatable, and they will resist it strongly. Melissa S. Kearney, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland in the United States is discovering this at first hand with the publication of her new book, ‘The Two-Parent Privilege’....
Last week the European Parliament paved the way for the commercialisation of human embryos and foetuses when, by an overwhelming majority, it passed a regulation called “Substance of Human Origin”. A ‘substance of human origin’ can mean human blood cells or tissue, but in the eyes of the report, the term includes embryos and foetuses...
Two years ago, claims emerged in Canada that mass graves of indigenous children were found in residential schools run by Catholic and other religious groups. There was an instant outburst of public anger, some of it implicitly endorsed by Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and in the aftermath of the claims, at least 83 churches...
End of Life Ireland (EOLI), a group campaigning for the legalisation of euthanasia, held a public meeting in Dublin last week to present their views. It was a revealing insight into their objectives and how to get there. The main speaker was Greg Mewett, a palliative care doctor from Australia who believes that patients have...
The father of a man with Down Syndrome has said Irish society needs to decide whether it wants to have children with Down Syndrome in it. He made the remarks in an interview with The Hard Shoulder on Newstalk. Michael O’Dowd (pictured with his son. Conor) was speaking after Iona Institute CEO and Sunday Independent...
Major and radical reforms are currently underway in how Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) is being taught in secondary schools. Most of the attention has been given to how gender ideology will be taught, but amazingly the programmes have nothing to say about marriage, commitment, pregnancy (except unplanned pregnancy), or the possibility of having children in...
What Pope John Paul II called ‘the culture of death’ is steadily working its way through our societies and healthcare systems. Yet another example comes from Canada, now the world’s leading exponent of so-called ‘assisted dying’. It involves a Catholic hospital in the city of Vancouver, in British Columbia, which refused to permit a patient...
