The announcement by Health Minister, Leo Varadkar that he is gay resulted in a spate of programmes yesterday that debated same-sex marriage. Iona Institute representatives appeared on The Pat Kenny Show, The Last Wordand Claire Byrne Live. David Quinn debated Colm O’Gorman of Amnesty Ireland on The Pat Kenny Show. This debate was probably the...
Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World should be required reading for anyone interested in social policy questions. In Huxley’s “happy dystopia”, the ties of flesh and blood have absolutely no importance. All children are conceived in test-tubes, and veryone is selected and conditioned as embroyos to fulfill a particular societal function, with those that don’t measure...
The Irish Times has recently been running a series of interviews with Irish people from all walks of life, and this week’s one is particularly worth reading. Annmarie Boles is a stay-at-home mother, and writes articulately and persuasively about her experience. For her, working full-time in the home is not a second-best option, or something...
“How can marriage campaigners better reach out to single parents?” asks Ashley Maguire in a blog on The Institute for Family Studies’ website. She thinks the pro-marriage movement can learn from the pro-life movement, particularly from the latter’s successes in the United States, where 231 pro-life laws have been passed at the state level since...
At a minimum we ought to be able to agree that there are two lives to be considered in the latest right-to-die/right-to-life case to come to our attention, namely the tragic case of the pregnant woman who is clinically brain-dead but whose unborn baby has a chance at life. However, to judge from much pro-choice...
Writing in the Atlantic magazine, Alana Samuels has an article about a new phenomenon: the increasing numbers of single women and lesbian couples who are seeking sperm donors who will take an active role in their children’s lives, as distinct from no role, which is the preferred option of most people who used donor sperm...
The BAI (Broadcasting Authority of Ireland) has been facing a backlash ever since it ruled that an item on Newstalk’s Breakfast Show breached the broadcast regulations by being excessively biased in favour of same-sex marriage. The Breakfast Show had to read out the ruling last week. A similar ruling was made against the Mooney Show...
Independent TD Mattie McGrath spoke recently about his Private Members’ Bill entitled The Disability (Amendment) Act 2014 during a press conference organised by the advocacy group Every Life Counts. Deputy McGrath seeks to regulate against the continued use of the phrase “incompatible with life.” Another key word in his statement was “dehumanising.” Indeed. This brought...
A debate over ‘assisted suicide’ is already taking place in Ireland and is only going to gain in intensity over time as the population ages, healthcare costs increase and notions of personal autonomy continue to override other important social and moral goods. In any debate we have about this matter, it makes absolute sense to...
Bishop Kevin Doran said at a talk on Thursday night organised by The Iona Institute that if we permit same-sex marriage, the link between marriage as an institution and procreation will have been destroyed. This is the child-centred view of marriage. Brian Sheehan of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) responded by offering a...
