Let’s call a spade a spade: a lot of academic research – especially in the social sciences – either reports on the bleedin’ obvious, or backs up the arguments of the researchers, and usually goes some way to maintain or augment their grant. BBC Radio 5 Live was awash with this latest research the other day,...
Iona Institute Director David Quinn was on Newtalk’s Moncrieff programme last week talking about surrogacy. In a long interview, Moncrieff and Quinn discussed the differences between surrogacy and gamete donation on the one hand and adoption on the other. Quinn asked Moncrieff to consider some of the unintended consequences that could come about through legislation...
Wow. That was, essentially, my reaction upon first reading Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ speech on marriage a the Vatican’s Humanum Conference (or the Colloqium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage, to give it its full name). This is one of the deepest, most profound defences of the institution of marriage that I’ve ever...
The American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) recent report lends more weight to the argument that marriage is good for your pocket. It argues that “changes in family formation and stability are central to the changing economic landscape of American families, to the declining economic status of men, and to worries about the health of the American...
The Italian Supreme Court has decided that a couple who used a surrogate mother in Ukraine to have a child should not be allowed to raise the child. The child will be placed for adoption instead. The case shows how strict some European countries are about surrogacy. Ireland should follow suit. Italy, like France, Germany,...
Shane Coleman: … Some European countries, Germany, Sweden, France, I think as well, ban surrogacy, completely. Would you be of a mind to do that? Minister Varadkar: I’ve heard that. I haven’t actually checked that up yet as to whether they ban it outright. They certainly may ban commercial surrogacy and I would be very...
So, the government have won their surrogacy case in the Supreme Court. Birth mothers will remain legal mothers for the moment and will have their names recorded on the birth cert, but the Oireachtas will basically have the power to define the term, “motherhood” as the court rejected the State’s argument that the legal principle mater semper certa est or...
November 4th is a big day. Alongside Congressional elections, it hosts the Colorado Definition of Person and Child Initiative (“Amendment 67”), an initiated constitutional amendment. If approved by voters, the measure would include unborn human beings under the definition of “person” and “child” in the Colorado criminal code. Amendment 67 was initiated by Heather Surovik,...
Finance Minister Michael Noonan recently said that reforming the tax code to make it less unfair to single-earner married couples and to take more account of dependent children was simply not on the cards. Once a fierce opponent of Charlie McCreevey’s tax individualisation policy, on the post-budget Sean O’Rourke programme he went to bat for...
Iona Institute director David Quinn was on Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show debating assisted suicide with Tom Curran, partner of the late Marie Fleming. Curran is supporting a bill sponsored by Independent TD John Halligan which would legislate for assisted suicide based on the model adopted by the US State of Oregon. He said that when...
