In practically every sphere from gender equality to poverty reduction, Sweden seems to top the world league. But there is growing evidence that all is not well in the Secular Paradise. For example, a 2006 investigation by the Swedish government reveals that in regard to mental health problems among teenagers, Sweden fares more poorly than...
Justice Minister Alan Shatter’s planned reform of family law is about as far-reaching and radical as it is possible to get. Out goes any notion that the natural ties are important. Out goes any notion that having a loving mother and a father has any special value. In comes the notion of the ‘intentional’ parent....
China’s One Child Policy, which often involves forcing women to have abortions against their will, must rank as one of the most barbaric social policies anywhere in the world. Even if you support abortion it is an appalling attack on women’s genuine reproductive rights. Chinese writer Ma Jian, in this piece in the Guardian, points...
This week The Irish Independent has been publishing the results of a survey of the attitudes of Ireland’s thirty- somethings. One of the more interesting things it reveals is that only 60pc of them are happy with their love lives. In his column in this week’s Irish Independent David Quinn wonders if part of the...
Last Friday, RTÉ Radio One aired a programme, Pregnant on My Lunchbreak, about a woman, ‘Angela’, who decided to become pregnant using donor sperm from a Danish clinic, Cryos. In Denmark, sperm donors are allowed anonymity, so Angela’s little boy or little girl will grow up without a father, by design, and without any knowledge...
The Government have refused to recognise an Irish couple’s adoption of a young Mexican girl, because it did not meet the strict requirements of the Hague Convention on international adoption. But when a similar case arose where the parents obtained a child through surrogacy in India, the State took a very different approach. In both...
David Quinn, in his column in the Irish Independent this week, poses the question, “Does the ‘right’ of two men to have a child trump the child’s natural right to be raised by a mother?” He points out that the answer virtually the entire political establishment now gives to this question is an emphatic ‘yes’....
There is a leader in The Irish Times today in favour of ‘marriage equality’ that is particularly philosophically illiterate. It seems to have no understanding whatever of why the institution of marriage has ever had special status historically and tellingly offers no definition of marriage at all. Its illiteracy is particularly revealed in the penultimate...
Last week, David Quinn appeared on the Today with Sean O’Rourke show to debate same-sex marriage with Waterford Labour TD Ciara Conway. During the debate, David pointed out the blindingly obvious, namely that where a child has two parents of the same sex, only one can be the birth parent. Ms Conway’s reply, oddly,...
The Constitutional Convention has recommended removing the offence of blasphemy from the Constitution, and replacing it with a new provision prohibiting incitement to religious hatred against minority groups. They also voted to strengthen existing incitement to hatred legislation. At its meeting at the weekend, 61pc of the Convention’s members voted against keeping the Constitutional provision...
