The Northern Ireland Secretary of State has affirmed that he intends to roll out his own UN-approved sex education programme across NI – with a strong emphasis on teaching abortion – despite the fact that the Catholic church has just unveiled its own resource for teaching the subject in primary schools.

The new RSE resource, ‘Flourish’, was launched by Catholic Bishop Donal McKeown a week ago.

At present individual schools have great autonomy when deciding what to teach, whereas a standardised UN-approved curriculum was legislated for by Secretary of State Brandon Lewis as part of NI abortion legislation last year.

The Belfast News Letter reported that Mr Lewis holds that he is under “a clear legal duty” from his own abortion legislation to ensure that the recommendations from the 2018 Report of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women are implemented in full. These recommendations include: “Make age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights a compulsory curriculum component for adolescents, covering early pregnancy prevention and access to abortion.”

Over 27,000 people have been killed through euthanasia in Belgium since it was legalised 20 years ago on 28th May 2002, according to the latest official data from Belgian authorities.

The country has been cited as an example of a “slippery slope” that pro-life advocates warn is inevitable with such legislation. Though euthanasia was initially legalised under narrow, “strict conditions”, updates to the law have seen Belgium become the first and only country in the world to have no lower age limit enforced for children.

Belgian cases have also included instances where patients have been euthanised for psychiatric conditions, including depression.

“A fair and just society cares for its most vulnerable. International law protects everyone’s inherent right to life. It requires countries to protect the inherent dignity and lives of all people, rather than to help end those lives,” said Jean-Paul Van De Walle, legal counsel for ADF International in Brussels, Belgium.

In a move that Van De Walle says “threatens” the right to conscientious objection, a 2020 amendment in the law prevents health care institutions from objecting – by way of general policy or by specific provision – to euthanasia being practiced within the premises of their institution.

The Manchester Metropolitan University has been appointed to undertake a key part of the review into Ireland’s abortion laws.

The contract was awarded following a public procurement process and will see the university carry out research into the experiences of GPs and medical practitioners who provide abortions, as well as medical colleges and the Health Service Executive. The research team will present their findings to barrister Marie O’Shea who is the chair of the overall review which is ongoing.

The overall review will be split into two main phases. The first involves widespread collection of evidence about how the laws are operating, including the university team’s research into abortion providers as well as separate research into the experience of women who undergo abortions, and a more widespread public consultation.

The second phase of the review will be led by the independent chair who will examine whether the objectives of the 2018 legislation have been achieved.

The trustees and secretary of the fund were arrested under the Beijing-imposed national security law two weeks ago on suspicion of ‘colluding’ with foreign forces. They were all released on police bail without charge except for one who is serving a prison term for a banned pro-democracy event in October 2019.

Tuesday’s court hearing saw dozens of residents line up for seats in the public gallery. Consulate staff representing numerous countries such as the US, Britain, Australia, Germany, France, Austria and Ireland, as well as representatives from the European Union Office, also attended the hearing.

The principal magistrate ordered all parties to return to court on August 9 for a pre-trial review, while the official five-day trial is set to take place between September 19 and 23.

Both the Premier and the Opposition Leader had opposed the bill, but they allowed MPs a conscience vote on the extremely divisive issue which passed by a majority vote.

This means that so-called “assisted dying” is now legal in every Australian state. At the Federal level, the new parliament is expected to permit the Australian Capital Territory, where Canberra is located, and the vast but sparsely populated Northern Territory, to legalise it there as well.

The new law does not allow institutions to refuse to allow their residents to have an assisted death, to the consternation of Catholic healthcare officials.

“This law will force organisations that do not agree with assisted dying to allow doctors onto their premises to prescribe and even administer restricted drugs with the intention of terminating a resident’s life – without even informing the facility,” said Brigid Meney, of Catholic Health Australia. “These laws ignore the rights of staff and residents who may choose to work and live in a particular residential facility because of their opposition to assisted dying.”

New powers being taken by Northern Secretary Brandon Lewis would force the North into accepting Westminster’s extreme abortion legislation and further erode the Good Friday Agreement [GFA].

That’s according to Aontú Leader & Meath West TD, Peadar Tóibín.

“From the outset, the imposition of abortion on the North by Westminster has been undemocratic and in complete violation of the Good Friday Agreement. This imposition was facilitated by both Sinn Féin and the SDLP. Attempts to impose radical abortion law on the North have been met with fierce resistance from every corner of society,” he said.

“Now, in an effort to bypass Stormont, Irish self-determination, devolution and the GFA, the Northern Secretary is availing of new powers so he can force the Northern Health Department to expand abortion services. Many people have been shocked and disappointed by SF working hand in hand with Westminster in this circumvention of Irish democracy. They have binned 200 years of Republic ideals of Self-Determination in doing so.”

Evidence is mounting that assisted suicide’s introduction into the Canadian medical system is undermining plans to improve palliative care and actively damaging the already inadequate care system, with some patients choosing to die rather than to continue to live under sub-standard care.

That’s according to Dr. Neil Hilliard, a palliative care expert from Abbotsford, British Columbia.

“It’s like a cancer growing within the palliative care programs,” said Hilliard who, in 2017, resigned as medical director of the Fraser Health Authority’s palliative care program because of his opposition to the authority’s insistence that he support the performing of assisted suicide in hospices.

“(MAiD) is starting to take over to a certain degree. But still only 5% of people are choosing MAiD; 95% would prefer to live well until they die naturally.”

Hilliard’s comments support recent testimony to a Special Joint Committee of Parliament that is reviewing the country’s assisted suicide legislation.

Dr. Leonie Herx, head of palliative medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, testified that only 30%-50% of Canadians who need palliative care have access to it, and only a “very few,” or about 15%, have access to specialist palliative care.

Writing in USA Today, Brad Wilcox and Chris Bullivant say the two-parent family, normally based on marriage is strong among the upper middle class – more than 90% of children live with two married parents, “but among the poor and working class, 35% and 55% of children have the privilege of living in a married home”. A large marriage gap also exists in Ireland.

Yet, they say, journalists, academics, congressional policymakers and the foundation executives who dominate the national conversation “rarely if ever confront the family factor lurking beneath many of our country’s biggest problems”.

They say that this prevents a focus on the enormous family chasm that has emerged in the United States in the last few decades. That marriage divide was virtually nonexistent in the 1970s and yet, now, it “risks entrenching a permanent social and economic divide in society”.

Worse again, the very lack of focus or even recognition of the family factor means that there is “no pressure to generate solutions to bridge the family divide” and the myriad social problems consequent on that fraying societal structure.

Stringent safeguards must be incorporated into any legislation governing surrogacy to ensure babies are not being bought and sold, an international expert on child exploitation has warned.

Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, former UN special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, told the Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy the only payment made to a surrogate mother by “commissioning parents” should be to cover the costs of pregnancy and birth, and these costs should be itemised.

Any payment beyond that would amount to the “sale of a child” and would be a crime under international human rights law, she said.

She told committee members, who are examining how best to legislate for surrogacy which remains unregulated here, they had “an enormous responsibility” to ensure women in poorer countries and the children they bore were not exploited.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco has barred U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from receiving communion in the archdiocese over her support of abortion.

“After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a declaration that she is not admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiates her support for abortion ‘rights’ and confesses and receives absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of penance,” Cordileone said in a May 20 letter to the faithful.

Numerous other Bishops have voiced their support for Cordileone’s move and have promised to honour his ban in their own dioceses.

Pelosi, a Democrat and self-described devout Catholic, has long been outspoken about her pro-abortion rights stance. In the letter, Cordileone stated that Pelosi’s abortion stance has “become only more extreme over the years.”