The EU’s top court has ruled that same-sex parents and their children must be recognised as a family in all member states.

In a landmark ruling on Tuesday, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) said that if one country acknowledges a parental relationship with a child, then every member state should do the same in order to guarantee the child’s right to free movement.

The case came before the court after Bulgarian authorities refused to give a birth certificate to the new-born daughter of a same-sex couple on the basis that a child cannot have two mothers.

The case cannot be appealed.

Tom Curran of Exit International supports the ‘right’ of a healthy woman to die via assisted suicide in Switzerland, along with her husband who Mr Curran describes as ”quite ill”.

Mr Curran is a well-known campaigner in Ireland for assisted suicide. Exit International supports the right of any adult to die by suicide, with the help of someone else if needed, once they can make a ‘rational’ decision to do so. The person need not be suffering from any illness.

Speaking on RTE’s ‘Claire Byrne Live’ on Monday, Mr Curran explained why he is currently in Switzerland: “The main reason I’m here is to meet a couple of people who are travelling to Switzerland to avail of their [Switzerland’s] very humane way of dealing with this issue, where they will allow people to travel to their country to die, to be helped to die”.

He continued: “So I’m meeting them, I’ve known them for quite some time, and I’m meeting them to say goodbye to them. I’m also meeting with some other people I’ve known from this particular campaign”.

Describing the couple, he said: “They’re an elderly couple, one of them is quite sick, and the other one has decided they just don’t want to live without them. So that’s their reason for travelling to Switzerland, where they have a humane, civilised attitude to it and will help them to go together”.

When it was put to him by Claire Byrne that the woman is healthy, and this might make some people feel uncomfortable, he said: “It’s not my place to judge anybody. I have no right to tell anybody else what they should or shouldn’t do”.

Exit International is behind a new suicide pod called ‘Sarco’, after ‘sarcophagus’, which a person can climb into and activate into order to kill themselves. The machine is flooded with nitrogen, reducing oxygen levels rapidly. The person inside loses consciousness and dies in approximately 10 minutes.

The machine has gained legal approval in Switzerland.

The founder of Exit International, Dr Philip Nitschke, says: “At Exit, we believe that it is a fundamental human right for every adult of sound mind, to be able to plan for the end of their life in a way that is reliable, peaceful & at a time of their choosing”.

A campaign to allow assisted suicide is gathering momentum in Ireland.

A Bill to ban abortions for non-fatal disabilities is unlikely to be made into law after preliminary votes were lost in the Northern Ireland Assembly yesterday.

A group of MLAs opposed to the proposed change tabled two wrecking amendments to the Bill which were passed by 45 to 43. This means that the Bill will be unlikely to proceed any further at the Assembly.

The loss follows the Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill passing Committee Stage at the Northern Ireland Assembly, after 99% of the 9,125 submissions to a Northern Ireland Committee for Health consultation on the Bill supported the proposed law change.

Currently, abortion is legal under the Northern Ireland regulations right up to birth, based solely on a primary diagnosis of disabilities such as Down’s syndrome, cleft palate, cleft lip or club foot, although the law is not in full operation yet.

Lynn Murray, spokesperson for Don’t Screen Us Out and mother of Rachel who has Down’s syndrome, said: “As a mother of a daughter with Down’s syndrome, it is devastating to see that this important piece of legislation is unlikely to proceed further at Stormont.

Three men in the UK who commissioned a surrogate to have triplets for them will all be named as “parents” on the birth certificate.

The triplets are set to be born in the UK next year after a surrogate in America was inseminated with three IVF embryo’s.

Two of the embryos – which have been kept frozen for 22 years – are the offspring of Barrie and Tony that are part of a group of embryos which produced their three eldest children Saffron, 22, Aspen, 22 and a son named Orlando, 17. ‘Surplus’ embryos are often destroyed in the end.

The third embryo is the biological twin of Barrie and Scott’s 15-month-old daughter Valentina.

The Welsh government has been accused of attempting to erase biological sex from the education curriculum after publishing draft guidance that makes no mention of the terms male or female.

The Relationships and Sexuality Education Code, which also did not explicitly reference “boys” or “girls”, is due to be debated for 30 minutes in the Senedd today, before becoming mandatory teaching for children aged three to six.

“This is not fact-based biologically accurate sex education, but indoctrination of children in gender identity ideology,” said Stephanie Davies-Arai of the Transgender Trend campaign group. “The erasure of sex undermines safeguarding and erodes the concepts of privacy, boundaries and consent, putting girls particularly at risk.”

France’s Interior Minister on Saturday condemned threats made against Catholics taking part in a Marian procession in the western suburbs of Paris.

Gérald Darmanin deplored what he said were “unacceptable acts” during a torchlight procession in Nanterre on Dec. 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

“Freedom of worship must be able to be exercised in all serenity in our country,” he wrote on his Twitter account on Dec. 11, expressing “support for Catholics in France.”

The French daily Le Figaro reported that on Wednesday evening around 30 Catholics were due to depart on an annual procession along a route approved by the local authorities.

Jean-Marc Sertillange, a permanent deacon at Sainte-Marie-des-Fontenelles, told Le Figaro: “But shortly after 7 p.m., and while we had advanced only a few hundred meters, a band of unknown people on the path verbally attacked us at the time of the first prayer station.”

The newspaper reported that the threats included cries of “Kafirs,” an Arabic term meaning “infidels,” and “Wallah [I swear] on the Quran I will cut your throat.”

“They then threw water on us, then grabbed one of the torches which they then threw in our direction,” Sertillange said.

Two Mexican cardinals, a bishop, and three priests have been convicted of constitutional violations for warning the public against the ruling party’s opposition to the values of human life and family, their advocacy of the LGBT agenda, and their promotion of socialism.

The decision was handed down on November 18 by Mexico’s national Electoral Tribunal in response to a lawsuit filed by Mexico’s ruling socialist party.

One of the tribunal judges, Villafuerte Coello, denounced the accused clerics for encouraging Catholics “to pray and ask God to illuminate them when they vote,” in a video transmission of her statements during the proceedings.

“Of course that mustn’t be permitted,” said Cuello. “Votes aren’t celestial or spiritual things. This is about deciding votes with knowledge, with information, apart from pondering other things and this is just what must be respected, because celestial inspiration is not going to cause the best people to be in popularly elected positions. It’s logical.”

Mexican cardinals and bishops convicted for denouncing pro-abortion, socialist government

The Chinese Communist Party’s national conference on religious affairs headed by President Xi Jinping has stressed the strict implementation of Marxist policies, increased online surveillance and tightening control of religion to ensure national security.

During the conference in Beijing on Dec. 3-4, Xi emphasised the importance of “upholding the principle of developing religions in the Chinese context and providing active guidance for the adaptation of religions to socialist society,” according to a statement from the CCP.

Xi said China would further promote the Sinicization of religion, with a focus on strengthening control of online religious affairs, and insisted that all religious activities must be conducted within the boundary of the law, reports Xinhua news agency.

A bill to ensure unborn babies about to undergo late-term abortions receive pain relief is due to be debated this coming week. It comes as Leo Varadkar suggested to the Dail on Thursday that the possibility of extending abortion to cover non-fatal foetal abnormalities could be considered in the future, along with bans on pro-life vigils outside medical centres, and a reduction in the three-day waiting time before receiving an abortion.

The Foetal Pain Relief Bill 2021, introduced by Carol Nolan TD and co-sponsored by ten other deputies, is progressing next Wednesday to Second Stage in the Dáil, where it will be debated and voted on during Private Members time.

Scientific evidence clearly shows that unborn babies feel pain, with the most recent research suggesting it occurs much earlier than 20 weeks. Under Ireland’s current abortion law, there is no requirement on those performing abortions to give precautionary pain relief to an unborn baby, despite the fact that the law permits late-term abortions in certain circumstances.

The news was welcomed by the Pro-Life Campaign who said the Bill is a modest measure that simply seeks to ensure that no baby is forced to endure unnecessary pain as his or her life is being ended. “It’s important to recall that the Dáil passed legislation in 2013 obligating vets to administer pain relief to animals before any procedure takes place that may cause an animal suffering or distress. It is an affront to human decency that babies about to be aborted are treated less humanely than animals,” he said.

A senator has criticised the Chinese government’s regulations on religion which he says are leading to “churches being raided and closed”.

Speaking in the Seanad, Independent Senator Victor Boyhan called on the Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney to publicly express concern regarding the “mistreatment” of Christians. His comments came after a motion was put forward last week by Senator Michael McDowell calling on the Government to act against human rights abuses in the country.

“I would like him to publicly express concern about the way Christians are being mistreated under the Chinese authorities’ new regulations for religious affairs, including crosses being removed, churches being raided and closed and pastors and spiritual leaders being arrested.

“I ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs to raise the matter with the Chinese ambassador to Ireland.”