News Roundup

Government drops plan to let under-16s legally change genders

The new Programme for Government has dropped a plan to investigate allowing under-16s to change the legal designation of their sex and has removed a commitment to implement a controversial ‘no questions asked’, affirmative approach, to gender transitions.

The 2025 programme is radically different in relation to transgender issues to the 2020 programme agreed to by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party and even drops a commitment to ensure public bodies use people’s so-called “preferred pronouns”.

The 2020 programme said the Government would introduce a ‘gender health model of care’ based on WPATH (The World Professional Association of Transgender Health). Those guidelines were found to “lack developmental rigour” by the UK-commissioned Hilary Cass review last year. The guidelines include prescribing puberty blocker and sex hormone to minors.

Dr Paul Moran, a consultant psychiatrist at the National Gender Service, said he was relieved to see that implementing WPATH in Ireland was no longer a government aim. Instead, the 2025 programme says the Government will “ensure a transgender healthcare service that is based on clinical evidence, respect, inclusiveness and compassion”.

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Online porn is driving violence in sex assaults, says Garda chief

Online violent pornography is driving much of the violence gardaí are seeing in sexual assaults on women, the Garda Commissioner has said.

Drew Harris told the Policing Authority that the widespread availability of extreme imagery was breeding a “normalisation” of violence against women.

Asked about apparent increases in violence in sexual offences, Mr Harris said: “In respect to the nature of some of the sexual offending that we see reported, in terms of violence perpetrated, the modus operandi of the attack, and how it’s been perpetrated, [it’s] the normalisation of violence against women, through very violent pornography.”

He said that violent adult pornography is, in effect, a “non-regulated” area and pointed out that so much of the resources available to gardaí goes towards dealing with child abuse material.

He said this violent adult imagery is “free and very available” on the internet for anyone with a computer or smartphone.

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Technological advancement ‘must serve not undermine family life’

There has been a call to ensure that new technologies such as biotechnology, digital technology and AI should serve human life and the human family, rather than the other way around.

A group of public intellectuals in the US and Britain released the statement “A Future for the Family: A New Technology Agenda for the Right,” on Wednesday, at the journal First Things. Signatories include leading Catholic academics such as Robert George and Patrick Deneen.

They write that public policy should protect families from harmful innovations while also directing the development of technology to support the flourishing of family life.

To those ends, they offer ten guiding principles for empowering families through technology.

Commenting on the statement, one of its authors Clare Morell, said an electoral coalition that joins pro-family and technological interests catapulted President Trump into the White House. Now, she says, these two groups must begin to govern together, providing the potential, “perhaps for the first time–for modern technology to be designed with the empowerment of the family in mind”.

Another author, Brad Littlejohn, also struck a balance between the beneficial and harmful possibilities. He noted biotechnologies, digital technologies, and AI promise new and “frankly horrifying” possibilities, but nonetheless, many “could be used to empower rather than dissolve the family”.

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Falling birth rate will add to tax burden, says UK think tank

Britain’s falling birth rate risks increasing the income tax burden on people by one quarter by 2080, a think tank has said.

A report by Policy Exchange calculated that continued low birth rates and the ageing population could result in government spending rising to 58 per cent of GDP.

In the absence of sufficient economic growth, this would require an income tax rise equivalent to 7.4 percentage points, from the current average of 26.4pc of income to 33.9pc of income.

The official fertility rate is now well below replacement level and statistics released at the end of last year showed the number of children born to British mothers has fallen by a quarter in 15 years.

The Policy Exchange report warned there was no “silver bullet” for collapsing birth rates and said high levels of net immigration in recent years had only provided a “temporary fix”.

“To reverse this trend, there would need to be a broader reorientation of policy, taxation and benefits across the board, from the focus on the individual to a system that consistently and systematically supports the family”, it concludes.

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UK’s ‘Assisted dying’ bill should not be rushed, says leading scientist

Implementing assisted suicide legislation “should not be done at speed”, the Chief Medical Officer for England has said, warning that it is “extremely difficult” to define terminal illnesses.

Giving evidence to a committee of MPs, Professor Chris Whitty urged caution when bringing in a new bill, arguing it could take years to get appropriate safeguards in place.

Under the terms of the bill, terminally ill adults with fewer than six months to live would be enabled to end their lives, subject to approval by two doctors and a High Court judge.

Implementing the new policy would take effect within two years of the bill becoming law, which means it could be in use by 2027.

Asked whether the NHS would be ready to offer an assisted dying service by then, Whitty said that there should not be a “firm deadline” and the focus should instead be on providing a “safe, fair and secure service”.
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Call to expand euthanasia bill to those with Parkinson’s

Assisted suicide/euthanasia must be expanded to those with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, a former UK high court judge told MPs in Westminster yesterday. This shows that campaigners already want the planned law to go beyond the terminally ill with six months to live.

Sir Nicholas Mostyn, who has Parkinson’s, argued that under the current terms of the law passing through parliament, the vast majority of people would need to have terminal cancer to avail of an ‘assisted death’.

Mostyn said the suffering of Parkinson’s patients near the end-of-life was “intolerable”, with some unable to swallow or breathe.

The former senior family judge said that in his opinion there was no legal possibility of challenging the assisted suicide bill, once it became law, to include those with neurodegenerative diseases, as the European court of human rights had already ruled there was no specific right to die.

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Technology to make baby from one person ‘imminent’

Mass-producing eggs and sperm in a laboratory to have a baby using your own skins or stem cells alone, or with those of three other people are scenarios under consideration by the UK’s fertility watchdog, which has concluded that the technology to enable such techniques could be on the brink of viability.

Bolstered by Silicon Valley investment, scientists are making rapid progress on in-vitro gametes (IVGs), i.e., lab-grown human egg and sperm cells that are created from genetically reprogrammed skin or stem cells.

Lab-grown eggs have already been used produce healthy babies in mice – including ones with two biological fathers. The equivalent feat is yet to be achieved using human cells, but US startups such as Conception and Gameto claim to be closing in on achieving it.

Last week’s HFEA meeting noted that estimated timeframes ranged from two to three years – deemed to be optimistic – to a decade, with several clinicians at the meeting sharing the view that IVGs appeared destined to become “a routine part of clinical practice”.

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US Vice President attends March for Life

US Vice President JD Vance has told members of the annual March for Life in Washington DC “the sacred truth that every single child is a miracle and a gift from God”. He is only the second Vice-President to attend the event after Mike Pence. Vance is a convert to Catholicism.

The March has been held on the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that imposed abortion on all fifty US states and which was repealed in 2022 by justices appointed by Presidents George Bush, Snr., George W Bush and Donald Trump.

President Trump also showed his support for the movement by quickly pardoning 23 peaceful pro-life activists who had been controversially jailed under the Biden administration.

“For over a half century, this march has united tens of thousands of Americans from all walks of life to rally for the cause of life in our nation. It is the single largest gathering in the world to celebrate our movement; the victories we’ve fought so hard for and, yes, the victories yet to come,” Vance told participants of the March for Life.

“And I want to personally welcome all of you who have travelled from far and wide to our nation’s capital. Thank you for your dedication; and it is an incredible crowd, and it’s great to see you today,” the vice president said.

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Syrian Christians seeking equal rights under new regime

Church leaders in Syria are working closely with the country’s new leadership to ensure that religious freedom will be guaranteed and Christians will be able to play a full role in the country’s future.

Christians “do not want to define themselves as minorities”, for fear “they might lose their representation in the new constitution and state institutions”, a local contact told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Almost 14 years of civil war ended last December when the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – previously affiliated with Al-Qaeda – toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, giving rise to much uncertainty about the future of Christianity in Syria.

While Damascus is in the spotlight and the former rebels under pressure to be more peaceful, and to maintain the positive image they have, unfortunately the lack of a strong central authority has allowed radical factions to impose extreme measures, such as segregated seating on public transport and forcing women to wear veils.

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PLC notes pro-choice record of new Health Minister

The appointment of Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, Fine Gael, as the new Minister for Health has been met with caution by pro-life advocates.

The Pro-Life Campaign noted her unambiguous support for ‘pro-choice’ positions, backing a Yes vote in the 2018 referendum; voting for the euthanasia bill proposed by Gino Kenny in 2021; and, voting with the Government to block foetal pain relief for unborn babies, also in 2021.

In an April 2024 interview with TheJournal.ie Deputy Carroll MacNeill was asked about her views on abortion and a contemporaneous debate being held in the Dáil. She said she found the debate “very difficult” to listen to due to her own “difficult experiences” with pregnancies, including miscarriage. She said, “There really is nothing more intimate than a woman in a maternity hospital, at any stage of her pregnancy, with her baby or her unborn baby.”

The PLC note that, while her position is obviously pro-choice, she does not seem to be in a rush to further liberalise the law.

They also commended her as “a person of substance” willing to engage with the arguments in a more thoughtful way than others.

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