A Co Wicklow Catholic primary school has said it will not be using Flourish, a relationships and sexuality education (RSE) supplementary resource developed by the Irish Bishops’ Conference for use from junior infants up to sixth class.
The 22 parents said they did not want the program to be used even as a “supplementary” resource to complement the existing curriculum.
Their preference was that it not be used “in any shape or format”.
In a May 27th response, Lacken principal Fiona Jones and the school board of management assured the parents that “we intend to continue with our present RSE programme going forward. This rules out the use of any other programme, supplementary or otherwise.”
A British bioethicist is warning that extending a 14-day limit on experimenting on human embryos will “strip away one of the few remaining limits to injustices committed against embryonic human beings.”
For 40 years, the International Society for Stem Cell Research banned experimenting on human embryos that are more than 14 days old. On May 26, it lifted the prohibition and called for greater discussion on the issue.
David Albert Jones, the head of the Oxford-based Anscombe Bioethics Centre, said the decision was the latest in a series of changes that amounted to a “shifting goalpost” on human embryonic research.
“When the UK legalised experimentation on human embryos in 1990, it was promised that this would be subject to various ‘safeguards’: 1) No human embryo would be created by cloning; 2) No human embryo would be genetically modified; 3) No part-human, part-nonhuman embryo could be created; 4) The use of human embryos in assisted reproduction and in research would be regulated with the utmost care; 5) And, most famously, no experimentation on human embryos would be permitted after 14 days,” he said in a statement.
The view that men cannot transition to become women is a “protected belief” under equality law, a UK tribunal ruled yesterday.
An appeal panel led by a High Court judge found that a tax consultant was legally entitled to post social media comments arguing that gender identification was not the same as biological sex.
Maya Forstater was dismissed from the London office of the Centre for Global Development, a think tank, two years ago after she was said to have made “offensive and exclusionary” comments on Twitter.
She argued at an employment tribunal in 2019 that comments such as “woman means adult human female” or “trans women are male” were statements of neutral fact and were not transphobic or expressions of antipathy towards trans people.
But the tribunal rejected her claim and ruled that the decision to dismiss her was lawful.
However, on Thursday morning an employment appeal tribunal overturned that ruling, saying the original judge had “erred in law”.
The ruling of the three-strong panel, led by Mr Justice Choudhury supported Forstater’s argument that her comments were protected as a “philosophical belief” within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010.
A Pakistani court has ordered the release of a Christian couple who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy.
Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar were jailed in 2013 for allegedly sending a text message insulting the prophet Muhammad – even though both are illiterate.
In April, the European parliament cited their case when it passed a motion condemning Pakistan for failing to protect religious minorities.
Last week, however, the Lahore Supreme Court acquitted the married couple on appeal.
Their lawyer, Saif ul-Malook, welcomed the ruling and said his clients are among the most helpless people in Pakistani society.
Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in Pakistan, where anyone deemed to have insulted Islam can face the death penalty and the whiff of even unproven allegations can lead to mob lynchings and vigilante murders.
Rights campaigners say accusations are often made to settle personal disputes.
Amnesty International welcomed the decision saying the couple should neither have been convicted nor faced a death sentence in the first place.
“‘Blasphemy’ cases are often premised on flimsy evidence in environments that make fair trials impossible, underscoring the significance of this verdict. The authorities must now immediately provide Shafqat, Shagufta, their family and their lawyer Saiful ul-Malook with adequate security,” said a spokesperson.
There were 209,917 abortions in England and Wales last year, the highest number since the Abortion Act was introduced in 1968, according to statistics released by the Department of Health and Social Care today. This was despite an extended lockdown caused by Covid-19.
The abortion rate in 2020 was highest for women aged 21.
The official statistics reveal that the number of Irish women travelling to England for abortions declined from 375 in 2019 to 194 in 2020.
In addition, there were 693 abortions where a baby was recorded as having Down Syndrome, an increase of 6% from 2019, although this may be an underestimate.
Under the current law, abortion is allowed up to birth if a baby has a disability.
The campaigning group Don’t Screen Us Out said the actual numbers are probably higher than reported due to under-reporting on disability abortion statistics. A 2013 review showed 886 abortions for Down Syndrome in England and Wales in 2010 but only 482 were reported in official Government figures. The underreporting was confirmed by a 2014 Department of Health and Social Care review.
The group says the private availability of early cfDNA testing (otherwise known as NIPT) is likely already leading to an increase in the numbers of children with Down Syndrome being screened out by abortion.
Archbishop Dermot Farrell will run a Summer Dues collection to support priests of the Dublin Archdiocese after revenue generated by weekly churches collections collapsed as a result of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Finances have been “severely impacted” by the pandemic, Archbishop Farrell has said with the drop in income from the usual two collections at Sunday Masses down by “80per cent and 86 per cent respectively for the first quarter (January to March 2021).”
The initiative, which is aimed at making up a portion of the shortfall, will follow the pattern of the Christmas and Easter dues collections giving parishioners an opportunity to contribute to the income that supports priests.
“The Summer Offering collection will be launched on the weekend of the 20th June,” he said in a letter to parishioners.
The High Court will hear the case of a couple who aborted their unborn child after being wrongly told it had a fatal condition.
At a preliminary hearing yesterday Justice Kevin Cross set June 22nd as the beginning of a five day trial.
The Couple are suing Merrion Fetal Health clinic and the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin.
They say the Hospital diagnosed their unborn child with Trisomy 18 or Edwards Syndrome.
The woman claims her consultant advised the baby was non-viable and there was no point in waiting for a full analysis of the results.
She says she relied totally on this advice and an abortion was carried out on March 14th 2019 in the clinic.
Subsequently, the full analysis was provided to her and, she says, it showed her unborn child did not have Trisomy 18 and was a normal healthy baby boy.
In the face of a growing demographic and economic crisis, China is to allow couples have up to three children.
The Communist Party Politburo approved the change at a meeting chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping last week.
The country imposed a one-child policy in 1979 that involved forced sterilisations and abortions.
Restrictions were loosened in 2015, allowing up to two children per family.
However, 2020 saw an 18 percent decline in births to a near six-decade low. Part of this decline will have been due to the Covid lockdown.
Political commentator Ed Morrissey said four decades of brutal hostility to having more than one child has created a lasting impact on China’s culture, and the consequences of that policy cannot be easily undone. However, the whole of East Asia, including Japan, has well-below replacement fertility levels.
In Rome, Pope Francis has released a video message for young people to pursue the beauty of married love.
He has dedicated the month of June as a time for the Catholic Church to pray for engaged couples.
In the video, the Pope admits that marriage can be demanding and complicated, but he adds that it is also something beautiful.
He also offers the reassurance that the husband and wife are never alone as, he says, Jesus accompanies them too.
The Vatican released a press statement accompanying the prayer intention which noted that the Church is currently marking the “Special Year of the Family”, which kicked off on 19 March 2021.
Marriage rates, says the statement, have plummeted around the world since 1972, while divorce rates have skyrocketed and the age at which people marry has grown steadily.
These trends have likely worsened since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Preparing young people and engaged couples for a real vocation, not just for the celebration of a wedding, is a priority,” says Dr. Gabriella Gambino, the Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life.
“In a secularized society that no longer believes in marriage,” says Dr. Gambino, “we must proclaim the strength and power of the sacrament as a vocation and show that family relationships can have a salvific value for people and be a path to holiness. It is a matter of concretely bringing Christ into the lives of families.”
Faith leaders in Scotland have welcomed a Government move to subsidise new security measures in places of worship.
Individual churches, mosques, and synagogues can receive up to £20,000 to enhance security.
Places of worship deemed particularly at-risk of attacks are eligible for 100 per cent grants.
Michael Veitch of the Christian public policy charity “CARE for Scotland”, welcomed the announcement.
“In recent years, there have been alarming attacks on places of worship in Scotland including churches, synagogues, and mosques. This money will enable congregations to install security measures to act both as a deterrent to criminals and a reassurance to worshippers.
“Whilst the maximum grant available to individual places of worship is less than in England, the fact that 100 per cent grants are to be provided to the most at-risk settings is especially welcome. We hope that this assistance for places of worship will become a regular feature in Scottish Government budgets.
“We also call on Ministers to send a strong message that religiously-motivated hatred has no place in modern Scotland including hatred against Christians, which often receives less media coverage.”
