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News Roundup

British soap plans Down’s syndrome abortion storyline

21st November 2020

Emmerdale producers have defended a forthcoming storyline which will see a couple terminate their pregnancy after being told their unborn child has Down’s syndrome.

The move comes despite a backlash from some, who said the ITV soap was perpetuating the idea that those with Down’s syndrome do not lead lives worth living.

Tim Reid, the co-creator and co-writer of Car Share, tweeted: “Dear Emmerdale, are you confident you’ve tackled this story in a way your audience with Down’s syndrome deserve? Have you taken the same approach you would if characters were choosing to end a pregnancy for reason of gender, race or physical disability?”

Wendy O’Carroll, the founder of support charity Ups and Downs Southwest, voiced her concerns in an open letter to Emmerdale which was widely shared on Facebook.

“Your proposed story will further serve to encourage and confirm the opinion that ending the life of a baby just because it has Down syndrome is perfectly acceptable and understandable because maybe it would be better if fewer people ‘like them’ were in the world,” she said.

More than 500 hate crimes against Europe’s Christians recorded in 2019

21st November 2020

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe published data Monday documenting more than 500 hate crimes against Christians in Europe in 2019.

Incidents included attacks against Catholic priests, arson attacks on Catholic churches, the destruction of images of the Virgin Mary, vandalism of a pregnancy counseling center, and the theft of consecrated Eucharistic hosts from tabernacles.

France had the most hate crimes against Christians, with 144 incidents in 2019, the majority occurring against Catholic churches. The OSCE also reported 81 incidents in Germany, 75 in Spain, and 70 in Italy.

In total, there were 595 incidents against Christians documented by OSCE. Of these, 459 were attacks against property and 80 were violent attacks against people. Nearly a fourth of the data on Christians was reported directly by the Holy See.

Priest threatened with prosecution for public Mass

20th November 2020

The Gardai have warned a parish priest that he faces prosecution if he says mass while parishioners are present.

Except for weddings and funerals, public worship has been banned for levels 3 to 5 of covid restrictions.

Last Sunday morning, before Mass begun in Mullahoran, Co Cavan, Fr PJ Hughes was told by two guards that he was breaking the law.

After Mass ended, he was visited again, this time by a Sergeant, another garda, as well as the first two officers, to press the matter further.

Fr Hughes was informed that a file would be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), meaning that he may be prosecuted for breaching the Covid rules.

The penalty, if convicted, is a fine up to €2,500 and/or six months imprisonment.

Fr Hughes informed the Anglo-Celt newspaper, he has now been given “one more chance” to comply.

“I have to make a decision to celebrate Mass everyday, but I cannot celebrate it at the time that’s designated because people will come in,” says Fr Hughes. “So I’ll say Mass at a different time each day, on Facebook, for the people. Because I don’t want to be prosecuted either, although I would like to test to see would they go and bring me before the DPP because I just think this is scandalous really, we’re gone to a police state.”

Irish study indicates babies born alive and left to die after botched abortions

20th November 2020

A new study indicates that unborn babies are sometimes born alive after legally-performed abortions in Ireland, and are then left to die. Such late term abortions are carried out in cases where there is a life limiting condition or a so-called ‘fatal foetal abnormality’.

The study, published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, is based on interviews with abortion doctors working in Ireland.

They say they “are ‘unclear as to who will look after these babies’ if a baby is born alive following TOP (Termination of Pregnancy) by induction of labour and without feticide, resulting in them ‘begging people to help’ them in providing palliative care”.

Some of the doctors performing these abortions talk about the “internal conflict” they experience and how ending the lives of unborn babies can be “brutal”, “awful” and “emotionally difficult”. The study quotes one doctor referring to what they do as “stabbing the baby in the heart.” Another doctor interviewed for the study said: “I remember getting sick out in the corridors afterwards because I thought it (feticide) was such an awful procedure and so dreadful.”

Yet, despite all this, some of the doctors interviewed believe the new abortion law is too restrictive and want all remaining restrictions removed.

Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign reacted by saying the findings are truly heart-breaking:

“It goes way beyond confirming the worst fears that pro-life campaigners expressed before the 2018 referendum about what would happen in the event of legalised abortion. Doctors in this study are openly talking about the grotesque life-ending procedures they engage in, yet in the same breath they want to see the legal grounds for abortion expanded even more. It’s clear from reading the study that many of these same doctors are more preoccupied with concerns about the threat of litigation than the horror of what they are doing in ending lives”.

Lesbian couples in UK are twice as likely to divorce as married gay men

20th November 2020

Lesbian couples are more than twice as likely to divorce as gay men, Government data on England and Wales suggests. It confirms a similar finding in Scandinavia.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published annual research on Tuesday that showed there were 822 same-sex splits in 2019.

589, or 72 per cent, took place between women while there were 233 between men.

Alison Fernandes, a partner with Hall Brown Family Law, said same-sex divorces involving women tend to happen “at a slightly younger age than for gay men or heterosexual men and women”.

Abortion chain dumps Marie Stopes name due to her racist beliefs

19th November 2020

The Marie Stopes International (MSI) chain of abortion clinics is to change its name in an attempt to break its association with the eugenicist and racist views of the birth control and abortion campaigner.

From Tuesday, the clinics, which operates in 37 countries, will abbreviate their initials and go by the name MSI Reproductive Choices.

Among her writings, Marie Stopes called for new laws that allowed the “hopelessly rotten and racially diseased” to be sterilised and wrote fiercely against interracial marriage. Eugenic beliefs were extremely widespread in the first decades of the last century.

“We’re absolutely not trying to erase her from history, or what she did,” said Simon Cooke, MSI’s chief executive. “For me, she was an acknowledged family planning pioneer, an extraordinary women who broke down barriers … but we really need to look forward and not back. It’s the right moment for us.”

Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood in New York also dropped the name of Margaret Sanger from their abortion clinics due to her similarly racist, eugenicist views.

Report claims human rights abuse of elderly in Belgium amid pandemic

19th November 2020

Belgian authorities “abandoned” thousands of elderly people who died in nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic and did not seek hospital treatment for many who were infected, violating their human rights, Amnesty International said in an investigation published Monday.

Between March and October, 61.3% of all COVID-19 deaths in Belgium took place in nursing homes. The group said authorities weren’t quick enough to implement measures to protect nursing home residents and staff during this period, failing to protect their human rights. A similar percentage of death occurred in Ireland among care home patients.

Amnesty International said one of the reasons so many people died in nursing homes is because infected residents weren’t transferred to hospitals to receive treatment.

“The results of our investigation allow us to affirm that (care homes) and their residents were abandoned by our authorities until this tragedy was publicly denounced and the worst of the first phase of the pandemic was over,” said Philippe Hensmans, the director of Amnesty International Belgium.

Study suggests religiosity correlates with better sexual relationships

19th November 2020

Highly religious couples who share a common faith report more satisfying sexual relationships than their secular peers, according to a recently released study from the Wheatley Institution,

The findings complement a separate study by Stephen Cranney published earlier this year in the Reviews of Religious Research, which found that married religious couples also have more frequent and better sex.

The Wheatley report analyzed survey data from 11 countries, including the United States, and its findings suggest that the level of a couple’s religious involvement can play a role in reported sexual satisfaction. According to the analysis, moderately religious women were 50% more likely to report being sexually satisfied in their relationship than women with no religious practice. However, women in highly religious relationships (couples who pray together, read scripture at home, and attend church, etc.) were twice as likely as their secular peers to say they were satisfied with their sexual relationship. And the men in these couples were fully four times as likely to report being sexually satisfied as men in relationships with no religious activity.

Christian Churches in Sligo unite to lobby for public worship

18th November 2020

Seventeen church leaders in Sligo including the Catholic bishop of Elphin, Kevin Doran, have written to local TDs and Councillors to asked the Government “to allow Churches to open at level 3 of lockdown so that people can return to worship and that the avenues of Christian love and comfort can resume.” Ireland was unique in Europe in stopping public worship at mid-level restrictions.

The group includes Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Pentecostal Christians that make up “Sligo Churches Together”.

They say for many years they have cooperated to advance the spiritual welfare of their respective congregations.: “We do this by coming together for acts of prayer and worship, raising awareness of social issues such as pastoral care for refugees and migrants in our community and collecting much needed funds to distribute to needy causes in the local area.”

“We have been disheartened that when our Christian community is most in need of God’s grace, love and the comfort of the Sacraments our Churches are forced to close.”

The group say they are perplexed that the Covid-19 response plan for the Church is the same at level 3 as at level 5, and they appeal to Government, given the degree of safety that the Churches have implemented, that they should be allowed to open at level 3.

Atheist group faults schools’ policies for opting out of ‘religion classes’

18th November 2020

A new report critiques the processes used by schools to enable students to opt out of religion class.

Atheist Ireland claims most schools are not providing sufficiently transparent policies in their admissions statements and claims they are thereby defying the law.

The Education (Admission to Schools) Act, 2018 outlined new requirements that apply to admissions for September 2021 onwards. Among those is that “an admission policy should provide details of the school’s arrangements for students who do not wish to attend religious instruction”.

The survey details how 100 sample schools address the issue in their Admission Policies for 2020/21.

In response to a request for comment, the Department of Education said the manner in which any school ensures that the right to opt out of religion classes is upheld “is a matter for the school concerned”.