Women must be given full and proper details of the true accuracy of tests designed to screen for fetal abnormalities, including life-limiting conditions, maternity hospitals and units around the country have been told by the HSE’s head of women and infants health programme, Dr Peter McKenna.
Dr McKenna sent a letter to the hospitals and units after it emerged that a couple were incorrectly told in the National Maternity Unit earlier this year that their unborn baby had a life-limiting conditions only for it to emerge after the termination that the baby was perfectly healthy.
Dr McKenna draws attention in his letter to a document from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in England which has been challenging the claim made by some doctors that early pregnancy blood tests are 99pc accurate when screening for fetal abnormalities.
A wheelchair-bound man who was arrested and prosecuted for peacefully praying outside a London abortion clinic has seen the charges against dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.
The arrest and case raise the question of whether praying in a public space now constitutes ‘harassment’ and whether ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics breach freedom of expression, religion and thought.
Christian Hacking, 29 and wheelchair-bound after breaking his back in a climbing accident, was arrested by police in August 2019 for failing to comply with a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) outside a Marie Stopes abortion clinic in Ealing.
Police were initially called after a member of staff reported two men praying on the grass outside.
Police warned Christian and his friend that merely being on the green outside of the clinic was a breach of the PSPO.
Two separate announcements were made yesterday to enable both partners of female same-sex couples to be recorded as parents of children conceived through donor conception or surrogacy.
First, the Department of Health is considering giving to Courts the power to resolve parenthood in surrogacy cases, particularly those involving same-sex couples. This would involve a court declaring the intended parent or parents of a child born through assisted human reproduction to be the legal parent(s).
In addition, Minister for Health Simon Harris signed regulations to commence Sections 2 and 3 of the Children and Family Relationships Act which will now come into effect on May 5th, 2020. Under the Act, the mother of a donor-conceived child will be allowed to name the second parent, regardless of that person’s sex. The child will have a birth cert naming both parents.
A new secondary school is to have gender-neutral toilets in order to accommodate pupils who do not identify with their biological sex. “What we push on our students is acceptance”, said the school principal.
The Limerick Educate Together Secondary School to be built in Castletroy and cater for 1,000 students said the facilities would be installed before it opened in September 2021.
Principal Eoin Shinners confirmed the introduction of what are called “universal” toilets.
“What you will have is stand-alone cubicles,” he said. “The only part of the student toilets which are communal are wash-basins.
“Parents might ask how you supervise boys and girls entering the same toilet block. But they’re set up where washbasins are back-to-back and there’s a screen visible from the corridor,” Mr Shinners explained.
He said there were students “who identify differently” from the point of view of gender.
“It’s very much part and parcel of the school and reflective of the society we live in,” he said. “What we push on our students is acceptance. Accept them for who they are without drawing particular attention on an aspect or an issue.”
Five soon-to-be-built secondary schools had also requested permission from the Department of Education to introduce such facilities.
A new report has found ongoing systemic discrimination towards expectant parents of babies with Down’s Syndrome (DS).
• 69% of women were offered a termination.
• After advising they were continuing with the pregnancy 46% of women were asked again if they wished to terminate.
On receiving news that the baby had a high chance of having DS (greater than 1:150)
• 91% of women were offered further tests.
• Of those who declined further tests, 44% felt under pressure to test further.
• After advising they were continuing with the pregnancy 50% of women were offered termination again.
Nicola Enoch, founder of PADS is concerned that women “are making life or death decisions influenced by outdated and prejudicial views by many medical professionals.
“Expectant women are not given accurate information about the reality of life with Down’s Syndrome. There is very limited support and an overriding assumption to terminate. It is no wonder that 90% of women go on to terminate given these circumstances.
Statutory Notifications of HIV and STIs reported in Ireland via the Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting (CIDR) system are compiled every week by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. For the week ending Oct 26th, 2019, there have been 7438 cases of chlamydia already this year, an increase of 1063 on the same week last year. There have also been 2272 cases of Gonorrhoea, an increase of 408 on Oct 26th last year. Likewise, there have been 649 cases of syphilis, 253 more than this time last year.
Ireland is not alone in seeing continued rises in STIs. In October, the New York Times reported that cases of sexually transmitted disease in the US have risen to a “record high”.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by the State over whether the word “child” in the International Protection Act can, for family reunification purposes, means more than simply biological and adopted children.
It arises from a High Court decision in the case of a man – Mr X – who was granted family reunification with a 14-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl even though he did not establish genetic parentage of them.
In a judgment last May, Mr Justice Max Barrett said the term “child” is not defined in section 56.9 of the 2015 Act. Assuming these two children are the biological children of another man, although Mr X regards them as his, each of them can still properly be described as a child of Mr X, he said.
He added that there is a “wide diversity” of familial structures and the relationship of father/child is not confined by the 2015 Act to a biological father. It is “not unknown” for a child to grow up addressing and thinking of a man who is not their biological father as “Dad”.
A “cookie cutter” definition of children, as embracing only biological children, “would doubtless be easier for the State to police”, not least given the availability of DNA testing, “but it is not what the Act provides”, perhaps because of an understanding that, in a diverse society, defining who is a child of someone “is not always straightforward”.
The Supreme Court will now hear an appeal of that decision by the State.
The famous University Church of St John Henry Newman has been vandalised.
On Wednesday morning graffiti was discovered on the main doors of the church in Stephen’s Green Dublin, with vandals having spray painted the word ‘Danger’ upon them along with an arrow pointing inside.
The church was designed and built by St Newman himself when he founded the Catholic University that would later become University College Dublin.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Sir Bill English and his wife Mary have painted a graphic picture of abortion during a plea to law makers to not make extreme changes to abortion laws.
He criticised many of the proposed changes at a select committee hearing on Wednesday but also launched into a fierce defence of the right of medical professionals to conscientiously object to carrying out abortions if the changes were made.
“It will be legal to kill that child in the birth canal and the way they do that, if the abortion doesn’t work, is that they put a pin through the base of the skull into the brain,” he said,
“It is extreme violence that’s what it is, that’s the act.”
His wife Mary, a doctor, told the committee there could be a greater number of “gruesome” abortions after the legislation was passed.
“[These] require a lethal injection to an otherwise very alive unborn baby before inducing full labour so as to deliver a dead baby.”
The legislation would also require health care professionals who object to performing abortions to refer women to the Ministry of Health to obtain one.
Mr English said proposed rules around doctors who conscientiously object to abortions are “abhorrent”, “disgraceful” and “unfair”.
The United States told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that it opposed references to sexual and reproductive health and to “safe” abortions, pitting Washington against Britain, France and many other Western Nations.
While the United States joined its 14 council counterparts to unanimously adopt a resolution on women, peace and security, U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft raised objections to parts of the text: “We cannot accept references to ‘sexual and reproductive health,’ nor any references to ‘safe termination of pregnancy’ or language that would promote abortion or suggest a right to abortion,” she said after the vote.
“The U.N. should not put itself in a position of promoting or suggesting a right to abortion, whether it is humanitarian or development work,” said Craft, who took up her role in August.
