31 MLAs, mostly DUP, have signed a petition to recall the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday to prevent an extreme abortion measure becoming law. It will totally decriminalise abortion up to the point of foetal viability outside the womb which is around 24 weeks.
The petition follows a call from Baroness O’Loan and involves recalling the Assembly to debate whether legislation on abortion would be most appropriately determined by the parliament in the North, rather than by Westminster.
Dawn McAvoy of Both Lives Matter commented, “The majority of people in Northern Ireland do not support the abortion regime being imposed by Westminster. Baroness O’Loan has consistently tried to prevent these changes and has led the calls to reconvene Stormont. Today 31 MLAs have heeded that call.”
McAvoy continues, “Northern Ireland has been without government for over 1000 days. Abortion is not, and never has been the stumbling block. We hope that it might now be the issue that helps bring the Assembly back. We recognise that there is not a unified position on abortion, but there does appear to be agreement that this should be decided at Stormont rather than Westminster. We have done all we can to allow each MLA to stand up and say whether they support the Westminster legislation or oppose it. It is over to them now.”
A University of Chicago academic has conducted research that found almost 96% of biologists surveyed think that life begins at conception.
The research by Steve Jacobs, PhD, found that 5,337 biologists (96%) who responded to a questionnaire affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization, with 240 (4%) rejecting that view. The majority of the sample identified as liberal (89%), pro-choice (85%) and non-religious (63%). In the case of Americans who expressed party preference, the majority identified as Democrats (92%).
The survey was for a working paper that was part of Mr Jacob’s dissertation for the University of Chicago’s department of Comparative Human Development.
While the view responds to the descriptive question of when human life begins, it does not answer the normative question of when ought a foetus be worthy of ethical value and legal consideration. However, an attendant survey of 2,899 American adults found that 81% selected biologists as the group most qualified to answer the question of when a human’s life begins, indicating that the great majority think the question can be answered descriptively, rather than normatively.
The Government will give mother and father couples the choice as to whether the man or woman avails of adoptive leave, because male same sex couples will be given the same choice.
The announcement was made by Minister of State for Equality David Stanton in the Dail on Wednesday during discussion on a bill to extend paid parental leave by two weeks.
That bill was originally meant to address a lacuna in the existing law whereby a married male same-sex couple cannot avail of adoptive leave, because it has only applied to an adopting mother, or a sole male adopter, or the adopting father when the mother dies.
However, “over the course of drafting, it became apparent, that in seeking to address an inequality, another inequality could be created,” the Minister said.
By allowing male same sex couples to choose which one of them could take such leave, they would have a right that complementary sex couples would not have.
Consequently, it was decided that legislation would have to cater to both situations. Furthermore, as it was considered too complex to include the bill currently going through the Oireachtas, the provision has been postponed for a future bill.
Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan said however that the legislation constitutes a form of “discrimination against same-sex males who are in a relationship”, as they are “treated differently from same-sex females who are in a marital relationship, so it is a form of gender discrimination against same-sex male couples”. He added, “Similarly, it is discriminatory because a straight man who is adopting would not find himself in the same position as gay men will find themselves in respect of seeking parent’s benefit and leave, and so, in that regard, it is a form of sexual orientation-based discrimination”.
A former captain of the Tyrone GAA ladies team has said she is considering voting for the DUP because of the party’s pro-life stance.
Lisa O’Hare said she can no longer vote for Sinn Féin or the SDLP because she does not agree with their enabling of an extreme abortion law being imposed on NI by Westminster.
“As an Irish Catholic who places God at the centre of my home and my heart we don’t have anyone who represents our views,” said Ms O’Hare.
That is why she is now looking “beyond the normal tribal differences and religious differences”.
She told the BBC’s The View programme that “the DUP is the only party” in Stormont who seem to be opposing these laws.
Mrs O’Hare, who captained the Tyrone ladies team to Ulster final glory in 2000, said she has grave concerns about changes voted through at Westminster.
“We’ve seen from the guidelines published this week that this is about targeting the most vulnerable in society,” she said
“As the mother of a son with Down’s Syndrome, the idea that he has been set apart as someone who is less valuable to society is abhorrent to me.
“Every life is precious and shouldn’t be judged on health, well being or social circumstance,” she added.
Religious politicians should not let their faith inform their politics.
That seems to be the message of Labour leader, Brendan Howlin, who took Archbishop Eamon Martin to task for comments he made at the Kennedy Summer School last month.
Mr Howlin attributed to Dr Martin the view that Catholic politicians had a responsibility to support laws which uphold the dignity of every human person, and that they should not compartmentalise their lives into separate spiritual and secular spheres.
Mr Howlin, however, said that as Ireland becomes more pluralist and multicultural, “the idea of Catholic politicians could become deeply problematic, especially for growing minority groups”.
“Is it not time we left those types of characterisations in the past? In a republic, we cherish the right of everybody to adhere to and express the religion of their choice, but we should not revert to a time when clerics instructed politicians, as used to be the case in both this jurisdiction and the North,” he said.
In response, the Taoiseach cited St. John Henry Newman that when he learned about the new doctrine of papal infallibility, he said he would drink to the Pope, but would first drink to his own conscience.
“What St. John Henry Newman was encapsulating in that was the idea in the Catholic faith that allows people to act according to their conscience, even Catholic politicians,” he said.
The DUP leader Arlene Foster has backed a call by Baroness Nuala O’Loan for the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly to stop an extreme abortion measure from becoming law.
Baroness O’Loan has written a letter to the Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith, referring to a petition signed by 23,000 people and urging him to recall the assembly before the change to abortion laws comes in next week.
The peer described the situation in her letter as “unprecedented”.
Ms Foster said the DUP’s assembly team met on Monday and agreed to seek a recall of the assembly.
“Our MLAs will return to the chamber without pre-condition. There are serious matters emanating from the NI (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 which should be decisions made in Stormont. We urge other MLAs who oppose the extreme liberalisation of our abortion law, to step outside any party shackles and join us in recalling the assembly,” she said.
“It’s time to get Northern Ireland moving again.”
The number of same-sex marriages has dropped following an initial spike after the marriage referendum in 2015, figures from the Civil Registration Service show.
In the first year same-sex marriage was legal some 1,056 couples officially wed. This fell to 759 in 2017 and was down to 664 last year. Same-sex marriages accounted for just over 3 per cent of the 21,052 marriages registered last year. Sixty-six of the same-sex couples who got married last year had been together in civil partnerships beforehand.
Figures also show that 75 individuals applied to have their gender legally changed last year, up from 60 the previous year, but slightly less than the 77 who did so in 2017. Fifty-six people availed of the legal change in 2015, the first year of the operation of the new gender change Act which allows individuals to change their legal gender based on their own self-assessment.
A new US study has found a decreased incidence of marital infidelity among those with fewer sexual partners over their lifetime.
Among the participants, 16% of married adults had committed sexual infidelity at least once in their current marriage. However, for people who reported four or fewer lifetime sexual partners, the rate of infidelity in the current marriage dropped to 11%, while for those who had five or more sexual partners the number was nearly double (21%).
In addition, starting with their first sexual experience, 49% of those with fewer partners said their first time was with someone that they loved, compared with 37% of those with more sex partners. Similarly, 42% of those with fewer partners reported that their first time was in the context of an extended relationship. The number is just 30% for those who have had more partners.
An unborn child narrowly escaped being aborted after being incorrectly diagnosed with major foetal abnormalities because its mother sought a second opinion which disproved the original diagnosis.
Viktorija Avisane, 31, considered an abortion after getting “devastating news” late last year at Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital, admitting to the Sun newspaper: “I could have killed a healthy baby.”
Both a twenty week anomaly scan, and a subsequent amniocentesis test at the Rotunda indicated major abnormalities, but on a visit to her native Latvia, another set of tests showed no such problems.
The child was born and is now seven months old and in good health.
Ms Avisane put the survival of her child down to in part Ireland’s one-time pro-life laws: “And then I started to think about abortion. Thank God abortion was not widely available in Ireland, because if there was I was going to go there. I would have killed a healthy baby.”
The Pro Life Campaign described the case as deeply disturbing, and yet unsurprising. Spokesperson Eilís Mulroy, said it “highlights the life or death prenatal genetic diagnosis lottery that unborn babies and their mothers are being subjected to under the current abortion regime.
“We need to urgently develop a national conversation around the risks associated with abortion and the limits of pre-natal diagnosis. In fact, it is a conversation that should have happened two years ago,” concluded Ms Mulroy.
A new Eurostat study on childcare in the EU finds that there is little demand for daycare services.
It reports that 62.3pc of people minding children aged under 15 do not use ‘professional childcare services at all’. Only 7pc of people minding children under 15 cite cost as a reason for not using ‘professional childcare’ and just 3pc cite none being available.
Almost no-one says a lack of daycare is why they find it hard to reconcile home and work. The main reasons are long commutes, long working hours and so on.
But 64pc of respondents have no difficulty at all in reconciling home and work.
