Plans to provide a publicly-funded IVF service in State hospitals for the first time are to be announced today. It has not been specified whether this will include funding donor-assisted IVF and surrogacy, or whether it will be restricted to those suffering from fertility problems, and whether it will extend to same-sex couples who have no natural means of conceiving children.
The service is likely to come into operation in 2021 after legislation on assisted human reproduction is passed.
Other fertility services currently available in public hospitals are to be widened next year as part of a €2 million initiative while the publicly-funded IVF system is awaited.
Ireland and Lithuania remain the only two EU countries not to offer state funding for assisted reproduction.
Mr Harris is due to update the Cabinet on Thursday on the drafting of a legislative framework for assisted human reproduction.
The new Tory government in the UK is being urged to keep its promise to protect persecuted Christians.
Paul Robinson, chief executive of Release International, which supports persecuted Christians worldwide, said he wanted to see religious freedom placed at the “very heart of UK foreign policy”.
Earlier this year, the government accepted in full the recommendations of a major report into persecution commissioned by the Foreign Office and carried out by the Bishop of Truro.
The report warned that the persecution of Christians was reaching genocidal levels and called upon the government to initiate a new UN Security Council resolution protecting freedom of religion or belief. Other recommendations included imposing sanctions on countries with the worst track records on religious freedom.
Release International is now urging Boris Johnson to make good on the government’s pledge to implement the report’s recommendations.
“We congratulate the Prime Minister on his success and renewed mandate,” said Mr Robinson.
“Release urges Mr Johnson’s new government to keep its pledge to make the protection of religious freedom at the very heart of UK foreign policy.”
The UK Government is considering dispensing abortion pills in schools in Northern Ireland.
That’s according to the Catholic Bishops of the North who were responding to a Government consultation on how to implement the North’s new abortion law.
The bishops wrote that they are “completely opposed” to schools being used to dispense abortion pills. They added: “Apart from the obvious health and safety concerns, we object on grounds of medical and social ethics to any school being regarded as an appropriate setting for abortion services. With regard to Catholic Schools, central to our school ethos is the promotion of the dignity and life of every human being. The provision of abortion services in our schools would be contrary to everything a Catholic School stands for with regard to respect for all citizens and the promotion of the common good.”
Last week it was reported that women in the Republic who took abortion pills have presented to hospitals with complications such as bleeding, infection, failed abortion or foetal remains lingering in their womb.
The new abortion law in Northern Ireland is an unjust law that everyone must refuse to cooperate with.
That’s according to a statement of the Catholic Bishops of Northern Ireland that was released yesterday.
In it they say “no one is obliged in conscience to cooperate with any action permitted by this law which directly and intentionally leads to the killing of an unborn child. Indeed, everyone is morally obliged to oppose this law by conscientious objection.”
They add that all Christians and people of good will are obliged in conscience not to cooperate formally in abortion services, and the new “Regulatory Framework”, should provide all health professionals and ancillary staff the right to refuse to participate in any aspect of the delivery of abortions.
They write that conscientious objectors must be protected from legal penalties, disciplinary proceedings, discrimination or any adverse impact on career prospects.
They caution that Obstetrics and Gynaecology must not become the domain of only those doctors and other medical staff who are willing to participate in abortion services.
The secular Educate Together and the State-run Education and Training Boards (ETBs) have been awarded the patronage of six new secondary schools that are to be established in the greater Dublin area next year.
The patronage process was based on an online vote by parents earlier this year and was overseen by an independent advisory group to the Minister for Education.
The selection process for school patrons has, however, drawn sharp criticism from the largest patron body for Irish-language secondary schools, An Foras Pátrúnachta, which said it was “biased” against them.
Caoimhín Ó hEaghra, general secretary of An Foras Pátrúnachta, said the fact that no Irish-medium patron was chosen showed the need for a “new process for establishing new schools”.
Controversy arose also regarding a 1,000-pupil secondary school at the former Harold’s Cross greyhound stadium in Dublin 6. Complaints have been made over the catchment area for the secondary school, which will prioritise students in the Dublin 6/6W area but not students in the neighbouring Dublin 8 and Dublin 12 districts.
A symposium taking place at the Vatican has challenged society to accompany the weak, the ill and the elderly in the face of a growing “culture of euthanasia”, and has called proper palliative care a “human right”.
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that the “terminally ill and elderly, especially those affected by mental health issues, are being pushed to the margins of society” as if “they have nothing more to offer, they are not necessary, they are a burden on society”, and added, “This is a cruel society”.
The Archbishop made the comments in an address to open a two-day symposium on religion and medical ethics at the Vatican organised by Qatar’s World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), the British Journal of Medical Ethics, and the Pontifical Academy for Life.
While pro-euthanasia campaigners have championed the so-called ‘right to die’, Archbishop Paglia countered this notion by saying that every man and every woman had a right to live in the human family. “Palliative care is a human right,” he said.
He went on to call for a renewed understanding of medicine that does not regard it as a failure if a patient cannot be healed. “It is not true that there is nothing more to do,” he said.
“Presence is important, accompanying is important, relieving people from suffering, showing love, holding the person’s hand,” he said.
Children at a primary school in Britain have been told not to sing the word ‘Lord’ in the Christmas carol ‘Away In A Manger’ – so that no pupils feel offended.
The move has left Christian parents appalled, after the head teacher ruled that children should sing ‘baby boy Jesus’ rather than ‘little Lord Jesus’.
The word ‘Lord’ features five times in the most common version of ‘Away In A Manger’ and expresses the belief that Jesus was not just the Jewish Messiah, but also the divine Son of God.
Youngsters at Whitehall Primary School in Chingford, Essex, have also been told to sing edited versions of two modern hymns when they attend a carol service and nativity play at a nearby church on Tuesday.
The words ‘Jesus the saviour’ in the carol Love Shone Down have been replaced with ‘Jesus the baby’, while the words ‘new King born today’ in the carol Come And Join The Celebration have been replaced with ‘a baby born today’.
One furious mother, a former Metropolitan Police officer, said the changes were utterly unacceptable and likened it to taking ‘Christ’ out of Christmas.
The mother, 36, said: ‘If he was just a baby boy named Jesus, there wouldn’t be a celebration in the first place. He is our Lord and Saviour and King of all Kings – that’s the whole point.
Eight Christians in India’s Madhya Pradesh state have been attacked and taken into police custody in the past week. In all of these attacks, radical Hindu nationalists used false allegations of forced religious conversions to justify their assaults and land these eight Christians in jail.
In one incident, Pastor Rahul Para was arrested by police after he was accused by radicals of engaging in forced religious conversions. According to local sources in the Jhabua district, Pastor Para was arrested in the middle of the night and his wife and children were forced to vacate their rented home. As a result, Pastor Para was jailed in the local police station as his wife and children were left with nowhere to go.
In another incident, Pastor Pascal Vadakhiya, also from Jhabua, and three other Christians were attacked by militants after they were found carrying Bibles. According to Pastor Pascal, a gang of radicals, led by Khower Singh, stopped Pastor Pascal and the other Christians while they were traveling by motorbike. When the radicals discovered their Bibles, they beat the four Christians and accused them of engaging in forced religious conversions. The Christians were then handed over to police and were detained for two consecutive days.
A group of cross-community politicians have criticised the UK Government’s proposals to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland. In an open letter to the Belfast Telegraph, the group which includes widely respected human rights expert Baroness Nuala O’Loan and DUP chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, as well as figures from the SDLP and Aontu, say that the current proposals undermine devolution as they go far beyond what is legally required of the Government.
“Northern Ireland was treated with contempt by the Westminster Parliament in July and is now in danger of being treated with even greater contempt by the British Government,” they write. They point to the fact that it was English, Welsh and Scottish MPs who imposed the legislation while every single sitting MP from the North voted against it.
The letter comes after the Government launched a consultation on a new legal framework for abortion in Northern Ireland on 4 November.
Christians in the Gaza Strip will not be allowed to visit holy sites such as Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas this year, Israeli authorities said on Thursday.
Church leaders in Jerusalem are appealing to Israeli authorities to reverse the decision to prohibit the Christmastime travel permits that usually allow a few hundred Christians from the Gaza Strip to visit Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem.
Gaza Christians are allowed travel abroad but not to Israel and the West Bank.
Wadie Abu Nassar, an adviser to local church leaders, criticized the policy.
“Other people around the world are allowed to travel to Bethlehem. We think Gaza’s Christians should have that right, too,” he told Reuters.
One Gaza woman lamented the decision.
“Every year I pray they will give me a permit so I can celebrate Christmas and see my family,” Randa El-Amash, 50, told Reuters. “It will be more joyful to celebrate in Bethlehem and in Jerusalem.”
