Precious Life also blasted the ruling, saying it contradicted “the UN convention on the rights of the child – signed by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – which states very clearly that every child ‘…needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth…every child has the inherent right to life.’”
The UK Supreme Court had essentially made the same determination as the High Court in the North in a prior case, but did not grant the ruling on a technicality, namely, that the party who brought the case, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, did not have standing as it was not a victim.
Yesterday’s case was taken by a woman who could not get an abortion in Northern Ireland when her own child was diagnosed in utero with anencephaly. The Court ruled she did have standing and granted her claim that the law denying her access to abortion was a breach of the UK’s human rights commitments. The judge also said she would wait a week before making a formal declaration of what must happen next.
The Ceann Comhairle and Taoiseach yesterday shut down a question by Aontú TD, Peadar Tóibín, about the wrongly diagnosed child that was aborted at Holles Street Hospital.
Deputy Tóibín raised the case at the behest of the parents of the child as a review of the case still has not commenced and the family involved “have had no input into the composition of the panel or the terms of reference”.
Mr Toibin told the Dáil that the mother has said she was examined by only one obstetrician, even though the law requires examination by two physicians. In a meeting with the Minister for Health, Mr Toibin said the Minister acknowledged to the parents that the medical notes indicated that the legislation was breached and it was also accepted by officials that a case such as this could be a case for the Garda.
However, the Ceann Comhairle said he was “deeply uncomfortable about the raising of a specific matter of this nature which may be the subject of litigation or inquiry,” and the Taoiseach said he too was “reluctant to discuss in the Chamber the medical history of any individual or anything of that nature”.
The parents of a brain-damaged girl will be allowed to take her abroad to continue her treatment, the UK High Court has ruled.
Five-year-old Tafida Raqeeb has been on life support at the Royal London Hospital since suffering a traumatic brain injury in February.
Her parents have organised funding to take her to the Gaslini children’s hospital in Genoa, Italy.
But UK specialists had argued any further treatment would be futile.
Bosses at Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs the hospital in Whitechapel, had asked the judge to rule that ending Tafida’s life-support was in her best interests.
Her parents said doctors in Italy would continue to treat their daughter until she was diagnosed as brain dead.
They argued that Tafida was from a Muslim family and Islamic law said only God could take the decision to end her life.
Former head of the European Commission Service Catherine Day has been appointed to chair the new Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality. She most recently chaired the Independent Review Group that was established in July 2017 to examine the role of voluntary organisations in publicly funded health and personal social services.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced the appointment in the Dáil following Cabinet approval.
The assembly was originally scheduled to be up and running by the end of October but Mr Varadkar said it was now intended that the assembly would meet for the first time before the end of the year and will run over six months.
The Taoiseach told his Fine Gael party colleague Kildare North TD Bernard Durkan who raised the issue, that the secretariat was already in place and the next stage was to select 99 citizens to participate in the new assembly.
They will be chosen through random sampling of the electorate from the electoral register, following the completion of a tender process for a polling company to carry out the selection process.
The Northern Ireland Office has confirmed that it will be launching an abortion marketing campaign across Northern Ireland in early November, if the recent abortion law changes go into effect on October 21st.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK Catherine Robinson said: “100,000 people in Northern Ireland are alive today because Northern Ireland did not accept the same abortion law that was introduced into Britain in 1967.
“This move to launch a nationwide abortion marketing campaign across Northern Ireland promoting abortion is a blatant attempt by the Government to further undermine the will of the people of Northern Ireland. It adds insult to injury after Westminster voted to impose one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world on Northern Ireland and could lead to an even larger increase in the number of lives lost to abortion.
“The clock is ticking. The people of Northern Ireland now have only 20 days to stop this. If Stormont reconvenes by October 21st, this extreme abortion law will not be imposed on Northern Ireland. It is up to the people of Northern Ireland to demand that Sinn Fein and DUP reconvene Stormont now.”
Hundreds of health professionals have written to the Northern Ireland secretary expressing opposition to the radical liberalisation of the North’s abortion laws.
Those who signed the letter said their concern was for pregnant mothers and their unborn children and, as Christians, it was their firmly held belief that abortion was the “unjust and violent taking of human life”.
The doctors, nurses and midwives also want reassurance as “conscientious objectors” that they will not have to perform or assist abortions.
One GP told BBC News NI that he and more than 700 other healthcare workers had written to Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith and Richard Pengelly, the permanent health secretary, to say they can no longer “stay silent” on the issue.
Dr Andrew Cupples said he was not aware of any preparation to ensure staff were prepared for the law change and insisted legal protection was essential.
Blaming Catholic schools for anti-Catholic bigotry and sectarianism in Scotland amounts to abhorrent victim-blaming when Catholics are often the main victims of such attitudes.
That’s according to Barbara Coupar, director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service, who says it is time to fight back against the accusation.
Writing in the Scottish Catholic Observer, she said the statement that Catholic schools cause sectarianism is suggesting that “teachers are educating towards a culture of prejudice and our children are bigots”. Addressing parents she said, “What is being said is that by choosing to send your child to a Catholic school, you are the cause of the centuries of hate crimes in Scotland and you are part of the problem.”
She added that this, along with attacks on other fronts against Catholic schools, reveal a wider agenda: “a removal of faith from the public square and a society where rights, respect and tolerance are afforded to everyone, except people of faith.”
Drawing a parallel with the #metoo campaign, she lamented that the Catholic community must “respond to the allegation that it is our ‘fault’ that sectarianism, a crime most notably committed against Catholics, is caused because we won’t just ‘assimilate’ into Scottish culture and accept a secular education imposed us”.
Government restrictions on religion – laws, policies and actions by state officials that restrict religious beliefs and practices – have increased markedly around the world over the decade from 2007 to 2017, according to Pew Research.
The research also found that social hostilities involving religion – including violence and harassment by private individuals, organizations or groups – also have risen since 2007.
The latest data shows that 52 governments – including some in very populous countries like China, Indonesia and Russia – impose either “high” or “very high” levels of restrictions on religion, up from 40 in 2007. And the number of countries where people are experiencing the highest levels of social hostilities involving religion has risen from 39 to 56 over the course of the study.
The leaders of Ireland’s main Churches have expressed their grave concern at the prospect of an almost unregulated abortion regime being imposed on Northern Ireland from Westminster.
In a joint statement released Monday, the leaders of the Church of Ireland, Methodist Church in Ireland, Roman Catholic Church, Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Irish Council of Churches are calling their members and congregations to pray, call for change, and to lobby their locally elected representatives.
Meanwhile, speaking at an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Drogheda, Archbishop Eamon Martin called on those gathered to consistently highlight the fundamental right to life and always speak out against attacks on innocent human life.
“It is shocking, for example, that the democratic process was so cynically manipulated in Westminster during the July holiday period to remove from law all explicit protections for unborn children in Northern Ireland up to 28 weeks in their mother’s womb,” he said.
“Today I plead with political representatives to return to Stormont before the 21 October and end this barbaric abortion legislation. The political impasse has gone on too long. I say to them: For the sake of life; for the sake of peace – make the necessary compromises and return to your posts – this is a critical moment”.
Vulnerable patients are being “coached” on how to pass a psychological evaluation so as to gain access to gender reassignment hormone therapy and surgery, it has been claimed.
Ireland’s leading endocrinologist, Professor Donal O’Shea, has warned that he believes some advocacy groups are prepping patients to fast-track their way to gender transition – without undergoing an appropriate mental health assessment.
“I have had a number of patients who have told me that they have been coached in the answers to give so that they give the ‘right’ answers to psychologists and psychiatrists who will be asking them questions before receiving hormone treatment and gaining access to surgery,” Prof O’Shea said.
“And I have been told by patients who have had hormone treatment, who have had surgery, who are now unhappy with their decision, that they have been instructed by patient advocates not to report this because it would be bad for the wider community.”
A spokesperson for the activist group, BeLonGTo, denied they coach children and young people to pass such psychological tests. TENI, an activist organisation for people who identify as trans, said no one was available for comment.
