The introduction of exclusion zones around GP surgeries and hospitals that facilitate abortions looks set to be delayed until at least the end of the year or early 2020.
In the six months since the new abortion law came into force, the Department of Health has been unable to come up with concrete proposals for the legislation because stopping even silent vigils outside abortion centres might clash with the Constitution.
A new report, commissioned by the Department, has revealed what pro-life groups have been saying for months, namely, that Ireland would be the only country in Europe to bring in such zones if the Government were to institute them.
The report also said the Irish authorities would need a full examination of constitutional and human rights issues that might arise in trying to create exclusion zones.
A controversial UK court decision to force a disabled woman to have an abortion has been overturned on appeal.
A three justice panel of the English Court of Appeal overturned the previous ruling of the Court of Protection.
The judges said they would issue a full explanation of their decision at a later date, but that the circumstances of the case were “unique.”
A spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Clare McCarthy, welcomed the decision in a statement released Monday, but said “the horrific original ruling should never have happened.”
She added that the group fear this was not a one-off case. She added: “We are calling on the Department of Health to urgently reveal how many women have been forced to have an abortion in the UK over the last 10 years and make it clear how they will ensure it will not happen again.”
An additional obstetrician is to be appointed to St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny as part of the rollout of abortion facilities to its maternity unit.
All four obstetricians currently working In the Hospital said in a letter last week that they would not be performing abortions.
Nonetheless, the Ireland East Hospital Group has told the Irish Times it was working closely with St Luke’s to prepare a termination service.
“In order to provide this specialised service the hospital must have the clinical capacity and must include appropriate training of all key personnel,” it said, adding that an additional obstetric consultant post has been approved and advertised.
Four consultant obstetricians at St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny have written to GPs in the region to advise that abortions will not be practiced in the hospital. Nine out of 19 maternity hospitals in the country are not performing abortions.
The doctors have also informed the CEO of the Ireland East Hospital Group, Mary Day.
The letter said that the consultants “decided unanimously that the hospital is not an appropriate location for medical or surgical terminations”.
It was “also adjudged that, in the event of professional and values training of staff willing to participate in such procedures, the hospital remains an unsuitable location for these services”.
The medics said that, while hospital staff were committed to the safe delivery of care for women, “the provision of a termination service is not possible for a multitude of very challenging reasons”.
They added: “Obviously, if a patient is moribund or with haemorrhage or sepsis, she will be dealt with in an appropriate manner.”
The letter further said the hospital did not have a referral pathway and added it was their understanding that Wexford likewise was not providing the service.
A British judge has authorized doctors to perform an abortion on a pregnant woman with developmental disabilities, despite the objections of the woman’s mother, the woman herself, and her social worker. The woman is 22 weeks pregnant.
“I am acutely conscious of the fact that for the State to order a woman to have a termination where it appears that she doesn’t want it is an immense intrusion,” said Justice Nathalie Lieven in her ruling in the Court of Protection, June 21.
“I have to operate in [her] best interests, not on society’s views of termination,” Lieven explained, arguing that her decision is in the best interest of the woman.
The woman has been described as “in her twenties,” and is under the care of an NHS trust, part of the UK’s National Health Service.
Doctors at the trust wished to abort her pregnancy and argued that, due to her diminished mental capacity, the abortion would be less traumatic for the woman than giving birth, especially if the baby would then be placed in foster care.
The argument was made despite the woman’s own mother having made clear to doctors and the court that she would assume care of her grandchild.
The woman’s mother, reported to be a former midwife, registered her absolute opposition to the abortion citing the Catholic faith of herself and her daughter. A social worker who cares for the woman also disagreed that she should be forced to have an abortion.
Criticism of the decision was swiftly delivered from all over the world.
In the UK, Lord Alton said the order “turns justice on its head, is a gross violation of human rights, and represents the tyrannical suppression of the rights of a family. It also makes a mockery of the so-called ‘right to choose.’”
Captain Evan Cullen of the Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association has claimed women pilots were being told by airlines not to get pregnant, and that some were told: “you have a choice, you terminate your employment or you terminate your pregnancy”.
He was speaking yesterday to the Oireachtas Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection which is investigating the abuse by companies of self-employment contracts. Self-employed workers are far less likely to have pregnancy leave as parts of their contracts. In addition, women pilots are not allowed to fly planes when pregnant because of safety fears.
Applying a significant brake on the secular State’s hostility to religion, the US Supreme Court has ruled that a large World War One memorial cross which resides on federal land, does not breach the Constitution.
The ruling overturns a lower court judgement that said the cross was a public endorsement of religion.
That court had suggested the 40-foot-tall monument that was erected in 1925 should be removed or have its arms lopped off so it would become an obelisk.
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday by a 7-2 majority that it may stay in place and should contained to be maintained by the Government.
In another ruling, the Court vacated a lower-court ruling that upheld $135,000 in fines against a now-defunct Oregon bakery called Sweetcakes by Melissa for refusing to do work for a same-sex wedding. In their order, the Supreme Court directed lower courts to consider their 2018 ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop, in which the court determined that laws and enforcement targeting people for their religious beliefs violate the First Amendment.
A Catholic primary school in Co Wicklow is introducing a new policy which will allow boys to wear skirts and girls to wear trousers from next September. The school will also eliminate boys’ and girls’ bathrooms. Pope Francis has attacked gender ideology on many occasions. There has been no comment so far from the Archbishop of Dublin. Gender ideology says your body and your sex (or gender) are unrelated.
St Brigid’s National School in Greystones, Co Wicklow, said the new approach aims to ensure that any children with gender identity issues feel happy and accepted at school. However, five doctors recently resigned from the biggest clinic in England for the treatment of children who report as transgender. They believe that some gay children struggling with their sexuality are being wrongly diagnosed as “transgender” by the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic in London.
Máire Costello, the school principal, said the move was prompted by the school’s student council and had been agreed by the school’s board of management and parents.
“We have children who are questioning their sexual identity. It is happening at an earlier age. We want all our children to have a happy experience in school,” she said.
The school is also phasing out boys’ and girls’ toilets and replacing them with gender neutral versions.
A Scottish mother who ignored medical pressure to abort her unborn baby has given birth to a healthy boy. In Ireland earlier this year a health baby was aborted after the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street told the parents that their baby had a so-called ‘fatal foetal abnormality’.
Lauren Webster, 21 from Cumbernauld near Glasgow, was asked repeatedly by medical staff if she wanted an abortion after a 13 week scan showed her unborn baby had a ‘bladder obstruction’, with a low chance of survival and could possibly be suffering from the genetic disorder, Edward’s Syndrome.
Ms Webster, however, had a ‘gut feeling’ her baby would survive and resisted the pressure to abort.
Doctors were left stunned when her son, Ollie, was born with no health problems at all, as his ‘bladder obstruction’ had managed to correct itself and the genetic disorder never materialised.
SPUC Scotland Director of Communications and Campaigns, Michael Robinson, said: “The scandalous reality behind the veneer of choice, is that pregnant women are increasingly exploited and pressured into abortion. Recent research by the UK charity, Abortion Recovery Care and Helpline (ARCH) has found that 75% of female clients state that they had an abortion because they had felt pressure from a loved one. Whilst pressure and coercion can come from a variety of sources, intimate partners are the main culprit.
He added: “The stories now surfacing of these young women who have been pressured to abort their children, show not only an entire lack of compassion and care from medical staff, but also just how seriously mistaken medical staff can be.”
Christian students are pressing ahead with a court case this week alleging religious discrimination by University College Galway.
Isaac, Kezia, Ammi and Enoch Burke had been active members of two college groups, the Christian Union, and the campus pro-Life group. However, after the students repeatedly complained of suffering intimidation and harassment, the college in November 2014 banned them for life from all student societies.
Last week, on the eve of a circuit court hearing, the university told the Burkes it was lifting the ban, and offered to not seek costs if they discontinued their action.
The students however rejected the offer.
“It has been over four years and six months since we were banned for life from societies at NUI Galway,” Enoch Burke said. “Now, on the eve of the court hearing, that ban has been lifted. The university should never have imposed this ban in the first place and we are pressing ahead for justice. The whole point of going to court is that the equal status Acts are there to offer redress for those who have been discriminated against, and that is our claim against the university”.
The case is being heard over three days in the Circuit Court in Galway this week.
