Pakistan’s top court has rejected a challenge to the acquittal of a Christian woman on blasphemy charges. The Supreme Court upheld its decision to overturn Asia Bibi’s conviction and death sentence.
She was originally convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a row with her neighbours, and spent eight years on death row. She has always maintained her innocence in a case that has polarised Pakistan. The Supreme Court’s quashing of her sentence last October led to violent protests by religious hardliners who support strong blasphemy laws, while more liberal sections of society urged her release.
She is expected to leave Pakistan soon and receive political asylum in Canada.
A radical new sex curriculum should be imposed on all schools irrespective of their ethos, according to a report that was launched yesterday.
The Oireachtas education committee wants to see a radical overhaul of existing relationships and sexuality education to reflect a more ‘modern’ Ireland. This would include teaching children about abortion and gender ideology.
They recommend that changes be imposed on schools even where the values of the new curriculum flatly contradict the values of the school. The changes would also require the stripping away of legislative protections for Catholic, protestant and other religious schools.
The Irish Independent called it a ‘radical shake up of sex education’, while the Times Ireland edition carried a front page headline that said ‘Get faith out of sex education’. That headline was particularly ironic as the programme seems intent on the opposite, namely, ‘imposing radical gender theory on faith education’.
Committee chairperson, Fianna Fáil TD Fiona O’Loughlin however denied that there was a conflict between the approach of religious bodies and the committee. She said that the committee learned that some of the best sex education was in Catholic schools. Green Party TD and former teacher Catherine Martin said: “what we’re trying to achieve, is not a them versus us. This is about the children in our education system and this is about putting their well-being front and centre and at the heart of education and that’s really what needs to happen.”
The Government will hold a referendum in May to remove restrictions on divorce entirely from the Constitution. Currently, the Constitution allows divorce only after a couple have been separated for four years. The Government had considered amending this article to two years, but the Cabinet yesterday chose to remove the restriction entirely.
If passed, the referendum would empower the Dail and Seanad to set the waiting period for divorce. The Government has said it would like it set at two years, but the Oireachtas would be free to make it even shorter if it so wished.
Sex education that is filled with ideology can do immense harm to children, Pope Francis has warned.
Speaking on a flight from Panama on Monday, the Pope said that children should receive an education in sexual matters, but the content should be ‘objective’ and not full of political ideology, as that can ‘destroy the person’. He has previously condemned as ‘ideology’ the idea that gender is divorced from the body or that sexual identity can be constructed as a matter of personal choice, or theories that fail to recognise the sexual complementarity of male and female.
The Pope also said sex education should first be given in the home by parents, and then be supplemented by schools.
An overwhelming 97.5% of parents who carried to term a baby diagnosed in the womb with a fatal condition reported that they did not regret their decision.
That’s according to a recent article from the Journal of Clinical Ethics, entitled “‘I Would Do It All Over Again’: Cherishing Time and the Absence of Regret in Continuing a Pregnancy after a Life-Limiting Diagnosis.”
The authors of the study wrote: “Absence of regret was articulated in 97.5 percent of participants. Parents valued the baby as a part of their family and had opportunities to love, hold, meet, and cherish their child. Participants treasured the time together before and after the birth. Although emotionally difficult, parents articulated an empowering, transformative experience that lingers over time.”
Commenting on the research, Christopher Kaczor wrote that other studies have found similarly positive results, often surprising the researchers who conducted the studies.
A study from the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health found that after the birth, and at the time of the baby’s death, “parents expressed thankfulness that they were able to spend as much time with their baby as possible.”
Another study, in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, noted one “surprising finding”, namely, “that many couples felt that their baby’s birth was joyful, even if the baby was stillborn or died shortly after birth.” Moreover, no obvious pattern of parent characteristics, such as their religiosity, were associated with this response. In fact, “only 12 of the 30 parents spoke specifically about their religious faith as impacting their pregnancy experience and decisions directly.”
By contrast, says Kaczor, parents who chose abortion in those same circumstances do not show the same positive results. A meta-analysis appearing in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing found that “Couples experienced selective termination as traumatic, regardless of the prenatal test revealing the fetal impairment or stage in pregnancy in which the termination occurred.”
Former Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín has announced the name of his new political movement: Aontú.
Mr Toibin told The Irish Times “Aontú means unity and consent.” He continued: “We seek the unity of Irish people north and south and to build an Ireland for everyone – Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter in the tradition of the United Irishmen of 1798. We’ll seek to build an all-Ireland economy to mitigate the worst effects of Brexit, economic justice for all and to protect the right to life.”
Mr Tóibín has applied to register the political movement with electoral bodies in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Some 1,400 people have signed up to join the new party, while more than 20 local Cumainn have been formed, with six of these in the north of Ireland.
Yesterday, he also welcomed another sitting councillor to his new party. Úna D’Arcy, a Westmeath councillor, relinquished her membership of Sinn Féin one week ago and confirmed yesterday that she was signing up for Mr Toibin’s new party.
Two bomb blasts during Mass at a Catholic cathedral in the Philippines have killed at least 20 people and wounded some 80. Islamic militants have claimed responsibility for the act.
The first explosion went off inside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and was followed by a second blast outside, which was detonated as security forces raced to the scene, officials said.
The Philippine Catholic bishops have condemned the attack as an “act of terrorism” and offered their condolences to the families of the dead and the injured.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombings. Police had initially suspected the bombings were the work of Abu Sayyaf, a militant group that has pledged allegiance to Islamic State and is notorious for its brutality.
They worry that small numbers of Islamic State-linked militants from the Middle East and southeast Asia could forge an alliance with Filipino insurgents and turn the south into a breeding ground for extremists.
A law permitting abortion up to birth has been passed and signed into law by New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo. It is intended to ensure that New York will have an extremely liberal abortion law even if Roe v Wade is restricted or overturned. If it is overturned, each State will be allowed to decide upon its own abortion law.
The new law allows abortion after 24 weeks if there is a ‘threat’ to the health of the mother, or the unborn child is considered non-viable, whereas previously late-term abortion was allowed only if the mother’s life was thought to be at risk. The law also allows health care professionals who are not doctors to carry out abortions. It also entirely decriminalised abortion so that it is no longer a criminal felony for a doctor to execute an abortion beyond the limits of the law. Writing in National Review, Alexandra De Sanctis said that, through the law, “abortion will be available to women essentially on demand up to the point of birth.”
After the law was passed, abortion rights supporters assembled at the State Houses erupted in jubilant cheers. In New York City, the spire of the One World Trade Centre Building Empire State Building was lit up in pink in celebration.
The large numbers of doctors of Islamic faith staffing hospitals around the country may prove an obstacle to Government plans for abortion procedures to be easily available in all 19 of the country’s maternity units.
Large numbers of non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) working in maternity units outside Dublin are Muslims from abroad, according to Dr Trevor Hayes of Kilkenny’s St Luke’s Hospital, who says he had been personally told that they have serious religious qualms about performing abortion. Medical Council data, quoted in The Irish Catholic this week, confirm the high number of Muslim doctors working in the country’s hospitals.
Dr Hayes, who was named Obstetrician of the Year in 2009 and 2013 by Maternity and Infant Magazine, told the Irish Catholic newspaper that a dependence on Muslim consultants is preventing Cavan General Hospital from introducing an abortion service, and that he suspects that conscientious objections from Muslims could block abortions from taking place in 12 of the country’s 19 maternity units.
A bill to remedy the situation of children who had been given false birth certificates that did not record their adopted status was unveiled yesterday. Sponsored by Labour TD, Joan Burton, the Informal Adoption (Regulation) Bill would allow those affected to make an application to the Circuit Court to register their legal adopted status.
It happens as the Government prepares to pass a law allowing ‘parent’ to appear on birth certs where a donor egg or sperm is used to have a child.
Speaking about the adoption bill, Ms Burton said: “The information provided to register the births was false and the children were as a result given false birth certificates, as the children of the ‘adopting’ couple. This is where the illegal registration occurred.”
Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone said she is aware of the bill’s publication and promised to “take a look at it and get back to you on it”.
The bill seeks to define what happened in illegal or ‘informal’ adoptions and will allow people to apply to the Circuit Court to validate their adoption. If satisfied with the evidence presented, the court may make a declaration that the applicant is deemed to have been validly adopted, on a particular date. The Registrar of Births will cancel the false birth certificate, while the Adoption Authority will issue a valid adoption certificate.
Margaret Norton is another illegal adoptee, who was given away by a GP in Co Monaghan in the seventies. She revealed it took her eight years to track down her biological parents via a DNA test because she was given a false birth cert.
Margaret said: “(We thought) we would just check the national birth registry, but there were no records for me. My birth cert was a fraud.” Luckily, she said a DNA test connected her to a cousin.
