A total of 65 amendments including many from pro-life TDs are to be debated this week as abortion legislation returns to the Dáil for a second round of scrutiny.
Deputy Peadar Tóibín, who resigned from Sinn Féin earlier this month over his opposition to abortion, will seek to change the Bill so that vital information could be offered to a woman before she would avail of abortion.
This would include information on the immediate and long-term medical risks associated with the proposed termination of pregnancy method, and alternatives to abortion. He also wants the woman to be told the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the foetus at the time the abortion is to be performed. In addition, he will seek to amend the Bill so that in cases where a foetus is of 20 weeks’ gestation or more, the medical practitioner will offer information on foetal pain to the pregnant woman.
Mr Tóibín previously said that he and other anti-abortion TDs were seeking to speak for “the 34 per cent who voted against the referendum and the 20 per cent of Yes voters who voted only for the difficult cases and not for abortion on request”.
On Wednesday, landmark buildings around the world including numerous churches in Ireland will turn scarlet for Red Wednesday. The event is an initiative of Aid to the Church in Need and Christian Solidarity Worldwide. It is intended as an act of solidarity with Christians around the world who have been persecuted for their religious beliefs.
Over the years, the Palace of Westminster in London, Westminster Abbey, the Colosseum in Rome and many more landmarks were lit red to mark this important day raising awareness of the persecution of Christians worldwide. Knock Basilica, Armagh, Derry and Sligo Cathedrals, St. Mary’s Pope’s Quay, Cork, St Mary’s Pro Cathedral, Dublin, Balintubber Abbey, Co. Mayo, are among the churches in Ireland that are taking part.
This year, for the first time, the initiative will come to the US. The US landmarks to be lit scarlet are the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Washington, DC, St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi in Metuchen, New Jersey and the Cathedral of the Epiphany in Venice, Florida. The landmarks will shine (red) light on the persecution of Christians around the world.
Three doctors are facing trial in Belgium accused of certifying a woman as autistic so that she could die by euthanasia.
Tine Nys was killed by lethal injection in 2010, at the age of 38. She had told two doctors and a psychiatrist that her suffering was ‘unbearable and incurable’ so that she could qualify for euthanasia under Belgian law.
However, her family say that her suffering was down to a broken heart after the end of a relationship, not autism. Moreover, they say the law was broken because Ms Nys was never treated for autism and so it had not been established that her suffering was “incurable”. She died only two months after the diagnosis of autism was made, and the last treatment she had received for psychological problems was 15 years prior to her death.
Ms Nys’ sisters Lotte and Sophie have accused the doctors of making a rushed decision without treating her for autism. The doctors are facing trial for failing to comply with euthanasia laws and poisoning, in the first such case since euthanasia was legalised in Belgium in 2002.
A bishop who has resisted demands to join China’s Communist Party-controlled church body has been taken into custody, a Catholic news service reported, despite recent moves by Beijing and the Holy See toward reconciliation.
Asia News reported that Bishop Shao Zhumin was kidnapped by police for a period of interrogation and indoctrination. Msgr. Shao, 55, appointed bishop by Pope Francis, belongs to the underground church, not recognized by the government, but he is recognized by the Holy See as bishop of Wenzhou. In the last two years, he has been taken away by the police at least 5 times. The last time was in May 2017, he was only released after 7 months.
As an “underground” bishop, in the periods of kidnapping he is coerced to submit to the religious policy of China, which requires registration with the government and membership of the Patriotic Association (PA). But membership of these bodies implies adhering to the project of an “independent” Church [from the Holy See], which Msgr. Shao refuses.
The safety of the Government’s proposed abortion regime has been called into question by the GPs’ union given the lack of resources such as ultrasound machines. The National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP) warned also that the provision of aftercare had not been addressed and that the insurance needs of GPs who provided abortions needed to be clarified.
The body also criticised the Government for focussing on abortion to the detriment of pregnancy prevention. “The government will provide universal access to the termination of pregnancy, but not equal access towards preventing a pregnancy in the first place,” Máitiú Ó Tuathail, the NAGP president, said. “This is simply bad medicine.”
The NAGP also said that the fee structure agreed for abortions would mean GPs were paid €450 for three visits. By contrast, doctors get paid €250 at present to provide antenatal care for the duration of pregnancy. This could encompass up to 12 visits to a GP, it said. “This neither makes sense, nor can reasonably be justified,” Dr Ó Tuathail said.
On-screen advertisements for euthanasia are being foisted upon unsuspecting patients and family members in the hospital urgent care waiting room of at least one hospital in Canada. The practice of euthanasia was legalised in Canada only three years ago by judicial fiat.
The ad in question refers to the practice enabling physician-assisted suicide, euphemistically called “medical aid in dying” (MAiD). It says: “MAiD is a medical service in Canada, whereby physicians and nurse practitioners help eligible patients fulfill their wish to end their suffering,” and offers a toll-free phone number for interested persons.
According to Wesley Smith of the Discovery Institute, the ad makes no mention of palliative care or other means to reduce or eliminate suffering without killing. It does not describe that counselling can help people regain the desire to live. There is no hint that suicide prevention services might be available. And it obscures the fact that MAiD is a euphemism for homicide by lethal injection.
The involvement of fathers in parenting their children has been lauded by the Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty. She was speaking at the launch of a new parental-leave benefits program whereby the parents of new borns will each receive up to seven weeks paid leave. The Minister whose department will oversee the implementation of the new scheme, said the Government is particularly conscious that fathers need more time with their children.
“The evidence shows that when fathers take a more significant and meaningful share in the parenting of their children, the individual family benefits, and so does wider society,” she said. In the marriage referendum, the Government said the sex of the parents raising a child doesn’t matter.
Having more parents stay at home for longer will also help the Government alleviate the looming crisis in childcare, she added.
Up to 1.5 million people in America now identify as Wicca or Pagan according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. That means there are now more witches in the US than there are Presbyterians who have around 1.4 million adherents.
Experts believe that the explosion in the witch population is due to millennial women’s embracing of new-age spirituality, mindfulness, meditation, and yoga.
Commenting on the research, Times, Ireland edition, columnist Lise Hand said there should be no surprise that so many Catholic women should abandon the Church for witchcraft as the Church has shown “zero tolerance for women deemed to be outside societal lines, unmarried mothers in particular.” She added: “The only shocker about this witchy upswing is that it has taken so long.”
She added: “A Wicca party could be just the thing for Ireland.”
A type of “martyrdom” takes place in democracies when religious freedom is unjustly restricted, Pope Francis has said in an audience with a group which assists the Church in the Holy Land.
“In front of the whole world – which too often turns its gaze and looks away – is the dramatic situation of Christians who are persecuted and killed in ever-increasing numbers,” the pope said last Friday in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.
“In addition to their martyrdom in blood,” he said, “there is also a ‘white martyrdom,’ such as that which occurs in democratic countries when freedom of religion is restricted. And this is a daily white martyrdom of the Church in those places.”
Pope Francis spoke with around 130 members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem on the final day of their Nov. 13-16 General Assembly in Rome. The knighthood order provides financial support to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The State should not take over the direct operation of health services currently run by voluntary hospitals and agencies, but there should be significant changes to existing funding arrangements, a new Government review is expected to recommend.
The review, commissioned last year by Minister for Health Simon Harris, was asked to examine the role played by voluntary organisations in health provision and personal social services in Ireland; to consider current and potential issues arising; and to make recommendations to the Minister for Health on the future relationship between the State and voluntary service providers. It was commissioned in response to the outcry over the National Maternity Hospital being moved to the voluntary Catholic Hospital, St Vincents, which was once run by the Sisters of Charity. Besides a distaste among some with public money going to a nominally religious body, there were also fears that abortion might be restricted in the new maternity hospital.
