The Government cannot force pro-life pregnancy centers in the US to advertise abortion services the US Supreme Court ruled yesterday. A State law in California required pregnancy centers that do not perform abortions to display a notice advertising programs that provide free or low-cost abortions for eligible women. The notice had to include a phone number for a county office that would refer women to Planned Parenthood or other abortion providers. Pro-life groups sued to block implementation of the law and yesterday the Supreme Court agreed with them with Justice Thomas saying that the law is “likely” unconstitutional as an infringement on free speech.
The Court’s libertarian, swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is normally liberal on social issues, wrote a striking concurring opinion. He said the California law is a “paradigmatic example of the serious threat presented when government seeks to impose its own message in the place of individual speech, thought, and expression.”
“For here the State requires primarily pro-life pregnancy centers to promote the State’s own preferred message advertising abortions. This compels individuals to contradict their most deeply held beliefs, beliefs grounded in basic philosophical, ethical, or religious precepts, or all of these.”
The State will allow the birth certs of children to be changed so that the same-sex partner of a child’s biological parent can also be named on the birth certs as a parent even though they are not the birth parent of the child. The intention to commence the relevant provisions of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 was announced by Minister Simon Harris yesterday and he hopes to rush it through the Oireachtas before the summer recess.
The change would allow the retroactive altering of birth certificates from the past as well as changing the registration of births in the future. It will also enable mandate that the names of people designated as parents will appear on the child’s passport.
Speaking last week, the Minister said: “I assure all members that the Government shares their sense of urgency and wants to resolve the matter. The Deputies are entirely correct. I intend to go to Cabinet very shortly with a view to bringing about a legislative solution that I hope we can work with on a cross-party basis to try to pass it by the summer recess.”
Stalwart pro-life politician Peadar Tóibín has announced he will vote against the Government’s proposed abortion legislation, and he will do so in defiance of his own party’s position. Speaking on LMFM this week, the Meath West Sinn Fein TD accepts that he will lose the party whip because of his actions and, as it will be the second time he has lost it over abortion, he also realises that the sanction will be more severe this time round.
Mr Tóibín said that over the past three years, Sinn Fein has changed its position significantly on abortion “and it is one I have a radical difference of opinion on.” He added that it was the only issue he disagreed with them on and so he hopes to remain in the party. He also confirmed he had made his position known to the party leadership in recent days.
It has also been reported that his former Sinn Fein colleague and fellow No voter in the recent abortion referendum, Carol Nolan, TD, will run in the next election as an independent candidate after she resigned from Sinn Fein due to their uncompromising pro-abortion stance. It won’t be easy for her to retain her seat as every one of the Fine Gael rebels expelled from the party over their votes against the 2013 Abortion Act failed to retain their seats in the subsequent 2016 election.
Restrictions on religion increased around the world in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. Their latest study on the subject show that overall restrictions on religion have increased for the second year in a row. The restrictions that were measured were the result either of government actions or the actions of individuals or societal groups. Key findings included that more than a quarter (28%) of countries had “high” or “very high” levels of government restrictions on religion in 2016, an increase from 25% the year before. The share of countries with “high” or “very high” levels of social hostilities involving religion remained the same at 27%. A growing share of the incidents of government restrictions or social hostilities in 2016 involved political parties or social groups espousing nationalist positions. Overall, the number of countries where various religious groups were harassed either by governments or social groups increased in 2016.
Among the most populous countries in the world, Egypt, Russia, India, Indonesia and Turkey had the highest overall levels of religious restrictions, while China had the highest levels of government restrictions and India the highest levels of social hostilities involving religion.
The issue of assisted suicide is of such import that it should be discussed by the Citizens’ Assembly, according to the joint committee on Justice and Equality. The committee itself had examined the issue in detail but failed to reach a “clear consensus” on whether a new law is needed. It has now recommended referring the issue to a citizens’ assembly before another specially convened Oireachtas committee gives it further consideration. “Given the gravity of the debate, it warrants as rigorous an examination as possible,” the cross-party group concluded.
In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled a man had no right to help his partner to commit suicide but the Chief Justice, Susan Denham, said that nothing in the constitution prevented the Oireachtas from legislating on the matter directly. Assisting a suicide is currently a criminal offence, punishable by a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
Fathers are being cut off from their children because the courts have “fallen short”, the incoming head of the UK family court division has said. Speaking to the ‘Families Need Fathers’ conference, Sir Andrew McFarlane acknowledged that some men felt let down by the court system.
“You are in this room because something has gone wrong for each of you as individuals, in terms of relationships within your family and, further, that attempts that you have made to seek help and achieve redress for those difficulties in the Family Courts have fallen short, no doubt well short, of what you had hoped to achieve,” he said.
The charity, which was established in the 1970s to campaign for equal rights for both parents, helps fathers who want to stay in touch with their children after a split.
A Vatican Archbishop has condemned the recent referendum which has paved the way for the introduction of a radical abortion regime. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia who was handpicked by Pope Francis to lead the Pontifical Academy for Life was speaking to reporters in Rome, when he was asked for his reaction to the Irish abortion referendum result. He told the Sunday Independent, “The Church cannot be a party to the dirty work of others [abortion] and I don’t think that it is right that the law [in Ireland] now enables Pontius Pilate to wash his hands of the affair… I will never accept to be complicit in the cold-blooded aiding of the dirty work of death,” he replied, adding: “I was adamant that the whole [Catholic] world should go to Dublin to express their support and solidarity…”
The phrase ‘dirty work of death’ had earlier been used by Pope himself who said that when children are surrendered to deprivation, the poor to hunger, the persecuted to war, the elderly to abandonment, “we are not doing our own work but rather the dirty work of death.”
“And where does the ‘dirty work’ of death come from? It comes from sin,” the Pope said.
Pressure is already being applied to make the radical abortion legislation promised by the Government even more extreme. Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger has called on the Government to explicitly allow for abortion of the disabled beyond the 12 week timeframe and to remove the three-day waiting period before a woman will receive a requested abortion.
Ms Coppinger has sent a lengthy submission to Minister for Health Simon Harris, who is preparing a Bill to regulate the termination of pregnancy. Her submission, which was written by Dr Abigail Aiken of the University of Texas, includes a call for legislation to enforce a “buffer zone” excluding protestors from getting access to women seeking abortion services.
Ms Coppinger also asked Minister Simon Harris in the Dáil on Wednesday that the legislation be “trans-inlcusive”, meaning that abortion should not be restricted just to women, but should be available to all “pregnant persons”. This is because the State now recognises some biological females as men.
Hillary Clinton has lavished rich praise upon Ireland’s youth for campaigning tirelessly to repeal the 8th amendment. She made the remarks as she herself was lauded by Trinity College Dublin who granted her an honorary doctorate of laws.
During her 30-minute address, Mrs Clinton said the Irish abortion referendum was “an inspiring sight”.
“People flew home to vote from all over the world. The airports were mini rallies, with cheering and colourful banners greeting travellers as they arrived from as far away from Japan, Australia, and of course America,” she said.
“And on the day of the vote, one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the world was overturned, with nearly 87 percent of 18-25 year-olds voting ‘yes’. It was an example of grassroots activism fuelled by young people, and a triumph of the democratic process.”
Ms Clinton is in favour of abortion being legal right up until the ninth month of pregnancy.
More than 450 patients died after being given powerful painkillers inappropriately at a UK hospital, a report has found. A further 200 patients may have suffered a similar fate. An independent inquiry found there was an “institutionalised regime” of prescribing and administering dangerous amounts of morphine to elderly patients without clinical justification.
The practice was overseen by Dr Jane Barton and assisted by some of the nurses working at the hospital.
Established to address concerns about the deaths of the patients, the inquiry’s work included looking at 833 death certificates signed by Dr Barton who oversaw the practice of over-prescribing morphine on the wards in question. So far, the only person to face disciplinary action has been Dr Barton, who was found guilty of failings in her care of patients in her care at Gosport Hospital between 1996 and 1999. But no prosecutions were brought and she was not struck off the medical register, choosing to retire after the findings.
Bridget Reeves – whose grandmother Elsie Divine, 88, died at the hospital in 1999 – said: “These horrifying, shameful, unforgivable actions need to be disclosed in a criminal court for a jury to decide and only then can we put our loved ones to rest.”
