A single man in Canada has become a father after an eight year quest that involved five failed surrogacy attempts. Nathan Chan, 33, said he felt the urge to become a parent eight years ago. “I was just a normal guy, working a corporate job, and then I hit 25. Call it paternal or maternal instinct, I said, ‘Hey, this is the right time to become a dad,'” he told Canadian broadcaster, CBC News. When he started down the surrogacy path, however, he quickly encountered lots of obstacles — going through five fertility clinics and five failed surrogacies as well as objections to being a single man wanting to become a father. “Really random comments, like, ‘Why don’t you just go and get a girlfriend’, or ‘Why don’t you wait until you get married,'” he said.

But Chan says it was worth all the effort and pain along the way. “I’ve experienced late-term pregnancy loss with a stillborn and also a miscarriage. So, I’ve just come a really, really long way, and I’m just so grateful for having this day today,” he said.  “It’s really challenging. It was very hurtful.” Chan says that in the wake of the earlier failed attempts at surrogacy, his emotions sometimes got overlooked by people. “Of course I shared this pain with the surrogate mom, the different surrogate moms that have had these losses with me,” he said. “Those kinds of feelings are normally not validated, as a single male.” But in the end, it was with Chan’s sixth surrogate, Crystal Lane, that he was able to become a father. “Crystal was my sixth surrogate mom, and it fortunately worked on the first embryo transfer,” he said.

Mr Chan now runs his own surrogacy consultancy business.

A group representing over 2,000 GPs has called on the Minister for Health to provide for conscientious objection without obligation to refer in his forthcoming abortion legislation. They also asked that he not make abortion part of routine General Practice and that abortion might operate only according to an “opt-in” provision for doctors wishing to provide abortions.

The National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP) held an Emergency General Meeting Saturday in Portlaoise, to discuss issues that may arise for them following the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. They passed a motion that the NAGP “should advocate for conscientious objection without obligation to refer. We specifically refer to the Contraceptive Sterilisation Abortion 1977 NZ ACT Sect. 46. We ask that a similar section be inserted into the proposed legislation.” The meeting was attended by about 50 GPs.

However, Minister Harris sent out a tweet also on Saturday saying “Doctors will always be able to opt out & conscientious objection is a long standing principle in medicine & one which will be respected in new law BUT we #Repealedthe8th so we could care for women in our own country and that duty of care in terms of referral will definitely apply.”

The meeting also passed motions saying abortion should not be made part of general care by GPs and that abortion provision should be an opt-in not an opt-out ‘service’.

At their first press conference since the referendum result, LoveBoth said they would not give up on “the cause of protecting unborn life” and would work to ensure that any abortion legislation would be as restrictive as possible. Legal adviser to the LoveBoth campaign, Caroline Simons, said in light of the fact that one in three people voted against the proposal and that many of those who voted in favour articulated concerns about the 12 week aspect of the legislation, the Government needed to “look again” at this. An RTE exit poll showed that almost half of those who voted have misgiving about the 12 week provision.

LoveBoth also called on the Government to adopt “eight principles” when drafting legislation for abortion. These included counselling services for crisis pregnancies, allowing conscientious objections by healthcare professionals, emergency care for women in the event of complications following terminations and preventing terminations on the basis of sex or disability. They also called for pain relief for the unborn where there is a risk that they would experience any pain, that healthcare professionals strive to preserve the lives of “babies born alive” following a termination, respectful disposal of foetal remains including banning their sale and the collection and publications of statistics of terminations.

The group said it would work in the long term for a reinstatement of Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion. Prof William Binchy said that he believed it would be possible to gain majority support for such a proposal. “I don’t think you could do it tomorrow . . . but I do think that the inherent justice and humanity of not terminating the lives of innocent human beings is so self-evidently right that any human being of goodwill think thinks it through, thinks it through dispassionately over a period of time will realise that abortion is not the solution,” Prof Binchy said.

The Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) has called on the Government to radically liberalise the country’s gender identity laws so that under 16s may “self-declare” their new gender, according to the Irish Times.

Sixteen and 17 year olds have to apply to a circuit court with supporting documentation from two doctors. There is no means for under 16s to change their legally recognised sex. Ireland’s gender recognition law is already one of the most radical in the world.

Pope Francis will make a flying trip to Knock Shrine as part of his visit to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families in August. His itinerary will also include visits to the Capuchin Day Centre for Homeless People, a prison, and a private meeting with victims of clerical sex abuse.

His two main public events will be a Festival of Families in Croke Park on Saturday evening, Aug 25th, and a mass in the Phoenix Park on Sunday afternoon at 3pm.

Meanwhile, the numbers of those booked to attend the events prior to the Pope’s arrival looks set to sell out. WMoF2018 spokesperson Brenda Drumm said, to date, 30,000 people had registered for the three-day pastoral congress at the RDS on Wednesday August 22nd through to Friday August 24th. “It looks like we are going to sell out the RDS,” she said. A third of the people registered are from a total of 103 countries abroad. “It has been really, really encouraging,” she said.

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has loosened ties with the Church of Scotland, its mother Church, over the latter’s moves towards recognising same-sex marriage. The Church of Scotland recently instructed officials to consider changes to its laws to allow its ministers preside at same-sex-marriage ceremonies.

At the Presbyterian General Assembly in Belfast this week, delegates voted to no longer accept invitations to attend the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church and to no longer issue invitations to those two denominations to attend the Irish Presbyterian Church’s own General Assembly.

The vote “demonstrated that a majority of assembly members felt that both denominations have drifted far from biblical truth in relation to marriage, and were in fact ignoring the authority of scripture,” said assembly clerk Rev Trevor Gribben.

“Both are now moving towards a position where so-called same-sex marriage can be performed in the context of their worship services. Our church is very clear that marriage, as defined in God’s Word, is between one man and one woman and significantly it is God’s Word that is authoritative,” he said.

Any restrictions on divorce could be placed in legislation, rather than the constitution, according to the Minister tasked with liberalising the country’s laws on dissolving marriages. Minister for Culture, Heritage and Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan is shepherding legislation through the Oireachtas on holding a referendum to reduce the period a couple must be ‘living apart’ before one of them may apply for a divorce. Currently, the Constitution requires a couple to be separated for four of the previous five years, and it has been proposed to amend this to two of the previous three years. In a speech to newly enrolled solicitors to the Law Society yesterday, however, and following upon passage of the abortion referendum, she suggested removing the conditions for divorce entirely from the Constitution and dealing with the matter exclusively with legislation. This would allow future Government’s free rein to craft and change divorce law without requiring a referendum of the people.

The Supreme Court has upheld for now the restrictive anti-abortion laws of Northern Ireland by dismissing a challenge to those laws on a technicality. The Court ruled today that the Northern Irish Human Rights Commission lacked standing to bring a case on abstract grounds. However, they said that a case could be brought by a woman who showed she had suffered harm due to the law. The Court then said that, in the event of such a case, they would in all likelihood rule against the anti-abortion law and declare its prohibition on abortion in the cases of rape, incest and so-called “fatal foetal abnormality” incompatible with European Human Rights law. At the same time, the Court issued a challenge to politicians that, while the ruling is not binding, they should take note of its content.

The judgement was welcomed by pro-life campaigners with Dawn McAvoy, co-founder of Both Lives Matter commenting: “It is not a moment to celebrate, but rather to pause and be thankful for the lives this judgment will save. The Supreme Court has dismissed the case brought by the Human Rights Commission. In doing so, it has made clear that there is no human right to abortion.”

She continued: “In simple terms, the Commission have lost. However, the court have indicated how they would have decided the case if the Commission had standing. There were split decisions in relation to the issues of fatal foetal abnormality and rape and incest cases. While we note the views of the court on these matters and are concerned by them, it is important to state that they are non-binding.”

The UK’s most senior family judge was under fire from politicians, colleagues and family rights campaigners yesterday after saying that the collapse of the traditional family was to be welcomed.

In a speech Sir James Munby, president of the Family Division of the High Court, celebrated the “infinite variety” of contemporary forms of family life, including single parents, temporary cohabitation, same sex and polyamorous arrangements, and children born of artificial donor insemination and surrogacy arrangements. “The fact is that many adults and children, whether through choice or circumstance, live in families more or less removed from what, until comparatively recently, would have been recognised as the typical nuclear family. This, I stress, is not merely the reality; it is, I believe, a reality which we should welcome and applaud.”

The Marriage Foundation, founded by Sir Paul Coleridge, the former High Court family judge and colleague of Sir James, was fiercely critical of the Judge’s remarks. Its research chief, Harry Benson, said: ‘Sir James has stepped well outside the court in saying “we should welcome and applaud the end of the nuclear family”.

‘At a time when we have the highest rates of family instability in the entire developed world precisely because of the trend away from relatively stable marriage, this is like saying that we should welcome and applaud the existence of ill health or broken legs. Yes, we must care for, support, treat and prevent brokenness. But to welcome and applaud it is a rare lapse of judgment.’

Sir James’s remarks were also criticised by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and work and pensions secretary, who has long argued for greater state support for married couples. ‘The UK faces a complete collapse of family commitment through marriage, particularly among people who are on low incomes.’ Mr Duncan Smith said that the cost of family break-up to the state is estimated to run to £50 billion a year. ‘If that was caused by something economic the Government would move heaven and earth to stop it,’ he said. ‘But because we are afraid of offending people we have failed to do anything. We should be moving to stop family break-up.’

Doctors working on behalf of the Institute of Obstreticians and Gynaecologists have asked that foeticide might be made legal for unborn children with so-called “fatal foetal abnormalities”. Foeticide means the killing of a foetus and is effected by a lethal injection to the heart of the child while in utero.

The doctors fear that the Government’s published legislative schema would require babies beyond the point of viability to be delivered early and be given all necessary care. However, the legislation in question has a ground for the abortion of babies with a high likelihood of dying shortly before or after birth and there are no gestational limits attached to this ground. Nonetheless, the doctors say that in other countries, doctors have faced ‘wrongful birth’ lawsuits when babies were born alive after abortions. Dr Keelin O’Donoghue told the Sunday business Post, “I worry that we will be very exposed on this issue as the [published heads of the bill] does not allow for foeticide”, she said. If babies live longer than originally anticipated, it would “create a lot of challenges for parents and clinicians,” she added.

Dr Noirin Russell said other countries allowed doctors to give medication “to stop the baby’s heart [in utero] and ensure it is born sleeping.” She said this was part of a “compassionate delivery of care” and in England, when offered the choice of early delivery followed by comfort care or foeticide and induction, most parents make the choice for foeticide.

She added that doctors are seriously concerned about additional litigation. “We are already spending more on obstetrics litigation than we are on obstetric care. All of this needs to be very carefully planned,” she said.

A spokesperson for Doctors For Life took Dr Russell to task for the use of the euphemism “born sleeping”. In a statement on twitter, he said “Dr Russell is allegedly quoted as saying to give medication ‘to stop the babies heart (in utero) & ensure it is born sleeping.’ Sorry doctor, but stopping a heart means you are ensuring ‘it is born dead.’ If you were ‘asleep’ & your heart stopped – you’d be ‘dead’ not ‘sleeping.’”