The Colorado Supreme Court is hearing a custody dispute over which spouse of a divorcing couple may gain custody of their frozen embryos. One parent is claiming the embryos so he can destroy them, the other, so she can bring one or more of them to birth. Unusually, they are both using arguments grounded in the US Constitution so the case may yet go to the US Supreme Court, creating a precedent that involves both the personhood of embryos and a test of Roe v Wade.
Harvard law professor Glenn Cohen said the central issue focuses on how to balance one person’s constitutional right to procreate with another’s countervailing constitutional right to not procreate. The question parallels similar arguments used in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 abortion decision in Roe v. Wade. If women have the right to not be forced to be a gestational parent, do men have the right not to be forced to be a genetic parent?
Absolutely says the husband, Drake Rooks, whereas his wife, Mandy Rooks, flips the argument and comes to the opposite conclusion. “No one,” she said in an emailed statement, “has the right to tell me that I have to kill my offspring.”
According to attorney Katayoun Donnelly, Drake Rooks “is saying he has a constitutional right not to be a parent, but he forgets it is past the point of conception”. A woman who wanted a man to donate his sperm would have no legal right to force that, she noted. By contrast, “he has already agreed to use his sperm with the eggs. So we are in this unknown territory.”
The husband’s attorney, James Giese, argues that the current case rests on a person’s constitutional right to privacy and to not have the state unduly influence whether someone should have children.
The Thomas More Society, writing in support of Mandy, has asserted the “personhood” of the embryos and their rights, saying that what is actually at stake is the termination of a human life or the continuation of that life.
The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has expressed scepticism as to whether a proposal to allow abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks would meet public support. This was one of the recommendations of Oireachtas abortion committee. “I think it’s fair to say that… the proposal to allow for the termination of pregnancies up to 12 weeks went further than many people may have anticipated” Mr Varadkar told journalists after yesterday’s cabinet meeting. “There is a concern understandably among many politicians that perhaps for the majority of the public that proposal might go one step too far.” He refused to state his own preference.
Some Ministers, such as Paschal Donohoe and Michael Ring, said they agreed with the proposed 12 week unrestricted abortion licence but expressed doubt that such a regime would be accepted by the people. Chief Whip Joe McHugh said he would be opposed to the proposal. Nonetheless, the Dept of Health will continue to prepare legislation along the lines of the committee recommendations and no other legislative proposals on abortion are being prepared. Minister for Health Simon Harris told the Cabinet he expected to be in a position within three or four weeks to seek their formal agreement to hold a pre-summer referendum.
The Dáil will debate the Committee’s report for three days next week, which will be preceded by a special meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party next Monday.
Professor Simon Fishel, a pioneer of IVF and founder of CARE Fertility in Britain, said: “It’s very important to have regulation. It takes away the ambiguity about what doctors and scientists can do. It creates a social acceptance. Even though there might always be a group who are against it they will have less of a voice because regulation has decreed, through intellectual deliberations, what is right and what is wrong.”
Regarding costs—each attempt at IVF costs up to €5,000—unlike Britain, the treatment is not available to public patients in Ireland. “It does mean poor people can’t have it,” says Prof Fishel. “It’s heartbreaking. That’s why public funding is so critical. Not only is it helping the individual but it’s helping society. Those children will contribute. Society needs them.”
Asked about future trends, he said “fertility preservation” would grow. With increasing pressure on women to work into their late 30s before having children, the professor recommended women freeze their eggs sometime between age 26 and 30. It costs about €4,500 to freeze eggs in this country and he said it should be funded from the public purse. This was “justified”, because of the value children bring to society: “I think if a society looks at how valuable children are, people should be assisted and helped to have them. Society needs them. Let’s welcome them into the world.”
In 2004, the Times of London named Prof Fishel as one of a few doctors who “have made fortunes from the fertility ‘industry’”. It reported at the time that his Centres for Assisted Reproduction, which he founded with two other doctors, was worth at least £20m. In 2012, the group was sold for £60m (€75m).
Speaking on Premier radio, he said: “The bottom line is, of course, I did [feel pressured] and there are things – including that – that I said that I regret”. He expressed frustration that the media wanted to talk only about his Christian beliefs and whether he thought homosexual sex is sinful. “Foolishly and wrongly, [I] attempted to push it away by giving an answer that, frankly, was not right.”
Intense scrutiny over Tim Farron’s stance on homosexuality first ignited in July 2015 when he was repeatedly quizzed during an interview with Channel 4’s Cathy Newman. After his views on the issue drew renewed attention from journalists in the weeks prior to the 2017 General Election, Tim Farron told the BBC he did not believe gay sex was a sin. Less than two months later, Tim Farron resigned as leader of the Liberal Democrats, saying he felt “torn” between his faith and job; he also admitted failings in his handling of the interest in him. At the time, he said: “A better, wiser person than me may have been able to deal with this more successfully, to have remained faithful to Christ while leading a political party in the current environment.”
Tim Farron also told the radio interviewers of feeling “isolated” during the controversy. “I know that others were praying for me but there is a sense in which I was isolated. I had a wonderful team around me at HQ but with one exception, there were no Christians; it was not their fault they didn’t understand the issue,” he said.
The European Union has warned the Polish government of serious repercussions if it enacts pro-life legislation that would ban abortion on disability grounds. The EU claims the proposals represent a “serious breach of European values” and the European Parliament said that if plans proceed it may suspend Poland’s EU Council voting rights. Polish ministers have said they will press ahead anyway with their plans which received the support of 830,000 Poles in a petition delivered to the Polish government. The proposed legislation also has the backing of the Catholic Church with one bishop, Pawel Rytel-Andrianik, saying the current law “doesn’t protect human life sufficiently” because it allows the abortion of unborn children with a disability, adding “in 90 per cent of cases this refers to children with Down’s syndrome”. He added: “The Polish bishops’ conference underlines that the right to life is fundamental to every human being, so we should all protect this right for defenceless children”.
A poll of over 2,000 adults in the UK found that money worries top the list of reasons why marriages break down, with one in five saying it was the biggest cause of marital strife.
Over a third of those questioned said that financial pressures were the biggest challenge to their marriage, while a fifth said that most of their arguments were about money. One in five of those polled blamed their partner for their money worries, accusing them of overspending or failing to budget properly.
The latest figures available from the Office for National Statistics show that 107,000 couples divorced in 2016 – up 5.8 per cent from the previous year.
“Money is always a common issue and if one person feels that their partner is not pulling their weight financially or at least trying to then it can very quickly cause resentment to grow,” said Lorraine Harvey, family lawyer at law firm Slater and Gordon, who commissioned the survey.
Human rights advocates have strongly criticised the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for supporting the decision of Swiss authorities to refuse asylum to an Iranian national who converted from Islam to Christianity. The court ruled that the asylum-seeker would not face a threat back in Iran if he practiced his new faith “discretely”. This is despite a report of the Open Doors Foundation which ranked Iran as the 8th most difficult country in the world for Christians with the level of persecution they suffer classed as “extreme”. The report said that in Iran, Christianity is considered a Western influence and a threat to the Islamic identity of the Republic, and “Converts to Christianity from Islam make up the largest group of Christians and experience the worst persecution”.
Legal researcher and human rights advocate, Ewelina U. Ochab, said the only reasonable conclusion is that by “practising faith discreetly”, the Swiss authorities meant “not practising faith at all”, as the practice requires some degree of manifestation and as per the several reports of different organisations, this practice is significantly limited if not impossible in Iran. Calling the decision of the Court a “blow to individuals persecuted for their religion”, Ms Ochab concluded that “religious persecution continues to be misunderstood and neglected”.
Pope Francis addressed members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See on Monday and called for the defence of life and support for families based on the married love of a man and woman.
In a speech that marked seventy years since the signing of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, the Pope said it was painful to see how many fundamental rights continue to be violated today. “First among all of these is the right of every human person to life, liberty and personal security,” he told the assembled diplomats, adding: “I think primarily of innocent children discarded even before they are born, unwanted at times simply because they are ill or malformed, or as a result of the selfishness of adults”. The Pope also mentioned the elderly, “who are often cast aside, especially when infirm and viewed as a burden”, and women who “repeatedly suffer from violence and oppression, even within their own families”.
He also made special mention of the family, which the UN Declaration called a “natural and fundamental group unit of society,” and the right to form a family, which it said, “is entitled to protection by society and the state”. However, he said what is most needed are families that are built on solid foundations rather than fleeting relationships: “And this rock is precisely that faithful and indissoluble communion of love that joins man and woman, a communion that has an austere and simple beauty, a sacred and inviolable character and a natural role in the social order”. He added: “I consider it urgent, then, that genuine policies be adopted to support the family, on which the future and the development of states depend.”
He sounded a note of caution regarding the changed interpretation of rights, particularly in the wake of the social upheaval of the 1960’s, as a number of “new rights” have arisen that conflict with other rights. He said that since debatable notions of human rights have been advanced that are at odds with the culture of many countries, this has caused some countries to “feel that they are not respected in their social and cultural traditions, and instead neglected with regard to the real needs they have to face”. He continued: “Somewhat paradoxically, there is a risk that, in the very name of human rights, we will see the rise of modern forms of ideological colonisation by the stronger and the wealthier, to the detriment of the poorer and the most vulnerable”. Neither did the Pope advocate an absolute adherence to local customs should they involve violations of human dignity. “At the same time, it should be recalled that the traditions of individual peoples cannot be invoked as a pretext for disregarding the due respect for the fundamental rights proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.
Known rates of all major sexually transmitted diseases have increased dramatically from 2012 to 2016 according to new data. The figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) show that there has been an increase known cases of HIV (+51pc), Syphilis (+11pc), Gonorrhea (+53pc), Chlamydia (+10pc) and Herpes (+21pc) over that four year period. In particular, HIV cases have soared from 339 in 2012 to 511 in 2016, while cases of Gonorrhea have spiraled from 1,282 in 2013 to 1,958 last year. Chlamydia continues to be Ireland’s dominant STI with 6,896 instances of the disease recorded in 2016. The surge in rates of STDs has occurred despite repeated sexual health education campaigns. As Christmas and New Year often sees a spike in infection rates, Sexual Health Centres across Ireland are now increasing their screening hours and have urged people concerned about possible infections to get checked as soon as possible. HSE public health officials also appealed to people with a stark warning for those who might be infected: “Anyone concerned about a possible infection should cease all sexual activity until they are tested,” an official said.
The Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, is seeking an early hearing of a Supreme Court appeal against a finding that “unborn” in the Constitution refers to a “child” with significant personal rights above and beyond the right to life.
The date for the appeal is expected to be set this coming Friday. As the Court has already described the case as raising issues of “systemic” importance, it is likely to get an early hearing date.
Lawyers for the Minister disagree with a 2016 High Court finding of Judge Richard Humphreys that the “unborn” is an “unborn child” with numerous effective rights. They insist the unborn child only enjoys a right to life, as a result of the Eighth Amendment, and no other rights.
The grounds of appeal include the Minister’s insistence the High Court was wrong to find the unborn is a “child” for the purposes of Article 42A, inserted as a result of the 2012 referendum, and to find that Article 42A affords protection for the rights of “all” children “both before and after birth”.
If the High Court findings are upheld, they will have “serious repercussions” for the duties of the State, particularly entities such as the Child and Family Agency, the Minister has argued in court documents. It would also affect the remit of the Minister for Children Katherine Zappone who currently denies she must advocate for unborn children.
It is not known whether the appeal will be decided before the expected referendum this year on the Eighth Amendment. If, however, both the Minister’s appeal were successful and the pro-life amendment were repealed, then unborn children would be left with no explicit Constitutional rights.
