Pro-choice campaigners have been asked to condemn the “orgy of abuse” directed at a young American visitor curating the @Ireland twitter account this week. The call came from the SaveThe8th group who said that the Repeal Campaign “must change the tone” of the debate before someone gets physically hurt.
The @Ireland account is a twitter account that is curated each week by a different guest. Maria Oswalt, 23, has recently come to Ireland to visit her boyfriend, and has expressed pro-life views in the past but has tweeted nothing about the upcoming referendum.
Repeal campaigners trawled her social media accounts in an attempt to find out her views on abortion, and then subjected her to a sustained campaign of vicious bullying and abuse. She has been repeatedly told that she is “not welcome” in Ireland and that she should go home.
Commenting, Savethe8th spokeswoman Niamh Ui Bhriain said: “These vicious attacks on a young woman for holding a private opinion are an example of the very worst of what this campaign could become. Repeal supporters, who have no problem with Amnesty Ireland taking illegal donations from an American billionaire, spent most of yesterday abusing a 23 year old for holding private views, bizarrely finding and posting information about her family, and telling her to go home to her own country. This is not just creepy, it’s nasty and vicious”.
She added: “There is a lot of talk about a reasoned and respectful campaign, but one only needs to read the comments towards this girl to know that there is no reason or respect for those of us who have concerns about the introduction of abortion in Ireland. It is incumbent on the leaders of the repeal campaign to call off the dogs. And it is incumbent on the media to hold them to account if they do not”.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has formed a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within its Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The purpose of the new division is to restore federal enforcement of laws that protect the fundamental and inalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom for medical personnel. In a press release heralding the news, a spokesperson said the new division will provide the Health Department “with the focus it needs to more vigorously and effectively enforce existing laws protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom, the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights”.
OCR Director Roger Severino said, “Laws protecting religious freedom and conscience rights are just empty words on paper if they aren’t enforced. No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice. For too long, governments big and small have treated conscience claims with hostility instead of protection, but change is coming and it begins here and now.”
The move was criticized by groups claiming, among other things, that freedom of conscience could harm ‘abortion rights’.
The National Association of GPs has strongly objected to the Government unilaterally co-opting them to provide unrestricted abortion services for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. In a statement released yesterday, the association, which represents around 2,000 family doctors, said it strongly objects to the assumption that this will be a GP-led service and said that their members are outraged that there has been no consultation.
Dr Emmet Kerin, President of the NAGP remarked: “I was alarmed to hear the Minister’s comments and presumption that the State would direct GPs to lead an abortion service without any engagement with our members to discuss the implications of this notion. The growing disconnect of the Minister and his Department of Health from the frontline service of General Practice is of genuine concern to me.”
Dr Kerin further commented “General Practitioners are dedicated to the health of their patients but feel that their work supporting the increasingly chaotic healthcare system receives no acknowledgment. For the Minister to suggest that our profession should lead out an abortion service without consultation with our member GPs is an affront to our profession and could pose yet another strain on the provision of general practice healthcare services.”
A court in Ontario has ruled that doctors must refer patients for all procedures and drugs, including abortion and assisted suicide, even if they conscientiously object. The Court held that “equitable access” to health care services is of “sufficient importance to warrant overriding” the right of religious freedom.
The background of the case are policies of the body regulating the practice of medicine in Ontario which require that pro-life doctors who object to abortion and euthanasia must refer patients seeking those services to a “non-objecting, available, and accessible” physician, “in a timely manner” ensuring that the patient is “not exposed to adverse clinical outcomes” because of delay. This was appealed to the Supreme Court which found that the forced referrals are a violation of religious freedom, but also ruled that “equitable access” to such procedures was more important and thus justified the religious freedom violation. The Court drew a number of further conclusions including that doctors unwilling to provide “effective referrals” will have to change their area of practice; practicing medicine from a Christian ethical framework is characterised as one likely to shame patients; Professional disciplinary proceedings is a likely consequence for Christians who practice according to conscience and decline to refer; and, in the public square, in the event of a conflict between doctors’ rights and the patients’ interests, religious freedom loses.
A priest found hanging from a rope in his home, and the decision of authorities to rule the death a suicide, has prompted a fresh round of protests by Christians at what they feel is systematic persecution from Hindu extremists.
Congregants told local reporters that Pastor Gideon Periyaswamy had endured constant harassment by some local Hindus, who they said had made it a point to try to torment the cleric every Sunday for the last six months. Last year, a group of extremists beat the pastor, a congregant told the Morning Star News. The suspicious nature of the pastor’s death, and his struggles with his harassers, are refocusing attention on the growing persecution of Christians in the world’s largest democracy. India ranks 11th, just behind Iran and Yemen, this year on an annual list of the world’s 50 worst countries for persecution of Christians published by the Christian advocacy group Open Doors U.S.A. India had ranked 15 the previous year.
Government Ministers believe they must await a Supreme Court ruling on the rights of the unborn before finalising the wording of the proposed abortion referendum, according to a report in The Irish Times. This could delay the Government’s plans to hold the referendum in late May or early June, long before the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland in August.
“This is the first time in the history of the State that the Supreme Court will rule on the meaning of unborn,” a source familiar with the Government’s legal advice on the matter said. “The wording is known. But the worst thing we could do is publish it and then have to change it because of the judgment.”
The Supreme Court hearing is listed for February 22nd and is expected to take two days, legal sources say. A judgment is expected in the following weeks, but the Government have already said they hope to introduce the referendum bill to the Dáil on March 8th, International Women’s Day. Any delay could scupper plans to stage the referendum on the preferred dates of May 25th or June 8th. The Government are in a rush to hold the referendum before students start leaving the country for the summer. Leo Varadkar previously said the referendum could also be held in November, when all students would be back in the country, but many politicians want the referendum over and done with before Pope Francis visits the country in August.
Former Minister Lucinda Creighton launched a blistering attack on the media yesterday for their near-unanimous embrace of abortion and their gushing praise of politicians who come out as “pro-choice”. Writing a column in the Sun newspaper, she said while journalists are entitled to hold opinions, they should at least attempt to demonstrate some balance in their reporting.
She noted a recent poll found that only 51% of the public support unrestricted abortion for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, yet “the media, to a man and woman, appears to hold one view — that abortion on demand ought to be introduced”.
The disconnect between the media and the public made her wonder whether “there are journalists who do not buy into the general consensus that abortion is the only ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ course”.
“Perhaps there are others who are cowed and fearful of challenging this consensus because they know they will be labelled as ‘backward’ and ‘regressive’ — or, worst of all, ‘Catholic fundamentalists’,” she wrote.
She also noted that when women are faced with difficult choices in pregnancy, our media only celebrates those who decide to terminate the baby’s life.
“Over recent years we have heard incessantly about the women who travel for abortions. They are deemed courageous and brave. We never hear about the women whose babies are diagnosed with serious illnesses and are kept. We never celebrate the women who take the decision not to abort and who bring their babies into the world knowing they will receive little support or understanding from our Government and are aware that their child might live for a month, a week, a day, an hour or less.”
She heaped scorn upon the politicians who struggle with their conscience and then are applauded as brave if they come out with the ‘right’ opinion, the one the cozy media consensus approves of.
”Why is it only the politicians who fall into line with the journalists who want abortion on demand are deemed to be brave or laudable? What is so brave about succumbing to the editorial line of every newspaper? What is so brave about taking a decision which you know will simply gain gushingly positive column inches in every paper?”
She concluded: “Being brave used to mean being prepared to face danger or discomfort. These days bravery in politicians seems to be failing to stand up for what you previously said was right, and doing so because you know you will receive wall to wall fawning media coverage.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that there should be “no foreign funding” of the groups campaigning in the abortion referendum.
At a press conference with the Estonian prime minister, Yuri Ratas, Mr Varadkar said: “The rules that apply to referendums are there and certainly one thing that is significant, and one thing we’ll have to watch, is to ensure that there is no foreign funding of either campaign.”
Amnesty International, which has been campaigning for a change in Ireland’s abortion laws, has been told by the Standards in Public Office Commission to return a €137,000 grant from an international donor. Amnesty has disputed the decision and refused to return the money.
