Minister for Health Simon Harris is preparing legislation that would allow abortion on demand for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The legislation is being drafted in parallel with the work of the Oireachtas committee on the Eighth amendment so that, If the committee recommends repeal of the Eighth followed by abortion legislation, Minister Harris will have the statutes ready to be published soon after. The Times, Ireland edition, reported that the legislative options being drafted include 12-week abortion access, and another option allowing abortion in cases of rape where the woman would not have to “prove” her pregnancy was the result of a sexual crime. The Oireachtas committee is due to publish its findings by December 20th, and Minister Harris has set a deadline of February 14th next year for the draft legislative options to be completed. This would allow time for the Government to set a referendum for May or June and publish the bill that would follow upon a ‘yes’ vote.
The Australian postal survey on same-sex marriage has been passed by a margin of 62% to 38%. This now paves the way for parliament to vote on a measure to redefine marriage laws in the country to enable same-sex unions to be recognised as marriage. The postal survey had been announced by the coalition Government as a means of gauging public support for the issue before any legislation might be introduced in parliament. The survey itself, a voluntary, non-binding postal vote, had a participation rate of 79.5%, one of the highest participation rates for any such referendum around the world. The Australian parliament is now expected to legalise same-sex marriage before Christmas, although legislators will have to decide the extent of conscience protections, if any, for those who do not want to participate in same-sex weddings.
Christian migrants in German asylum shelters have reportedly been persecuted by their Muslim counterparts, and a local pastor says that believers are still hounded by the same experience out in the streets and in metro stations.
Berlin-based pastor Gottfried Martens noted that Christians in asylum homes have lived relatively safer lives in the last year. However, many believers — especially the converts from Islam — were still persecuted even though they already moved into private homes. Christians have been the target of several violent attacks across Germany, with some of these incidents taking place on the streets or in metro stations. Among the reported incidents were the deadly stabbing of an Afghan woman in Prien am Chiemsee and the beating of a young Afghan male convert in Berlin in September. According to Ado Greve of Christian charity Open Doors, Christians who were attacked usually lay low and do not want to draw attention to themselves. Some of them were also convinced that the authorities were not doing enough to help them.
The former president of the UCD Students Union, who was impeached for her pro-life views, has issued a clarion call to all those with pro-life convictions to be brave and speak out fearlessly. In an op-ed in the Irish Times, Katie Ascough said her experience of impeachment should not serve as a warning to other pro-life people to keep quiet. On the contrary, she wrote, “the fact that some people do not want our voices heard should make us even more determined to speak out and share our viewpoint”.
“To those who are pro-life, I urge you to be confident, brave and unafraid. It can be scary – trust me, I know. But please, for the sake of our country, do not tiptoe around this issue because you’re concerned about what other people might think.”
Ms Ascough warned the climate of fear fostered by some pro-choice activists against open debate amounts to a kind of “thought policing” that would work only if pro-life people give in to it.
“Thought policing smothers true debate and is one of the biggest threats to a free democracy. We give in to it when we allow ourselves to be silenced”.
She concluded: “Be it in the home, out at coffee, in the workplace, or on the streets, do yourself and your country a favour: don’t sit in a box that has been designed to make you feel comfortable with being silent and that is intended to deflect open debate”.
A Sinn Féin TD has criticised the Oireachtas Committee on the eighth amendment for a pro-abortion imbalance in its list of witnesses. In response to a question on RTE’s the Week in Politics whether the Committee was biased toward the pro-choice view, Peadar Tóibín, TD, said “It’s natural that TDs would seek to bring in witnesses that would further their political objectives on committees, but when you look at the balance of the members and also the witnesses, 24 witnesses are pro-choice and 4 witnesses are pro-life, so I was disappointed.” He continued: “I’m a chair of a committee, and even on issues that I wouldn’t agree with I would make sure there’s a balance of people coming before a committee so that there’s a good honest debate.” Mr Tóibín was criticised by two of his Sinn Féin colleagues who claimed that the situation arose as a result of pro-life witnesses refusing to appear before the committee. However, this view was disputed by Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign who tweeted in response that the imbalance was caused at the very outset when 24 pro-choice witnesses were invited compared to just 4 pro-life.
A provocative column in the Times of London has suggested that the transgender movement has become doctrinaire and uncompromising to the point that it is harming children. After months of researching the sudden rise in referrals of teenage girls to gender clinics, Janice Turner said “the trans lobby” … are prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of children to attain the twin goals of self-definition and requiring the affirmation of others. As an example, she cited Government proposals in Scotland that schools allow a child to change gender, even without parental consent.
That attitude of official affirmation even requires that “The apparatus of medical transition, a hormone regime causing sterility, plus surgical removal of healthy tissue, is seen as wholly positive. PE teachers must tolerate girls using binders to strap down their hated breasts ‘which can lead to shortness of breath and can be painful during physical exertion’ because they have ‘a positive impact on a young person’s mental health’.”
In her research, she said she heard from teachers, doctors, parents and trans-folk who are “aghast at children being pushed towards drastic treatment before they can possibly understand how it will affect their future relationships and lives”. Yet, none would speak out publicly because, “they feared being labelled transphobic”.
She said that while trans children have become a progressive political cause, there has been a vast rise in the numbers of children being referred to London’s Tavistock clinic, up to 50 every week, for treatment. One doctor she spoke to said “If there was a 1,000 per cent rise in six years in any other field, there would be a major inquiry. Instead no one asks why.” But Turner is asking why and the evidence she has unearthed is prompting her to ask another question: “in a decade, when our adult children turn to ask, ‘Why did you let me do this? Why didn’t you stop me?’ we may wonder if this was progress or child abuse.”
The persecution of Christians in Nigeria continued this week when nine Christians were shot dead by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria’s central Plateau State on Tuesday night as they returned from a weekly village market. Four more were injured during the incident in the Riyom Local Government Area (LGA), which happened at around 7.30pm. Seven were killed instantly, two died later in hospital. According to a villager, Maria Joseph, who witnessed the attack, the victims were returning from the Makera market in a Volkswagen Golf when they were ambushed and shot. She added that the assailants were a combination of Fulani tribesmen and soldiers, who later jumped into an Opel Vectra and zoomed off. “We have been under siege. Some weeks back, Fulani herdsmen complained that one of them was killed, which we didn’t know about, and they said they were going to attack this community, and now they have taken the laws into their hands and truly attacked,” said Daniel Dem, representing the Riyom constituency in the state’s House of Assembly.
“If somebody comes out clearly before the STF [Special task Force] and said he is going to attack a community and the people were later ambushed after a week and killed, the person who gave the threat should be arrested and interrogated. The leaders of Fulani in Riyom should be arrested and interrogated by the Defense Headquarters. Enough of these mass killings!”
A court in Germany has ruled the Federal Government must provide a third gender category in all official documents, or else remove a gender designation from them entirely. The court said that providing only male or female categories on government documents violated anti-discrimination laws and citizens’ constitutional right to privacy. It gave the Government a deadline of Dec. 31, 2018 to effect the change in the law to provide the third gender category in all official documents or delete gender entirely from them.
Meanwhile, in Scotland, there is a proposal to likewise recognise a third category of gender, “non-binary”, for those who identify neither as male nor female. A consultation paper on the plans stated that ministers favour setting a minimum age of 16 for people to change their gender, although one of the options under consideration would mean pre-pubescent children could also make an application.
The document also recognised that the UK Government would have to agree to change UK passports and driving licenses to include a non-binary gender option although, it said, there was no guarantee that other countries would recognise its validity.
The number of people euthanised in the Netherlands this year is set to exceed 7,000 in what has been described by the director of the country’s only specialist clinic as the end of “a taboo” on killing patients who want to die. This year’s figures represent a 67% rise from five years ago when 4,188 people were euthanised by doctors in the country. “If there was any taboo, it has gone,” said Steven Pleiter, director of the only clinic in the Netherlands that specialises in euthanasia. “There is a generation coming up, the postwar generation, which is now coming to the life stage in which they will die, and this generation has a far more clear and expressed opinion about how to shape their own life end. I expect far more growth in the years to come.” The increase in numbers has led the clinic director to recently launch a massive recruitment drive with TV and radio appearances, to direct-mail shots and the placement of adverts in medical journals, to hire doctors to keep up with demand. Specifically, the work involves assessing requests for euthanasia and then, for those whose request is approved, administering intravenously, or in a drink, a drug putting the patient into a coma, and then a second disabling their lungs. Pleiter asks his doctors to work eight to 16 hours a week for this organisation. “A full-time job involved in the death of people is probably a bit too much, and ‘probably’ is a euphemism,” he adds.
A pro-life group representing both women and unborn children has withdrawn from giving evidence to the Oireachtas committee on the Eighth Amendment citing alarm with the direction of the proceedings and a determination to not give any credibility to a biased and deeply flawed process with a pre-determined outcome. Both Lives Matter were due to give expert testimony explaining the methodology and findings of an actuarial study commissioned by them that reported a reasonable probability that 100 thousand people are alive today in Northern Ireland because of the jurisdiction’s strong anti-abortion laws. However, spokesperson for the group Dawn McEvoy wrote to the Committee this week noting with alarm the direction of the proceedings, particularly the decision to change the Eighth Amendment even before all evidence was heard, and said there was a “reasonable questioning of bias” within the committee. “After much consideration we have come to the conclusion that we will not attend in person as, like Professor Casey, ‘we have no desire to add any further credence to this deeply flawed process’,” she said.
“Because Both Lives in existence in every pregnancy Matter we cannot agree that a reform of Ireland’s existing life-affirming law, is necessary for the life, health and wellbeing of women in Ireland. We believe that the removal from law of the current legal status which every unborn human being holds, would be a tragedy, and we wish to have no part in a process which seems to be committed to that pre-determined outcome.”
The group requested that the text of their letter of withdrawal might be read out to the members of the committee during their hearings yesterday, but this was refused by the Chair, Senator Noone. After being criticised by Mr Mullen and Mr McGrath for her refusal, Ms Noone accused them of trying to “undermine” her. Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien added: “I’m losing my temper here.”
