One in three of 48.1 million pregnancies in India ended in an abortion, according to a large-scale study on abortions and unintended pregnancies for the year 2015. The study published in the medical journal, The Lancet, reported there were around 15.6 million abortions that year. The study also reported that close to half, or 48%, of pregnancies were unintended and 0.8 million women used unsafe methods for an abortion, putting their health and lives at risk.
Using abortion pills was the most popular method, which made up 12.7 million or 81% of all abortions, followed by 2.2 million surgical terminations of pregnancy. Around 22% or 3.4 million abortions were done in public health facilities. But 11.5 million or 73% were medication abortions done outside health facilities and 0.8 million were conducted by informal providers.
The Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPOC) have ordered Amnesty Ireland to return foreign funds for its pro-abortion political campaign for having breached statutory laws. Amnesty however have defied the order calling the law on which it is based a ‘violation’ of human rights.
Ireland’s campaign finance laws entirely prohibit foreign funding for political purposes, as well as requiring placing a strict cap on domestic donations. Amnesty, however, received €137,000 from the Hungarian-American billionaire, George Soros’, Open Society Foundation expressly for the purpose of its Repeal the Eighth Campaign. SIPOC has deemed that funding in breach of statutory law and has written to Amnesty instructing them to return the donation. Amnesty have refused. Their chief executive, Colm O’Gorman, told The Irish Times: “We’re being asked to comply with a law that violates human rights, and we can’t do that.”
Commenting on the news, Cora Sherlock of the Pro Life Campaign said: “Today’s statement from Amnesty is nothing more than a public relations exercise to disguise the fact that they have been receiving vast sums of money from abroad to fund their campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment. Amnesty are behaving like they are above the law and are hiding behind the term ‘human rights’ as a justification for everything they do”.
Ms Sherlock said: “It is important to recall that the Open Society Foundation stated when giving the money to Amnesty that it was to assist the coordination of groups in Ireland with a view to repealing the 8th Amendment and taking away legal protection for the baby in the womb. The involvement of this US based organisation in the Irish abortion debate represents a gross interference in our democracy and in safeguarding the right to life. Amnesty should immediately return the money and stop trying to portray itself as a victim in all of this.”
Three Fianna Fáil members of the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment have called for unrestricted abortion for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, the period in which about 90pc of abortions take place. Their move comes just weeks after the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis passed a motion to preserve the Eighth Amendment in full so as to protect unborn life. In a joint submission to the committee, Senator Ned O’Sullivan and TDs Billy Kelleher and Lisa Chambers outline their belief that terminations should be accessible when the life and the health of a mother is at risk. There should be no distinction between the mental or physical health of the mother, they add.
Their submission brings to ten the number of members of the 21 person committee, a near majority, who have called for unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks. In contrast to the Fianna Fáil members, three Sinn Fein members of the committee say they will not vote in favour of the 12 week unrestricted abortion proposal as they have no mandate from their party’s Ard Fheis for doing so.
The latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll has found a majority favour lifting some restrictions on abortion. However, they were not asked what kind of law they would like to see replace it. Asked about the prospect of the referendum on the Eighth Amendment next year, 62 per cent said they would vote in favour of changing the Constitution to allow the Oireachtas to legislate for greater access to abortion, the poll finds. More than a quarter of voters (26 per cent) said they would vote against the move, while 13 per cent offered no opinion.
Minister Katherine Zappone wants abortion to be available for any reason in at least the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. She wants the Eighth amendment repealed entirely. This is likely to be the recommendation of the Oireachtas abortion committee examining the matter, though it will then be up to the Government to decide whether a referendum should simply repeal the Eighth or amend it to allow abortion in certain specified circumstances. Speaking at Dublin City University, Ms Zappone made clear she will be a voice at the cabinet pushing for full repeal, saying that the Pro-Life Amendment to the Constitution must be removed in full and should not be replaced with any other constitutional wording. She also said that legislation should follow “under which abortion is safe, legal and available to all who need it”. In this context “availability” means abortion services that are subsidised by Government and accessible in locations all across the country.
She said it was her belief that abortion should be available upon request up to 12 weeks, though later term abortions should also be facilitated without the mother needing to “prove” her case.
The last three remaining CASA abortion clinics in the Netherlands closed their doors for good this week. The abortion chain which operated seven clinics in the Netherlands was revealed to be involved in extensive fraud in a landmark investigation earlier this year. CASA clinics, which are responsible for nearly half of the 31,000 abortions carried out in the Netherlands each year, are alleged to have committed fraud worth a massive €15 million to date. The clinics have been accused of irregular billing practices for public subsidies, including claims for deep sedation and overall anesthesia that were never performed.
The bankruptcy of the abortion chain means women are having to wait longer and travel longer distances for an abortion. Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Maastricht no longer have a specialist unit. Women are now travelling to Roermond, Utrecht and Groningen for the operation as waiting lists double to up to two weeks in places.
PS. The linked article says that the rate of “abortion compared to live pregnancies” is 8.6. That’s is not correct. 8.6 is the number of abortions per 1000 women of fertile age. The number of abortion per 1000 pregnancies is 181.2.
The UK Parliament is set to pass a law that will enable single people become the legal parent of a child born through surrogacy. The right of a child to a mother and father will not be considered. The practice of surrogacy in the UK is legal but there are some restrictions. Surrogacy contracts cannot be enforced, so in the UK, as also in Ireland, the woman bearing the child is the legal mother at birth (and her partner the father, if she is married or in a civil partnership) and remains so unless and until she signs away all rights over the child. This occurs when those who contracted the surrogacy apply to a court for a parental order which requires the consent of the birth mother. If the Court grants the order, the parental rights of the birth mother are extinguished, legal parenthood is transferred, the existing birth cert destroyed and a new birth certificate, reflecting the new legal parents, is drawn up. Currently, however, only couples may apply for parental orders, so even though single men or single women could arrange a private surrogacy, they may be denied legal parentage after the fact. This happened to a single man in 2016, who was refused a parental order because he was single, but the High Court decided that this law was discriminatory and in breach of the European Convention on human rights. In a comment that entirely overlooked the child’s natural parentage, Sir James Munby, president of the family division, explained the importance of having the correct legal parent(s): “Section 54 goes to the most fundamental aspects of status and, transcending even status, to the very identity of the child as a human being: who he is and who his parents are… A parental order has an effect extending far beyond the merely legal. It has the most profound personal, emotional, psychological, social and, it may be in some cases, cultural and religious, consequences.”
In response to that judgement, parliament is now set to give single people equal rights as couples in claiming legal parentage of the children they have acquired through their private surrogacy contracts.
The Irish Catholic Bishops have expressed their concern about repealing the pro-life amendment from the Constitution as its removal would have “no effect other than to expose unborn children to greater risk”. In a statement released after their winter meeting, the bishops appealed to each member of the Oireachtas to consider “how society can best respond to the personal needs of women within a legal and constitutional framework which acknowledges the right to life of the unborn, together with the equal right to life of the mother”. The Bishops affirmed that “Article 40.3.3 has a particular vision based on respect for the life of every person and that its removal can have no effect other than to expose unborn children to greater risk”. The bishops said that every human life has sanctity and innate dignity from conception to natural death and this is a value that is rooted in reason as well as faith and should be capable of being embraced by all in society.
A referendum to outright repeal the Eighth Amendment is likely to be the recommendation of the Oireachtas abortion committee. The Irish Times reports that a majority of members of the committee spoke on Wednesday in favour of removing article 40.3.3 and giving politicians the ability to introduce legislation. Fianna Fáil TD and health spokesperson, Billy Kelleher, led the way saying that trying to replace or amend article 40.3.3 is not practical, and he insisted a straight repeal is the only option. He was joined by the left-wing members of the committee, including Independents4Change TD Clare Daly, Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy, Labour TD Jan O’Sullivan and Independent Senator Lynn Ruane who all supported a straight repeal of the Eighth Amendment, as did the three Sinn Féin members.
Three members of the committee, Independent Senator Ronan Mullen, Independent TD Mattie McGrath and Fine Gael TD Peter Fitzpatrick, said bias was shown by the committee and criticised in particular the paucity of pro-life witnesses. Mr Fitzpatrick said many of his concerns about the harmful effect of abortions on women were not considered and the committee was therefore turning a blind eye to such. On the substantive legal change being proposed, he said repealing the Eighth Amendment would create a two-tier system where some “babies are given the right to life and some are not”.
The accusations of bias were rejected by the chair of the committee Catherine Noone, who insisted her conscience was clear in this regard.
The committee will take its final vote on all recommendations this coming Wednesday, December 13th.
The highest court in Austria has ruled that a law allowing same-sex couples enter civil partnerships but not marriage is discriminatory and have declared that such couples may enter marriage contracts from January 1st 2019. The overturned law had been passed in parliament in 2009, and in June of this year, parliament voted by a majority of 110 to 26 to reject same-sex marriage. Nonetheless, the conservative People’s Party (OVP), whose leader Sebastian Kurz is expected to be sworn in as chancellor next month, said it will accept the ruling. However, the Freedom Party (FPO), Kurz’s chosen government coalition partner criticised the ruling. “Now there is equal treatment for something that’s not equal,” said Herbert Kickl, FPO General Secretary, in a statement. A marriage between women and men needs protection as only these partnerships can create children, he said. In response to the ruling, the lawyer for the female couples who brought the case, Helmut Graupner, said it was a historic day. “Austria is the first European country to recognise marriage equality for same-gender couples as a fundamental human right. All the other European states with marriage equality introduced it (just) the political way,” he said in a Facebook post.