A Catholic religious order that cares for about 5,000 psychiatric patients in Belgium will allow euthanasia in its hospitals. The Brothers of Charity, who also operate in Ireland providing extensive services to people with intellectual disabilities, posted a statement on their website about how they “take seriously unbearable and hopeless suffering and patients’ request for euthanasia”, adding, “On the other hand, we do want to protect lives and ensure that euthanasia is performed only if there is no more possibility to provide a reasonable perspective to treat the patient”. By contrast, the worldwide head of the Brothers of Charity, Brother Rene Stockman, said he strongly opposes this and is appealing to the Vatican and Belgian Catholic bishops for help. Father Thomas Petri, a moral theologian at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC, told LifeSiteNews that the Brothers should pull out of their apostolate altogether. “It seems to me, given the legal situation in Belgium and the libertine view of euthanasia at work in that country, the Brothers of Charity need to reconsider this apostolate,” suggested Petri. “It would be far worse to remain complicit and cooperate in the culture of death now let loose in their institutions than to withdraw, pray for conversion, and to be prepared to help the victims of the fallout.”
Minister of State Marcella Corcoran-Kennedy told the Dáil that the Committee on Procedure had recommended amending the Standing Orders so that each day might begin with a prayer and a 30-second period of silent reflection. Fianna Fáil TD Mary Butler welcomed the proposal and said that retaining the prayer while adding the silent reflection, would encompass a modern Ireland, while still respecting the traditions of the past. Independent TD Mattie McGrath said the prayer was not unusual, adding a number of legislative bodies elsewhere had either a period of prayer or silent reflection before starting business. He said respect for cultural or religious views should not debar TDs from acknowledging the specific heritage of their own country and giving it an expression which the vast majority of people did not find offensive. Others were not as sanguine. People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith, referring to TDs being asked to stand during the prayer, said: “I’m not standing, no matter what I’m told to do, because my religion is my business and is not up for public scrutiny.”
She said the debate would be silly were it not for “the Tuam babies, the National Maternity Hospital and the Sisters of Charity, the Repeal the Eighth and the Citizens’ Assembly, the legacy of Magdalene and Christian Brothers and the people who were persecuted in this country”.
In a shocking case in Italy, a woman has been accused of faking a pregnancy in order to conceal an illegal surrogacy. Then, when the child turned out to be of mixed-race, she returned the baby to its biological parents. Surrogacy is illegal in Italy, and attracts prison time and heavy fines. The woman is alleged to have paid 20,000 euros for the child, and she wore a latex pregnancy bump which she bought online in order to fool family and friends into believing she was pregnant. Officials in the town of Latina outside Rome received an inquiry about registering a home-birth, but became suspicious when no mother subsequently showed up. Police investigated and uncovered the scheme. The baby has now been taken into foster care.
The Council of Europe has passed a resolution on the protection of the rights of parents and children belonging to religious minorities. The resolution urges States to “affirm” and “protect the right of all not to be compelled to perform actions that go against their deeply held moral or religious beliefs”. It also recalls the right of parents to provide their children with an education in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions. Meanwhile, The Director of the European Centre for Law and Justice, Dr Grégor Puppinck, spoke at a conference at the European Court of Human Rights on the rights of families as regards education and religion. In his speech, Dr Puppinck said the Universal Declaration of Human Rights expresses a subsidiary conception of society, which affirms the natural rights of parents to raise and educate their children and guarantees this right against the the State.
Scientists have been successful in creating an “artificial womb” that appears effective at enabling very premature fetuses to develop normally for about a month. So far the device has only been tested on fetal lambs, but Alan Flake, a fetal surgeon at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who led the study published in the journal Nature Communications, says the group hopes to test the device on very premature human babies within three to five years. “If you can just use this device as a bridge for the fetus then you can have a dramatic impact on the outcomes of extremely premature infants,” Flake says. “This would be a huge deal.”
Some, however, find the advance unsettling and are already voicing concerns about the impact it would have on the political debate about abortion. Dena Davis, a bioethicist at Lehigh University, worries about whether this could blur the line between a fetus and a baby. “Up to now, we’ve been either born or not born. This would be halfway born, or something like that. Think about that in terms of our abortion politics,” she says.
In a searing response to the Democratic Party’s pledge to support only pro-abortion candidates, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan branded the move as disturbing and called on the party to “recant this intolerant position”.
“The recent pledge by the Democratic National Committee chair to support only candidates who embrace the radical unrestricted abortion license is very disturbing. The Democratic Party platform already endorses abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy, even forcing taxpayers to fund it; and now the DNC says that to be a Democrat—indeed to be an American—requires supporting that extreme agenda” he said in a statement.
Last week the head of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, was slammed mercilessly by pro-abortion lobby groups for supporting a Democratic candidate in a Mayor’s race in a city in Nebraska who happened to be pro-life. Within days, he reversed himself, dropped that support and pledged instead that “Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” adding, “That is not negotiable.” Perez was praised by the Huffington Post for becoming “the first head of the party to demand ideological purity on abortion rights”.
But that demand for “ideological purity” has itself been forcefully condemned by Cardinal Dolan and he called on all members of the Democratic party to likewise reject it: “In the name of diversity and inclusion, pro-life and pro-‘choice’ Democrats, alike, should challenge their leadership to recant this intolerant position.”
Prof. William Binchy, an expert in constitutional law, has blasted the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly and dismissed it as an exercise in futility. “Before it was established, the assembly was touted as representing a guide to politicians as to public opinion. It is now clear that it is useless in that regard,” he wrote in the Irish Times, adding: “The Assembly’s recommendations, with all respect to its participants, are a ragbag of slogans, lacking any logical consistency or normative coherence. No sensible legislator would go near them.”
Prof Binchy who is a legal advisor to the Pro-Life Campaign pointed to the continuing success of the Eight Amendment in saving lives and called for greater reflection on that accomplishment. “What emerges from the debacle is that this is a time for calm reflection, not resort to slogans. A mature society with an open mind – the essence of genuine liberalism – would appreciate that our present constitutional dispensation offers the most effective way to protect all of our members on principles that respect the human rights of everyone without discrimination.”
A landmark case that could lead to the EU-wide imposition of same-sex marriage will be decided by the EU’s Court of Justice in the coming days. The case regards a same-sex couple who asked the Romanian Government to recognise their foreign marriage as valid. When Romania, in line with its national law, refused to consider the pair to be a married couple, they sued the government. In 2016, the Romanian Constitutional Court referred questions of interpretation to the European Court of Justice.
Legal experts now fear that a decision in favour of the couple would not only impose same-sex marriage on all EU States, but would also undermine the principle of subsidiarity. “Many European countries recognize and protect marriage as a union between a man and a woman in their laws and constitutions, as is their right. A Member State should remain free to affirm in their laws that a mother and father are both essential in a child’s life,” said Sophia Kuby, Director of EU Advocacy for ADF International, based in Brussels. “The core notions of family law – ‘spouses,’ ‘family member,’ and ‘marriage’ – fall within the competence of EU Member States. . . . If this Court puts forward a definition of ‘spouses’ as including same-sex partners, national competence on the issue would be eradicated,” explained Adina Portaru, Legal Counsel for ADF International and leading lawyer on the third party intervention.
Senior Government figures have expressed a desire to move quickly on holding a referendum on abortion in response to the sweeping, pro-choice recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly. Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone said the emphasis was on “the repeal and the replacement” of the Eighth Amendment. “There is no reason why a referendum to achieve this could not be held in the spring of 2018,” the Dublin South West TD added. Independent Alliance Minister John Halligan said “the sooner” that the referendum was held, “the better”.
