The DUP’s Ian Paisley has said the party will not tolerate any diminution of the rights of the unborn for the sake of preserving its deal with the Tory government. Mr Paisley, who is a member of the House of Commons in Britain, said: “I’m going to make it absolutely clear that the rights of the unborn child, in my view and in the views of people in my party and on this bench, trump any political agreement that had been put in place.

“We’re making that absolutely and abundantly clear, and if anyone thinks that we would take a view where we would trade that issue of life and the sanctity of life on a political deal, they don’t understand me and they don’t understand my party and they need to be aware of that.”

The remarks came after the devolved Government in Wales announced they intend to follow the lead of the NHS in England and pay for the abortions of women from Northern Ireland. It is also expected that Scotland will make similar arrangements.

“We are living in the midst of a more aggressively secular culture which insists at times on conformity and compromise with the thinking of the day, and which tends to ridicule and reject any recourse to the concept of timeless or absolute truths”, Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin said in a homily marking the anniversary of the martyrdom of St Oilver Plunkett, the Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin.

Archbishop Martin said there was a “velvet-gloved” persecution against Christians today that is “cloaked in politeness”, calling it the kind that will “marginalise you, take your job away if you fail to adapt to laws that ‘go against God the Creator.’” More than that, he said, “There are some who would seek to expel people of faith from public discourse and debate, or caricature our Church as being “unmodern”, “authoritarian”, “hypocritical”, “bigoted”, “closed” to progress and personal rights and autonomy.”

The proper response, he urged, is to be courageous and witness to our faith publicly anyway, especially on issues of life, marriage and the family.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has urged Christians to be in the forefront of affirming the life and dignity of every person. Speaking at a mass that preceded the huge Rally for Life last Saturday, Dr Martin underlined the convictions of Christians in this regard: “We are convinced of the value of every human life from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death. We are convinced of the dignity of every life at every moment of the existence of every person. We are convinced that in cases of crisis, mother and unborn child have equal right to life and we pay tribute to a medical tradition which has been inspired by such a principal of life and which has served and saved lives.” The Archbishop affirmed that being pro-life involves taking a political stand in favour of the right to life of every person. “Being pro-life is a way to live as active citizens in defending that fundamental principle of democracy that every life has equal value, that we are all equal before the law.   A society that begins to establish its own categories of lives that are considered of lesser value than others, begins a process that undermines democracy.”

In delivering the report of the Citizen’s Assembly to the Oireachtas, Justice Mary Laffoy urged TDs and Senators to pay due regard to its conclusions. “I urge the members of the Oireachtas to view their recommendations with the respect and due consideration they deserve,” she said. The report consisted of an 83 page document and two large appendices running to over 1000 pages and recommended a widespread liberalisation of the country’s abortion laws. An Oireachtas committee is to consider the report and propose a concrete political path forward. A referendum is expected in 2018, and commentators are already cautioning about the political sensitivities involved, not least because Pope Francis is due to visit Dublin in August next year to attend the World Meeting of Families.

Proposals to block Catholic schools from offering any preference to Catholic children in their admissions policies faced major questions last night regarding its legality and suitability. Fianna Fail’s education spokesman, Thomas Byrne, said a “huge” amount of work on the legality of the proposal has not been done by the Education Minister, Richard Bruton. “The revelation that he has failed to carry out even the most basic of constitutionality checks indicates that he hasn’t put much effort into his plan. The groundwork clearly hasn’t been carried out,” Mr Byrne said. Minister Bruton’s plan would block Catholic schools from favouring members of their own denomination, but would allow minority schools to do so in order to “protect their ethos”.  Spokespeople for Catholic schools pointed to a buildings deficit as the real problem and decried the so-called “baptism barrier” as a red herring. Séamus Mulconry of the Catholic Primary School Management Association said just one per cent of those turned down a school place in the Dublin area did not have a Baptism certificate, based on a survey of its schools. “The issue the Minister rightfully seeks to address has more to do with the lack of school places than anything to do with an issue surrounding Baptism certificates,” he said.

In a major judgement yesterday, the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland ruled that the region’s strict abortion laws do not breach European Human Rights law and they refused to unilaterally widen the grounds for abortion. Setting out the judgment, Lord Justice Gillen said: “The imposition of personal opinions of professional judges in matters of this kind lacks constitutional legitimacy. Courts should not make decisions freighted with the individual attitudes of the judiciary.” Lord Chief Justice Morgan said he was conscious of the need for judicial restraint in dealing with issues of moral and political judgment: “In light of the wide margin of appreciation recognised by the European jurisprudence and the decisive vote within the Assembly I do not consider that it is open to the courts to derive a right to abortion from the Convention.” Lord Justice Weatherup held that it was for the Assembly, not the Courts, to determine whether to amend existing abortion law. The scope of the 1861 act, as defined by the Court in 1939, he said, “should not be reinterpreted by the Court after 80 years. The appropriate forum for amendment of the 1861 Act is the Assembly, although any such amendment has been rejected to date.”

Numerous pro-life groups lauded the decision, while the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, who originally brought the case to court, have already lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom.

Minister for Education Richard Bruton has announced that he will end the policy of Catholic schools preferring members of their own faith when schools are oversubscribed. The change will not apply to minority faith. Minister Bruton said he is doing this so that parents will no longer have to baptise their children simply to get them into a local Catholic school, even though this is extremely rare. Opposition to the plan has already been voiced. The educational office of the Catholic bishops said the move was unfair and will treat Catholic parents differently from all other faiths, while the chief executive of the Catholic Schools Partnership, Ferdia Kelly, said the plans will not solve the problem of access to over-subscribed schools as no additional places are being provided. He also questioned the constitutionality of the measures which will be “examined carefully” by the sector.

A growing chorus of voices is calling for the widespread liberalisation of the county’s abortion laws.

Yesterday, an international seminar in Dublin said that ‘best healthcare practice’ includes sexuality education, affordable contraception and the provision of safe and high-quality abortion. The seminar also heard the claim that the provision of a liberal abortion law actually reduces the incidence of abortion. The seminar was timed to coincide with the release of the report of the Citizens’ Assembly which includes recommending abortion on very wide-ranging grounds. Meanwhile, for the first time ever, a TD has spoken publicly of having had an abortion herself. Brid Smith, T.D., of People Before Profit told an Irish Times podcast, “I had an abortion in the 1980s when I was in my twenties. I was never ashamed of that abortion.” Deputy Smith is campaigning for repeal of the Eight Amendment that protects the right to life of the unborn. Regarding that campaign, she said, “we have a fight on our hands”.