The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone, has confirmed that the definition of ‘child’ used by her department does “not extend to the unborn”. She made the statement in response to a parliamentary question from Tipperary South TD, Mattie McGrath, who commented that the exclusion of all unborn children regardless of gestational age from the definition of ‘child’ borders on the incredible.  “I think most people will be absolutely stunned and appalled to hear the Minister for Children apply such a discriminatory and disingenuous meaning to the definition of the word ‘child’. . . . Is Minister Zappone seriously suggesting that a full term child minutes or seconds away from birth is not a child or a human person?,” he said.

The Minister claimed this exclusion is consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), but Deputy McGrath pointed out that the Preamble to the UNCRC states that “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”. This means, “that a child is to be considered a ‘child’ before birth and that a pre-natal child is entitled to legal protection,” he said. “I would appeal to Minister Zappone to reconsider her Departments failure to accept a basic human truth; that a real human ‘child’ is in existence long before birth, and that this is confirmed by the very Convention that she says refutes this,” concluded Deputy McGrath.

A new study, published by the Journal of Health Economics, shows that recent cuts in funding for contraception and sex education aimed at teenagers in 149 local authority areas in the UK coincided with a fall in teenage pregnancy rather than an increase. To their surprise, the researchers found that authorities who made “bigger cuts saw relatively larger decreases in both birth and abortion rates among teenagers”. The research suggests that the State’s efforts to teach adolescents about sex and make access to contraceptives easier may have encouraged risky behaviour rather than curbed it.

The Catholic Bishops of Northern Ireland have released a set of questions for voters to put to election candidates in advance of the upcoming UK elections. They encourage people to raise issues relating to poverty, education, health, the environment and Brexit, as well as fundamental issues regarding the right to life and human dignity. Among other questions, they suggest voters ask candidates directly, “How will you and your party protect and promote the value of every human life from conception until natural death?”

The Sisters of Charity have announced that they are relinquishing all involvement in St Vincent’s Hospital Healthcare Group, which they founded. They will also then have no involvement in the new National Maternity Hospital. As a consequence, the Group will relinquish its catholic-inspired, medical ethos and adopt a legal-positivist ethos instead. A statement of the Sisters of Charity said: “Upon completion of this proposed transaction, the requirement set out in the SVHG Constitution, to conduct and maintain the SVHG facilities in accordance with The Religious Sisters of Charity Health Service Philosophy and Ethical Code, will be amended and replaced to reflect compliance with national and international best practice guidelines on medical ethics and the laws of the Republic of Ireland.”

Irish Times journalist Paul Cullen predicts that more Church institutions may retreat from health and education due to a “deep seated public antipathy” to their work.

A forum to discuss proposed reforms to the admission policies of faith-based schools heard widespread opposition to Education Minister, Richard Bruton’s proposals. Department officials said the Minister’s preferred solution—limiting faith-based preferences only to children within a school’s catchment area—would require the creation of catchment areas that have no statutory basis,  structures to adjudicate boundary disputes and the delineation of denominations and religions in law. The Irish Times reported that there was little sign of consensus, “with many schools and religious organisations preferring the status quo”. In a separate development, legislation is being prepared that would ban years-long waiting lists for admission to private schools. It will also ban any fees charged by schools in relation to admission, and require all schools to publish their admissions policies, including details on how they will provide for children who decline to take part in religious instruction.

An Irish Times/ Ipsos MRBI opinion poll has found far less support for abortion than was recommended by the Citizens’ Assembly in April. Voters overwhelmingly rejected legalising abortion “on request” and abortion on socio-economic grounds. They also showed far less support for abortion in “hard cases” with majorities preferring that there be strict gestational limits imposed on legalisation in such circumstances. Responding to the poll, Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign said that support for abortion even in cases of rape and foetal impairment would recede during the course of a campaign. “I would be confident when people reflect on what dismantling the Eighth Amendment would actually lead to in practice, support for retaining it will grow quickly,” she said.

A woman has taken a court case against her lesbian former partner in an attempt to re-establish contact with a little girl who called her ‘papa’. The Irish woman’s former partner conceived the child by artificial insemination using donated sperm while they were in a relationship. When they subsequently broke up, the mother of the child returned to her native England with the little girl. The Irish woman is now taking a case to order that the little girl be returned to Ireland. The case was heard in the UK High Court by Justice Holman who said, “It is quite clear that in the period leading up to the birth of the child, both these people were viewing the prospective child as a joint child to be parented by them both jointly.” No decision has yet been given.