The Dáil is set to debate a full motion condemning the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. According to The Irish Catholic newspaper, a draft motion is currently being drawn up for circulation to all parties in an attempt to gain all-party support for a condemnation of the ongoing suffering endured by Christian communities. It is hoped the motion will be tabled for a full debate by the end of January. “This is a matter of grave concern and we want to work with other parties so that the Dáil can speak with one voice in condemning the persecution of Christians in the Middle East,” said Fianna Fáil’s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Trade, Darragh O’Brien, who is responsible for the motion. He added that he and party colleagues are “very conscious that other nations such as the United States, Britain, and the European Union” have already adopted resolutions and motions condemning the genocide and continued suffering of Christians at the hands of religious extremists. “That makes it all the more urgent that we do this too,” he said.
A Students’ Union in England is discouraging the use of ‘he’ or ‘she’ on campus in a newly issued policy. The University of Sussex Students’ Union (USSU) is calling for the use of ‘they’ in place of gender-specific pronouns where individuals have not already stated their preferred pronoun. In addition, the new policy insists that pronouns should be “stated at the beginning of every meeting, even if they have been stated at previous meetings”. The union has stated that training for elected union officers on the USSU policy will be developed with a group that “seeks to free individuals and society from the oppressive confines of the gender binary”. The group in question is understood to be ‘Gender Liberation Sussex’, which believes that distinguishing between the sexes on a biological basis is harmful “and should be dismantled”.
A terrorism watchdog in Britain has warned that people of faith could be caught up in proposed legislation aimed at tackling extremism. Speaking during a BBC radio interview, David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, said the British government’s anti-extremism Bill was “the single document that has alarmed me most” during his time in the post. “I’ve not met anyone who can really define [extremism] in a satisfactory way,” he explained, adding that attempting to tackling such a vague concept will mean “the police are going to feel they have to investigate all sorts of people who are miles away from being terrorists, but may just practise religion in a conservative way.” Pointing out that communism was never banned during the Cold War, he added that to “start applying the force of the law to people who oppose certain values, I think, is a really difficult and dangerous line to go down”.
A US Congressional body tasked with investigating alleged malpractice among abortion providers has released a damning 500-page report on its findings, which include prosecution calls. The document published by the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives reveals it has made 15 criminal referrals, among them for alleged murder by abortion staff of infants born alive during late-term abortions and one against a company involved in foetal tissue transfers for allegedly destroying documents sought by investigators seeking evidence of the selling of such tissue for profit. In addition to criminal cases, the panel’s report makes a series of recommendations for the protection of women and infants, the “stewardship of taxpayer funds” and conducting ethical scientific research. “Human foetal tissue research is an outdated and unproductive area of research that does not make a strong impact on the field,” the report concluded.
The number of sexual partners a woman has before marriage can predict whether their marriage will last, a new study has revealed. It found that just 5% women who had no sexual partners prior to marriage got divorced within the first five years of marriage. However, a third of those who had 10 or more sexual partners before marriage divorced within the first five years. The study examines statistics as far back as the 1970s taken from the US Centres for Disease Control – on National Family Growth.
Over 744 people have died by euthanasia in Canada since the nation’s legislators decriminalised the procedure in June. Canadian broadcaster, CTV News, which gathered the numbers, said the figures compiled were incomplete, suggesting even more people have died by euthanasia in the time period examined. As part of the report, CTV also interviewed Dr Ellen Wiebe, a euthanasia practitioner who predicted cases of euthanasia will increase. “I know that it will increase,” she said. “I expect that we’ll get to the point of the Netherlands and Belgium because their laws are similar to ours, and that would mean about 5% of all deaths.”
A federal judge in the US state of Texas has ruled that medical professionals cannot be compelled to carry out gender reassignment surgeries if they have medical or religious objections. Prior to the temporary injunction handed down by District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas, such objections were overruled, on sex discrimination grounds, by the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act of 2010. “The regulation not only forces healthcare professionals to violate their medical judgment, it requires them to violate their deeply held religious beliefs,” Judge O’Connor pointed out. “Tragically, the regulation would force them to violate those religious beliefs and perform harmful medical transition procedures or else suffer massive financial liability.” Since the passing into law of the Affordable Care Act, critics have argued that doctors must be free to exercise their professional judgment in deciding medically appropriate actions for patients in their care. Simultaneously, a number of studies have revealed that the majority of children experiencing gender dysphoria will outgrow it by adulthood. Johns Hopkins University, once a pioneer in sex reassignment surgery, has since ended the practice, finding that it was actually damaging to those who undergo it.
Removing religion as a core subject in primary schools will do nothing to solve the curriculum overload problem, the General Secretary of the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA) has said. Reacting to proposals by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) that religion lose its core status in favour of ‘flexible time’ outside a 60% dedication of school time to Maths, English and Irish, Seamus Mulconry pointed out that “Religious education is transmitting a holistic world view with very sound values that underpin a lot of the stuff that is valuable in our society. When people are thinking of cutting it down or dumping it they need to do some very, very serious thinking.” Calling for an “objective appraisal” of issues at the heart of the school curriculum debate, Mr Mulconry insisted that the NCCA’s current consultations on a new curriculum should not be “obsessed with religion”. The NCCA consultations run through the spring of 2017.
