The Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) has said gender neutral toilets and uniforms for primary school children as young as four should be considered to make transgender pupils more comfortable. Peter Mullan, assistant general secretary of INTO, says people must accept we live in a changing society, and there must be recognition that some children have gender dysphoria.
Claims that doctors at the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) will not be able to offer sterilisation, IVF and other procedures at odds with Catholic ethos if the facility moves to the St Vincent’s Hospital site on Dublin’s southside have been described as a “red herring” in a row over management of the facility. Despite St Vincent’s being under the control of the Religious Sisters of Charity, Prof Michael Keane, clinical director at St Vincent’s, said the assumption that such procedures cannot be carried out is “a historical thing”.
The Pro-Life Campaign (PLC) has criticised the wife of President Michael D. Higgins for describing Ireland’s abortion laws as “an outrage against women”. In a response to Sabina Higgins’ intervention on the issue of foetal abnormalities and abortion, the PLC said: “Given Ms. Higgins’s position, it is wholly inappropriate for her to have intervened in this way in the abortion debate. Before her husband became President, she was a well-known campaigner for a much more permissive abortion law in Ireland. It is important that people are made aware of that fact following her calculated intervention into the debate …Ms Higgins has a responsibility to represent the views of more than just the abortion lobby.”
The Supreme Court Justice for the State of Alabama has been suspended from his post following his direction that marriage licences should not be issued to same-sex couples. Chief Justice Roy Moore now faces charges that could see him removed from the Court. The Justice had issued an Administrative Order to probate judges that both the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment or the Alabama Marriage Protection Act prevented them from issuing licences to same-sex couples, but LGBT activists demanded an investigation of the judge based on this.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a campaign against Catholic hospitals in the United States, based on the fact that they do not provide abortions or sterilisations, defined by the group as ‘health care’. The ACLU says it will take legal action against hospitals so as to have courts decide on what medical procedures should be offered at a medical facility, regardless of religious ethos.
The Fine Gael party refused to accede to objections by Independent TDs against a ‘citizens’ assembly’ to examine the possibility of eroding the protection of the right to life of the unborn, it has emerged. As negotiations on the formation of the next government unfolded, a number of Independents, including Mattie McGrath, Michael Collins and Noel Grealish voiced concerns over the assembly, which had been part of the Fine Gael election manifesto. The TDs insist the appropriate place for any debate on repealing the constitutional 8th Amendment protection is the Dáil chamber. The assembly will not, however, be removed from the Programme for Partnership on the next administration.
The Government has published a new Bill under which adoption law in Ireland will be dramatically changed. The Adoption (Amendment) Bill 2016 aims to allow for adoption irrespective of marital status, allowing a step-parent to adopt as well as those cohabiting, and proposes changing the criteria under which a child can be adopted – by High Court order – without the consent of the biological parents in cases of ‘parental failure’.
The Northern Ireland Christian-owned bakery at the centre of a legal row involving a same-sex marriage cake is set to return to court next week. Exactly two years after the order for a cake was turned down on the grounds of Christians beliefs on marriage as between one man and one woman, Ashers Baking Company will attend the Court of Appeals in Belfast on May 9. A spokesperson for the company owners, the McArthur family said: “As a family we are simply hoping and praying for a just outcome so that our ordeal in court next week will be our last.”
