In doing so, the judges dismissed an appeal by the Adoption Authority of Ireland against a High Court order that facilitated recognition of an adoption order made by a US state court in respect of the Northern Irish man and the two children.
The authority wanted clarity on points of law and public policy relating to its ability to register foreign adoptions arising from surrogacy arrangements.
Under the Adoption Act of 2010, the authority may recognise a foreign domestic adoption “unless contrary to public policy”. There is a prohibition under the Act against “receiving, making or giving certain payments and rewards” as part of an adoption agreement.
A woman donated an egg, while another woman in the US carried and gave birth to the children pursuant to a commercial arrangement that agreed the NOrthern Irish man and his partner were the intended parents.
The letter said the bishops are ready “to accompany all” – but also stresses that accompaniment has the goal of conformity with Church teaching.
The Bishops grant their support of some aspirations of the contemporary movement for LGBT rights, and condemns unjust discrimination of any kind.
But, they add that when a “view of human nature that abstracts from the embodied integrity of personhood, as if physical gender were accidental” is put forward, “we must dissent”.
Further to this, “we protest when such a view is imposed on children as if it were not a daring hypothesis but a proven truth”.
The bishops, writing in the name of the Scandinavian Bishops’ Conference, related these points of dissension to Christianity’s conception of personhood as intrinsically embodied.
This embodiment is especially manifest in the “complementarity of male and female”, itself “sanctified in nuptial union” and “perfected in the Lamb’s marriage feast at the end of history.
In the UK, parents of children born through surrogacy will become the child’s legal parents at birth under proposed legal changes in a move that ignores all ethical criticisms of surrogacy including that it commodifies babies and exploits low-income women who rent out their wombs to make a living.
After consulting on surrogacy reforms in 2019, the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission published their final report detailing a new system to govern surrogacy.
Family law commissioner Professor Nick Hopkins said surrogacy has been increasingly used in recent years to form families ‘but our decades-old laws are outdated and not fit for purpose’. Many European countries ban surrogacy in all forms because of ethical concerns.
Under the current law, the legal mother of the child is the surrogate and the father or second parent is usually either the surrogate’s spouse or civil partner. An ‘intended parent’ can use the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 to become a second parent. However, often at the time of birth, neither, or at most only one, of the intended parents will be the legal parent.
The Euthanasia Expertise Center granted 1,240 requests for euthanasia last year, 11 percent more than in 2021.
The number of requests increased by 13 percent, from 3,689 in 2021 to 4,159 in 2022.
The Center helps people whose own doctor won’t honour their request for euthanasia, for example, because they find the request too complicated.
Only about a third of the patients who went to the Center last year were killed via euthanasia.
Around a fifth of the euthanasia requests the Center received last year came from patients with ‘psychological suffering’. Of those 781 requests, the center granted 90.
The number of euthanasia requests increases nationwide by almost 10 percent per year. The number of times doctors throughout the Netherlands granted euthanasia last year will be announced next month. In 2021 it was 7,666 times.
Both attacks took place in Zangon Kataf County, where 10 Christians were killed on March 14 in Langson village and 17 slain in Ungwan Wakili village on March 10, residents said.
Residents of Langson said dozens more were wounded in the attack that began at 9pm.
“I urge the government to match words with action by arresting the perpetrators since the government knows them and where they are,” said Sam Achie, president of the area community development association. “I appeal to Nigeria government to as a matter of urgency deploy more security agents to Zangon Kataf Local Government Area in order to arrest the recurring attacks on innocent Christians whose lives and property are being destroyed for no justifiable reason.”
A new review of the State’s abortion law is likely to recommend the axing of a safeguard designed to allow women breathing space before deciding whether to have an abortion.
Such a move would significantly increase the number of abortions taking place every year, according to the Pro-Life Campaign (PLC).
Two senior political sources told the Irish Times that the review recommends a “loosening” of the current law, including the potential removal of the three-day wait to access an abortion.
Commenting on the media report, the PLC’s Eilís Mulroy said in the first three years of the abortion law 3,951 women did not proceed beyond the first consultation, calling it “solid evidence” that thousands of women used the period to decide for keeping their baby.
Axing that would “without question” lead to another significant rise in abortion numbers, she said.
Ms Mulroy also noted that many people who voted Yes in 2018 did so following assurances that this three-day period would be a central component of the eventual abortion law. It was part of the ‘strict guidelines’ which then-Tánaiste Simon Coveney said impacted his decision to call for a Yes vote.
She concluded that removing that safeguard now would be “a betrayal of voters and of women in need”.
A breakthrough by Japanese scientists who created a baby mouse from two male mice could lead to people producing embryos from manipulated sperm without any need for a female egg. This would mean children could be born for the first time ever who have no biological mother and instead have two biological fathers.
Writing in the Irish Independent, Trinity College scientist, Luke O’Neil, said the scientists took a skin cell from a male mouse and removed the Y chromosome, leaving it with one X chromosome. They then ‘borrowed’ another X chromosome from a different male skin cell. They then turned that cell into an egg cell.
They then fertilised the egg that had come from a male with a sperm, grew it into an embryo and implanted the embryo into a surrogate mother mouse, “just like regular IVF in humans”.
Lead scientist Katsuhiko Hayashi and his team are now attempting to do the same with human cells.
Because of differences between mice and humans, and concerns over safety, Hayashi says it will take 10 years.
O’Neil writes that even in mice, what they achieved wasn’t efficient. “They made about 600 embryos, but only seven survived. With regular IVF, the number would be five times higher”, meaning with IVF 35 out of 600 embryos survive for possible implantation.
The same team of scientists were also able to make sperm cells from skin cells, obviating the need for either an egg or sperm cell for reproduction.
“The ethical questions of a baby having two dads will need to be considered, but if it is possible to achieve this in humans, same sex couples who want a baby might well be able to have one. All that will be needed is skin cells reprogrammed back to egg and sperm, some Reversine [a special chemical to manipulate chromosomes], and a surrogate mother”, O’Neil concluded.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Farrell, has given “full approval and agreement” to a change of patronage for Saint Enda’s primary school on Whitefriar Street in Dublin.
As patron of any primary schools in the Dublin archdiocese, Dr Farrell confirmed his support regarding the reconfiguration of patronage within the archdiocese “in order to reflect the growing diversity of Irish society”.
He said he looked forward to continuing cooperation with the Department of Education in order to bring this about.
He said much had been learned from the process and pointed out that consensus was “vital”.
“I, along with the other Catholic Patrons, will continue to work with the Department to identify remaining barriers to the building of that consensus.
“This includes reassuring Catholic parents that their choice of a school with a Catholic patronage and ethos will continue to be secured and facilitated within the education system,” added Dr Farrell.
A group of over two hundred evangelical leaders have called on the Government to rescind planned changes to the junior-cycle RSE curriculum because of concerns about graphic content and radical gender theory.
The letter, written by Pastor John Ahern of All Nations Church, Dublin, and Mark Loughridge, New Life Fellowship, Letterkenny, claim the current proposals would expose Junior Cert students to pornographic content and teach transgender ideology.
“We believe that exposing any child to pornography is dangerous. We would not expose children to alcohol or drugs in the interests of their education, so why do it with something that research has shown to be as addictive as cocaine, causing damage to the neural pathways and receptors in the brain?”, they write.
“Regarding the pushing of transgender ideology—we note that other countries are backing off this push having been ahead of Ireland in implementing it. They have seen the wreckage in damaged young lives which it has produced and recognise that many more issues are involved than transgender ideology allows for. Ireland does not need to go down the same tragic and misguided path”.
Commissioned by the Department of Health, ‘The Review of the National Sexual Health Strategy’ (NSHS) said adolescents’ pornography consumption is associated with subsequent increased sexual, relational, and body dissatisfaction.
“Increased pornography viewing has been associated with younger sexual debut, higher numbers of partners, and casual sex partners,” it said.
The current strategy has supported training in this area to youth workers through the National Youth Council of Ireland.
The long-feared “population bomb” may not go off, according to the authors of a new report that estimates that human numbers will peak lower and sooner than previously forecast.
The study, commissioned by the Club of Rome, projects that on current trends the world population will reach a high of 8.8 billion before the middle of the century, then decline rapidly. The peak could come earlier still if governments take effective steps to raise average incomes and education levels.
While the demographic pressure on nature and the climate should start to ease, the authors caution that falling birth rates can also create new problems.
Countries such as Japan and South Korea are grappling with a shrinking workforce and tax base while also experiencing greater stress on healthcare associated with an ageing society.
