The number of abortions taking place in Northern Ireland has doubled in the three years since the law there was made more permissive, according to pro-life group, Both Lives Matter.
The organisation has obtained figures from the Department of Health show that 5,648 terminations have been performed in the North since the new abortion regulations were laid out in March 2020 up to May 23rd of this year.
The number of abortions taking place in the South has also soared since the Republic liberalised its abortion law in January 2019 following the abortion referendum of the previous year.
A new tax aimed at developers who hoard land will also target religious congregations including contemplative orders like the Poor Clare Sisters whose convents have sometimes been situated for many years in what are often now becoming crowded urban settings.
The issue came to light after An Bord Pleanala slapped down a plea from the Poor Clares in Cork City to exempt them from the Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT), The Irish Catholic reports.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Cork TD, Michael Collins, said “this order has been in Cork for decades and decades. I would think that’s totally unacceptable that they are being faced with this concern and worry on them.”
Local Fianna Fáil TD Padraig O’Sullivan has vowed to bring the Poor Clare’s case before the Minister for Finance [Michael McGrath, pictured], saying “common sense has to prevail”.
“When [the tax] was first envisaged, I don’t think anomalies like this would have been foreseen… if there’s anything I can do, I’ll make representation for them.”
Other convents and monasteries are also affected. It remains unclear whether the RZLT will be amended to exclude them and not treat them as property developers and land hoarders.
The head of Ireland’s recent Government-ordered review of the abortion law, which recommended radical and sweeping changes including full decriminalisation, has been attacked by the Pro-Life Campaign for comments she made yesterday at an Oireachtas committee.
The current law has a mandatory three-day waiting period before a woman has an abortion. Under questioning, Marie O’Shea, the chair of the recent review, told the committee that she was unaware of any other country with a similar waiting period.
Responding, Pro Life Campaign spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said:
“When queried by Senator Martin Conway on whether other countries have a mandatory waiting period similar to Ireland’s, the chairperson of the review, Ms O’Shea, answered that she was not aware of any. This is a shocking oversight on the part of the supposed expert-led review. Many countries internationally have mandatory waiting periods which aim to provide women with sufficient time to reflect on whether to have an abortion, as a way to mitigate against abortion regret and ensure that informed consent is achieved. Along with other countries, Belgium has a mandatory six-day waiting period, whilst Germany has a mandatory three-day waiting period and counselling.”
Italy’s extremely low fertility rate now means it has the lowest percentage of young people aged 18-34 in Europe.
A new survey from the national statistics agency, Istat, has found that numbers in that age group have dropped by three million, or 23 per cent, since 2002 to 10.2 million last year.
It catches Italy in a downward spiral because the fewer young people there are, the fewer there will be to have children even if they increase the number of babies each of them has.
Italy’s problem is replicated across Europe to varying degrees because fertility rates are below the replacement level of 2.1 in in every country, including Ireland.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2e81f278-6b75-11ee-b5d7-5487922f056f?shareToken=7b6e8af201bc4f5a51fce20a31a86c93
Society must promote hope, but assisted suicide is a “statement of no hope”, the mother of Donal Walsh, whose teenage son’s battle against cancer received huge publicity 10 years ago, told an Oireachtas committee.
Speaking before the Joint Committee on Assisted Dying on Tuesday, Elma Walsh, raised the palliative care her received before he died.
She warned that introducing assisted suicide would “undermine the trust placed in doctors when it comes to end-of-life care”.
Ms Walsh said that while “society must promote hope, assisted suicide is a message of no hope”.
“Telling young people that their life itself is valuable, no matter how uphill it seems at the time, and legalising assisted dying at the same time is to bring about a clash of cultures.”
Ms Walsh pleaded with legislators and politicians to avert the “bizarre situation” where on “one hand we are putting out messages of suicide prevention and on the other we would be offering it”.
“For some we will be saying your life is not living, suicide will be the expectation not an ‘option’.”
Ms Walsh said she “feared” what could be set in motion by the committee should they support TD Gino Kenny’s bill to legalise assisted suicide.
Proposed abortion exclusion zone legislation aimed at silencing pro-life witness is a “draconian” restriction on free expression and freedom of belief, Bishop Kevin Doran has said.
The ‘Safe Access Zones Bill’, currently before the Dáil, proposes 100-metre exclusion zones outside GP clinics and hospitals in which pro-life prayer and witness would be banned.
While the legislation exempts statements made within church buildings, it includes church grounds that fall within the 100-metre exclusion zone.
As the bill includes all GP’s clinics, not just those performing abortions, churches and cathedrals around the country could face penalties if they display pro-life related material on church grounds.
Bishop Doran, chair of the bishops’ council for life, called the bill “draconian” and “fundamentally unjust”, saying the constitution provides people the right to profess their faith publicly “not just in church buildings”.
Exclusion zones legislation a ‘draconian’ restriction on free expression – Bishop Doran
An MP who previously faced death threats and risked deselection for holding pro-life views, has left the Scottish National Party due to “toxic and bullying” treatment from her colleagues.
Dr Lisa Cameron made the announcement yesterday after revealing her deteriorating mental health has led her to start taking antidepressants.
Aside from disagreements about Scottish independence, Cameron also differed with her former party on abortion. In 2020, she was the only member of her party to vote against an abortion buffer zone bill.
In 2018, she was one of only two SNP MPs to vote against forcing an abortion law on Northern Ireland. She revealed her office received more than 900 messages, including “abuse” and “cyberbullying” after she voted against that measure.
Her pro-life views have made her the subject of at least one death threat. Speaking to Christian Today after the abortion buffer zone vote in 2020, she said “I am concerned by the actions of those who have whipped up hatred and toxic aggression online in recent weeks following from my conscience votes on abortion and particularly distressed to have once again received a death threat towards my family”.
Irish Catholic Bishops have called on lawmakers to not invert the purpose of healthcare by legislating for the killing of patients in a regime of ‘assisted dying’.
The Bishops made an appeal instead, “to respect the integrity of healthcare as a service to life from conception until natural death.”
Reflecting on serious illness, they say young and old can find hidden reserves of faith, hope and love, and use the time, “to express gratitude and to heal wounded relationships”.
By contrast, they note, some TDs and Senators want assisted suicide, presenting it as a way of respecting the autonomy of a person for whom life has become unbearable.
“In reality it is an abdication of the responsibility of society to support people who are terminally ill and their families, in living the final days and weeks of life as fully and richly as possible”.
They add: “From our knowledge of what has happened in other jurisdictions, it is also clear to us that the availability of assisted suicide is very quickly extended to include people with all kinds of life limiting conditions, including intellectual disability, whose continued existence is perceived to be a burden on society.”
The Danish Council on Ethics has advised Denmark’s parliament against legalising euthanasia.
A report endorsed by 16 of the council’s 17 members concluded that it was “in principle impossible to establish proper regulation of euthanasia”. Other countries such as Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands that have gone down this road have seen numbers availing of it increasing rapidly and the grounds for granting it expand.
In June Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that she might be in favour of legalisation. She said that she had received a letter from a woman who had lost a family member to a painful illness and her dog through euthanasia. The relative’s death was “troubled and chaotic,” she said, whereas the dog’s death was “peaceful and controlled”.
Pro-life critics of this argument respond that putting an animal down does not send a social signal to other animals that assisted suicide is acceptable thereby creating a new social norm with accompanying pressures.
The council’s opinion now makes it less likely that Denmark will follow The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and some states in the US in legalising assisted suicide or euthanasia.
The penalties were issued last month for the incident that occurred in 2019 when the woman, Timika Thomas, a mother of four at the time, was undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) in an attempt to have another child.
She had just had two human embryos placed in her womb when the Las Vegas CVS dispensed the wrong prescription.
Thomas, 38, told CNA on Monday that when she realized what had happened, her first thought was, “They killed my babies.”
Two pharmacists, along with two technicians at the CVS, committed a series of mistakes that led to the abortion drug mistakenly being given to the patient, according to documents filed with the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy.
