The Court of Appeals for San Miguel in Chile unanimously affirmed the right of parents to educational freedom, ruling that the choice to pursue foreign-based homeschooling programs must be accepted in the country as valid for all purposes.
The case involved a youth whose high school degree obtained remotely from a Texas-based school working in partnership with homeschool curriculum providers and assessors, was not recognised by the Chilean Ministry of Education. Because of this denial, he had been unable to apply to university.
“This is a victory for rights of parents in Chile in line with the guarantees of international human rights law,” said Tomás Henríquez, ADF International’s Director of Advocacy for Latin America.
The ability to discern good and evil is in dire need of being cultivated or we risk losing our way as a people, warned Archbishop Eamon Martin.
In a stark appeal at the summit of Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday, the Archbishop of Armagh said being able to distinguish good and evil is more important than ever “when the primacy of individual choice – including absolute choice over our bodies and over creation – is sometimes held up as the gold standard of a ‘modern’ society freed from the so-called ‘shackles of the past’.”
“But to present choice as unlimited, unencumbered by talk of ‘good and bad’ choice, of ‘right and wrong’ choice, is a recipe for disappointment, for a sense of personal failure and even despair”.
He added: “To worship unlimited choice is to worship a false god. Far from nourishing a happier life and a more free and rounded society, uninhibited choice is overwhelming, and can impact negatively on spiritual, physical and mental health and well-being, especially that of our young people. At its worst the concept of unlimited choice without consequence becomes a tyranny which threatens the dignity of the human person as a unity of body and soul; it can destroy life, create confusion and contribute to a culture of death where the destruction of innocent and vulnerable human life – at its very beginning or near its end – is presented as a matter of legitimate individual choice”.
It would be difficult to conduct a proper information campaign in advance of major referendums on marriage, family and the support for mothers in the home, if the Government schedules votes for November, according to the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, Art O’Leary.
The Irish Times asked Mr O’Leary if, in the absence of the wording being finalised before the return of the Dáil in September, the November referendum date is unlikely.
He replied: “It is difficult to see how we could do a proper information campaign if we had less than the 14 to 16 weeks required.”
He said he understands how complex the issues to be put to the people are, adding that some of the choices to be made “require some deep thought because when you go to the people of Ireland and say we’d like to change our basic law, to do such a thing you need to be on firm ground”.
Mr O’Leary also said the Government and Houses of the Oireachtas will do as they desire and “we’ll deal with whatever comes.”
His remarks indicate that, ideally, the wording would be ready in August, for the commission to have between 14 and 16 weeks for the information campaign in advance of a November referendum.
Only half of Generation Z and Millennials plan to start a family while the number one reason putting them off children is a desire to concentrate on themselves, a UK survey has found.
Research by OnePoll among 1,000 people aged 18 to 34 who had not begun a family found that one in four had ruled out having a baby completely.
Just 55 per cent said they planned to have children, with another 20 per cent unsure what they would do.
The most common reason, at 49 per cent, was wanting “more time to focus on myself”, followed by financial pressures for 47 per cent and fears about the state of the world for 38 per cent, while 35 per cent were concerned about the impact children would have on the environment. Others had made the choice due to career aspirations or poor health.
The study also found that less than half of all those polled believed it was important for a person to have children to feel fulfilled in their lives.
A breakdown in a relationship or a change in family circumstances was the most common reason families presented as homeless between April and June this year, says the Department of Housing.
As of Q2 2023, local authorities begun reporting the reasons for presentation cited by households who newly entered emergency accommodation in the most recent quarter.
Contrary to expectations, evictions did not account for the greatest number of family cases.
282 instances were due to “Relationship breakdown/Family Circumstance” while 181 were due to a “notice of termination”.
There were 972 cases of families entering homelessness in total.
As a result of the new data now being reported, the Department said that the total number of families presenting has risen by 24.5% on the last quarter (from 669 to 833). The net number of new families entering emergency accommodation has increased by 32.5% on the last quarter (from 363 to 481). The number of families prevented from entering emergency accommodation by means of a social housing support has increased by 15% on the last quarter (from 306 to 352).
A referendum to remove the reference to the family being founded on marriage might be misunderstood as an attempt to banish marriage and family from the constitution, the Taoiseach has warned.
Leo Varadkar said only the link between the two needs to be severed.
“I have a fear that people will misinterpret us as trying to delete the family or to delete marriage when actually the Constitution protects marriage and the family, but it’s the linking of the two that is something that we think should change,” he said.
Mr Varadkar said he was conscious that referendums can “go wrong” and the Government must ensure the wording of any question posed in a referendum was right.
“We have had some difficulty agreeing on the wording,” Mr Varadkar said, adding the referendum would focus on two areas — the reference to women in the home and the linking of marriage and the family in the Constitution.
“There’s the wording in the Constitution that says the family is founded on marriage and marriage alone. I think we all agree that in the modern world, there are lots of families that are not married families: families led by grandparents; families led by couples that aren’t married; one-parent families.
“But we need to make sure that we get that wording right and people don’t misinterpret it.”
A challenge to the 2021 COVID restrictions on public worship has been filed at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
A former EU Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, Dr. Ján Figeľ, believes blanket bans on public worship are incompatible with the international human right to the communal exercise of religious freedom.
“Religious freedom as a basic human right deserves the highest level of protection. Prohibiting people from worship and communal religious exercise is profoundly illiberal and illegitimate. Worship bans were unfair and disproportionate. Our arguments submitted to the Court demonstrate clearly that blanket bans are violations of religious freedom under international human rights law,” stated Dr. Figeľ.
His case might be the first where Europe’s top human rights court rules on the blanket bans on public worship during the Covid pandemic. The decision would set a precedent for 46 European States with 676 million citizens.
New Zealand’s first so-called “Safe Areas” around abortion providers will be in place from 25 August. A similar law is being planned in Ireland.
Initially six places have been designated as such by the Government. Ireland’s law will be much more broad-ranging.
Safe Areas cover up to 150 metres around a premises where abortions are provided. They prohibit certain behaviours that could be considered ‘distressing’ to a person accessing the centres.
These include: blocking entrances or preventing people from entering or leaving; photographing or videoing someone; providing information about abortion; attempting to dissuade someone from having an abortion; providing anti-abortion pamphlets or similar materials; engaging in protest.
New Zealand Police are primarily responsible for the enforcement of Safe Areas. A person convicted of engaging in prohibited behaviour within a Safe Area may be liable for a fine of up to NZ$1,000 (€560).
A woman is “an adult female”, Sir Keir Starmer has said, in an apparent u-turn on the matter.
The Labour leader also said he did not believe the policy of self-identification was “the right way forward”, and that he believed that “the principle of safe spaces is very important for women”.
The Labour leader had previously pledged to change the law to allow trans people to self-declare gender, reflecting the plans from SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon that were later blocked by Rishi Sunak.
However, the leader of the opposition said that the party had had a “chance to reflect” on what happened in Scotland and now thinks that self identification is not “the right way forward.”
He told a BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in: “We want to modernise the process, get rid of some of the indignities in the process, [but] keep it a medical process.”
Sir Keir has been trying to clarify his views on gender since 2021, when he struggled to say whether or not a woman could have a penis. This year, he said that 99.9pc of women “haven’t got a penis”.
He appeared to go further when telling Nicky Campbell on Wednesday: “Firstly, a woman is an adult female, so let’s clear that one up.”
Italian lawmakers have advanced a bill to extend the country’s ban on surrogacy to couples who seek it abroad.
As in most European countries, surrogacy is already illegal in Italy, though there is a flow of clients who can afford it who travel to countries such as Ukraine and Russia to avail of it. Ireland is moving to make overseas surrogacy much easier for Irish people, including commercial surrogacy.
The bill was approved by the lower house of parliament by a vote of 166 to 109 and now heads to the Senate.
It would make Italian citizens who seek surrogacy in other countries liable for prosecution on their return to Italy.
Under 2004 legislation, anyone involved in surrogacy in Italy could face three months to two years in jail and a fine ranging from 600,000 euros to one million euros.
Eugenia Roccella, the families minister, said the bill puts Italy “at the forefront of the defence of women and children at an international level. We hope this vote will open a global debate on this practice in order to arrive at its abolition.”
Brothers of Italy MP Elisabetta Gardini condemned surrogacy as a “uterus for rent” that “outrages the dignity of women and tramples on the rights of children”.
In Ireland, the Irish Examiner reported that one Irish expert called the move “disturbing”.
Lawyer Annette Hickey, who specialises in IVF and surrogacy law, said “the steps Italy is taking would not be something I agree with.”
While legislation banning citizens from travelling abroad to avail of surrogacy is novel, many countries have moved to ban foreigners from using their domestic surrogacy services.
Georgia’s government recently announced it was banning international surrogacy from January 1 next year.
