The Taoiseach has raised concerns that laws enabling assisted suicide could put older people “under pressure” while not ruling out legislation either.
A special Oireachtas committee will look at the issue in the new year with a view to proposing a new law.
However, Micheál Martin has expressed “concerns”, and said it will require a detailed examination.
“I would just be nervous that through any legislation that’s passed — and I’m open to persuasion on this — but that you would create an indirect pressure on older people, in particular, people who are coming to the end of their lives, and all sorts of pressures can happen,” he said.
“So there would have to be very, very strong safeguards.”
He suggested that a Citizens’ Assembly could be “useful” to discuss, in a mature and detailed manner, what is an emotive issue.
“I understand fully the issues, from an individual perspective, if you have a terminal illness, and the pain associated with that — but the implications could be far and wide,” he said.
For specific areas, you can see an application for it, but what are the wider impacts of any legislation we would pass and governance around all of that?”
The Taoiseach also pointed to the advances and improvements that have been made in palliative care over the past two decades, which has made end-of-life more comfortable for both patients and their families.
The Biden administration can’t force a group of Catholic hospitals and doctors to perform so-called gender transition surgeries under a Health Care rule barring nondiscrimination, a US federal appeals court ruled.
A three-judge panel unanimously found the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) violated the religious beliefs of the plaintiffs, which included a group of nuns who run health clinics for the poor and an association of Catholic health care professionals.
The judges said if the administration applied the rule to the Catholic groups, it would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The panel upheld a lower court’s permanent injunction preventing HHS from enforcing the rule.
The judges said the lower court was correct in determining that “intrusion upon the Catholic Plaintiffs’ exercise of religion is sufficient to show irreparable harm.”
The European Court of Human Rights has condemned the government of Bulgaria for violating the right to religious freedom of Evangelical Christians in the country. The Court held that a 2008 campaign by government officials to warn children and families away from Protestant churches constituted a violation of human rights.
In reference to the “pejorative and hostile expressions” used by authorities to discredit the church, the Court ruled that the government had “disproportionately infringed” on the religious freedom of the Pastors and their churches.
“The fundamental right to religious freedom belongs to every person, regardless of faith or denomination. The European Court of Human Rights has affirmed that the government of Bulgaria was wrong to target these Christians with an alarmist campaign designed to suppress the freedom to live out their beliefs. This ruling sends a clear message that government efforts to stamp out religious freedom are unacceptable and fundamentally incompatible with democracy”.” stated Robert Clarke, ADF International director of advocacy and co-counsel in the case.
New research data has revealed that a woman was more likely to have a high-risk pregnancy when acting as a surrogate rather than when she becomes pregnant naturally.
The paper “A Comparison of Surrogate Pregnancies and Spontaneous Pregnancies” by Jennifer Lahl, Kallie Fell and others was carried in the peer-reviewed journal, ‘Dignity’.
A surrogate pregnancy had three times higher odds of resulting in a cesarean section and was five times more likely to deliver at an earlier gestational age.
Women in this study were significantly more likely to experience postpartum depression following the delivery of surrogate children than after delivering their non-surrogate children, and overall, they were more likely to have adverse outcomes during a surrogate pregnancy.
The imposition of zones that ban pro-life activity, including prayer, near facilities providing abortion is a further attempt to silence the voice of unborn children, according to the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Eamon Martin.
He was responding to a decision by the UK Supreme Court last week that found legislation creating exclusion zones outside centres in Northern Ireland that provide or facilitate abortions was not unconstitutional.
Archbishop Martin said: “This is tantamount to enforcing a ban on pro-life activities, including prayer and respectful witness, outside such settings. Buffer zones will further silence the voice of the innocent unborn. Given that the law already prevents harassment and intimidation, I believe the new legislation represents a disproportionate response with potentially wide implications for freedom of religion and speech”.
A massive forced abortion program on the victims of rape by Islamic insurgents has been carried out by the Nigerian military on at least 10,000 women since 2013, according to a report published by Reuters.
The report’s findings offer further evidence of the use of rape as a weapon of war carried out by Islamist insurgents on Nigerian civilians.
7 Division, the Nigerian military force in charge of countering the insurgents, has been forcing chemical and surgical abortions on tens of thousands of women who have been raped by Islamist insurgents such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State-West Africa Province (ISWAP), a self-proclaimed regional “caliphate” of ISIS.
Soldiers told Reuters that the reason for the program was that the unborn children are believed to be “predestined” to be insurgents like their fathers, necessitating that the government “destroy (these) insurgent fighters before they could be born.”
Reuters verified that the Nigerian military has beaten and coerced women, some as young as 12, into abortions in the most unsanitary conditions.
Any law banning a pro-life presence outside hospitals and clinics administering abortions could face legal challenges, according to the Iona Institute.
The warning came as the UK Supreme Court yesterday ruled on Wednesday that a similar law in Northern Ireland was not unconstitutional.
David Quinn of The Iona Institute, said it was “disappointed” with the ruling.
“It interferes with the right to peacefully protest, or even to silently pray outside facilities that conduct abortions,” he said.
“No real evidence has been provided that exclusion zones are necessary. There are few, if any, reports that bear real scrutiny of people being obstructed or intimidated entering hospitals or GP surgeries. Where that happens it is already against the law.
“If and when a similar law is introduced in this jurisdiction, its constitutionality may need to be challenged.
“That is something pro-life groups will have to take advice on when the time comes,” Mr Quinn said.
A Catholic parish in the US state of Michigan is suing the state attorney general over a redefinition of “sex” discrimination as encompassing sexual orientation and gender identity as it threatens the parish’s ability to hire people who model the Church’s teachings.
“Michigan’s new understanding of ‘sex’ discrimination deems it unlawful for St. Joseph’s to follow the 2,000-year-old teachings of the Catholic Church, including its teaching that marriage is a lifelong commitment between one man and one woman, that sexual relations are limited to marriage, and that human beings are created as either male or female,” a legal filing contends.
“St. Joseph’s religious decisions regarding how to advance its mission and ministry are protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Michigan cannot force the Catholic Church to compromise its religious character simply as a function of its doors being open to all.”
The European Commission has appointed Frans van Daele as Special Envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the EU.
The position was vacant for almost three years. The Senior Diplomat has previously served as an Ambassador of Belgium to the United States, and as Chief of Staff to former President of the European Council Herman van Rompuy.
Aside from a brief period of five months in 2021, the Special Envoy position has been left vacant for almost three years. Religious freedom advocates have criticised the apparent reticence to fill the role in light of increasing pressure on religious freedom worldwide, including the persecution of Christians in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, and the violent murders taking place against Christian communities in Nigeria.
“Nobody should be persecuted because of their faith. The reappointment of a Special Envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the EU is an important step in showing much-needed, real commitment to protecting this fundamental right. We urge the European Commission to strengthen the position of the Special Envoy and build on the important work already achieved,” said Adina Portaru, Senior Counsel for ADF International.
A chronically-ill woman who featured in a controversial pro-euthanasia video in Canada had complained months earlier that she wanted to live but couldn’t access the appropriate healthcare.
Jennyfer Hatch, 37, was the subject of a campaign by Canadian fashion giant La Maison Simons which documented her experience with end-of-life care before her death by assisted suicide in October.
The ‘All is Beauty’ video – which included audio of Jennyfer talking about her ‘sacred’ last breaths – was fiercely criticised over claims it glorified suicide.
It has now emerged that Jennyfer gave an interview in June in which she complained about ‘falling through the cracks’ in attempts to get treatment for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS).
She gives the harrowing conclusion that it was ‘far easier to let go than keep fighting’.
