News Roundup

European Court dismisses case against Poland’s pro-life laws

A top human rights court has thrown out a case against a Polish doctor who refused to carry out an abortion of a disabled unborn child, 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the B.B. v. Poland decision unanimously declared the application inadmissible as the mother of the child had already reached an amicable settlement with the hospital in question, and had received substantial compensation.

According to one litigant, the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), the decision is a blow to the main abortion lobbies who were “attacking the restrictions on access to abortion in Poland and the right to conscientious objection”.

They added that the lobby had “once again revealed its true face with this case, in particular its eugenic beliefs”.

“The doctor was publicly called by the Polish left ‘the incarnation of Satan’, a ‘possessed” person’, a ‘degenerate’ and a ‘person without conscience.’ He lost his position as hospital director because of this case. Finally, in 2020, the Constitutional Court of Poland declared eugenic abortion contrary to the human dignity guaranteed in the Constitution and consequently banned it”.

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Rotunda doctor reveals 95pc of babies with DS diagnosis are aborted

The vast majority of babies – up to 95pc – that receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome at the Rotunda maternity hospital are aborted afterwards. Their mothers travel to the UK for the procedure because abortion in these cases is not available in Ireland.

The figure was revealed by Professor Fergal Malone, the Master of the Rotunda maternity hospital.

He wants the current abortion law to change so that unborn babies with serious, but not life-threatening disabilities would also be eligible for abortion. Critics say this is a form of eugenics.

But he does not see a way to expand the current law without legislating also for abortion on grounds of disability, which he did not believe the majority of the public or politicians would support.

Meanwhile, Dr Aoife Mullally, the national clinical lead for the HSE’s abortion provision, revealed that some women who take pills to induce an early, medical abortion, later find out it did not work.

“The cases that keep me awake all night are the ones where, through no fault of their own, women have found themselves with a failed termination after 12 weeks and they have to travel,” she said.

“And, you know, they don’t have abnormalities, but they have made a decision to end a pregnancy.

“They’re now in a situation where the foetus may have sustained harm from the medication that they’re taking, but the pregnancy is ongoing”.

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NI Catholics identify with religion for political reasons, MPs told

Many non-practicing Catholics in the North continue to identify themselves by their religion because of its “political significance”, MPs at Westminster were told.

Giving his assessment of the 2021 census results – which found Catholics outnumbered Protestants for the first time in Northern Ireland’s history – Dr Kevin McNicholl said that, for him, there was an “important takeaway” that “hadn’t been commented on as much”.

“Part of the reason why someone would call themselves Protestant to indicate they’re Protestant is not the same reason someone would indicate that they’re Catholic,” the Open Learning tutor at Queen’s University Belfast told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

“It seems when Catholics stop their religious observance they would still call themselves ‘Catholic’; it’s more of a cultural thing with political significance.

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Hate Speech Bill a Government ‘gagging order’, says TD

Independent TD for Laois Offaly, Carol Nolan, has launched a scathing assessment of the Hate Speech Bill that is being championed by the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee.

“It is my firm view that this Bill is nothing but the product of endless insider lobbying by NGO’s and interest groups who are determined to create a chilling effect around any potential threat to the official narrative on a range of socially contentious issues,” said Deputy Nolan.

“Indeed, to my mind it is nothing short of a ministerial muzzle slapped around the mouths of those who won’t go along with the consensus. The NGO’s have found their willing allies in Government, and they are using that power with unembarrassed gusto.”

“It reflects an elite instinct to shut people up, not just after, but before they dare to challenge the received wisdom and political correctness of the liberal worldview.”

“It is a stifling and unnecessary piece of legislation that seeks to ascribe unprovable motivations to people’s actions and speech in a manner that is truly dystopian.”

She also expressed skepticism of the supposed protections for religious speech. “I would also say that I am in no way assured that protected characteristics such as religion or religious discourse will be adequately protected.”

“I say that we are clearly moving in a direction whereby unless my religion reflects your liberal consensus on what that religion should be about, then it won’t be protected from legal attack.”

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Covid worship restrictions unjustified, says new health study

Covid-19 restrictions on places of worship caused significant negative impacts on well-being with little evidence of any benefit at all on public health outcomes, according to a new study.

Published in the peer-reviewed journal, the European Economic Review, “When houses of worship go empty: The effects of state restrictions on well-being among religious adherents” used data on over 50,000 individuals between March 2020 and May 2021 in the United States.

The paper found there is “no statistically or economically significant association between restrictions on houses of worship & either COVID-19 infections or deaths regardless of how restrictions are measured”

It also found small effects of restrictions on public health outcomes in some sub-sets of US counties, but even these are “statistically insignificant for infections and only significant at the 10% level for deaths.”

According to David Paton, Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School, this means restrictions on places of worship imposed a high cost yet had little if any benefit.

He says the author notes these findings are “consistent with recent public health research” that similarly finds other NPIs had very little benefit on public health outcomes.

Prof Paton adds: “Politicians who forced Churches to shut (& then imposed other restrictions) need to acknowledge that, on reflection, their policies imposed an unprecedented suspension of the freedom to worship that did not come close to being justified even on narrow public health terms.”

He suggests the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, examining the UK’s pandemic response, might review this research “to ensure governments never make such catastrophic policy errors again.”

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Former Govt advisor calls for shutting down of religious orders

Religious congregations in Ireland should be dissolved, according to former Government advisor, Fergus Finlay. Writing in the Irish Examiner, he said religious orders are “nothing more than vehicles for corruption and abuse, and they need to be shut down”.

“Religious orders should have no recognition in law. They should not be allowed to incorporate themselves as companies or as charities. They should not be allowed to be heard in the courts. They should never be allowed to present to the Houses of the Oireachtas or to lobby the government. They should under no circumstances be allowed to collect money from the public”, he wrote.

“They should not be allowed to own property in the name of the order, nor to buy and sell property. They should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to run any entity — school, hospital, or any other institution — that is funded in whole or in part by the State”.

He concluded: “If there was any real honour or meaning to the PR apologies of the religious orders, they’d be winding up their affairs and handing their assets over to the State. Until they do that, their apologies are all spin and bluster”.
He was attacked for the comment by liberal priest, Fr Tony Flannery.
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Surrogacy law to ‘lessen concerns about potential sale of children’

New legislation to facilitate the market in international commercial surrogacy should lessen concerns about the potential sale of children and the exploitation of woman, by steering people to countries “at the more ethical end of things”, according to a UCC law lecturer.

Prof Conor O’Mahony who wrote a report on surrogacy for the Government in 2020 as the special rapporteur on child protection said the European Court of Human Rights has made it clear that countries such as Ireland “must provide a pathway to parentage, a pathway to recognition of family relationships where surrogacy takes place, using international surrogacy arrangements, and if we were to leave this out of the legislation we would be risking violation of the Convention”.

Speaking on Radio 1, he said: “When we legislate here to recognise surrogacy abroad we can set down minimum conditions around what types of international surrogacy arrangements we are comfortable to recognise here in Ireland.

“So if there are concerns around potential sale of children, if there are concerns around potential exploitation of surrogate mothers and so on, we can build in safeguards into that law, that essentially if someone coming to Ireland having engaged in international surrogacy, would have to apply to the court and satisfy the court, that certain minimum conditions have been met, so that only arrangements which we can stand over from a legal and ethical perspective would be eligible for recognition here and that would in turn essentially channel people to locations where the practice is at the more ethical end of things, rather than countries where, perhaps, there are more concerns around unethical practices”.

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Government gives green light to overseas commercial surrogacy 

Commercial surrogacy is to be facilitated for Irish people travelling abroad, but banned in Ireland, in legislation likely to come before the Cabinet for approval next week. Almost all European countries either ban or do not recognise the practice because they believe it exploits women and commodifies babies.

Two senior government sources confirmed weekend media reports that forthcoming amendments to the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill would effectively allow foreign surrogacy arrangements, where women in other countries are paid to be surrogate mothers for Irish parents who subsequently bring their children home to Ireland, while such commercial arrangements will remain banned in Ireland.

Officials in the Department of Justice had previously advised that it would be “difficult to justify” the “double standard” of permitting commercial surrogacy arrangements abroad while banning them at home.

But an Oireachtas committee pooh-poohed those concerns after hearing that banning commercial arrangements for surrogacy would effectively end the market that is used by hundreds of Irish couples. Its report called for international surrogacy arrangements to be supported.

Now it is understood the Government will bring forward amendments to the Bill which will allow for a system of pre-approval for international surrogacy agreements, and allow the Irish parents to be registered as the child’s parents in Ireland.

It will also allow for parents of existing children born abroad via surrogacy agreements to be recognised in Irish law as the parents.

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Making telemedicine abortion permanent is ‘unconscionable’, says PLC

Government plans to make ‘at home’ telemedicine abortion a permanent fixture has been strongly criticised at the Pro Life Campaign’s National Conference in Dublin on Saturday

The practice had originally been sanctioned only as a temporary measure during the Covid outbreak.

At the weekend conference in the RDS attended by over 400 supporters, PLC spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said: “In addition to the dangerous and unforeseen consequences for women’s health of allowing telemedicine abortion to continue, it is also linked to coercive abortion practices, something the HSE has acknowledged as a reality. Only two weeks ago, the horrifying report came to light of a minor being locked in a room in this country and coerced to take the abortion pill. For the government to give its approval to ‘at home’ abortions as a permanent fixture so soon after this shocking story emerging shows a cavalier disregard for women’s health and an utter refusal to take steps to end the frightful and degrading practice of coercive abortion.

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Dublin archdiocese’s income down by €2.25m in 2021 amid pandemic

The Catholic archdiocese of Dublin experienced a drop in income of more than a third in 2021, from €7.4 million in 2020 to €5.2 million in 2021, according to its latest financial report.

In 2021 the pandemic continued to have a detrimental effect on Mass collections due to the prolonged suspension of public worship and restrictions on numbers allowed attend. When churches were permitted to reopen, only 50 people could attend services and passing collection baskets along pews was not permitted.

“It was hoped that 2022 would see a return of the collections to the pre-pandemic levels. However, this has proven to be too optimistic as this has not been the case to date,” the report said.

The financial report also found that the Common Fund collection (first collection at Masses) had dropped 49 per cent when compared to pre-pandemic collections

Most of the costs of running diocesan offices are met by the second weekly Share collection. It dropped by 1 per cent in 2021 compared to 2020 figures but, when compared to pre-pandemic 2019 collections, it was down by 61 per cent.

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