New attempt to introduce abortion in Ireland

Pro abortion forces in Ireland have announced that a private members bill will be introduced in Dail Eireann (the Irish Parliament) in a new attempt to introduce abortion in Ireland.

The announcement which was published in the Irish Times on Friday last February 17th says that legislation to provide for limited access to abortion will be introduced in the Dáil this week by Socialist Party TD, Clare Daly, in private members’ time, and will be voted on in the House on April 19th.

According to the report over 60 organizations and individuals - including seven TDs, (members of parliament) two Senators, trade unions, academics and doctors - have called for “immediate legislation in line with the infamous 'X' case.”

Pro-life organizations together with many lawyers, including some who are pro-abortion, believe that the “X Case” decision represents a flawed interpretation of article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution and can only be described as a complete travesty of justice that defies logic. Nevertheless pro-abortionists have been using this judgment to try to persuade successive Irish Governments to legalize abortion.

According to the World Health Organization, Ireland, (without recourse to abortion) is one of the safest places in the world for a mother to have a baby.

Referendum on Children's rights

Ireland's Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald yesterday pledged that a stand-alone referendum would be held later this year with a wording that seeks to strengthen children’s rights.

Ms Fitzgerald said the Attorney General and senior officials were working on a wording that would stay as close as possible to the principles of a wording produced by the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution in 2010. This group endorsed a wording that sought to:

- Ensure the best interests of the child, applies in legal cases affecting them.

- Allow for the adoption of children – as many as 2,000 – originally from marital families who are in long-term foster care.

- Allow the State to intervene in a “proportionate” manner where parents have failed in their responsibilities.

The proposed referendum is being viewed with concern by pro-family organizations, which have significant misgivings about the entire proposal. The phrase “Children’s rights” is a deceptive façade.  It is not really about “rights” for the child.  It is about who will decide – the State or the parent?

Not only that, but based on the most recently released wording from our government for a possible referendum, all powers in this respect will be removed from the courts and placed exclusively into the hands of the Oireachtas (Houses of Parliament)!  

Parents would then have no recourse to the Courts, as all power would rest with the Oireachtas!

There is also concern about some of the issues highlighted by the Minister in announcing the intention to hold the Referendum, such as the adoption of children from "Marital Families" and the proposal for the State to intervene in a so called “proportionate” manner where parents are deemed to have failed in their responsibilities. If the Swedish experience is anything to go by this provision has resulted in dozens of children being removed from their homes, many, simply because the parents wanted to home school them.

 

The Irish Times report that two philantrophic groups have provided €1.5 million to an organisation that is likely to play a major role in campaigning for a Yes vote in the forthcoming children’s referendum.

The Campaign for Children describes itself as a “public information campaign” and is funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, founded by US billionaire Chuck Feeney, and the One Foundation, co-founded by Ryanair heir Declan Ryan and Deirdre Mortell.

It is understood the organisation is preparing to mount a major campaign in favour of changing the Constitution if the wording of the forthcoming referendum is approved by its board.

The organization is chaired by former Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness. Board members include Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay, ISPCC chief executive Ashley Balbirnie, Fleishman-Hillard PR director Mark Mortell and Tanya Ward, chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance.

Ms Fitzgerald, meanwhile, said a wording was being finalised on a referendum that would be stronger than a version produced by the previous government.

She said she hoped to secure cross-party support for the proposed amendment, and to ensure there was sufficient lead-in time to allow people to understand and debate the issues fully.

Obama mandate "unnecessary, and deeply offensive" Archbishop Chaput

We reported on February 1^st on the US mandate that orders all US employers to pay for contraception and abortion.

Just to recap and to report on the up to date position, the Obama administration in January ordered all employers to pay for coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization through their health insurance programs.  

After the Catholic Bishops and a host of other religious and pro-life organizations voiced their strong opposition, President Obama announced what he called an “accommodation.” 

But the so called “accommodation” is actually worse than the original order!  It’s so bad that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) deemed it to be unacceptable.  The reality is that nothing has really changed. 

 

Archbishop Chaput in a statement called the mandate insulting and dangerous

An “accommodation” offered Friday by the White House did not solve the problem. Instead, it triggered withering criticism from legal scholars such as Notre Dame’s Carter Snead, Harvard’s Mary Ann Glendon, Princeton’s Robert George, and Catholic University of America president John Garvey, along with non-Catholic scholars including Yuval Levin, the religious liberty law firm the Becket Fund, and numerous Catholic and other organizations.

Many Catholics are confused and angry. They should be.

Archbishop Chaput also said

[...] But the HHS mandate, including its latest variant, is belligerent, unnecessary, and deeply offensive to the content of Catholic belief. Any such mandate would make it morally compromising for us to provide health-care benefits to the staffs of our public-service ministries. Moreover, we cannot afford to be fooled – yet again – – by evasive and misleading allusions to the administration’s alleged “flexibility” on such issues. The HHS mandate needs to be rescinded. 

The full text of Archbishop Chaput's statement can be viewed on lifeSitenews.com see this link

A number of organizations intend to make legal challenges to this mandate. Priests for Life for example have decided to file a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration to block the enforcement of the HHS mandate on us and have it declared unconstitutional. 

Congress are also debating measures to protect conscientious objection and religious freedom

Due to the critical issues involved here we will report further on this issue as it develops

Sweden and the prior right of parents to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children

Home schooling families in Sweden are experiencing an increasing level of state persecution however a recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in a Swiss case is presenting a new level of hope for belegured Swedish families.

A leader of Sweden's Liberal Party recently called for a change in the country's social services law so that the government can take children away from home-schooling families more easily by allowing social workers to do so. 

The call for the change comes amidst already stringent penalties in Sweden for home schooling. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and have applied to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of one family whose child was abducted by the government in 2009 and have filed a brief in a Swedish appellate court on behalf of another family fined an amount equivalent to $26,000.

"The right of parents to choose the kind of education their children receive is a fundamental human right recognized in international legal documents including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sweden has lost its way and is ignoring basic human rights joining Germany in repressing educational freedom. It's important that free people stand up to governments who persecute their own people," according to Michael Donnelly HSLDA Director of International Relations.

"Parents have the right and authority to make decisions regarding their children's education without government interference," said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. "Swedish policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children." 



Liberal Party politician Lotta Edholm called for the change to the country's social services law in a Jan. 10 column in Aftonbladet, a prominent Swedish newspaper. Edholm then wrote on her blog:

 "Today I write with Ann-Katrin Aslund on Aftonbladet's debate page that the social services law should be amended so that social services are able to intervene when children are kept away from school by their parents -- often for religious or ideological reasons." 



The statement is the most direct and serious threat to date for home-schooling families in the Nordic country, where the climate for home-schooling has continued to deteriorate. The Swedish Court of Appeal has agreed to review three different cases in which government officials denied permission to home-school. 

"ADF and HSLDA will continue to defend home-schooling families in Sweden and other European countries until we win," Donnelly said. 


A recent ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) however is giving  Swedish families new hope that their children, abducted by the government because they were home schooled, might be returned to them.

The court ruled in a Swiss case that children can be irreparably harmed if they are separated from their parents for more than three years. 

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) have intervened in a prominent Swedish case and are hopeful that the ECtHR decision will reverse the current draconian policy.

 In 2009, young Domenic Johansson was forcibly taken away from his parents because they were home schooling him. Roger Kiska of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), who has been defending the Johansson family, points out that everything about Dominic's education was legal.

"Not only was home schooling legal at the time -- it was limited, but it was legal -- but Dominic fit into all of the circumstances in which it was legal," he explains. "There was no evidence, no due process."

Since last week's ruling, Kiska has filed an emergency order with the European Court, demanding that Sweden return Dominic to his natural parents. And he thinks the request will play out in Christer and Annie's favor.

"It looks like the end is near for this three-year ordeal that this poor family has faced and the time to come to recognize this principle, hopefully throughout Europe and not just Sweden, that parents are the ones who should raise the children and not the state," the ADF attorney offers.

Swedish officials have not only restricted parental visits, but they have also made a motion to terminate the Johanssons' parental rights altogether. A Swedish court, however, denied that motion.

See further report on Free Sweden. Net

UN agency official wants register of doctors who conscientiously object to abortion in Spain

In a worrying report LifeSiteNews.com say that a UNESCO official has called for a National register of  Spanish doctors who are unwilling to carry out abortions.

The report says that (E) experts working for the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics at the University of Barcelona, Spain, are calling for a national registry of doctors who will not perform abortions, in order to “improve” women’s access to “pregnancy termination.”

Speaking to the press, the Chair’s director, Maria Casado, also expressed opposition to restrictions to abortion in Spanish law proposed by the new government headed by Mariano Rajoy, and called for a more stringent definition of conscientious objection for doctors.

The statements were made during a university seminar on “Abortion and conscientious objection” held by the UNESCO Chair in Barcelona last week, attended by university members, lawyers and doctors specialized in “contraception and sexuality.”

Spanish pro-life doctors have vigorously opposed plans to establish regional registries of conscientious objectors, let alone a national and public registry as called for during the Barcelona seminar. Doctors and the pro-life movement in Spain fear that such a measure would lead to black-listing and could ultimately provoke ideological persecution.

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Casado said that while she upholds doctors’ rights to conscientious objection, the main idea is to “respect rights in a democratic society” – women’s rights as well as doctors’ rights. This means conscientious objection should have a clear framework: doctors should make their position known before entering an operating theater, she said, and should not be allowed to exert their right when “the woman’s health is in danger.”

“When conscientious objection is transformed into a collective stance for ideological reasons, it turns into civil disobedience,” she argued, naming the “Catholic Church” as responsible insofar as it promotes conscientious objection to abortion.

The UNESCO Chair Seminar was sponsored by the Catalan autonomous government (“Generalitat”), the Observatory of Bioethics and Law (also presided by Maria Casado), and several feminist and pro-contraception organizations.

The UNESCO Chair of Bioethics at the University of Barcelona aims to promote “Human Rights” and a “multidisciplinary, secular and flexible” conception of bioethics in Spain and in developing countries, specially in Latin America, as claimed on its website. It also aims to form men and women who will be called to sit on bioethics committees in these countries.